Time to Love?

Experience is a comb that is given to you, when you have already lost you hair.
-Giorgos Zambetas, Greek musician

     Buying a new car?  It always seems that when you set out to find something new, the old suddenly feels different.  Some of us can hardly stand to get into that old beater car knowing that a new one will be parked in the garage soon.  Others of us have unhealthy emotional attachment to everything and when we start shopping we have thoughts like "That spring sticking in my leg every day isn't so bad" or "It really doesn't matter that the door flies open on corners.  It's only happened a time or two or twelve."  The motor sound better, the ride seems smoother.  Why were we looking for a new car anyway?
     I know people who wear watches that don't work because they love them or they go with the bracelet and necklace they are wearing.  We can't laugh when our favorite pair of sweats has a rip in a really revealing spot, but the new pair is stuck in a drawer, or still in the bag with the receipt.  What is the fear here?  Anyone who doesn't have a little of this attachment to the familiar in their life probably doesn't understand why abused women stay with their men.  It's familiar.  You learn to survive that way and you know what's coming.
     There are those who don't do any of this and don't understand how anyone could, but when Jesus calls they stay with what they know.  Maybe that wasn't Jesus?  Maybe that's the enemy trying to talk me into doing something I'm not supposed to do.  We stay with the old.  We never step out and take the risk.
     Healing?  When we break an arm or have a surgery we can't heal fast enough, but what about the heart.  There are old wounds that people do not want to face.  Staying in the familiar pit of depression and anxiety are easier than taking those steps to get out.  I have recently realized that I do this to a degree.  Change is hard.  Harder for some than others.  Is it the enemy trying to convince us not to dig up the garbage from the past?  He doesn't want us healed, so it may be.  He wants us to stay buried in our junk so we don't get out and do what God has for us.  Sometimes I think it's fear.  Whether it is fear whispered in our ear by the enemy or flesh fear of having to let go of the familiar.  It's a strong weapon against healing.
     Some times God asks us to do things and we don't see the importance of it, so we choose the easy route and stay safe.  We say "No" to God.  We have no idea what we may be missing out on.  Even bigger than that, we have no idea what we are keeping from others.  To not follow God's will in any given situation could deprive someone we don't even know a showing of God's love.  An example of this, happened over a year ago.  I went to a meeting on human trafficking.  It was quite an accomplishment for me to show up in that room all by myself.  I was so nervous.  The enemy tried to stop me, but I had a determination that day.  I was not about to let him win.  The meeting was about a couple starting a home to get prostituted women off the street.  What they are doing is absolutely incredible and it is the love Christ wants us to show each other.  In all my fear, sitting there, I decided to take one more punch at the enemy and introduce myself to the couple.  God has taken that act of courage and blessed me and will bless others.  I had no idea that anything would come of it, beyond a slap at the enemy.  But, now I have gone through raining and will go through more to be a mentor for these women.  The word itself scares me, but I know this is God's will.  To share my story and what God has done in my life to broken women is my purpose.  God is still showing me deep hurts and wounds and mostly truth.  Who knows what will come of this.  I feel like it's a training ground for the bigger things God has for me.  If I wouldn't have stepped out of my comfort zone that day, I probably wouldn't even be talking about mentoring these women. 
     The thing I have learned is when we share our wounds, we heal.  Teachers learn from students.  When we reach out and share where we have been with a broken person, our healing accelerates.  So park the junker and climb in a new vehicle.  Out of my will, safety and fear and into the life God has for me.  With each step my fear fades and my faith grows.  This whole mentoring thing is out of my zone, but it's right smack dab in the middle of God's will, which is the zone I want to be in. 

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa