Not Me, Nothing to Say

I apologize that it has been silent here on my little blog world.  I have wanted to write a million things, and when I go to write, I have nothing to say, and perhaps, that is the point.  I, as in Jamie, me, myself, and I, have nothing to say.  After I felt nudged by the Lord to write and to speak, I felt this urgency to write and to speak.  I would go to tell my story in bible study.  Nothing would come out.  God would shut my mouth.  And it seems I would go to write on my little blog, and the words would not flow.  God stopped the flow of my thoughts to the computer screen.  I am only hoping that something will happen this time, and that it will not be me, but God using me.

Somewhere along the way, I gave somebody or somebodies the impression that I am a "right all the time know-it-all" type of person.  I guess I feel urged to teach what God has taught me, but other than what He has given me in my own life experiences and what Scripture says, I know nothing.  I am not wise.  I am not good.  I am not right (at least not all of the time) ;)  ha!!

Once upon a time, I grew up in a home where I was told that I was a good girl from the moment I was born.  As most good little girls do, I began to believe that I was good.  I disciplined my sister because I was good and she was not good.  When I made a B on my first report card, I was told that was not good enough, so I never made another B until I got to college.  I was taught to people please and hide my emotions.  Emotions were not good, and I was a good girl.  But emotions and people pleasing can only get you so far before you start to shut down or explode.  I grew up with no one teaching me how to be me but how to be everything others wanted me to be.  I had no identity other than perfectionism and codependency, but I would have not known those were my descriptors.  I left home, got close to God and He began to set me free from the traps I had been enslaved in.  I made some of my own choices that rocked the boat.  I did missions when I was supposed to work.  I thought about moving far away when others could not understand why others far away would need the Lord.  I stopped hearing God's voice.  I got tangled into sin.  I looked for salvation in my people gods and they failed me.  I tried again to be good, but being good was never good enough.  There was nothing left but God.  And He would not let me live in sin and washed me clean.  I went to bible college and studied Scripture anew and saw that the purpose of the Old Testament law was to show the Jews that the Law was not enough - that a Messiah was needed.  In my trying to be good enough, I needed to know that the rules pointed to my need for Jesus and Jesus alone!

All this time, I was still living trapped and unwhole and I did not know it.  I was a caged bird with a broken wing and did not know that I was caged or that my wing was broken.  Even during all that, God sent me a husband and gave me children, but He was still not finished with me.  He took me out of the cage, but my wing was still unhealed.  I still did not know how I had been wounded or how I needed to heal.  I unintentionally set a boundary and God used that to open my eyes.  Over time, he showed me my little people gods, my past attempts to be good, to be perfect, and he healed me and set me free.  Now he has given me a healed wing and the wind to fly.  I have been set free.  I am nothing more than a sinner saved inexplicably by grace, chosen before the foundation of the world.  I am not good, but He is.

I am sure that once upon a time I was an obnoxious goody good who was always right and I am sure I still have that tendency to exalt myself in that way.  Now that I have been set free, I see how I have also wounded.  As I flittered around with a wounded wing, I wounded others.  I was hurt but was not set free to see fully in how I also hurted others - friends, family, my husband, my children.  Perhaps the rest of my life will be an attempt to clean up the mess I made.  I am incapable of cleaning it up.  Only God can.  He can heal.  He can set free.  He is the Life Giving Hope Fulfiller.

Prisciller Shirer says in her Jonah study that "sometimes your greatest message is the mess of your life."  May it be true that when I am weak, He is strong.  May He redeem something from the ashes and make it beautiful, fragrant, happy, and strong in His name, in His glory.

Only because of a Life with Him,