I wish I could tell you that I’m writing this workbook from a place where I no longer face battles and struggle with knowing how to move forward. I wish I could tell you that this process is easy and that if you just follow these simple steps, that you’ll be all fixed, all healed. I wish I could tell you that I feel a sense of strength as I type these letters in the hotel room I’m sitting in. But that would not be truth.
The truth is that I started working on a RISE a year ago. I was newly saved and bright-eyed. Jesus had opened up a whole new world to me and I was grateful. I still am. I worked non-stop for a few months to develop the idea of RISE and heard so clearly what God had sent me to do. He wanted for me to create a program for women to help them release the lies that were spoken over them and help them step into their true identity in Christ and I was to do it through writing.
So writing is exactly what I began to do but then mid-way through the year, RISE came to an abrupt halt. It would be a whole year before I would feel the urge of the Holy Spirit to start again. I rationalized in my own head that this was a better time than before. I was more mature in my faith. I had been tested now. I had gained more leadership skills. I….I….I.
It’s funny how God desires for us to lean on Him so much that when we get to much into the “I” he pushes our eyes back onto Him.
On this particular week, I had dedicated Saturday to stay home and work on RISE. Starting with the first chapter: Unwanted. Little did I know that I would be attacked by those same feelings that I felt as a child. The very feeling of being unwanted. I spun out of control with my emotions and honestly though I prayed quickly to God, I didn’t pray, pray. It was if for that day, I didn’t believe He would care to hear my prayer.
I began to sink into feeling of worthlessness, desperation, loneliness, and depression. Sound familiar? So I checked into a hotel. I reached out to my friends for whom I am ever grateful and they sat with me until I fell asleep.
And I awoke this morning, feeling calmer but still with a heaviness. I was upset that I had bought into the enemy’s lies. That I had given into my feelings. More importantly, I felt completely unqualified to write RISE.
Maybe that is exactly where the enemy wanted me. To cripple me to defeat me because he only comes to steal, kill and destroy. So I want you to know that as you read this I was attacked as I was wanting to write but here’s the thing; God uses all things meant for harm for the good of those who love and trust Him. And I do, it may not always look picture perfect and I am not without doubt but through it all, I love Him and I trust him.
So here is what God revealed to me during this breakdown, He doesn’t want me to start leading RISE when I am “perfect” and completely healed. He wants me to start now. Writing to women who are going through it now. Not as someone who has all the answers or has been victorious every single time. But as the messy, unwanted, prideful, unworthy, ugly, lonely, emotional, critical, and unlovable, resentful girl that makes mistakes and that Jesus still chooses to love. He wants to show you that although we see ourselves like that sometimes, He always sees as He intended us to be. He calls me Chosen, Graceful, Worthy, Beautiful, Sister, Virtuous, Encouraging, Beloved and Forgiven. And I chose to call Him Father.
Join me over the next 9 weeks as we unravel the lie and see the Truth of how God sees us. Dare to Bravely Rise.