Fear, The Perfect Ingredient to Self-Destruction by Sarah Anne

The only cure for suffering is to face it head on, grasp it round the neck and use it.
-Mary Craig

Many of us survivors, from the moment we are knit together in our mother’s womb to birth through adulthood, know fear and suffering better than anything. Fear becomes the god that rules over our lives. The most personal people in our past lives and even in our present lives, depending on our circumstance, reiterate and encourage fear to us. It begins to become all we know to be true. We eventually become the fear that rules in us; that is, we become what we don’t want to be. Fear has a very sneaky way of making a person believe what you’re doing is right and helping you, because the person is staying away from what they are afraid of. The problem with that is that the person never sees the other side of the coin. It blinds you from the very things that could help you. The god of fear wants you all to himself to cripple you, destroy you, and potentially take away anything that would cause you to ever overcome it.  The iron bars of fear we allow ourselves to be caged in is a very hopeless and lonely place. A place where growth is stunted and relationships end. A place, though of familiar comfort, that is one of the cruelest, coldest places to hide. There is no warmth in fear, and there are no warm arms to embrace you. Love becomes only a faint whisper and painful longing to have. But love cannot be felt or seen, and the iron bars you cling so tightly to will not allow love to penetrate and stay. Fear drives you into rebellion, lying, and hatred. Fear also leads to unbelief, pride, and good old self-sufficiency. Fear also puts Yeshua in a very tight box. Fear leaves no room for change, and destroys the desires and innermost dreams of your heart. Fear drives a painful punch to all your relationships you have dared to give a try.  Fear is not fully incapable of love, but it does have conditions and does not encourage it. When a survivor’s wounded heart, screaming and thirsting for love, lets fear rule over their relationships, they find that they have a lot of unresolved relationships that come to a bitter end; leaving the fearful person feeling abandoned and alone, opening the door for self hatred, lies, and deceit. I have found fear to be like a lot of space to roam, so anything that tries to compromise that fear insists on pushing out.   It’s only when we begin to give fear less space, and make it feel pretty cramped that we begin to heal, see truth, and grow in Yeshua, relationships, and maturity.

I have recently had a bad bout with fear. And it has knocked my legs out from under me and has almost destroyed me and my relationships. My relationships are still in recovery and probably will be for awhile. There was one person who entered this fear with me into this place of deceit, lies, hopelessness, and loss.  We took each other down hard. We drowned each other in fear which caused lies and deceit to build up over a considerable amount of time. The fear of suffering through the amount of pain we were in threw us into an addictive co-dependency on each other and alcohol. To say it mildly we fell flat on our faces. I can only speak for myself in this circumstance.  I became fearful of myself and got into a serious mess. Because of the fear of past abandonment, rejection, and the fear of hurting others and myself was so great, I began a wheel of lies and it just kept rolling. The more I tried to cover the bigger the wheel got till it crushed me with its weight, till only a glimmer of my heart was left. A circumstance arose unexpectedly opening a door for me to confess, ask for help, and live. I told all the lies and fears that were holding so tightly. I decided no matter what the outcome, anything had to be better then the deceit I was living in. I had a chance to get right with God and with others. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and grabbed hold of it with both hands.  Not exactly the courageous person’s way, but it's all I had left in me. One of my favorite quotes by Mary Craig says it all.

“However tempting the flight into unreality may be, there is no lasting comfort in it. Fantasy feeds on itself and turns into madness, drug-taking becomes addiction, drinking easily leads to alcoholism, they are blind alleys. The only cure for suffering is to face it head on, grasp it around the neck and use it.”

