I've been really thinking on how I can screw up my life in a major lately. Maybe pick up heroin, get into sex only in big fluffy animal costumes, join one of those pseudo religious cults, or something along those lines. Nothing s wrong that I need to go hide away in like in the past but worse everything is somewhat stable. I don't know how to manage stability. I know how to recovery well enough by now but have no clue how to keep it up.
That's why now that I'm taking Father by God again with most levels of the thick scar tissue over the wound has been dealt with over the last few years that it hurts so much. Last week was the overview which is easy enough because its a bids eye view. The messy details are white washed over to trick you into trying it out. So this week s homework was the foundational stage of being the Beloved Son. This stage has always been the most obsolete part to me because I was so oblivious to how deeply I was wounded. Over the years more has been revealed and most times that's a good thing but we are still getting damage reports from below decks. Geez how bad is it down there?
I want to stomp down there stairs and shake that filthy stupid kid yelling suck it up and be a man till he gets his crap together. After all these years why he cant hear me must be a problem with my volume being to low so I raise it no a more disastrous effect. What is so hard for me to wrap my head around is that part of me needs to feel love. That's my grossest handicap I think my ability to love myself. I can accept myself like a shipment of lumber. Some planks I can see making a house with some most are warped enough but able to hide in the walls. Then I see this pile of just miss match pieces left over. Good for nothing in my life today. That I can see. That's the problem I can not see any further than today.
God started working on me years ago on things that weren't bothering me at all to get me screwed up enough to be willing to work on them to prepare me for what's ahead.
Matthew 22:36-40New International Version (NIV)
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
Truth is I don't love myself much so I cant love my neighbor much. I cant adore my kids until I adore myself. I get so frustrated with Zoe because I get so frustrated with myself doing the same selfish things. How I treat myself is the reflection of how I would treat others. These things scare me! I want to love deeply and be accepting to those in my life.
So the outline says to love others we have to love ourselves but that's jacked, if it was that simple we would be all ready. How do we start?
We love, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
before I can love myself I must first be loved to teach me how to do it. I let God take that inner kid out of the basement and out to play in fields of green. That kid doesn't have to suck it up and act like a man. All he has to do is be loved and act like a kid. To run like a wild Indian, get into mischief, climb trees, tells story's of dragons he sees in the clouds, to take naps under shade trees. All these things he can do because his Father loves and protects him from all bad things. The yard is safe. He can run barefoot feeling the blades of grass between his toes because God has been hard at work working on the yard putting in the work so only grass grows. Man I long to toss my shoes and go running.
As I go through this reading asking deeper question than I had before it shocks me how much I hate surprises. I would even as a kid try to find out what I got for Christmas not so I could play with the toys but just out of fear that I wouldn't get anything. really like my parents would wrap up boxes in pretty paper just to laugh at the look on my face. I didn't have a bad childhood by any means but there was many many surprises that weren't fun. So I grew to hate surprises and took measures to insulate myself from them. I skipped little league because if I surprisingly hit the ball I didn't know what to do next. It was surprising to me when my dad left us. Maybe I have a genetic sensitivity true but I really hated change after that. I would sit in front of the television for hours spacing out because there was no surprises.
These last few years as I've been opening myself up to surprises as gifts from God. Earlier this year I was offered a deep sea fishing trip out of the blue. Everything in my threw up screams of how it wouldn't work out. So to feed them I made calls to make sure this wouldn't happen. Zoe would be a problem boom mom said no trouble. Work wouldn't let me off bang they ask if I need the following Monday off to give me some extra time. Every time I tried to feed the fears they came up starving. All I had t do was show up and explore the ocean.
Blessings have just poured into my life that I never have ever thought of. After Pegs death I was as a child totally unable to take care of myself. Just stunned stupid I wouldn't of eaten if people didn't remind me or bring it over in some cases. Bills got paid some how. Christmas all I could do is sit back and receive surprise blessing over and over. Just a couple weeks I was talking to God about fixing up the back yard since Whitey ran off. I get two calls from two separate parties offering my a grill and a lawnmower on top off someone upgrading their patio furniture and passing me four chairs for my table.
Safety, exploration, surprises is what it means to be a beloved son. In turn I have been able to give all these things to Zoe. She watched how trust falls work on TV and now I'll just be sitting there and she will fall back with all her weight without abandon. I haven't dropped her yet but have come very close to a run to the ER. She just expects that I am watching her and will catch her if she falls. How the hell did she get that impression? Man if I could trust God like that, he's willing its me with the trust issues. Zoe runs off without fear because she knows I'm watching her. She gets in the car and asks what I have for her. Not in a selfish way but just after so many times of having a surprise treat why wouldn't I? Geez I have prayed to God for no more surprises good or bad.
