Ch. 1 Continued and on to Ch. 2

"Dim vision ages us rapidly, and we lose the child likeness that once made us feel like real princes and princesses in a kingdom.  We can be young and yet feel old.  Heavy laden.  Burdened.  In a pit where vision is lost and dreams are foolishness."
Beth Moore


WHEN YOU'RE THROWN INTO THE PIT

Chapter 2 will be read a second time.  So many nuggets in that chapter, it's hard to say one good read of it is enough.  So much to soak up and in.
Thrown into the pit....hmmm sometimes you are thrown into the pit by circumstances or other people.  So as I read, I began to just go over in my mind the ways I've been thrown into this pit.  The loss of loved ones...my father, mother, and brother.  The abandonment from my husband.  The abandonment at the hands of my father through divorce.  The abuse I endured as a child at the hands of strangers and friends of the family.  Allowing others to speak into my life things that are condemning and then believing those words.  Never belonging or fitting in.  And the result of those pits now includes anger, bitterness, blame (self & others and yes, I've blamed God), and unforgiveness (towards self and others).  These things continue to hold me in the pit and dig it deeper and deeper.
How does one get free from all of this???  This is a job for a super God as I allow Him into my heart and life to help pull these things out of me and allow His healing balm to soothe over those broken areas.  This is not an overnight process.  It is not a snap your fingers and it's done kinda thing....though I know God can do that if He chooses to.  However, I think this healing process is going to be gradual and I have no time table for that, but I do want it to be complete.

Joseph was also thrown into a pit and his brothers then sat down to eat.  Now because I'm a visual, this is what I envision.  Here he comes along, he's been bragging, teasing, and rubbing in their faces these dreams he's had.  Not to mention that his father favors him.  He's a spoiled brat.  I think of a pesky little brother doing any and everything to get on my nerves and entice me to knock him upside the head so he can run and tell and I get into even more trouble.  Never mind that he's been asking for it for some time.  Now here he goes to "check up" on them.
"Go Joseph and see what they are up to".  "If they are really doing what I told them and report back to me".
Now he's out there in his colorful coat....further hammering in that he is the favored one.  They want to kill him, but one brother says no, let's not kill him.  Let's just put him in this pit and leave him to die.  That way there isn't really blood on our hands.  Then a caravan of people (I like to think they were gypsies...I have a vivid imagination) come along and they decide let's make money off of him.  We'll sell him into slavery.  Meanwhile, he's begging for mercy, for freedom, he's apologizing like no one's business, he wants to just go home.  However, God gave him a vision, even if he did rub it in their faces.  He had a purpose and a plan to use Joseph to bring about greatness and bring God glory.  Never in a million years did he think he'd have to suffer all of this for his dreams to become a reality.

It is hard to believe that God can and will take all my mess and turn it around for something great.  It's hard to believe that what someone did out of evil, spite, greed, or sickness, God will use to minister to someone else.  It's also hard to believe that I am my own worst enemy and holding myself in this pit through my anger, bitterness, blame, and unforgiveness.

At times this all seems so trivial to me, because I know all this.  So how on God's green earth did I allow myself to be put in this pit and how do I allow myself to hold myself here through all that garbage?  Not rendering excuses, just telling what I know to be true...when you are bombarded with tragedy after tragedy and you never have a moment to process one before you are hit with another tragedy, you can get overwhelmed and eventually you kinda throw your hands up and begin to sink in the quick sand of life's troubles and before you know it, you can't remember how you got there nor how to get out and when you do finally start getting a glimpse of light the slope is so slippery you slip back in due to non-monumental issues of life.

I had a dream of opening an orphanage and owning 100 acres to have my own little community for young people who have been told by the world "you're 18 and grown...go live life" and yet they have no clue how to do that.  I haven't dreamed that dream in a long time, so why did it cross my mind today in the midst of all this mess I'm in????  Only God knows.
I'm off to read chapter 2 again, with highlighter in hand and Bible in tow.

