God is amazing!  No surprise, right?  Well, yesterday my day was not to be as planned, yet it seemed to complete itself just as God wanted.  Today there is much going on along with this entire weekend.  I was journaling about how things needed to fit together in order for the weekend to be a success.  When I got to the place where I asked God what He wanted me to know for today, He simply told me to do my part and allow Him to do His.  He already has the plan outlined and He will take care of the details I stew about.  It just made me smile and does so again as I type this.  God is so amazing. 

I’m grappling with emotions and spirit.  We have a spirit which needs to be surrendered to The Holy Spirit.  I’ve simply placed spirit and emotions into the same category rather quickly in my mind and then dismissed the topic.  However, I’m thinking there is much more to know about these.  The Spirit will live forever and that is the part of us which will live on after death.  So, are emotions the character of our spirit which will pass along with our spirit?  I’ve got more to learn.  I know to trust my spirit and not my emotions.  The Spirit is God’s Message and my emotions are my response?  I’ll let this go at this point, but I know there is more to learn in this arena.   

I love getting up in the morning and doing my devotions starting in the dark and by the time I get to my prayer time it is turning light. It is as though God is showing how He turns the darkness into Glorious Light each and every day for us if we just take the time with Him. Sharing the burdens of life as well as the joys of life to God allows Him to speak to us through His Word and through our spirit as we pray to Him.

God isn’t letting up for me on this thing about our personal emotions. He is wanting me to fully understand that emotions are not sinful. They can be used that way but emotions are a gift first and foremost. In my class on Tuesday night’s, one of our recent lessons said that men need small group opportunities regularly to become vulnerable with one another so they can share their deeper hurts and sometimes hidden addictions. The small groups allow the safety. I know all of this very well. What I hadn’t realized until of late the part emotions play in this arena. Often times before the small group meets, someone has to set the stage for the emotions to stir and create the energy, inner nudge (called the Holy Spirit working) to tell what God is stirring within. This is usually done with someone in the small group opening with their own personal struggle and how God has been part of helping them with it. It can also be a speaker or a testimony like we use in Celebrate Recovery every other week. Emotions are the fuel which propels us into taking the risky step of telling. James 5:16 tells us that when we confess one to another, the righteous man will pray and from this one finds healing.

God is definitely wanting me to not only know this but He is wanting me to understand the importance emotions play in this process of finding healing. I’ve known emotions all my life. Dad would severely ridicule me for having “so much emotion” that I’d cry as a child over a touching tv program or just a touching moment. The tenderness of emotions were taught to be a weakness rather than a gift of strength. Emotions were also taught to be feminine which played right into my abuse from my brother. Well, God is done giving me grace believing any of these lies. It is time for me to know the truth and the truth is setting me free. I want so much for men and women to know that God is so faithful, loving and kind helping us to overcome any struggle life has given them. To God be all Glory!

Yesterday was a fascinating day.  I started with the counseling appointment.  It was so insightful.  He said something he sees which I am now addressing.  He said that we often think we have found freedom from a “chain or bondage” when we identify its presence.  We stop at that point of identity.  I’ve done this every since I started counseling.  He said that the chains aren’t really gone until we have let them go and we have no weight from them or emotions being wasted suppressing whatever they are doing to us internally.  I’ve walked my journey long enough to see exactly where this applies to me.  He even told me to have a meeting with myself to see if I am bothered by the thought or if it is my dad’s voice speaking.  The new creation God gives us doesn’t work from voices of the past which have dominated our minds and feelings.  This sounds weird but I knew exactly how to do this.  It works too! 

I have been addressing the idea of living as a new creation for some time now.  If for no other reason, going to this counselor is giving great insights for day to day living as this new creation Christ came to give us.  Also, The Holy Spirit never uses the voices of our past to speak to us.  Trusting the new voice and trusting that whatever God is putting on my plate is for His Kingdom and He wants me not dragging the bondage of my old past into it.  I can use my past but I can’t use it if I’m trying to bring it with me.  I am seeing this much more clearly now.  God is so good and faithful!

Last night Kathy and I along with 3 others from our recovery group went to hear a gentleman speak at a neighboring church.  He is a professor at Moody Bible Institute.  His name is Christopher Juan.  He is a young man who has left homosexuality behind having given himself to this for a period of time.  Now, he is telling his story and helping people understand what God through the Bible says about this.  This is exactly what our new group is addressing on Tuesday nights so this is why we wanted to attend.  It was magnificent.  He has two books out, one is his story written in tandem with his mom who never stopped praying over him throughout his struggle.  His second book is addressing the topic of what the Bible says about homosexuality.  Their titles are:  Out of a Far Country & Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. 

This morning I have a counseling appointment.  I can’t begin to explain the healing God is doing right now for me.  The darkness which I’ve continued to hide within is being exposed.  It is not even darkness I haven’t talked about, just that I’ve always been ashamed to say I have gay thoughts and have looked at gay porn.  This sounds so sick but now that I’ve begun to say it out loud it doesn’t have the ownership of me.  Also, addressing the strength and purpose of emotions instead of hiding the fact I am an emotional person.  In my past I always FEARED I’d be like dad was if I ever let my emotions known.  Now I’m seeing the truth of my own emotions and how God is wanting me to be free to use them with HIM in His Kingdom Work. 