After a hospital stay and coming home to accepting arms I had begun to see what I had become.  The people I was trying not to hurt were hurt all the more because of the deceit, and ended up being more hurt anyway. I saw that in my deceit and fear I had become a false person, and lost sight of who Yeshua created me to be. I lost sight of what was important and almost killed myself and my friend in the process, as well as losing the home and the family Yeshua gave to me. What a high price to pay for fear, and what a debt to pay in order to run from suffering.  When truly in the end I ended up adding to that suffering ten times more than what it was before; all the while believing the lie that I’m strong enough.  Believing I can handle everything, I can do everything, I’m fearless, and it’s all about will power and endurance; basically self strength. But of course I can’t do this without the co-dependency, the alcohol, deceit, and the avoidance of pain, and loosing myself. But I’m strong enough right on my own right? Fear of embracing my brokenness kept these lies spinning in my head.

It’s only when I fell flat that Yeshua helped me see I am not as strong as I built myself up to be.  He took my co-dependent relationship away along with booting out the alcohol. He forgave me and has been helping me confess all the ways I lied and deceived others.  And what was left was a broken weak child who in her own strength failed miserably. Yeshua bent down at that time when I felt lower than the low. He offered a hand that, if taken, would provide a newer and stronger kind of strength. Strength in God is not exactly what I grew up with. Actually it was the very opposite. I grew up with the motto to have self-endurance, unbreakable will power, a fear that drives, a rage to destroy, and deceit to avoid any pain.  God’s strength is humbleness, facing pain and being broken, meekness, serving, loving, honesty no matter what the cost, obedience, fearless, life eternal, and yep I could go on.  I used to think that rage was a strength because it kept everyone afraid and at a safe arms length, because I was to afraid for them to know me. I’m finding brokenness and humility are true strengths that I am doing my best to draw on now. In God's strength of humility, brokenness, and truth comes healing, repair, and freedom.

The journey I’m on is a very long and hard one, because I messed up royally. Suffering is unavoidable, humility is a must, the truth is crucial, and in order to accomplish these tasks I have to accept my own brokenness. Now I have good days and bad. I have succeeded in some things, and I have screwed up. But in the acceptance of my own weakness and pain also comes the acceptance that I am not perfect. But with Yeshua’s help, and learning to trust Him I’ve found some hope. The hope that even if I fall or trip His mighty arms will be there to catch me, help me back up, and brush me off. I believe He would say try again my child, you’ll get it, I love you, don’t give up.

I’ve learned the importance of being up-front and honest with your pain and when you mess up. Because hiding is a breeding ground for a false self, lies and deceit. I learned when you allow fear to drive you it will hurt you, and destroy everything you love in its wake. The people I love and whom God has given me mean more to me than a life ruled by fear. This doesn’t mean I don’t have fear, still I do, but I am making it work its way out one step at a time, and in that the hope of repair begins with God, myself, and others.  It’s a long road that at times I know I will be tempted to drag my feet, or throw in the towel but it is a road I am willing to take, because as corny as it sounds I choose life. A life I want Yeshua to say at the end is well done good and faithful servant.  

The road will be hard and every prayer well needed. I still have much to learn and I think God is going to be teaching me through this for awhile. But I hope this article helped budge some who live in fear to begin to come out of it, and see the damage it is doing. Ask yourself, "Is it worth holding onto if it takes away everyone you love as well as your own life?" It's never too late to face the fear and live. There’s a saying my coach in soccer used to say, "It doesn’t matter if we win or lose it's how you play the game." It’s the same with fear - it’s not that you have fear, it’s what you choose to do with it now.

The Omnipresence of God by Sara

God is present everywhere. I like to think about this because of my background in physics, which gives me an atypical view of God’s omnipresence.

