Why you don't have to hide anymore

Welcome friend.

I'm so pleased you are here.

In this space I want to share coffee for your heart.

Drink in whatever troubles you.

Offer a listening ear and a hand to hold.

Share the things that bless and encourage me.

Be someone you can feel at home with.

So kick off your shoes, pick up your coffee (or tea if you prefer), make yourself comfy and get ready.

We'll share coffee, comfort and encouragement.

Today, I have a letter to write you...

Dear You,
I see the pain you try to hide behind words and smiles, because deep in the windows of your soul you carry a weight of woundedness.

Despite evidence to the contrary, you don't feel truly loved or validated.

Nothing really fills the gaping space where trust, safety and security should be.

It feels easier to erect walls around yourself than allow anyone close admittance to your inner core. Fortifications. Defences. Build them high enough and no mere mortal can scale them.

Until someone reaches out and breaches your defences, and you notice how hedged in you really are.

My friend, this was my life for many years. 

I lived scared. Hid the pain. Refused to recognise how I'd closed off my heart. 

On the surface we can seem fine, in control, content even. On the inside? When we're on our own? We curl away as foetal-curved commas withdrawing from ourselves and the world around.

There is help. There is hope. We don't have to hide anymore. 

God is here. He is ready, willing and able to enter into our pain, help us face the walls; and as we co-labour with Him in their removal..brick by tiny brick...they come down and we are set free.

His unconditional Love ~ is our security.

His sacrifice on the cross ~ the doorway to forgiveness and mercy.

His Spirit within ~ our shelter and safe place.

His grace ~ our enabling and equipping.

His Life ~ becomes as one~ with our life ~ as we open up to Him ~ like a flower to the sun.

These are the encouraging words and thoughts I want you to hear as we start a new year: {and believe me, I need to hear them too}

Absorb the truth of who you are ~ beautiful and beloved.

Know deep in your heart ~ you are safe always.

Hold on ~ to the reassurance that you can be set free.

Feel deeply within ~  you are special, precious to God and loved beyond measure.

Believe ~ you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Fight on ~ whenever the going gets tough. Because God fights for you and will never give up on you. 

Listen to His voice. Hear the heartbeat of God soothing your own. Come close to the throne of grace and find mercy in your hour of need.

Healing and wholeness are there for the taking.

Are you ready? I hope so. It may take time. I'm still very much a 'work in progress' in this area as in many, but we all have to start somewhere. 

This could be the year you open up your heart to all that God has in store for you. 

God's arms of love are reaching out to you, just as we reach out to our own loved ones to hold them safe and close.

I close with today's #smallstone offering {part of the 31 day Mindful Writing Challenge} to bless your heart:

'Arms of love'

"Arms of love encircle me

holding secure and steady

as I finally exhale, release

breathe soft and calm

feeling prepared and ready

to accept and believe

hear and receive

that as beloved arms

encompass round

God's Spirit hovers

without a sound yet

speaking things He wants

to urgently impart

into the very depths

of my insecure heart

saying, "You are safe. You are loved. 

You are beautiful. You are enough.

You are free ~ just trust in Me"

©JoyLenton2014

Joining here with Holley and all the other lovely encouragers who want to share 'Coffee for Your Heart'. Do join us next Wednesday for more words of reassurance and encouragement.

Holley has written a lovely encouraging book:''If we could have coffee ~ 30 Days of Heart to Heart Encouragement' that will really help lift the January blues.

And here's a great resource that has aided me in the process of working on removing the walls around my heart and becoming free ~ 'The Wall Around Your Heart' by Mary de Muth.

Also linking with Emily and Jennifer as we seek to write out our #ImperfectProse to #TellHIsStory

When you're between a rock and a hard place

Have you ever had your own words come back to haunt you? 

It happened to me this week. Not spoken ones, but those I'd written.

Just recently I wrote about how loneliness felt to me as a child.

Memories were stirred and feelings soon followed.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a poem about being set free. 

I felt led to post it on social media a few days ago.

Little did I know how my own words would seriously stir me.

Set me free

Set me free

I no longer want

to be ensnared

by the chains

 of my past or

held fast by fear

for the future.

Set me free

to fly uncaged

in the current 

of your grace

as I release

all that I am

and can be

into your

 loving embrace.

©JoyLenton2013

The next day I felt those chains wind tight. And I fought to draw air.

Being blind-sided by your past is a painful place to be in. Isn't the past another country where my visa has expired? Maybe.

We can ignore it, except memories make a return inevitable. Revisiting the ruins. 

Now, vulnerable to feelings I'd forgotten, experiencing afresh pain slicing through me, wounded anew by words in my head, I cower.

No bravery here with a troubled mind returning to deep waters that could drown me.

Only....they won't... if I know how to swim rather than sink under the weight of them.

I have a choice to make - stay stuck in the pain of the past or work through it and move forward.

