Becoming Untangled from Fear

I recently had the opportunity to watch Disney's newest movie Tangled.  My family and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and it is currently vying with Cinderella for my favorite Disney movie ever.  One of the reasons it ranks so highly, is because Rapunzel with her green eyes and golden hair reminds me of my own  blond green-eyed princess Mercea.  The other reason it resonates with me is because it opened my eyes to some of the things going on in my own life spiritually right now.  There are two scenes which I would like to share with you.

Background: In case you haven't seen the movie here is a little background.  Tangled is a story about Rapunzel with her long golden hair.  She was born a princess and her hair had magical powers which could bring healing.  As a baby she was kidnapped by an evil woman, Gothel, and placed in a tower so high she could never get free.  Gothel kidnapped Rapunzel because the power of Rapunzel's hair keeps Gothel young forever.  Rapunzel grows up believing that Gothel is her mother.  Gothel tells her that she must never leave the tower because of evil people would mistreat her and use her for her hair. Rapunzel longs to enter the world she sees from her tower but her trust in her "mother" Gothel keeps her locked up in the tower.

Scene 1: There is one scene in the movie when Rapunzel leaves the tower for the first time in her life.  She has felt called to the outside world but is torn because she feels she is rebelling against her mother.  The scene cuts back and forth between the different emotions Rapunzel feels:

She is dancing  and doing cartwheels in a field of flowers.

The next second she is crying because she is afraid.  She remembers all the things her "mother" would tell her about why she must stay locked up in the tower.

The next second she is running and screaming with joy "I'm free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The next second she is feeling like the worst person in the world for leaving the tower.

This continues on for several rounds but you get the idea.  Perhaps it's a female thing but I could totally relate.  Before my season of rest, fear was beginning to have a strong hold in my life.  I've been dealing with the fear of death, the fear of failure, the fear of loving my family with abandonment and more.  During my time off I've dealt with all the emotions Rapunzel experienced.  I love being free and God would speak to me about being free and my heart would leap for joy.  Later, however, the places of fear would remind me why I want to stay locked up and not care anymore.  It has been a back and forth emotional teeter-totter as God has been wooing me out of fear into trusting Him.

Scene 2:  This scene was the most powerful scene for me because it "revealed the face of fear" to me.  Rapunzel eventually realizes that Gothel is not her true mother and as it dawns on her she tells Gothel:

"All along you have been telling me that you kept me

 here to protect me from others,

while the truth of the matter is that you

were keeping me here for your own selfish gain."

That was extremely eye-opening for me.  Rapunzel had believed everything Gothel had been telling her because she believed Gothel was telling her those things to protect her.  She realizes, however, that Gothel only said those things to protect herself and it has nothing to do Rapunzel's own good. As you know, I believe we are in a spiritual battle with the enemy.  The words from this scene revealed the motives of the enemy.  He absolutely loves it when we choose to let fear reign in our lives because it keeps us holed up and out of his way.  Yes, fear can masquerade for a while as something good and something that protects you but soon you begin to realize that this isn't where you belong.  As I heard this, it helped me to see that living in these places of fear is not for my good or benefit it is actually for the enemy's benefit and he would more than love to keep whispering these lies and keeping me entangled for his gain.

Whenever God reveals to me the lies I've been living under I ask Him to replace that area with His truth.  So here is what the voice of Truth has to say about fear:

2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of fear,

 but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Romans 8:15

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves,

 so that you live in fear again;

rather, the Spirit

 you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

John 10:2-3

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.



In Christ,

Book Review: Costly Grace

I recently has an opportunity to do a book review on Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship by Jon Walker.  As you probably remember, I am a huge fan of Bonhoeffer.  After reading his biography I wanted to read The Cost of Discipleship and my husband bought it for me.  I tried to read it but it was often way above my head.  I thought to myself, it would be great if someone would rewrite this in a contemporary version so that it could be more understandable.  Lo and behold, a couple months later the publisher contacted me to see if I wanted to review a contemporary version of the Cost of Discipleship.  Yeah!!!!!  So onto the review:) 

I would not consider this book a "modern rewrite" of the The Cost of Discipleship but rather a book that uses The Cost of Discpleship as a springboard for the author to share his own thoughts.  The Cost of Discpleship was Bonhoeffer's thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount and his application to life as he saw it in his contemporary time.  Many of the situations don't apply to today, which was why I was often lost while reading it.  In Costly Grace, Walker takes the main princples and ideas of Bonhoeffer and applies them to modern day life.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and got a lot out of it.  It is one of my most underlined books to date and it gave me a lot to think about.  It was also encouraging, because I felt it enhanced and deepened my road to understanding how God's beautiful gift of grace applies to the everyday reality of our lives.  I agreed with the author on all of the principles that he shared but there were several times where I didn't draw the same conclusions as to how those principles would be applied to modern day life.  I highly recommend the book and you will probably be hearing more from it blog posts to come.

