The Encouragement!

I have met with the Master Gardener in the Center of My Garden, earlier. This was my time to get refreshed and pour out my heart to him. I met with him again a while later:

“Lord what are you interested in doing and speaking to me and or through me?” “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” “I will continue to follow you and love, but I am leaving behind compromise and self doubt/condemnation. Bind up my wounds Holy Spirit. Give me the words and acts to expose, but bind up others. I want to move in you. Will you move in and through me?” “Yes, now pray!” “Yes Lord!”

Yesterday and today I had written down 1 Peter4:12,13 and my eyes were drawn to it as I spoke to the Lord this morning: Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. I can not express to you the encouragement this brought to me and the fact that the Holy Spirit had the scripture catch my eye and I had forgotten what it was. I also rejoice in the fact that I am hearing him and following him, because above all else I need this.

For me, it isn’t a mater of forgiveness, for I have forgiven and I will continue to, it is that it has been difficult to move ahead and see and act on truth around me, while things are not completely changed. I have learned to continue to be me, but I have to stop indulging some of my traits, the good ones. In some seasons and places it only hinders our seeing and moving past what others have shown us. I have learned to stop saying that I am confused and begun to say “I see clearly” and I will act as I need to in order to stay out of confusion and not perpetuating the cycles. I ask the Master Gardener several times a day to help me. And I am using that forgiveness strength I posses to forgive myself. Finally, I just want to add that once again that it is not about forgiveness alone, it is about letting people be who they have chosen to be and giving them to God. To stop rescuing and giving excuses and then believing and trusting God to work in them and for them, if they ever really want the freedom. God doesn’t need us to be perfect, though he will perfect us Himself, he needs us to stop hiding from the truth and face it with him. Sometimes the hardest thing to face is what we have become, or those we love. It is so much better to face things as we can and then heal and leave the old behind. God specializes in restoration, my life has been so transformed and I may have struggle I am coming out of, but I look nothing like I used too!!!!!