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Down But Not Out


I feel like I need to apologize before this blog as it is just my heart laid bare.  One of those... disclaimers...But I also want to encourage us to be real...with ourselves and with others.  Humble.  Authentic. Honest.

The past few weeks have finally taken their toll on me and after sleepless nights of deeply disturbing dreams; emotional and mental exhaustion have wreaked havoc in my heart, my will, body and even my mind.  So many people are going through so much and I know that if I don't monitor myself...I won't be any good for anyone...anywhere.

 Nothing scheduled so I spent time in God's Word backing away from having my face up squashed up against the glass of the world and back to where it belongs.  

My bookmark was on Psalm 103 which is a favorite of mine but was amazed at the part that I had not really focused on..."he knows how we are formed,"

I love brain research and these two trains of thought collided head on (brain/head on...lol) this morning.  Our brain stems with their regulation settings and traumatic memories stored at the core of our being.  The thinking part of our brain is usually well in charge (hmmmm sometimes) but once in a while we hit a trigger and we "flip out" literally. 

We are exposed as all of the raw and painful feelings come flooding to the surface.  It can take my breath away and if I surrendered to those feelings, I'd be up a creek!

Then God says, (my paraphrase) "Hey Heather.  I'm not treating you the way you deserve and I don't repay you based on your sin and mess ups!  Remember I love you more then the heavens are above the earth and I've removed your sin as far as the East is from the West.  Just like a father has compassion on his children, so I have compassion on you if you fear/revere me.   AND...don't you think I know how you were formed.  I was there.  I knit you together inside your mom.  I know your brain and how you think and how you are...AND I STILL LOVE YOU."

He knows our vulnerability.  Our strengths.  Our challenges and our weaknesses.  He knows our hearts (our thinkers, feelers and doers) and our brains!

C.S. Lewis says in his satire, "The Screwtape Letters" the following:

"In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.  The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants-"sons is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals.  

Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them:  He leaves them to "do it on their own."  If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt." P. 7












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