In Christ,

Guest Post: Never Say Never

This post is a guest post from my cousin Amanda.  On January 6, 2010 her precious daughter Layla Rae went to be with the Lord after 34 minutes of life on earth.  Her story can be found at: http://preciouslittlebabygirl.blogspot.com/.  Thanks again Amanda for sharing your story.

So I have to be really honest. I have really learned so much from these past few months. Especially when it comes to talking about children and absolutes!!



A young couple came looking for an apartment along with their 2 year old son. To me he was behaving very well while his parents asked questions and looked at some apartments. Later on in the office the little boy was trying to sneak a glass of water from our water dispenser. The mom quickly snapped at him and then very frustrated said to me “never have kids!”


At that moment I wanted to say…I would give anything to have my daughter back!


She did not know that just 6 weeks ago I had to say good bye to my beautiful and perfect Layla.




At that moment I realized how quick we are to wish that our current situation would somehow be different than what it is now.


She wished that she didn’t have to ‘mess’ with her son.


While I was wishing I could just hold her for one more minute!!


Have you ever caught yourself saying that about your children?
Wishing that they would stop making so much noise,
stop asking so many questions or just needing too much attention from you?


Can you imagine coming home to a house where it was one child quieter,
where there were no more questions being asked, or no one begging
you to ‘come see this mom/dad!!’


I know sometimes we say stuff in haste, but just be mindful of those
(like us) who have lost their child or even those who can never have children!!!

Amanda

4 Special Ladies

I'm still on my season of rest but I wanted to republish this post that I wrote last year.  It has been slightly revised and you will find out why if you make it to the end:

This week (10/09) in my Breaking Free study we were looking back at generational strongholds. This passage was based on Exodus 20:5-6:

for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,

punishing the children for the sin of the fathers

to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

but showing love to a thousand {generations}

of those who love me and keep my commandments.

While the study was primarily focused on the negative aspects it did also address the second half of the verse of showing love to a thousand generations. I personally have had a lot more blessing in my life from my generations than negative and it is because of 4 incredible women in my family heritage. So this is something I've wanted to do for awhile and so today on one of my special lady's birthday I want to say thank you for my godly heritage!

Special Lady One: My Grandma Bernadine

My Grandma had sparkly eyes, a strong spirit and a happy smile. She always looked old to me with lots of wrinkles on her face and white hair. She was the best. As I've learned more about her story I appreciate so much more who she was and what she overcame to show us the love of God.

Grandma had 6 children, which the last 2 were twins! That in itself is a lot, but she raised all of her children primarily on her own as her first husband was abusive and divorced her when the children were young. My Grandma raised 6 children as a single mother and she worked as a teacher. During one period of her life she worked an hour away from home so her work days were a minimum of 10 hours a day, plus 6 children to take care of by herself. But my Grandma knew who her God was and she served Him all the days of her life. She couldn't sing a note in tune, but she was in her church choir and faithfully attended church. My Grandma was a prayer warrior and I know she prayed for each of us by name, and I know I am still receiving the blessings from her prayers.

To give you an idea of the strength of my Grandma she died of lung cancer 2 and a half weeks after being diagnosed because she didn't go to the doctor for being sick. The only reason we probably found out she had cancer was because she visited us for Thanksgiving and when my mom heard the way she was breathing she took her to the doctor. I remember visiting her in the hospital a week and a half before she died and she wanted to prove to the doctor she was strong enough to go home. She literally jumped out of bed (at age 85, and only about 4 feet 10 inches) and was pushing on the doctors hand to show how strong she was (even though she was having great trouble breathing). During that visit she talked about how she was teaching Hebrews to her Bible study and had been studying the Matthew Henry Concordance in preparation (it's a huge book). Finally, being the last time I would see her concious, she sang to me: "He's still working on me, to make me what He wants me to be..." She was an amazing, strong Christian woman and I feel very humbled to have her in my family line.

