Your Shelter

The Holy Spirit recently answered a prayer of my heart, which was to understand why I don't seem to rest.  As I listened to a message on "Displacing hidden core pain" Jack Frost talked about three primary fears that affect all of us:  the fear of abandonment, the fear of trust, and the fear of submission.  The Holy Spirit began to show me that I had been struggling with the fear of trust, which manifest itself in a lack of security.  Security is one of the core needs we have as human beings, this is part of the dimension of the love of God.  In Psalm 91 David under the influence of the Holy Spirit calls God his refuge and fortress, why would God be something for us if we didn't need Him in this way.  As the Lord has shown me the fear of trust in my life I have seen the elaborate system of self-protection that I have developed to guard the most vulnerable places of my heart.  I believe having a revelation of our fleshly ways of handling pain in our lives is necessary, so that we can agree to have God dismantle this in our lives.  As I listened to another message on healing the heart of the family, I was convicted by the Holy Spirit of how my protective lifestyle has robbed my kids of knowing my heart.  I have sought to be vulnerable but always on my terms and who I deem appropriate, maintaining a more composed front with my children.  This is a thin veneer because as I see many clients who have to later get real with their kids because their hiddenness was harmful to the kids, I know I will have be humble and broken before them at some point.  This could be one of the greatest times of God's love outpouring in our family, yet I have avoided this because I had justified my hiddenness by believing this was not appropriate for kids.  If my children don't know my history (in Adam and my family) they will not understand the difficulties they are facing.  Especially because my reaction to the pain and damage I have received has undoubtedly left hurts in their own hearts.  My son being adopted adds new dimesions to how our family heals because some of his wounds were not connected to me or his mother.  The farther I go as a believer the more I see that humility is the key to receiving grace, which means if you want a promotion in the Kingdom of God you go lower.  I have been wrestling not only with the area of broken heartedness that the Lord is healing in my life and pouring His love into (Romans 5:5) but also how to help my family be restored to the Father's love.  I am continually amazed at the depth of need for God's love in my heart but I am also thankful that God is a God of abundance.  I trust that as I pour out the pain, the mourning, and the lack of love in my own heart from a broken place as a child, that God will pour His love into me in a greater measure then what was lost.  We can do great damage to others if we are poor stewards of our sufferings, if we share in these sufferings with Jesus we are told we will share in His glory (Romans 8:17).  My prayer is that out of my wounds will flow healing to many other broken hearts.  Isn't this living the Exchanged Life, the death of our flesh and that out of His life within us life is given to others.

In His Love and Power,
Bret