His Heart for Me

As I’m writing this, the sun is shining, I’m drinking my second cup of coffee made from the coffee beans grown here on the mountain and I’m at peace listening to the sounds of His creation and the Catracho team playing with their new walkie-talkies. We’ve been living and serving in the jungle for 2 months now and are nearing the end of our time in Honduras. My heart feels full and new, filled with His joy, peace, Spirit and love.

Over the past two months I have been seeking God’s unique heart for me and seeking to know and see Him more clearly. I’ve been hungering to know how He sees me.

I’ve walked with the Lord for over 20 years now and have seen and experienced His goodness, faithfulness, provision, love, peace, healing and touch. God has walked with me through so many ups and downs and has been faithful to guide me through them all. And yet, something in me felt distant from the Lord and His love lately.

I came across the verse Matthew 5:8 “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.” And I found myself convicted of the things I allow to take hold of my heart. I’m very careful with the media I consume, what I watch, listen to and read, however I haven’t done a good job of only allowing truth to enter my heart. Due to past hurts in my life and insecurities, I had made agreements in my heart about my identity which are not true.

At times throughout my life I have placed more weight in the opinions others have of me and my interpretation of their actions than I have with God’s truth that He speaks over me and has claimed in my life. I had come to believe lies that I am unwanted, unknown, undesirable, uninteresting and unloved. I have believed lies that people merely tolerate my presence or only want me in their lives for what I can do for them rather than for who I am. I believed the lie of rejection – that those who love me now only love me because they don’t fully know me and once they do, they will change their mind and reject me as well. I came to believe that I am not worthy of being truly loved, and if I am not loved by those around me, how could I ever be loved by the Creator of all – by God.

*Important Clarification: What I believed and interpreted from others’ actions is not truth, but simply circumstances and doubts filtered through a lens of pain, loneliness and insecurity. While it is true that a very small handful of people have hurt me and rejected me in significant and painful ways, the greater truth is that God has redeemed and restored many of those relationships and He has blessed me with a mountain of people who deeply and truly love me. I made an agreement in my heart out of pain and loneliness and came to believe that I was unlovable, not because people weren’t loving me, but because I was trying to shield and guard my heart from future pain of being rejected again. I allowed this pain to become a foothold that the devil used at every opportunity to whisper insecurity, doubts and lies. John 10:10a tells us that “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.” When I agreed with the lies which did not align with the Word of God and His truth, I allowed Satan to steal, kill and destroy my trust in God’s love and the love of others. Thankfully, God has never left my side and like the Good Shepherd that He is, He waged war for me and my heart.*

I felt as though I was just out of reach of God’s love; He was reaching out to love me and I was reaching out to Him, but I couldn’t feel His embrace around me – there was something in the way. I started reading through scripture in the Bible that talks about God’s heart and I stepped into vulnerability and shared with my team what I was feeling and wrestling with and they partnered with me in prayer. And last night, God’s truth broke through.

Through my friend Emma, God spoke and told me that He sees me as worthy, filled with His light and Christ in me. God has called me loved, known and chosen and He delights over me. God told me that He is not far from me and nothing could ever separate me from His love. He told me I was a new creation in Him and as that new creation I am worthy of being loved.

God then gave Emma a vision of me standing in a field holding His hand and He was pulling layers off me. And with each layer that fell away, I shone brighter as His love and light poured overflowing from me. My squad mentor Kevin then gave me note unaware of what God had just spoken over me which read : “The Lord delights in you. He loves you dearly. It’s now in your hands to come to terms with the fact. The only price of grace is faith.”

And so I surrendered. I laid down the lies I had agreed with and spoken over myself. I asked for God’s forgiveness for listening to and trusting the opinions of others and myself over His truth. And He continued to forgive me and redeem me, stripping away the lies I had believed and washing over me in His truth.

My friend Josh then came up to me from another room and told me that God was delighted in me taking steps, that while it may be a hard journey, God is beaming down on me in pride as I take steps. Finally God reminded me of my favorite children’s book “You Are Special” by Max Lucado.

In the book the Wemmicks (the characters of the story) give each other sticker dots and stars based off of appearance, talents, and their impressions of each other. Puchinello, the main character, is hurt and frustrated because he only receives dots and comes to believe that he is not a good Wemmick. Then he meets Lucia, a Wemmick with no dots or stars! The marks of the other Wemmicks simply don’t stick to her! Puchinello asks her how, and she tells him that she visits Eli the carpenter every day. Puchinello then goes to visit Eli, and Eli was expecting him! Eli tells Puchinello of how much He loves him and invites him to come and visit each day. As Puchinello leaves, he thinks to himself “I believe Eli was telling the truth” and a dot falls off of him.

Eli the carpenter is God and we are the Wemmicks, as we seek God and His truth the impressions of others no longer stick to us becoming our identity, instead we are formed into a new creation. 1 Samuel 16:7 promises that “The Lord doesn’t see things as you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” I am so thankful that God sees me for who I truly am and in that has called me loved and chosen.

2 Corinthians 5:17 tells me that I have been made into a new creation, “this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” Change typically scares me, but I am so excited to step into the new creation and identity God has for me. And I’m making a commitment to God with all of you as my witnesses to not allow the lies of the enemy to become my identity ever again. 1 John 5:21 says “Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” God speaks truth, light and love into my heart and that’s all I have room for – I’m not going to give His place away.

For many of you, the idea of hearing directly from God or through others and in visions may sound strange and be a foreign concept – I want you to know you’re not alone in that. This is an area in my life that I am also growing in, and it’s so important to me to always check things with God’s truth and His Word. I know that what God spoke over me and through others is truth as it aligns with His Spirit and His Word. Below are some scripture references which align with what He spoke over me:
*Zephaniah 3:17 God is living among us and delights over us
*2 Corinthians 5:17 God makes us a new creation
*Galatians 3:26 I am a Child of God
*1 Thessalonians 1:4 God calls me loved and chosen
*1 John 4:16 God loves me and lives in me
*Romans 5:8 God calls me greatly loved
*Psalm 139:17 God’s thoughts about me are precious
*Romans 3:22; 5:1-2 I have been made right with God through faith
*Romans 8:35-39 Nothing can ever separate us from God’s love
*Psalm 139:1-6 God knows me and is never far from me
*2 Corinthians 4:6-7 God’s light shines in my heart
*Ephesians 2:8-10 I am saved by grace and am His masterpiece
*Matthew 7:7-8 I will find God as I seek Him, He is not hidden from those who seek Him

This is just the beginning of walking in the true identity God has for me and I’m so excited for where He is taking me! As always, thank you so very much for partnering with me in this journey and for truly loving me so well! I’m praying for you and ask that you be praying for me, my team and the Catracho Missions team as well as we are transitioning from Honduras to El Salvador this upcoming week for our first debrief. Thank you! All praise be to God!