It is common for us to think of God’s omnipresence in human terms, that He is with each one of us: “So do not fear, for I am with you…” (Isaiah 41:10) We also tend to be aware that He is present throughout our country, at our borders and into the lands beyond:  “He blesses your people within you. He grants peace to your borders…” (Psalm 147:13-14) God is also present upon the seas, at the depths of the seas, at the farthest shores and at the depths of the earth: “…the Lord is upon many great waters.” (Psalm 29:3) “… if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.” (Psalm 139:8) “If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me...” (Psalm 139:9-10) “When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body.” (Psalm139:15-16)

Suppose we expand our search for God and look towards the heavens: “Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there…” (Psalm 139:7-8) If we look for Him on our own sun: “If I rise upon the wings of the dawn…even there Your hand will guide me…” (Psalm 139:9-10) Consider also His presence within the Milky Way and other galaxies and objects in our universe: “He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.”  (Isaiah 40:26) It’s fun to think about God being present on all the planets orbiting all the stars in the universe, and with stellar objects like red dwarfs (dying stars) and quasars (tremendously powerful, ancient galaxy-like objects) and neutron stars (collapsed stars). This is equivalent to saying that God is with every grain of sand on every sea shore on Earth (which He is, of course). That’s just about how many stellar objects there are! At least, that’s how many we can see.

Even more fun is to consider God’s presence in all the dark and empty space in the universe: “…even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You.” (Psalm 139:12)  One interesting substance that astrophysicists have uncovered is called “dark matter”, stuff which we know exists only because it gets in the way of our seeing other stellar objects and because its gravity pulls on the stars and gases nearby. That’s all that we know about it, because we can’t see it! But God is present with dark matter nonetheless. And there’s much more dark matter in the universe than matter that we can detect!

Not only that, but there are almost certainly regions in our universe so far away that we can’t see them. What I mean is that some stellar objects are so far away that the light from them hasn’t reached us yet! (Light travels at a fixed velocity.) When we finally do receive the light from them, we will be looking into the past, since that light left them billions of years ago. We may be looking at a very small slice of the very beginning of God’s creation of the universe!

Now let’s trade our telescope in for an electron microscope. God is present in all the spaces between atoms and within atoms, such as between atomic nuclei and the encircling electrons. There is darkness (emptiness) within an atom than there is in our solar system, if you make the nucleus as big as the sun. But God is present in all of those minute empty spaces, in and between all of the atoms in the universe! And God’s presence does not stop where our universe ends: “He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17)

Consider an individual atom. Physicists have uncovered what they call the Uncertainty Principle, one result of which is that one can’t predict the exact location of a particle; one can only form probabilities as to where it is at any given moment. I believe that God decides, from one tiny fraction of a second to another, exactly where each particle (such as an electron) is. He’s present for each one of those decisions, for every particle in the universe!       

Even what would seem to be a fact, such as what kind of particle exists near a certain place at a certain moment, remains for the Lord to choose and for us to only guess. Particle accelerators, in which physicists whirl particles around to tremendous speeds and then smash them into a target to watch what they become, have enabled physicists to come to the determination that each collision can present several options as to what particles will emerge. We can’t know in advance what will happen. Only God knows. Once again, I believe that God is present to make every one of those decisions, not only in particle accelerators but also within suns and other very hot objects in the universe, where particles are moving extremely fast and colliding into each other all the time. “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:3)

There is nowhere that we can go, known to mankind or unknown, which is devoid of God’s presence: “Where can I go from Your Spirit?” (Psalm 139:7) It has taken years of study by brilliant scientists to come to the conclusion, unsettling to any atheist, that our knowledge is limited to probabilities. God keeps the ultimate decisions in His hand. He is present everywhere, active everywhere.

Thanks to scientific tools like telescopes and particle accelerators, we can come to a greater and greater appreciation of God’s omnipresence!

My Intensive Experience by Dona

Did you ever want to be healed and whole  QUICKLY?… So did I, in fact Very Much!  I guess no one likes to experience pain.

After four and a half years of prayer ministry, and a lifetime of struggling, I am FINALLY beginning to see there are no quick fixes. – but I am at peace with it.  This is a huge accomplishment God has done for me.   Since my recent week of prayer ministry with my prayer minister, I have a hope and a peace in how I feel about my emotional healing process, that I have never had before.  Instead of being frustrated and fighting against myself and the pain, and hurt inside, I can relax in it because I am around a community of understanding and knowledgeable people/prayer ministers.  (A prayer minister, in my own words, is someone who can be with you in your negative emotions, pain, etc. and know what to do, and how to help you connect with Jesus through prayer.)

