You want to be whole and you want to be healthy. You’ve tried, but you’ve failed. We have people who help us, who listen to our story, who give us advice, but we still feel crummy, like a failure, like we will never get better. That’s a sad state to be in. Hope is in short supply.

God cares. He really does care. He doesn’t want you to be lost and alone, neither do I. I’ve written a few posts that may be of help in giving you direction. I’ve despaired. I know the pit can seem bottomless. But God meets you at the bottom. I hope you grab onto Him. He won’t let you fall. Your life is not a failure. You life is a seed ready to sprout to new life. Trust God to help you. I wish you well as you put your hand in the hand of the One who stilled the waters.

Post 1: We Have a Problem (The Deep Healing, Part 1)

Post 2: Accessing What You Need (The Deep Healing, Part 2)

Post 3: Pain in the Hidden Places (The Deep Healing, Part 3)

Post 4: God Does what We Cannot Do (The Deep Healing, Part 4)

Post 5: How the Deep Healing Changes You (Part 5)

Post 6: The Hidden Life (The Deep Healing, Part 6)

Post 7: When Spiritual Awakening Surprises (The Deep Healing, Part 7)

I wish you well. Drop me a line in the comments box and let me know how you are doing.

The Hidden Life

The Christ-life is a hidden life. What happens in secret outworks in public. Who you are in Christ has a lot to do with your inner life. God’s desire is to lift you out of the dungeon of despair into the supernatural light of His presence. In His presence you can experience eternal joy and everlasting love. This provides peace in the soul no matter any circumstance or loss. Like a flame burning, sometimes brightly, other times dimly, Christ provides a constant light for the journey.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. –John 14:27

Christianity can seem sort of rigid and boring or tedious and limiting. Sad to say, a cross-section of church goers have become disenchanted with the same ol’, same ol’. Maybe with good reason. But it’s really not about the church as much as it is about our own spiritual lives. Spiritual life can be rich, lively, life-giving, life altering, genuine and real. When that is the case, it lights a fire in you that will not die down and you will not cave when the going gets tough. That’s why I’ve shared my personal story throughout this series.

When I was on empty was when I became open to be filled. God fueled that with His energy and life. He did it. Like a key turning on with a resounding movement forward, from dull to lively, God enlivens the soul. His grace and goodness awakens you in places you did not know you had. This spirit fueled enlivening cannot be quenched. You may falter, but He never stumbles. He may be quiet with a heavenly silence, but you know he’s there. He teaches us to trust as he makes our faith into sight. A surprising twist of events comes when you awaken to God’s presence and sense Him being with you. It’s not unusual to talk to Him throughout day.

Christ is the answer, I mean, Christ IS the answer. No question. Father, Son, and Spirit offer more than we have come to expect. But there is a catch. You have to want it. Life can drag you along as you dredge through its nastiness. You wonder if you’ve got what it takes to manage it. Right? Been there, done that?

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you don’t have what it takes, at least, you don’t in the flesh. But God does, He has what it takes. Yahoo! When you lean into God and truly trust Him for the journey, that’s when you discover that you can manage it. You can give it to Him and be at rest with it. Christ is living bread, water, and life.

I have a friend, a pastor’s wife, who can teach us what it is to depend on God in the hard times. She has two types of lymphoma and is still here after a year of fighting it. This month she posted a video on Facebook where she talks about her illness. She smiles and jokes, and thanks and praises God that she’s still here. I look at her and see joy despite the suffering. She lost weight and hair but she’s not lost her smile. That’s the Jesus touch.

A mind focused on Christ has strength.

Christ carries us through. Love, grace, goodness, strength, courage, and hope are some of the Christ-life benefits we can always tap and rely on. Christ is in this with us. This is cause for rejoicing. He WILL NEVER forsake us. Never.

Christ is the answer to what troubles the world. The sufferer can know Christ’s presence and be encouraged by His peace. Christ can break areas of bondage and rebuild broken lives. He can. I’ve seen Him do it. Troubles don’t disappear, but you are not alone in going through them.

Rebecca Davis blogs at Here’s the Joy. Recently she posted a three part series on sanctification and parts of her own spiritual journey from fundamentalism to enlivened faith. First she presents how Christians mistake striving for spiritual living, which it is not. The link to the first post in her series is here. Part 3 is my favorite. She explains what I am trying to explain quite well and with a compliment of supporting verses. For further study, I recommend you read them.

I close out this series feeling I have failed to communicate well why my heart sings. I leave you with this. Your faith can be living faith besides saving faith. A deep reservoir below the surface of common faith awaits for you to plunge into its depth. There you will partake of Christ’s abundant life. Amen.

Possibly, a video of me talking about my transformation would be welcome (if you’ve not seen it before). I used my IPad to film it since I had no other means of doing so back in 2013.  It makes the point in a different way, how God uses what He teaches us to benefit others.

We’re in this together. All of us are works in progress. May God richly bless you in your spiritual journey.