Thank you for praying and allowing me to be real!

Get Out of That Pit...Ch. 1

Before I go further, I wanted to impress that the pushing of my buttons was not people letting me know what my children were posting on Facebook.  I no longer have Facebook and so I greatly appreciate when people contact me out of concern.  The pushing of my buttons is that I KNOW the enemy is doing ALL he can to ensnare my children.....

I decided not to post on Chapter 1 yesterday, but to just meditate on yesterdays message from church as well as to re-read chapter 1.  I'm still re-reading.  It's not a long chapter, but I'm taking it extra slow.

In the couple of pages I read the first time, tears streamed down my face.  Tears of understanding.  When we think of a pit, as Christians, we more than likely associate it with a pit of sin.  That we are in our despair because of sin.  Now for the most part, that may be true, but as I read on, it seemed to me that the 3 different ways of getting into the pit she describes are all ways I've gotten in.  The sad thing is that so many of us are in this pit and we've begun to decorate it and try to make the most of it and be content.

However, I'm like Beth, I think there are just some things we aren't supposed to be content with and being in the pit is #1!!!

"A pit is an early grave that Satan digs for you in hopes he can bury you alive.  Should you fall into it, make no mistake; he cannot make you stay.  Ironically, neither will God make you leave.  Like it or not, some things are simply up to us.  (This statement will become clearer in another chapter)

Psalms 40:1-3 says I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifter me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

When all is said and done, this will be my victory message...

She says you know you are in a pit when.....

1. You feel stuck...Isaiah 42:22  This describes me.  I have felt like surely I did something to deserve to get here so I might as well make the most of it and deal with it.

2. You can't stand up...Psalm 69:2  I feel ineffective and powerless against the attacks of the enemy.

3.  You've lost vision...I can tell you this is a dark place, this pit.  There is no vision here.  I look around with a fleeting moment of hope and then suddenly all hope is gone.  Not able to see a way out, I turn inward.  She says "We can't see out, so we turn our sights in.  After a while, nearsightedness breeds hopelessness.  We feel too buried in our present state to feel passionate about a promised future."

THIS IS ME!!!!  THIS IS ME!!!!  Finally, someone understands!!!!!

There is one thing I know, I want out of this pit!  I want my freedom back!  I have not understood the pit, but I have prayed and told God I felt like I was in a grave, a dark place.  There is darkness all around and at times there are glimmers of light, but after you've been digging in the muck for so long, you're too tired to even try and fight for the bit of light you see or you try and you enjoy it for a moment and the enemy hits you with something else and you topple back down to the bottom.  After you've been struck down so many times, you get too tired to even dig and you sit there trying to make the best of it and be content.  And yet I'm constantly saying, Lord this does not feel like the abundant life you promised.  And by that, I don't mean EVERY moment will be sunshine, but it will far outweigh the gloom.  I have fleeting moments of sunshine and the gloom is eating me alive.

I can say I fully understand what my mother went through the last year of her life for sure, but she didn't know how to describe it nor was I fully capable of understanding what she could describe.

This is no cake walk, it is definitely a war.  It is a spiritual war and the enemy is out to steal, kill, and destroy.  He doesn't let up either.  He is relentless until we give up or we FINALLY get to that place of victory through Christ Jesus.  The victory has already been won, you say.  I say it has and I agree, but there is a battle in the spirit realm and in my mind.  The battle is ongoing and I'm fighting for my life!!!!  Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.  The only thing is.....we never know how long the night will last!!!!  As for me, THIS HAS BEEN A LONG NIGHT and I'm ready to wake up!

Thanks for allowing me to be honest.

I'm almost beginning to wonder if this book and Joyce Meyers book...The Battlefield of the Mind should be read simultaneously!!!  

A Journey Out of That Pit...

I'd like to invite you into my heart, my life, my journey.  I've described a darkness that I've been in that is so oppressive and dark that my very life seems as though it would be snuffed out and at my own hands at that.