It feels so good to be under the “C.A.R.E” of those who are experienced, and have knowledge of childhood traumas.  (By the way, childhood experiences DO have  devastating and long term effects on the soul, and person as a whole.)  To be here gives me the hope and security I need,  to be able to face anything, if necessary,  that has happened to me in my life, no matter how big or small—oftentimes called “joy strength” or your “capacity” ( the amount you can handle emotionally).  I am beginning to understand this vital concept that is taught here.  A child or adult can only handle what they have the capacity to handle emotionally.  Which is why if the people you live around are up to capacity emotionally or emotionally mature, you will be also, and able to handle whatever happens in your life.  Sorry - I tried living in denial - but no one will ever be able to escape traumatic events of some sort in this fallen world.  So the most liberating way is to download  from “bigger brains” how to deal with them in a mature way.

During this week I have learned some important things about myself.  Now I understand why I act or react the way I do to certain events.  And how the negative things in my past are still affecting me now.

So for the first time in four and a half years, I am FINALLY  able to say I’ve had a breakthrough.  Not a huge, dramatic one like I envisioned, but an understanding and acceptance of my healing process that helps tremendously!  It has taken a lot of pressure off that I had put on myself to hurry this healing process up. To hurry and get out of the pain.  I can now be patient with myself and understand that I cannot push myself or make myself do something that inside I am really not ready to do.

I am so thankful for this breakthrough… I thought it was a long time coming.  But  I’m beginning to see it is worth the wait.  I  know I have a way to go yet, but I feel very secure in my prayer minister's knowledge and care!  Thank you, God, for giving this staff, and ministers, the knowledge and experience You have.  I am grateful to them for sharing it with me.

(P.S.  God - thank You also for teaching me what you are Really, Really like).

God IS good!

I See by Dori Jewell

Yesterday I had a moment.  A moment that seemed to last forever.  I couldn’t see the day, I couldn’t hope for the night.  All I could see was the moment.  I was in rage.  I couldn’t come up for air.  I hated the world, I hated life, there were moments I wanted to die.  I couldn’t get out of the moment.  I couldn’t breathe.  Breathing felt impossible.  I felt like there wasn’t a tender spot within my pain filled soul.  I could have destroyed everything in front of me.  I was ready, yet there was this quiet place, deep within, that wouldn't allow me to do so.  I had to take a moment; I had to try to breathe even when it didn’t feel like there was any air to breathe.

Some would say I processed yesterday.  Some would say I needed to see a punching bag, some would say I needed to pace the floor of the warehouse.  Maybe all those things occurred, but what really happened was a moment where I saw the face of my Beloved and He met me in the midst of the storm, He called me out and I walked on water.  With every step of raw truth I spoke I sank further into the depths of the raging sea of hatred I felt within.  With every inch in which I sank, my Beloved extended His hand even farther, and His heart captured me back into the safety of His arms.

He understood.  He didn’t question, He didn’t even ask me to get my act together, He simply understood.  With eyes beyond any compassion I could have ever seen before He looked upon my rage filled moment and understood.  In the midst of my anger I could feel my anger rise towards my Beloved.  I hated myself for hating Him, or at least feeling hatred toward him.  I hated that I felt hatred, I hated.  As soon as I expected Him to turn His face from me, when I expected Him to match my rage with His wrath, I was met with just the opposite, I was met with His heart.  He looked upon this wounded soul and said “I understand, I love you”.  What could He love?  What could He want to do with me after I just stated with raw honesty that I was angry at Him, I felt hatred toward Him?  He simply wanted to love me.  He simply wanted to be with me.  No expectations, purely love, simply yet profoundly He just wanted to love me.

He understood, He understood much deeper than I understood the hurricane of emotion I just went through.  He sat through it all, He participated, but most of all He understood, and in the end wanted to be with me still.