When walls need to come down

Watching a light of recognition dawn in his eyes, I breathed easy for the first time in days, though I knew we still had a long way to go in our understanding of one another's perspectives.

Pictures from the past were drawn in varied shades and hues. Neither of us saw exactly the same image on the screens of our minds.

As streams emerging from the same Source, we had every expectation of converging together in a river of reflection; instead, we meandered tangentially into rivulets of our own making.

How had we arrived here? Barriers were breaking and walls crumbling before our very eyes.

Conversation crept into those private places where we feared to tread. And I heeded these words, "We tend to wall off our hearts in the aftermath of pain".

The prison we know can feel safer than freedom as its walls close round us with comforting familiarity.

After 38 years wedded and bedded, we were gradually becoming more emotionally intimate than ever before about our sexual intimacy.

While my beloved had viewed our courtship and surrender to one another through seemingly rosy-tinted lenses, I wore such dark glasses they had obscured all truth as he saw it.

Now, I had to refresh my vision and version of events as seen by one who had transferred much of the guilt from the childhood emotional and sexual abuse she received on to the very person she should have trusted most.

I was discovering more about how "we can live in reaction to a negative relational experience and eventually stagnate, or we can ask God to compel us forward to a kingdom goal".

Retreating into my own worldview wasn't helping me to see or accept my husband's. I had to dare risk being wrong, or misguided at least. "When we're hurt we tend to retreat, nurse wounds, or lash out" and I had done all three. 

How would it look to "turn to God in praise instead?" or is that too much to ask of a heart at war with itself? Maybe. Though "eventually we have to choose to move forward".

This marriage had been cluttered from the start. Perhaps now it was time to shift the luggage, send past thoughts and fears packing and begin with a lighter load?

For past relational baggage "should not define us, nor should the pain from it inform the way we interact with or withdraw from others" because it "strangles our ability to live freely today".

As I begin to embrace a fresh perspective, asking God to renew my mind by the light of His word, making a conscious choice to move forward rather than cling to familiar, He is giving me all the grace I need to see things as He sees them - and it is good.

I want to break free. I want to live an uncaged, open-hearted life. To live, love and give as God desires me to as wife and lover, mother (and grandma-to-be), friend and helper to others.

And in the process, "living without walls means becoming more proactive in the way we deal with hurt" which can only serve to aid with healing those broken places in our hearts and lives.

So what are we to do?

With all quotes given here coming from Mary de Muth's just released book, 'The Wall Around Your Heart', I will answer with her words of wisdom:

"If you have a wall firmly built around your heart, ask Jesus, the great gateway, to make a doorway through. He is the gate. He is the avenue leading toward a rich and satisfying life - not a stingy walled-off life".

I have been greatly helped in seeing walls beginning to crumble in my own life since I've read, digested and prayed over this book, asked God to come into the situations and make me willing to allow Him access to all areas.

I am still very much a work in progress, but some way on from where I used to be. My growing awareness of these walls can be found here.

And I long for you to be set free too, my friend. A walled-in life is one of misery and a walling-off from the liberty which Christ died to give us.

"If therefore the Son makes you free, you are free indeed" ~ John 8:36

Because I strongly believe in the reality of being set free in Christ, and the way Mary de Muth's message can aid in the process of becoming free and living a life without walls, I am giving away a free copy of 'The Wall Around Your Heart' here.

All you have to do to be in with a chance is to leave a comment below and your name will be put into a random draw, with the winner being announced here soon after.

To find out more about why Mary wrote 'The Wall Around Your Heart' (speaking from her own and the experiences of others) and why she desires us to live without walls, please click here.

**NOTE** - Having been privileged to read a pre-release copy of this book and be part of its launch team, I can wholeheartedly recommend it on a personal basis.

You can buy a copy here in the UK or if you live elsewhere you can buy it here. It is also available from Barnes & Noble.

Linking here with Laura at Missional Women Faith Filled Friday

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Maybe there are walls in your own life that need to come down? They could be walls of:guilt, shame, unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, resentment, or _____ (fill in the blank)

Could this be the time to co-operate with God and see those walls crumble brick by brick to release you into a more open-hearted way of life? 

When stories are woven by grace

Welcome to another foray into Five Minute Friday where we write freely and words are captured with no over-thinking, over-editing or worry about perfection. 

It is a great creative exercise, scary and strangely liberating all at the same time, and really challenges you as a writer.

Today's prompt is:'Story'

START..