Thankfully, I also have access to hope and courage beyond myself.

There is an Anchor for drowning souls. We cling to Him when all feels lost and we can barely keep our heads above water deafening in our ears.

I have this to cling to...I have a Saviour who sweat blood to purchase my freedom. I have hope rising phoenix bold from the ashes. I have strength sown in despair. 

When we're between a rock and a hard place there is hope of seeing change when the Rock is Christ.

He provides shelter and protection when the storms of life hit and His steadfast strength gives us resilience to press through mountains of shame, pain, discouragement, disgrace, sickness and dis-ease of every kind.

Faith can move mountains. 

Not faith in my own small, wavering mustard seed faith, but faith in the One who can move mountains.

Yes, even this. No matter how high, how wide, how deep, how immovable it may seem.

The mountain mover stands ready on our behalf.

We have promises from the ever faithful One.

We have knowledge that pain does not last forever, joy comes in the morning and help is only a cry, a breath, a prayer away.

And healing from a painful past is a process, not a one way street with closed access. 

Some wounds may need lancing with the laser of His word. 

Some cuts may need the antiseptic of His grace, a salve to cleanse and soothe.

For we cannot emerge unscathed from those things which cut deep and wound the very fabric of our being, and God has to dig deeper still and rout out what will poison our system if left untreated.

How I have wished never to have been wounded as I was. And, how amazed I am, over and over again, at the way God is tenderly treating those wounds and binding up my broken heart.

My friend, His work takes time, patience and perseverance and we lose heart in the waiting, don't we? Our greatest desire is for overnight transformation. 

But a mighty oak doesn't grow strong overnight and we are called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendour ~Isaiah 61:3.

I know how long it can seem when change is so very slow in coming. 

I've felt so discouraged lately and needed every reminder I can get that healing work is taking place. But God never loses heart or hope in you and I becoming all we can be in Christ

All He asks of us (and how huge an ask it can feel) is that we allow Him to show us the painful places and fully co-operate with His work in us one tiny step at a time.

Even as we daily battle fear and struggle to see any progress.

Things are happening in the unseen realm that will become visible one day.

Friend, those mountains may resist, but they are moving inch by inch. And one day we will see the difference. Instead of looming large, our mountain will be a shadow in the distance.

Our journey of faith is wrought through testing, trial and suffering and made all the stronger by the overcoming of them.

One day, you and I truly will be set free and 'fly uncaged in the current of (His) grace as we release all that (we are) and can be into (His) loving embrace'.