Special Lady Number 2: Aunt Ethel

Aunt Ethel was my Grandma Bernadine's sister (so she's technically my great aunt). She died last month (8/09) at the ripe old age of 100 just days after her 100th birthday. She too was an incredible woman of God whose eyes shined of a daughter who knew who she was even after all she had been through. Now I can't find my fact sheet so I might be a little off on numbers because I'm going off of memory but my great aunt had an incredibly hard life. She was married on her 18th birthday because her father wouldn't let her get married a day before that and she didn't want to wait a day after that! She had a beautiful first son and everything was fine. But after that tragedy began to strike. My great aunt was RH-negative before the doctors knew what RH-negative was. She subsequently lost 9 children shortly after childbirth because of it. Only one of her other children, Jane survived and she was mentally handicapped. Aunt Ethel told me how she tried drinking horse urine during one of her pregnancies because she was told that would help her with the babies. During her last pregnancy, they were starting to figure out RH-negative but they babies were not given the help they needed in time. My Great Aunt lived through the death of all those babies, Jane died of cancer in her 40's, her husband died with health problems and she also endured the death of my Grandma (her baby sister by 11 years). However, whenever I would see her she would always have a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. She lived many days on earth and lost so much but lived with a confidence that was so evident that she knew who she belonged to and where she was going.

Special Lady Number 3: My Mom (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!)

My mom too went through a lot. She grew up in a broken home and had a mom that had to be gone more than present just to keep the family afloat. She married her high school sweetheart right out of high school and proceeded to have 3 children over the next 7 years. She was pregnant with me (the 3rd child) and going to law school when she received a call that my biological father had been killed in a motorcycle accident. This was on August 7, 1978 a month and a day before I was born. She too ended up being a single mom, having 3 kids and finishing law school. She has lost much during her life but she has also given much and loved much. She is my mom and I know I can always call her prayer support and she will pray. I just talked to her a couple days ago and she shared two incredible stories of how the Lord has been using her to minister His love and grace to those around her.  They were amazing stories and she grows more and more beautiful to me as each day goes by.  I love you Mom.  Happy Birthday!

Special Lady Number 4: My Cousin

So if you made it this far, this is the addition since last year.  I wrote this post last year on 10/08/09 and literally while I was writing it, another story was unfolding in my family heritage.  On this date last year, my sweet cousin Amanda was having a routine 20 week ultrasound.  During that ultrasound she found out that her unborn daughter, who would later be named Layla Rae, had Potter's syndrome and if she survived in the womb, her life outside of the womb would be extremely short.  I heard the news hours after I wrote this post and I literally lost it (Layla Rae's diagnosis and birth date lined up month wise exactly with Nevaeh Rae's diagnosis and birth date; for me it felt like I was literally walking through the story again. Thank God for good friends, my friend Correna came and prayed with me for a couple hours that day).  Over the past year I have watched my cousin walk humbly, honestly and confidently before the Lord.  She has been a complete inspiration to my soul.  She has graciously given me permission to share one of her posts with you, so that will be coming up in a couple days.  But I wanted you to learn a little something about her precious life and precious daugther before I shared.

People have characterized me as strong. But as I look at my godly heritage and I see my family line and I know much of my strength has come from watching these 4 women who have gone through so much, lost so much yet kept their eyes on the King of glory. He is the one who has been their strength and He is my strength. I pray my daughter has the same blessing of knowing His strength and His love in such a way that it brings her through any trials life throws her way.

In Christ,

The Winner Is...

Sharon Kirby is the winner of my contest for Fatal Convictions.  Please e-mail your address to forhisgloryalone@ymail.com by Friday, September 10 to receive a coupon for a free copy of this book or another reader will be selected.

Also, a reminder for all: I am on a season of rest right now.  However, I wanted to let you know that my site is always available and there are 175 posts for you to read if you are missing me:)  Two ways to effectively use my site are:

1. The Search this blog function: this feature available in my sidebar allows you to type in any word you want to know about and it will pull up any of my posts that contain that word. 
2. All my blogs are filtered by topics.  There is a list of all the topics on my sidebar.  If you select a topic any blogs I wrote that contain that topic will be pulled up.  My posts are slotted between 38 topics which include: Freedom, Love, Holy Spirit, Strategies of the Enemy, etc.

So if you need a little extra encouragement on a day, feel free to stop at this site for a little pick me up.

Missing you all,