How sweet it is.

Part 1 of The Deep Healing series starts here.

My Transformation

My deliverance was one of many steps. My willingness to be real with God translated into something beautiful being born in me. God knew me better than I knew myself. Like for all of you, the hurts in my life had a way of piling up. Christians are adept at hiding these wounds. We wear masks. Many are skilled at praying as they ask God to help them with the tough stuff. This is good, but it is not everything. You have to go ‘further still’ and go deeper to where you live under the surface of the normal, the expected. The cool thing happens when you access the hidden part. The hidden part is the transformation on the inside where no-one else can see. This is the most freeing of all.

God is waiting for you. You need to take action. I once heard it said that you may think you are waiting on God, when, actually, it is the other way around. God is waiting on you. God waits for you to stop demanding, to stop doing it your way, to start listening, to begin believing, and to trust Him and His way in order to bring it to pass. He leads. You follow. It starts with intention.

Intentional Choice

I made a list of requests for God’s eyes only. You can see my list here. I asked God to change, heal, and fix me. I asked for truth and joy. I surrendered the rest of my life to God. I vowed to use whatever God would teach me for the benefit of helping others. I meant it and lived it. After months of seeking God, I began to access His healing grace. God began to change my life. Here is how it happened for me.

A Natural Sequence

• I pursue God and truth.
• God refreshes the inner me.
• Joy enters.
• A new me is emerging.
• I am aware of God’s presence.
• I learn to listen as God teaches me.
• I meditate and ponder everything.
• I contemplate Scripture while writing in a journal.
• Spiritual transformation is causing an awakening.
• Life has a new quality to it.

The Deep Healing

During this time God was at work in me. He was doing a marvelous cleansing, healing, and teaching. God became personal and close to me. I was partaking of His joy, loving-kindness, and strength. His life was alive in my life. I became more aware of my sin, wrong thinking, and lacks. He began to show me my hidden stuff, where I was blind, that He might help me become free of it. He cleansed and nurtured my inner being. God comforted my darkest of sorrows and lifted my deepest of wounds to the light of His glory.

One spiritual experience changed my life forever. The deep healing began in full earnest at this point. Like I said in earlier posts, I asked God to change me and to heal me, although I did not know if it was proper to ask such a request of God. A few weeks later I was walking in the orchard when a memory came to me. It was a painful memory that still hurt some twenty years later. God put it to rest. God healed my fractured heart that day by removing its sorrow and pain, the ache that had been buried for most of my married life.

Next, I share with you what I wrote in my journal that same day.

Journal Reflection 2003

First revisiting of the past

To begin this process of walking through the pains of the past by remembering their hurt and then offering them to God; I went back to the beginning, those first few weeks of marriage when I realized that R and I were not going to have the close marriage fellowship I had envisioned and I felt the lack of bonding together, and the aloneness I felt.  I remembered how at the time I realized that my marriage was probably a big mistake, how I regretted my choice.  I also remembered my determination to put my marriage in God’s hands.  For 21 years that was the way it had been.

I allowed myself to feel, to remember that terrible day, when Josh was a baby, when R. told me he was leaving because it just wasn’t working out, how he didn’t love me or have feelings for me, and the doubts he had before we wed.  I remembered my disbelief and crying as I begged him to not leave.  The pain of these memories was so intense that I wept so hard my heart just hurt.  I asked God to release me from their pain.  I felt exhausted, depleted of all energy.

After the tears subsided the beauty of the trees and creation spoke to me.  As I stood there the memory of the biblical character Job and his intense suffering and faithfulness touched me.  I thought about Job and I felt comforted.  I want to listen for His communion when I finish this.  I think the hard part of that experience so long ago was feeling unwanted and having my dreams crumble before me.  I’m so thankful for the encouragers he brought into my life.  There was always someone who came along side of me and gave me the gift of friendship. End quote. Summer, 2002

The Deep Healing

That started the deep healing in me. It put me on the path to finding fullness of joy. A few days later I noticed an absence in me. After thinking on it a few minutes, I realized what it was, the inner ache was gone. I didn’t feel like crying anymore. The sadness had lifted. The pain had lessened. And the sorrow was no more. Simply gone. It has never returned.

I sought God for truth, joy, healing, and change. God met me where I hurt, where I was needy. He ministered accordingly. For my part, it took letting go, sincerity, openness, willingness, intentionality, and the beginnings of a heart and soul surrendering as best it could to God. Basically, I put God on the throne of my life and trusted Him with the rest. This became a new journey into life, truth and joy. The deep healing was and is a renewal process that draws me in close to my loving heavenly Father.

. . . . . .

Next Week, Part 7, will conclude this series. I am eager to share with you the benefits of the deep healing. This is what excites me the most. Much good happens when a person’s beliefs become tender truths lived under the feathers of His wings. It is like a deep well that never goes dry, like living water where one never thirsts again.

See you next week.

Part 7 of The Deep Healing can be found here.