~ Last night I had a Dream ~
Heads up: If you're on this journey with me, and if you haven't noticed already, this is quite challenging!!!
I try over and over again to write here; to share where I'm at and what's going on. But each time I do, the writing seems to run into a dead-end. I keep pushing it, but it then ends up turning into a pile of trash! So I toss it and just end up frustrated. It's happening now. I've started this particular blog 4 times. So, rather than continue this wrestle, I'm just going to share the main reason I am writing tonight:
* I'm still here.
* God hasn't finished with me yet.
* I find less worth in 'man' now, far more than I ever have - and I grew up feeling very worthless!!!! Yet, I'm now at peace with that! I am SO ok with that!! FINALLY!!!! :D
* I've given up caring what the end result of this will be - meaning, I'm not even going to bother trying to guide my heart or manufacture a positive outcome. Either God finishes the work He's started in me, or I go on to become one hard bitch! :)
* I believe, more than ever - since giving up said control - that God is wrapping me in mercy and grace, and He WILL complete, and IS completing the work He's started in me, while I simply just be me, faults and hardness and all else I have in me right now.
* The flesh wars against the things of the spirit. My flesh wants to not love so many times lately... but I know that's why I'm on this journey, too - to love more; to love as God loves, without bitterness, in truth and spirit. I've given up control, I'm very honest with what I'm feeling and thinking, I've stopped trying to 'do' and I just 'am', and I know God's ok with that... Things will change, but this time they change by His hand, and not by my efforts. He will get the credit, because I can't do it...
* Tim pointed out that in the book 'The Dark Night of the Soul' by Gerald G May, it states that we are brought to a place of not loving in order to learn love - or something like that; I haven't been able to read it yet - and that's basically what I'm feeling. Yet, there is a KNOWING in my spirit/heart/soul that states God IS in control of this, and the dark period will lift, and what will remain, or be, is greater, deeper, more earnest love. I know that will come. I just know it... So for that purpose alone, if no other, I am not giving up on this walk or my trust in God through it.
* Even in knowing that greater love will be what God produces in this heart of mine, I am now at a place where I don't care if I'll never be a published writer, if the photography stops, I'm left single, and so on. I am so over all of it. I'll use what remains in my hands, and seek to honour that, but I will not build my dreams or hopes or identity on any of them anymore. And I don't think that is a bad thing.
There are other things I want to share with you, but something keeps stopping me, so I'm going to trust the timing is not right in sharing those things, and I will finish off this blog with something wonderful God did for me in the past 24 hours. :)
Today (at the first attempt of writing this blog; Aussie time) is my 21st wedding anniversary. I woke in the morning with a few remaining images of a few dreams from the previous night, one of which spoke to me the most. In it, a friend - whom I've never met in person - was praying for me, face to face. This friend told me they had 5 things that God wanted me to know, and the first was that I no longer need anyone one to lead me...
The friend told me something else but I couldn't remember upon waking, and the last three things went unsaid. That first thing spoke to my heart like you wouldn't believe. I felt God planting hope in my heart on me hearing it. And the longer I meditate upon it, the more I sense the roots of that seed going deep in me. So I know now a new seed of hope has been planted... but I also know now - through challenges and experiences - not to mess with the seed. I'll let God water it, and grow it, and allow the Holy Spirit to bring forth the fruit its supposed to bring through, and for me; I'm not going to force it... And, oh, how I love the thought of that!!! :)
This dream touched me so deeply I contacted that friend - whom I hadn't connected with in a long time - telling them of the dream. When they replied, they mentioned my writing and how they've been thinking I would be able to help them with their writing, and I replied by sharing that my writing, along with my passion for it, was drying up, basically, so I wasn't sure what good I'd be to them, but my heart would remain open to them and their writing, and in whatever way I could help them I would. And I mean it.
After my second email was sent, I had my eyes opened to what God had done:
I'd gotten to a place where I have next to no faith left in men. And yes, I said men, not 'man' as in men and women. I meant men. Then God gives me this dream, which opens my heart, which plants hope in my heart, and uses a man to reach out to me. As I wrote to my friend, "Isn't it great how God works. Here I am losing all my confidence in men, and self, and He opens my heart up to one man again, through a dream, and it turns out that man believes in me."
Now please don't hear that with your flesh. I am so not going through all this to find hope and worth in any 'man'! Male or female. What a waste of a 'dark night' that would be. But God reached out to me, not only showing me that I shouldn't give up on 'men', while, at the same time, turning my heart to Him. I felt God's love in that. Not man's, but God's. I needed that. I so needed to feel His love right now... and, you know what, He did that tonight, on the night of my 21st wedding anniversary, on the night of a full moon!!! And if you know my testimony, you know what a full moon means to me - so, for me, this has God written all over it. And the hope rising in my heart confirms that!! This is very special to me and strengthens my desire to be intimate with God.
So, in ending, I just want to say, if you are on this journey with me, don't give up. The more fear and doubt and insecurity that is taken from me during this time, the more I see the 'dark night' is nothing to do with anything bad or evil, but with all that is good, and is actually an act of love, mercy and grace. But ya gotta trust the Big Fella with it. Cling to Him. Don't let Him go.
The morning will come again. The dark night will pass. But as we pass through the dark night, remember that it's for a purpose. God IS in control. God IS working all things out for good for us. And we must keep our hands off so He can do that - otherwise you're just going to prolong the 'night'.
God loves you. Trust that. Don't give up. Don't let go - well, let go of control, but cling on to faith and trust and Jesus, and you will be amazed at the outcome, this I know even though my eyes are yet to see the completion of it... :)
And remember, joy will come in the morning!
Goodnight. ;)
God bless you GREATLY!!!
XXXXX