January 15th, Friday ALL DAY

Friday started off with quite a struggle and ended in adoration for my Lord and Savior! On Friday mornings at 10am I meat with Pastor Chris Leeper and Ms. Debbie E. to discuss logistical work that needs to be done for the church. At the end of the meeting I told P. Chris about a conversation I was having with one of our friends who I had been judging and I had told her that I had a hard time wanting to get close to her because she seemed closed off. In return she told me that she didn't feel like she could open up to me because I was too blunt and hurt her feelings easily. At this point I didn't expect P. Chris to interject anything because I was merely relating what I thought was headway into our relationship, but he looked at me and said, 'you are not a safe place.'

When he said that I immediately looked down, I couldn't bring myself to look at him or talk to him. I felt so hurt so quickly that I wasn't sure what happened. I packed up my kids over the next few minutes, escaping P. Chris and Debbie. P. Chris asked me if I wanted to talk about how I was feeling and what I was thinking and with only a head nod 'no', I was out of the building, running down the street pushing my stroller sobbing uncontrollably. Sweet little Evelyn was saying, 'mommy, what's wrong? Mommy, are you okay?' I told her I was okay, just sad because my feelings were hurt.

So I got home feeling so hurt, like I had been physically cut open. I didn't know how to deal with that intense level of pain and I wanted to start cutting myself. At this point I knew I wouldn't do it, I just had a desire to do it. I had heard about people cutting but I never understood how someone could feel that way until now. I called Ben, so he could pray for me because I knew that this wasn't a good place to be in. After talking for a little while I got off the phone, not really feeling any better emotionally, but I did not feel like hurting myself anymore. The rest of the afternoon I spent trying to process my emotions. I tried to self-soothe by taking a hot bath, but that didn't make me feel any better. I tried watching TV, which if you know me, I rarely watch TV and I don't like to let my kids watch TV unless we're all watching together or I'm 9 months pregnant! So I thought I'd have some chocolate, which didn't help either.

Deciding that I couldn't heal myself, I just started crying again, feeling the agony in my heart. I called my friend and spiritual mother, Linda Bell. She was really encouraging and I felt a little uplifted, but still really crappy. Then Ben came home and we talked for a little while. He asked me how I was feeling and I told him awful, that I just felt so hurt and couldn't understand it. He went into our room to walk the baby around and Evelyn had lots to tell him, so I took the opportunity to go into the livingroom and journal my feelings. Well God met me there. As I started writing, God showed me that the intense feeling that I had inside me was brokenness over my sin of not being a safe place for other people. This reality was so intense I leaped up and just started worshiping God immediately! After feeling this I was amazed at the fact that I had never felt this way over my sin before, ever! I know I have hurt people and in my head I felt some kind of bad about it, I have even felt repentence on some level, but NOTHING like this.

This mourning over my sin was so ground breaking for me that I had to go to prayer night at our church (it's every Friday @ 7pm at GFC 450 N. Pierce St. El Cajon) to talk to Pastor Chris to tell him what happened that day because, well I hadn't talked to him since he told me I was not safe and I knew that God wanted to use this. When I got there I told him and he rejoiced with me and had me share with the meeting. After I shared, Kevin, who was leading the worship, asked me to pray that God would pour out a brokenness of sin over everyone there. WOW, I started praying and God just showed me His heart for His people to be broken and contrite in front of Him and how precious He sees that, so now Lord, I'm just asking, more God! Give us more! More of Your manifest presence and more Your power over our sin, more brokenness at Your feet. God we want more of You!