Intentional: Accepting What God Offers

+Jeanne Takenaka @JeanneTakenaka

I’ll never forget the day.

I was sitting with a friend at a Quizno’s. She always had a way of speaking truth, even hard truth, with gentleness. And she had the gift of prophecy.

“You have a gaping wound in your heart, Jeanne.”

Nine eye-opening words.

With those words, God opened my spiritual eyes to see the wound and its cause.

Rejection.

 

It was as if her words unlocked memories, gave me understanding as to why I did the things I did. Scenes flashed across the screen of my mind.

Things I’d done . . .

Behaviors I’d made into habits . . .

Beliefs I’d held about myself . . . all because of my fear of being rejected.

I couldn’t get home fast enough to begin journaling all God was showing me.

These words launched me on the lifelong path toward the healing of this wound.

 

I had mastered the art of living in fear, in shame. As if somehow, my being myself as a girl was a shameful thing.

As if living in fear was the only way I could truly live.

This road to healing has been long. I’ve tripped and fallen and failed. I’m learning how to get up, how to live in truth.

 

Part of being able to live intentional is not living from a place of loss, of fear about who or what might be taken from us. Rather, we need to live in a place of trusting God.

And honestly? This has been a process. I thought I was living in that place when my friend spoke those words to me. I see now, I was living in partial truth.

I knew and believed God loved me, but I didn’t truly trust Him with my heart-hurts. I didn’t trust Him enough to bring healing, restoration in my heart. I didn’t think there was a way He could. My gaping wound was just a part of who I was.

 

To live intentional, I need to choose to trust God with my heart, with my people, with my life. Until I can do this, I’m letting fear have the final word in my decisions. I’m allowing fear to dictate my actions.

And shame? Those cruel words spoken, cruel things done to me as a girl . . . yeah, they carved out a huge gap in my heart and filled it with shame. Because I felt ashamed of who I was, I fashioned for myself a mask that obscured the essence of who I was.

 

But this I’m learning, when shame is the filter through which I make my decisions, I’ll never choose the life-giving path God desires for me. I’ll choose what feels safe, invisible, acceptable.

Have I done some wrong things? Most definitely. Does God hold those decisions over my head, His condemnation raining down on me?

Definitely not.

 

God is big enough to forgive my—our—mistakes. Even the huge ones. 

He offers the grace we need to move forward. The question is, will I—will we—accept it? Until we can, we are unable to live an intentional life, a life yielded to Him rather than to fear or shame.

When we accept God’s forgiveness, we live in a place of humility. We begin to understand how much He loves us.

 

It’s from this place that we can take steps toward living an intentional life.

I’ll always thank God for the day my friend spoke those nine words to me. They put me on a life-changing, heart-healing path.

What about you? How do you choose to live a life that is not dictated by fear? What are your thoughts about living above the place of shame?

Click to Tweet: We need to live in a place of trusting God.

Today I’m linking up with Kelly Balarie’s #RaRaLinkup.