I feel a moment of a glimmer of light and within days, sometimes hours, I can be right back in that pit.  I've long since named it, but naming something doesn't mean you get the full meaning of what it is you've named.  (I know it seems I'm going in circles, but stay with me.)
Just a few days ago, I shared how God allowed me to come up out of the despair of depression and darkness.  I felt victorious, as we all should when God brings us through something.  However, I didn't know that just a day or two later I would plunge head first back into that pit.  It started with a thought and I brushed it off.  Then I got a text message about something one of my kids put on Facebook.  (The enemy KNOWS just what it is that will send you over the edge.  He KNOWS how to push your buttons).  Then I got another message about something I had been praying for regarding one of my daughters and saw things slipping from my grip.  I began to speak doubt to myself.  I began to believe lies and replace them for God's truths.  I sent my kids away to my sisters...they were enjoying a sleep over they thought, while I was sinking in the miry clay.
But God does NOT desire any of us to be defeated.  He sacrificed someone so great to conquer defeat so that we wouldn't be subjected to it.

I don't know about any of you, but when I'm depressed, I don't want to be around anyone.  I don't want to talk to anyone.  I just want to be left alone.  However, God had other plans for me today.  My kids wanted to go to the mall.  Anyone that knows me, knows I absolutely loath the mall.  I can't explain it, but I HATE THE MALL.  I totally dislike shopping, unless it's for sewing stuff or books.  So I dropped them off at the mall for an all day excursion and I went to the library, a Christian book store, and JoAnn's Fabric.  LOL
I absolutely had no money to spare, but went to "window shop".  I looked and looked and looked all around.  Enjoying the sights in Mardel's (the Christian book store).  I read quotes on cups, plates, pictures, t-shirts, I looked at their Christmas items and wandered through the kids section.  I remember walking and looking at the big wall art and reading the scriptures and saying aloud to Lord, I want this freedom that these quotes speak of.  I began crying silent tears in regards to the freedom that evades me, and begging God to help me do something.  I said "I know Your word says I can have life more abundantly, I don't want to wait to get to heaven to have it, that's not what Your word promises.  I don't want to live in hell on earth before I get to enjoy Your glory in heaven.  I want it to manifest here on earth and be magnified in heaven!!!!!
I then went to browse the books.  They have expensive books, but they also have bargain books sometimes for $1, $3, $5, and so forth.  I saw a few things that caught my eye, but knew I didn't have the funds to buy any of them.  So I just grazed the pages of some of them.  Then it happened, my eye caught sight of a book for $8.  I read the title again.  I had heard her do a Bible study on a television show regarding this same book.  I read the title again and immediately snatched up the LAST book and put it in my basket.  I took the $8 from my grocery money to buy this book.
Get Out of That Pit by Beth Moore.
This woman is a phenomenal teacher and so real and down to earth.  I've seen/heard her in person several times and each time I am always riveted in my seat listening to her speak.

I began reading her book and I hardly ever read the acknowledgements or foreword, but tonight I read even that.  Then I began to pray and pour my heart out to God.  Lord, You can use any song, any person, any book to bring me out of this pit.  I just pray You get me out of the pit.  I read chapter 1 and FINALLY I can't put things into some semblance of understanding for MYSELF and not feel like I'm going crazy!!!!  SHE GETS THIS PIT THING!!!!!!!!!!!  It's easy for us to see someone going through something and share what we would do, say, think, etc.  It's a whole different story when someone has walked the road and wore the shoes!

So, on that note, I welcome you on this journey I'm taking.  Don't bash, don't criticize, don't belittle, but PLEASE PRAY!!!  I will share as much as the Lord allows, and I pray someone else gets out of this pit right along side me.  I wish there were several of us reading this together, but maybe this is a journey God has me on by myself...and for good reason.

I'll share what I've learned from chapter 1 in tomorrow's post, but for now, I thank you for allowing me to be blunt and honest!!!  I'm ready to strip off the masks and tell it like it is!