Weaving a story

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.Net

Words must flow. A story begs to be heard. Ears are ready to receive even as heart quakes and hand shakes in the telling.

Pour forth your words as water. Only in the unstopping can we be free.

Life needs to be shared as gift for another wounded soul to see and receive.

Our offering becomes the opening of a door to their freedom.

Let loose the words, pain and shame of a story you didn't choose to be part of. 

And in the undoing, unravelling, relief will come.

We are the ones chosen to be glory revealers.

Our lives the tale of God's greater narrative on the earth.

A story of hope, healing, forgiveness, renewal and redemption.

With lives made new.

Slowly, tenderly, God draws all the messy, tangled threads together with warp and weft of His choosing.

Weaving the pattern He desires to make.

Where we see knots He sees new opportunities.

Making a thing of beauty.

A showcase of His grace.

And as we yield to the Author and perfector of our faith our chains fall loose. 

We can stand free.

A life washed clean, anointed and equipped by Love.

A story of restoration waiting to be shared.

Our stories woven into the fabric of eternity.


STOP

Linking here with Lisa-Jo Baker at Five Minute Friday. You are very welcome to join in as we aim to share and encourage one another by our words.


To stay in touch with my posts you can subscribe by e-mail, follow on Twitter or like my Facebook page.

A lot of bottle

On the Bottle

Breast may be best

though bottle is better

for bonding-sharing

with any willing 

hands to hold 

these rabbit-skinned

imitations of infants

mewling beyond caring

Lukewarm liquid

vitamin-infused

warmth and welfare

oozing into tiny

lips and tums

that ache

'til hunger satiates

as feeding comes

Glass left in sun

heats a daily dose

devoured by little ones

of nursery nourishment

nanny state provides

or lumped with ice 

at times to chill

our young insides

Clinking, lifted high

amber or clear froth

to wash away 

cares holding sway

Cheers, chin, chin,

down the hatch

drown our sorrows

for another day

Parents on the bottle

so we sit as children do

crisp munching

fizzy drink slurping

sweet crunching

drain the dregs

save the empties

for a coin or two

©JoyLenton2013


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Our lives can be subject to bottle-necks as narrowing, constricting circumstances cause a busy traffic of thoughts, words and deeds to congest uncomfortably and make us feel confined and trapped.

They won't go down easily. We choke over them. I did just that for years over my past.

Our choice is to have a lot of bottle - in other words, to display courage in the face of adversity, have firm intention, confidence and resolve to meet the challenges of difficult or frightening past and present situations.

It takes real nerve and determination to walk through hard times.

My courage is all God-given. Left to my own devices I'm a coward hiding in the corner until the storms pass. As I lean harder into Him then His strength infuses into me. The harder I lean, the more He gives grace to cope.

OR we can bottle out - lose our nerve and withdraw, put off the ordeal of confronting those issues and put off facing the problems for another day. Swallow them down somehow. That was how I dealt with problems for many years. 

Only they refuse to go away, get stuck in our throat, and end up constricting our very breath.

I have learnt, from seeing the results of doing so, not to bottle up my pain and problems, but to face them head-on, gulping heavily as I do so. Tears swell and fall as I pour them out.

My past was painful.

Shadows linger on.

The cup I drink from has a bitter taste at times. Who wants to swallow this?

I am learning to choose not to hold back or refrain from sharing (as God directs me to) about the areas that have wounded me; not if it means another soul can say "You too?" and feel they are not alone. 

Not if a cup of sorrow shared means a cup of joy to share too in the overcoming.

Our faith can be stretched taut as elastic and we feel it may snap and collapse.  

Insecurity and fear can make us fall apart or shut down when problems come. Denial may help us to go on for a while. Pain and problems kept suppressed can be like a bottle of pop waiting to explode one day and leak messily all over our lives.

Now, I can reminisce - as in the poem above - about my childhood, and do so with a degree of detachment and nostalgia for my early years.

For God is helping me to find courage in confession, relief from releasing, freedom in letting go of fears, resolve in refusing to give up on His best for me as I hand it all over to Him..For it is only in letting go of the bad that we have arms empty to receive the good.

And that's His goal for you too. As we heal we can start to focus on the life ahead of us.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" ~ Isaiah 43:18 -19

Take courage, friends, for God is as close as your next breath and He wants very much to help and heal you. Sometimes counselling helps too, or sharing with a wise and trusted friend or family member.

Whatever it takes, won't you join me on the journey towards greater freedom and joy?

Linking here with Tanya as she currently hosts the Concrete Words series.