Gesuschic

Every morning is a new day, laying in bed hitting snooze for the third time.
It’s right there.
What I now know as the dreaded taunting of a Christian’s worst nightmare.
Strongholds.
They suck.
A few weeks ago Pastor Matt spoke on them and for the very first time I realized I didn’t even know what they actually were. Crazy, growing up in a Christian home and yet here I am a grown woman clueless as to my worst adversary.
This past Saturday Matt spoke more on our  fiery fiending enemies and explained in detail their meaning and goal.  Their point of attack is the soul.
Three parts: Body, Soul and Spirit.
My soul is just broken.
Sometimes I get so excited in the Spirit I could almost cart-wheel back to Worthington on Saturday nights but then it happens…One right after another…
“You will never be good enough.”
I cannot remember a time in my life to where this l’il phrase has not bounced back and forth in the crevice of my mind finding its way to the depths of my soul and took up house.
“You always fuck things up…”
A penny for the countless times I’ve heard this, and I’d be a Hilton.
So much so that people have actually told me that my good intentions always lead to chaos because, well…”that’s just you Cheryl.”
I’ve always had that feeling of anything that I touch turns to mud. No matter what I do.
I love so hard yet it always seems to find its way gone from me…
People leave me…whether by choice or in death either way I end up all by myself trying to figure what in the hell just happened. I get this feeling as if I bother people and I’m over extending my welcome.
I’m expendable.
The problem with all of those things is that it has seeped its nasty way right into my relationship with the Lord.
“Normal” people think “what if”s” from losing their jobs to not getting a degree to a loan falling through whatever! Me? Oh no…my cluster of fear is the big “what if” God thinks of me like all of those thoughts I mentioned?
He thinks I’m not good enough.
I’ll just screw that up for Him…
The worship band played this song with the words “He loves us…” and everything was all fine and dandy until they changed up the words to say “He loves me…” and I was all in the moment.
Hands raised,
face in the air,
and I couldn’t do it. I could not sing those words.
God continuously moves His wave of grace over my life yet here I stand, and I can’t sing those words.
Am I a disappointment? My biggest pet peeve is having to prove to people I love them but yet I ask God to do so on a daily. As if  giving His only begotten Son wasn’t enough.
Confidence of who I am in Christ is lacking and it’s overwhelming to me.
I am so broken.
I am so broken.
I am so broken.
Sometimes I lay in bed and I feel as though my soul is just dying piece by piece.
Church was Saturday and Sunday night the words of Pastor Matt are still roaming through my heart and mind.
I need to re condition my thinking. My thoughts…
Stop letting them get the best of me.
I might as well grab a fiery dart and commit spiritual suicide if I allow myself to keep going on like this.
I feel as though I’m on a ledge and God is reaching out His hand and I’m that helpless damsel whose afraid to let go of the side of the building about to cave in, when safety and security is RIGHT THERE. But I NEED to MOVE. The crazy ironic part is…In order to “save myself” from falling…I have to let go.
In order not to die in the fire sometimes you have to walk through it to get out.
How frightening .
The last thing I want is a stagnant salvation.
After Saturday the words “old soul” have a completely new meaning to me. People who have one must have fought through major fiery darts thrown in their direction.
But as Pastor Matt went on to say “You have a story…” and I do.
As a child walking through a street of gunfire and never being harmed.
A heart-valve replacement gone bad to the point I should have been dead and the cardiologist was in awe at me sitting in his office…My Ezra is an actual vision brought to life, my Serenity was an unplanned TESTIMONY of God’s precious grace, standing in the middle of Heartsong feeling the amazing anointing of an awesome God for the first time in my life…The mere fact my mothers Doctor NEVER heard MY heartbeat and encouraged her to end the pregnancy…I HAVE countless story’s of why I am and who I am meant to be and those are my reminders that those strongholds have no place to torment my already broken soul. Every single story outlined in mercy, touched by grace is a jab right back at the enemy.
I’ve also been told that my “glass half full mind-set is unrealistic. You need to be more of a realist.”
No.
Never…
I believe that with the “tearing down of strongholds” you need to be the dreamer…because they are the spiritually broken so desperate for atonement that even with a heavy heart and a wounded soul you can begin your story again.
My body is tired, my Spirit is thirsty…but I’m starting to put band aids to cover each wound of attack on my soul. Each and every one is a story of how I came to be in the strength of Jesus, and one day…there is no doubt I’ll be able to sing those three l’il words with every confidence of Heaven, “He loves me…”
I may be broken but by no means whatsoever am I defeated.

