I don’t know how but I thought I posted this back on July 17th….I didn’t so I am today…

For as long as I can remember I have felt unseen, unheard, unimportant. I’ve never felt truly cherished….really, really chosen. But wait just a second before you feel sorry for me or think I’m wallowing in a pity party. There is so much more I have to say.

So much of my story is about emotions…how I feel, how I see, what it does to me. This is me. I am an emotional person. I am a merciful person. But I am a passionate person. I just said to someone the other day that sometimes our greatest gifting is our biggest weakness. I was describing myself in that statement.

There are lots of reasons I have felt unseen, unheard, unimportant….but I want to talk about my participation in that.  When I have felt that way, I would own that feeling and it would become me.  So in feeling unseen, I would become unseen.  In feeling unheard and unimportant, I would not speak with authority or fight for justice.  Let me say this.  Feelings are not always truth.  But my response to them can cause them to become facts.  Let me say that again.  Feelings can lie.  Don’t let them become truth in your life.

The Lord challenged me to be obedient in something a few weeks back.  In the process of that, I became very invested in the outcome….more so than I even thought I was.  So when the decision was made and it was not what I was hoping for, my immediate thought was. “This sucks.  This hurts so more than I thought it would.”  My second thought was, “How do I walk through this with grace?  How do I move forward without offense? I don’t want to do what I’ve always done.”  I want to trust that God has something better.  I want to believe that I will not always feel second best.  I want to let go of what isn’t in God’s plan for me. The challenge is giving up what I want and really, tenaciously grabbing onto HIS best….even if I don’t know what that is at the moment.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a TON of emotions involved in this process.  I’ve cried, I’ve been angry, I’ve had a bit of a pity party, but I’m telling you all of this so that I can move forward.  I don’t want to be stuck.  I don’t want to wallow.  It’s all part of learning to jump out the open window that God might show me instead of banging my fists on the closed door.  I’ll take the open window…