It is Wednesday morning and I need to write about last night’s step study again.  The lesson was Gratitude.  It takes one through all the reasons to be grateful to God for His healing work in your life from the almost year of processing in this study.  There are only two lessons left so the time is right for this.  I was totally caught off-guard hearing my name from several of the other guys as part of their gratitude.  By the end of the 90 min. study I was ready to flee.  I could not handle any more!  In my therapy just a few years past I learned how to take a time like this and find God’s voice/message, but I could not do that in the moment last night.  Of course, the closing question in the lesson is:  “You have just completed your first gratitude list.  How does it make you feel?”  I had to confess to the guys that all this made me feel confused and raw.  One of the guys had said he felt well loved.  I wanted to feel that way but it was truly the opposite.  I felt exposed.

This morning as I took this to God my Father, He led me through some remarkable awakenings.  I was journaling that I knew this connected to dad’s belittling continuously when I was young.  He could never let me have any moment of praise without removing it and beating it up as though the praise were intended to be a punishment or doom.  Any good I might do would only be temporary because I’d soon blow it–would be the message.  God reminded me that my dad had already told me how sorry he was for leaving me with this message or belief about myself.  However, I told God I knew this but the wound was buried deeply within me and I couldn’t get to the source.  I told Him I felt like a liar because their praise last night only reminded me of the things I’d done they didn’t know or they wouldn’t be praising me.  That is when God said, “You feel like a liar because you’re not ‘perfect in all ways’ like me.”  I said–YES!  I had to be this perfect kid so I could prove to dad I wasn’t his mistake–error (as my book is entitled).  This truth right here was the wound that needed to be opened.  God even said, “Lets open it and clean it out so it will heal.  Your dad is sorry and you know this.  You are human-you know this.  You aren’t me-you know this. Be real, Earnie.  These men talked about the real person last night and thanked him.  Accept their praise–they meant it.”

This is another one of those reasons God wanted me to start journaling to Him a few weeks ago.  He knew we were coming to this lesson.  I would need Him this time to process the outcome of it to this level of healing.  I could write more about how this lesson has haunted me in years past as we came to it.  None of those times did I find any healing.  I just buried it and moved on.  I am so grateful to my God.  As the one gentleman said last night–“I feel loved.”  This is my feeling this morning.