Cheryl~
^{2 Corinthians 10:4 (KJV) “}For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”

WRITTEN: January 2012

Church was so beautiful Sunday. It’s funny, I would never have thought Matt Rice would one day be my Pastor when I was wind millin’ my hair front and center watching his band rock out at the Al Rosa 20 some years ago. But that’s why God is so cool and awesome. The things you could never imagine, He…can bring to life. When you’re a Christian actually walking in the presence of the Holy Spirit life is always moving forward with each step a leap out of the boat and onto the water, yet your whole mind set is within a complete peace. I haven’t felt that in a VERY long time. Circumstance, anger and bitterness creeps at every corner, every doorway lurking, waiting for a way in and sadly sometimes it finds itself nestled in your spirit and it happens. 
You begin to die. 
Spiritually, just…dying. 
Crazy how you don’t even realize it happens. Bitterness for a Believer is like Cancer. If not treated you just begin to completely shut down. 
Before you know it you are too weak to eat, function…and eventually just die. For a long time I could tell it was happening but by the point I did I really didn’t care. As Pastor Matt said: “your dreams have died.” Sooo true man…Before, I was so excited thinking how God was going to move next and now…eh…I remember when…
I totally hate that feeling. 
When I’m not close to God I am totally miserable. Anyone who knows me can see it all over my face. It’s hard when you allow that bitterness to take over how you also become estranged from allowing yourself to be …GULP…vulnerable. (GASP!) But I do miss it though. I miss having confidence in the fact that no matter WHAT life has for me GOD will be my security. In loss…happiness…grief…everyday living. These past two weeks have been such an eye opener for me. It is SO crucial to CLING to Jesus. In EVERY situation of my life. 
Good times, bad times…ALWAYS CLING TO JESUS because man, life can change and in an INSTANT your whole entire world can be thrown into a loop. I hated having that happen while being out of the will of the Father. Reason being was because it was no longer a concern about GOD’S WILL yet MY OWN. I have JOY in the fact God is God, and I’m NOT Him 🙂 Everything Pastor Matt talked about Sunday was totally for me. I just knew it too. I knew God was waiting for me…My spiritual bones have been dead and stagnant for so long I was almost too embarrassed to even go to church last Sunday. Yet at the same time I couldn’t lay there dying forfeiting my destiny. Pastor Matt talked about so many important factors on The Gate Church Sunday but the thing I walked away with was the fact I STILL serve a God of do~over’s, A just God who is all for restoration and grace. There is no doubt in my mind that I serve a SOVEREIGN Holy God who isn’t waiting for me to fail, yet encouraging me to get back up and get moving again. 
Have I fallen before?
Shit man, who hasn’t? But guess what? “DO OVER!!!” And there is Jesus, in the MIDDLE of my storm, my RAGING sea waiting for me to step up out of the boat and focus my eyes on Him.
I feel refreshed. Blessed He has brought me this far despite myself. 
What is your sea? 
What is raging against you?
Finances, love, employment, it can be anything, whatever it is…Screw it man! You CAN’T make it through without God. Without focusing in on Jesus. It’s scary starting over man…But dude that is GRACE. 
Children have to learn to crawl before they can walk. I’m starting over in my relationship with Jesus and trust me for the past 6 years I have been crawling my way toward Him but Sunday…I took a step. Monday another, Tuesday…Wednesday…Every single day I feel stronger and stronger and it won’t ever be like it was before. But that’s okay. This is NEW wine. the open invitation Jesus laid before me has been accepted and my glass has been REFRESHED. 
Today is here, I can’t change the past by any means but I can raise my glass, link arms with Christ as we toast to my dead bones brought to life and my dreams becoming alive again. He is faithful…so faithful…Praise the Lord  for real men of God and their obedience to the calling in their lives! there are NO coincidences people! There is reason for everything. You NEVER know what God is doing so just “go with it” have confidence He is in control and the faith to believe He knows what He’s doing 😉 


SELAH, \o/
CHERyL