I’m going into my appointment this morning with thanksgiving rather than with fear and frustration.  I’m sure there will be important things we will be addressing, but I’m going to be doing this with The Holy Spirit’s Light shining brightly so I can see God’s Handiwork in my life rather than sin’s darkness and bondage for it has been expelled by the Blood of Jesus Christ and replaced within me with The Holy Spirit’s presence.  Amen and Amen!

Have you ever heard the phrase that “emotions are neither right nor wrong–they just are”?  In the late 80’s and 90’s a great deal of attention was being given to brain research and how it impacts learning.  The educational system was needing to do a good deal of reform around what this research was finding.  During this time a book entitled Emotional Intelligence was written.  In it emotion is described as fuel for the brain.  Fuel, when lit, can destroy when it is not contained.  On the other hand, it can be contained and used to propel an astronaut into space.  It all depends on how we handle the fuel.  This is an excellent picture of emotions for me.  When emotions are not contained they can look like my dad’s did when he was raging.  However, when they are contained and used for purposeful fuel they can inspire one to complete a dream like going to college and becoming a teacher/principal and so much more!

Last week in my counseling session the counselor said that trauma is stored in a person’s body waiting to be reconciled.  When we stuff the memories of trauma we are actually stuffing the emotions stirred by the trauma and then the emotions find different outlets often looking like anger, addictions, etc.  My class curriculum calls the stuffing of these emotions–DEADNESS.  The denial of them is trying to keep the emotions dead. 

Since I’ve decided to address the still suppressed emotions in me (trauma) I’ve had nightly dreams which are very troubling.  However, once I’m awake and thinking them through I recognize what they are trying to do.  They are exposing unresolved trauma.  I’m anxious but grateful to be at this juncture in my recovery.  I feel as though I’m going to find a freedom (confidence) God has wanted me to obtain with Him I’ve not yet known.  Satan is doing his best to keep me paralyzed, but with God’s help I’m telling him, “Not this time.”  It is with God’s strength I will overcome. 

I wasn’t going to write this morning but I have a few minutes before leaving for church.  There is something stirring in me that started in the middle of the night.  I awoke unable to sleep for a couple hours.  It seemed I was filled with all kinds of emotions I couldn’t sort out.  When I awoke this morning I was 30 minutes later than I’d intended.  As I finished my devotions and my journaling I was asking God what all this emotional stuff was about?  He seemed to simply tell me to respect them and feel them.

I had finished reading a book last night which was authored by the counselor I went to for 3 years from 2009-2012.  It is fiction but it is definitely about real issues in life and a counselor not so unlike herself is leading a group of people through their issues in a group setting once a week.  I identified well with one of them.  This person was living in a state of being which the abuse curriculum I’m using in my Tuesday night class calls “deadness”.  By the end of the book this person was coming to life–sensing and enjoying the feelings she has.

As I was showering this morning it seemed God awoke me to the emotions I was feeling as those which had been “dead” within me.  There is so much more I need to learn and awaken to in all of this but I do see what deadness is from reading it in the book and now finding it within me.  The journey continues!

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!  I’ve always thought this was a rather cute celebration.  My first year of being a principal back in 1980, I had a sheet cake made with a groundhog on the frosting.  The staff was caught in the throws of winter doldrums both with students and themselves.  The celebration was a spirit boost momentarily helping everyone to see spring is coming.  In writing this I see that I probably did this more for myself than anyone else.

With Kathy getting home yesterday I was able to talk through all of the class and counseling dialogue with her.  I know I caught her when she was wishing to nap but she stayed awake for it.  It was helpful to put all of this emotional strife into a conversation.  It helps to bring meaningfulness out of it.  Now that I’m more awake to emotions I can see why they need to be expressed.  Housing them without expression brings about alter expressions which aren’t necessarily healthy. 

I’m eager to know where all this is going.  I’ve always been one to believe that God takes us through times like this preparing us for the next chapter in our living each day for Him.  I’ll be patient however as I know He is bringing about a healing I’ve rushed by in times past.  These roots of deception have to get uprooted for good this time.  To God be all Glory!

This morning I thought I needed to make a decision about continuing this blog.  I had started it almost three years ago as a means of telling the readers of my autobiography what daily living was like while continuing to find and live freedom day by day.  What I wasn’t expecting was at some point in time I might do what I did yesterday—go back to counseling.  For me it seemed to change the entire purpose of the blog.  I wasn’t helping someone, I was now needing more help for myself.  As I took this dilemma to God, He said, “I think it is best to continue it.”  The fact that I’m going back into some counseling is simply a part of the journey continuing. 

I did have an amazing appointment.  Instead of being uptight about going, I was looking forward to it.  I found myself free of the past fears when I’d gone before.  It seemed I knew God was going to bring clarity and healing in spots I had wanted to squelch.  In the session I heard comments about “the new creation” God has for me or waiting for me to see and find.  The counselor asked me to consider seeing myself the way my grandkids see me rather than seeing myself the way I thought my dad saw me.  He said, “Would it be possible that God sees you more like your grandkids do?  This keeps ringing in my head. 

Maybe it will be helpful for me to be totally transparent in this blog as I will post what I am finding about the roots of trauma which the body stores.  The counselor said our body wants to complete what the trauma didn’t so it can bring closure to it.  This sounds obscure but somehow I believe this to be true.  When this is complete it can be let go.  The end result of the trauma–I think–will be God’s use of it rather than my hiding of it. 

I’ll keep you posted.