“Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls, so you build some. These are the justifications for your lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them from feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies.”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity
God never ceases to amaze me. An hour and a half after my last post, I had to pull the earplugs and put the book away for awhile. It was too much. She talked about many of my little quirks that I don't talk about. She was describing my feeling that I didn't realize I had. An hour and a half into it, she starts talking about her visit with God in heaven while she was dead. God wanted her to meet someone. After I had made up that neat little analogy about the little girl, God had her meet ... guess who... herself. Herself at the age she was when the abuse started. Freaked me out. I pulled the plug. (The Kindle needed charging anyway.)
One of the things she talked about that made me feel a lot better was doubt. I doubt God exists all the time. It would make more sense if I was crazy. It would make more sense that I have multiple personalities disorder and that's why I hear all this stuff in my head. That would make so much more sense and then I could take a little pill and get lots of sleep. Over and over and over God proved to her that He existed. She would say things all the time, like, "If it's really you, God." then she would lay out the if. She told Him if He was real she wanted her twins to be a boy and a girl. He did it. Okay that could be a coincidence, but then she told Him what eye color she wanted each to have and ... He did it. She did this over and over and it made me laugh, because I do it all the time. Even after He has suspended a cloud in my front yard, stopped a cloud in front of the moon that had been speeding across the sky, made the phone ring, had other people confirm His words, etc, etc., I keep checking. He keeps proving. He is very patient with me. I don't understand how a person can hear about Jesus, turn their life over, fall madly in love with Him, and never doubt his existence.
Then something struck me about feelings. What if our feelings are like air bubbles anchored down under the water by the enemy's lies. Every time we experience trauma we stuff all the feelings in the bubble and attach the string of lies that hold it under. So the abuse bubble full of pain is anchored down with the lies that it was my fault, nobody cares, I am bad, nobody loves me, especially God. All the feelings are stuffed under the water, out of sight. We get in our little boat, mix a drink and sit back to relax like everything is okay. Every once in a while we have to reach over the side and push a little bubble back down that seems to be getting too close to the surface. Then Jesus decides to take a swim. Yep, you get too close to Him and let Him in the water and the next thing you know He has His little Truth clippers out and He is cutting those little air bubbles loose. It surfaces and pops and your feelings are all over the place. What the heck?
He is nice about it though and cuts them loose only a little faster than you feel you can deal with them. When everything calms down and you think you can relax, he cuts loose a really old one. You think you have dealt with all the trauma and life will be more normal now, but no, Jesus is digging around in the seaweed looking for every last bubble. He finds one of those first bubbles anchored away for safe keeping a long time ago. It's been shoved down by the other bubbles all these years and that sucker is screaming to the top. It's one of those you have to catch your breath when it almost comes up out of the water before it explodes. What? Where did that come from? Shouldn't you be past that? I thought I was.
Then what if feelings are measured on a scale of one to ten. A level one pain would be like stubbing your toe. Okay, maybe that's a two. Most of the population never experiences a level ten because it would likely kill them. Let's say a three year old waits and waits for the ice cream truck and it finally arrives, he gets his ice cream cone sits down to eat it and BAM, it hits the ground. The tears fly from his eyes and you can only sit and stare down his throat as his mouth is wide open to allow the overwhelming howl to escape. This would be a level 4 feeling. Now, gramma on the other hand, looks down at it, mumbles a word, picks it up, flicks off a little dirt and eats it. Feeling level? .5 Doesn't even reach a 1. Same incident, but different feeling levels. So, what if you get the little guy an even bigger ice cream cone? His sad/anger level drops and his happy level rises to 5.
We wonder how a God who is supposed to love us can allow a child to be abused, a person to be raped, a family member to be murdered, etc. etc., but what if the level of love, joy, peace and all the other good feelings in heaven are at level 1000. You went through a painful divorce and even reached a 9 but when we get to heaven it's only good feelings and they are at such a high level that it erases any pain and even outweighs any happiness we could possibly feel here.
Okay, maybe isolation is doing weird things to my brain, but what if this is just a single scoop life and God has unlimited ice cream waiting for us? Just sayin'.
“Does that mean,' said Mack, 'that all roads lead to you?'
'Not at all.' Jesus smiled as he reached for the door handle to the shop. 'Most roads don't lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”
― Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity
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