This week I might jus get paperwork I've been waiting for since 2005 to be able to see my first two daughters. What should of been a time of rejoicing was wretchedly stolen by fear. I let it run for a while but then I started to read my homework on being the beloved son and it stirred up stuff to where I had to chose if God really did call me his beloved still. Saturday I wrestled with that all day. Sunday I woke up to Easter and the answer was yes to the point of death. Every stage in the book builds off the Beloved Son all the parts like warrior and king I want to skip to starts with knowing how much I am deeply loved.
And said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3 ESV
We are God's children but today I quit fighting and accept that I am the apple of his eye.
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
Truth is I don't love myself much so I cant love my neighbor much. I cant adore my kids until I adore myself. I get so frustrated with Zoe because I get so frustrated with myself doing the same selfish things. How I treat myself is the reflection of how I would treat others. These things scare me! I want to love deeply and be accepting to those in my life.
So the outline says to love others we have to love ourselves but that's jacked, if it was that simple we would be all ready. How do we start?
We love, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
before I can love myself I must first be loved to teach me how to do it. I let God take that inner kid out of the basement and out to play in fields of green. That kid doesn't have to suck it up and act like a man. All he has to do is be loved and act like a kid. To run like a wild Indian, get into mischief, climb trees, tells story's of dragons he sees in the clouds, to take naps under shade trees. All these things he can do because his Father loves and protects him from all bad things. The yard is safe. He can run barefoot feeling the blades of grass between his toes because God has been hard at work working on the yard putting in the work so only grass grows. Man I long to toss my shoes and go running.
As I go through this reading asking deeper question than I had before it shocks me how much I hate surprises. I would even as a kid try to find out what I got for Christmas not so I could play with the toys but just out of fear that I wouldn't get anything. really like my parents would wrap up boxes in pretty paper just to laugh at the look on my face. I didn't have a bad childhood by any means but there was many many surprises that weren't fun. So I grew to hate surprises and took measures to insulate myself from them. I skipped little league because if I surprisingly hit the ball I didn't know what to do next. It was surprising to me when my dad left us. Maybe I have a genetic sensitivity true but I really hated change after that. I would sit in front of the television for hours spacing out because there was no surprises.
These last few years as I've been opening myself up to surprises as gifts from God. Earlier this year I was offered a deep sea fishing trip out of the blue. Everything in my threw up screams of how it wouldn't work out. So to feed them I made calls to make sure this wouldn't happen. Zoe would be a problem boom mom said no trouble. Work wouldn't let me off bang they ask if I need the following Monday off to give me some extra time. Every time I tried to feed the fears they came up starving. All I had t do was show up and explore the ocean.
Blessings have just poured into my life that I never have ever thought of. After Pegs death I was as a child totally unable to take care of myself. Just stunned stupid I wouldn't of eaten if people didn't remind me or bring it over in some cases. Bills got paid some how. Christmas all I could do is sit back and receive surprise blessing over and over. Just a couple weeks I was talking to God about fixing up the back yard since Whitey ran off. I get two calls from two separate parties offering my a grill and a lawnmower on top off someone upgrading their patio furniture and passing me four chairs for my table.
Safety, exploration, surprises is what it means to be a beloved son. In turn I have been able to give all these things to Zoe. She watched how trust falls work on TV and now I'll just be sitting there and she will fall back with all her weight without abandon. I haven't dropped her yet but have come very close to a run to the ER. She just expects that I am watching her and will catch her if she falls. How the hell did she get that impression? Man if I could trust God like that, he's willing its me with the trust issues. Zoe runs off without fear because she knows I'm watching her. She gets in the car and asks what I have for her. Not in a selfish way but just after so many times of having a surprise treat why wouldn't I? Geez I have prayed to God for no more surprises good or bad.
This week I might jus get paperwork I've been waiting for since 2005 to be able to see my first two daughters. What should of been a time of rejoicing was wretchedly stolen by fear. I let it run for a while but then I started to read my homework on being the beloved son and it stirred up stuff to where I had to chose if God really did call me his beloved still. Saturday I wrestled with that all day. Sunday I woke up to Easter and the answer was yes to the point of death. Every stage in the book builds off the Beloved Son all the parts like warrior and king I want to skip to starts with knowing how much I am deeply loved.
And said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3 ESV
We are God's children but today I quit fighting and accept that I am the apple of his eye.
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