For now, we lean hard on the Rock and resist falling apart as He holds us together.

~~~~~~

What are you learning in the waiting process?

How do you overcome discouragement?

Let's share our journey of faith together and encourage one another on the way. Don't we all need that?

Please feel free to join in with the comments below.

This post is part of the Journey series that began here. 

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Why a tainted past doesn't have to define the present

It began with heart hammering, dry mouth, sickening dread and a turning away as feet chose to flee rather than face the path they should tread.

Days had passed when conscience, duty and a deep sense of commitment had pressed reluctance aside and forced me forward.

Days spent sink standing while bowls filled to overflowing as thoughts and any sense of time took flight.

Days drenched in sweat-panic, zombie-like trance of automatic responses, care-giving, making conversation of sorts, face and limb washing, giving the appearance of being present while stealing longing glances out the window. Let me escape this place.

For each pallid face and limb of the dead or near dying I washed was a stark reminder of another body laying cold on slab. Out of reach, out of sight, but never out of mind. Grief intruding rudely everywhere as if life is no respecter of it.

Voices giggling, whispering in the vicinity, or are they just in my head? Never mind which, I attend to my patients with all the dignity I can muster.

But I became lost to my surroundings as they pressed heavy with demands I could no longer fulfil.

I sought refuge. A coffee house, library, city centre. Hidden in plain sight. Yet plainly visible (had I been aware) in my nurse's uniform as I often was after running away again.

Soon, my absences were noted. Soon, I would be unable to move out the front door. My room, my world; my head another world more real to me than any other.

Lost to loved ones. Unreachable. Just as dead as the person whose death sparked my breakdown. 

My abuser - a person I loved and trusted as well as hating the things he did - was no longer here to be held accountable and memories rose up to haunt my days and cause me to fall apart.

Months sped by in the real world, yet days stayed the same where I now dwelt in virtual catatonic state.

My beloved kept guard. Refused to allow the men in white coats to take me away. Compromising only in making sure I was seen as a day patient, duly sedated, medicated, assisted, counselled and advised.

For just a few short weeks beforehand we were happy honeymooners. Newly married with life and potential spanning out before us in a glorious vista on the horizon.

Now I was foetal-curled, withdrawn, shut into myself as a way to shut out a hostile world as fear held me tight in its tentacles. 

Our marriage clouded with distance and misunderstanding, coloured with pain, tainted for years to come as the stains of shame lingered on.

I remember little of those days. Just the searing shame and stink of failure that haunted thereafter when I began to recover. Confirmation of things I already felt deep down. Tainted already as damaged goods, unwanted and abused child. Tainted further by disgrace (as I perceived it then) of mental health collapse and failure.

God did not cast me off or forsake me. In His eyes, I was worth dying for.

But I forsook God. Stumbled under the weight of my own cross for years. Felt unworthy of love. Hugged the stain and reproach closer as it became my identity.

More years would pass before I could look at the woman in the mirror with anything less than contempt. The image repugnant. The reminder of all I despised, with 'failure' stamped indelibly on heart and mind.

The one who God saw as beautiful in His sight, the apple of His eye, dearly beloved - as He sees each and every one of us.

It would take much time, healing and renewal of my mind by Holy Spirit before I could begin to accept that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and He came to set me free from shame and disgrace.

My friend, you may have suffered (or are suffering) similarly with mental or physical health problems that have left you feeling stigmatised, less of a person in your own or society's eyes.

A mind and a life can be overshadowed and purple-patched by pain. Yet when God's light shines on it, like flowers pushing up to catch the sun's rays, there is always hope of healing, new life to come as a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour.

Where we see darkness and strangling weeds God sees light and new growth.

And there are no failures in His kingdom, only works in progress by His grace. 

Remembering that "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise...the weak things..to shame the strong...the lowly..and the despised things...so that no-one may boast before him" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

I'd love to share that my life has been one long success story since, but that's not the case. I am being redeemed and renewed bit by bit, day by day - and some days more evidently than others.

It can take a lot of time, much grace, and the perseverance of saturating ourselves in God's word for a mind to be transformed in its thinking. 

But I am living a life where the stains from my past that tainted mind and heart no longer get the final say in who I am and the same can be true for you too. 

*******

Linking here with the lovely Ruth Povey as she hosts #concretewords over at sixinthesticks. We attempt to describe the abstract with a concrete word prompt. This week's prompt is:'Tainted' You are very welcome to join in.

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Unleashing:Letter to a Stranger

Letter to a Stranger

Dear Stranger (though I do remember your first name),

Our paths crossed many years ago, but I haven't forgotten you. We met on a Gynaecology ward as nurse and patient. You were one of many being admitted to the ward that day in lieu of a surgical procedure to come, and your demeanour was wrought with anxiety and nerves.

As we chatted together, it soon became clear that you had deep concerns besides the imminent operation. Before long, issues from your past poured out in a torrent like unstopping a dam. 

My colleagues were already aware that I needed to give you more time than usual, so I sat quietly holding your hand and heart as you gushed forth painful memories.

And I found myself nodding my head in recognition, my own heart pierced through, stabs of pain and shame making themselves known again to the conscious mind.

You wanted to let it out and I felt privileged to be the recipient, the holder of horrors, and a burden-bearer to ease your own. 

These issues cannot stay hidden. They leave a stain, a shadow cast long and wide over lives that buckle under the weight of them once awareness creeps in. 

Your fears and tears mingled together. Time passed...we stayed locked in the past and forever in this moment. Silent recognition. Sisters in sympathy. Joined in time and in experience. Altered by awareness.

I was your designated nurse. We became friends for the duration of your stay. There were moments of shared laughter and understanding, your whole frame visibly relaxing as the days went by.

Soon it was time for you to return home. Yet this departure also marked a beginning. A journey through emotional turmoil and pain that would (hopefully) bring you release, relief, wholeness and healing in time to come.

I still have the beautiful card you sent me. Your letter of appreciation to a stranger become temporary friend.

It expressed gratitude for the way I had cared for you. I was deeply touched. More than you'll ever know.

For in the unleashing of your painful past, you helped unstop mine. This was the second reminder since I'd been nursing. The second encounter that brought me face to face with my own dysfunctional childhood.

Childhood sexual abuse is something we desperately try to forget, hoping to move on and live without the memories. But they come...eventually...and they need addressing before they consume us.

More time would pass, more stuffing it back into the closet, more swallowing down, more denial, more resistance, and many years before I fully faced my own demons and overcame them.

Though it was only after much wrangling, heartache, struggle, and years of counselling that I achieved emotional healing by the grace of God.

My stranger-friend, I want to thank you for the part you played in raising awareness in me that I had to deal with this too. 

I believe it was a God-ordained appointment that day. We were meant to meet and connect briefly at a deep level. It probably left both of us changed and transformed. I know I was.

My sister in suffering, I truly hope and pray that you too have been set free to live your life fully as God intends us to.

"Instead of their shame, my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance, and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs" ~ Isaiah 61:7

*******

I'm honoured to be linking here today with the lovely Ruth Povey, and her new series:'Letter to'. This week's prompt is:'Letter to a stranger'. You are warmly invited to come on over and join us and read the great posts already there. The link is open all week.

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


********

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.