spiritual abuse

Remember Me

Anna Smit5 Comments

Isaiah 49: 14 – 16

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
“Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.

Dear Traumatized Child,

When you come home to Your Abba Father, you will be so excited. Like the woman at the well, you will run to tell others in your church about the depths of His love for us all. You will see women weeping and you will know they too have just experienced what it is to be seen and known in the depth of their wounding. You will rejoice as they too see that their faces are not covered in the shame of their sin, but radiant in the redeeming love of Christ.

But then, as you step out in faith and go where your Father asks you to, the thorns given you as a gift will at first pierce your resolve. You will share of the piercing with leaders you trust. You will share of the waves of fear and shame that are pursuing your body unto death, but instead of arms reaching out to hold you and truth arising to defend your soul, the thorns will be pressed even deeper still. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.

In the thorns piercing 

Again and again and again

I remember

My shame.

But it’s then, God’s healing will truly begin to flow. As you join Christ in His suffering, you will begin to understand why you ran away all those years before. This time, you will turn toward your God in trust: you will cry out from your whole disease-ridden heart and listen for His Voice and new heart beneath. 

Then, ever so slowly, through His patient teaching, you will learn to stop seeking sanctuary in a building, in religious leaders and in your own perfection and strength. You will learn instead to seek the sanctuary of Jesus Christ: our One True Hope.

When you cannot stand through the attacks that come, He will hold you and you will watch as He tethers your feet to the ground as you long to die. Your feet will not be moved, as you watch your very weakness testify to His power. 

Each day, when the waves return, you will pour out your heart in Laments. You will be overwhelmed by His precious Word to you. Joy and peace will rise from deep within you, as He lifts you above the waves, even as you feel them crash and pound your flesh. You will arise in Him to glory in each and every Promise fulfilled. 

But You 

You remember

A covenant new.

You remember

My sin 

No more.

You remember 

Your Son’s blood 

Covering me.

You remember

Grace 

You remember

Your daughter

Adopted, Yours.

Then, as He draws you out and sets you apart for His purposes. He will teach you to stop soaking in shame, to stop apologizing for His obedience at work in you. To stop bemoaning your setting apart in your open confessions of sin and weakness, to stop fighting to be understood, to stop hardening your heart in sin and to instead fix your gaze on the warmth of His face melting your frozen heart to reveal His thread weaving eternity there. 

You will rediscover the joy of praise and thanksgiving in the midst of your anguish. You will experience the healing power of praying for those who have pierced you and misunderstood you. You will come to love them with your Father’s love as you die to pride and self to obediently lay yourself down that you may bless them in becoming as nothing to them. 

It’s then you will begin to taste the freedom of humbling yourself beneath the mighty hand of God. You will forgive and love your enemies, both yourself and others. You will daily learn to fully embrace His love and grace in your weakness and sin. You will watch Him strengthen your relationships and begin reaping fruit you have so longed and prayed for, but all but given up on. And oh how you will experience the peace of being still and knowing that – even in your weakness and sin – He was, is and always will be the One and Only God, the God who seeks and saves.

It’s then as the thorns continue to pierce, you will weep in thanksgiving for a God who loved you enough to be pierced for your transgressions. A God who clothed Himself in wrath: who took upon Him the thorns that pierced you as that little girl, the thorns you pierced into yourself, and the thorns piercing you upon your return. Why? For the joy set before Him: a healed and whole you, a healed and whole Body of Christ.

So that you and all His beloved, traumatized children would never ever have to bear the weight of these awful thorns themselves. So that these very thorns piercing you would become a gift of healing and redemption to you and to so many more through the resurrection life of Christ at work in you, through the living Word of God ever calling you to remember HIM, the joy set before you.

One day, you will weep for a God who chose you, even knowing you would harden your heart in sin. Knowing that you would turn away from the very piercing sent to heal you, sent to smash your idols and free you of your chains. 

But this God chose you to give you a future and a hope – putting plans into motion not to harm you, but to bless you. For, through His piercing, He is rewriting your story of sin and death into a story of grace and resurrection life, ever unfolding. 

One day, instead of believing He turned away from His little girl, you will finally see how He turned toward her. You will see how He held you in the palm of His hand all those years that you thought He had abandoned you. 

You will see that He placed you exactly where He wanted you, right where the thorns being sent to hurt you would in His time, in His blood, redeem not only you, but so many more through His testimony flowing out of you, as you bow at the foot of the Cross. 

And now 

You’re teaching me 

To remember too

To remember 

You.

To remember 

A crown of thorns piercing

Again and again and again 

To remember 

Love pouring forth

From a Cross.

To remember  

Rejoicing

To remember  

A cloak. 

  

To remember 

A ring 

To remember 

A table set

In the presence of my enemies 

To remember 

Oil 

Pouring on my head.

To remember

In each and every thorn 

I find more of

You.

My crown of thorns

You wore

You bled and died

To exchange my sin and death

For a crown of life

Beauty

Everlasting.

Beloved traumatized child, rejoice! Those thorns are not yours to bear. For the wrath of man shall yet praise Jesus; With a remnant of wrath He will gird Himself (Psalm 76:10 NASB). Because of the joy set before Him – you – He died on that Cross to take your crown of thorns upon Himself and to exchange that crown of thorns for a crown of life everlasting!

Much love,

Your Future Self, redeemed and restored by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of your testimony in Christ

Psalm 73: 21 – 26 ESV

21 When my heart was grieved

    and my spirit embittered,

22 I was senseless and ignorant;

    I was a brute beast before you.

23 Yet I am always with you;

    you hold me by my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,

    and afterward you will take me into glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength of my heart

    and my portion forever.

Colossians 1:24 (ESV)

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotions, L.B. Cowman, p.388

It is not until a beautiful kernel of corn is buried and broken in the earth by DEATH that its inner heart sprouts, producing hundreds of other seeds or kernels. And so it has always been, down through the history of plants, people, and all of spiritual life—God uses BROKEN THINGS.

Featured image of rose by Edward Howell on Unsplash

Defender True

Anna Smit5 Comments

God is asking me to publish this early. So, a week earlier than planned, here is Defender True: may God’s will be done through these words He has asked me to share.

He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Titus 3:5

Do you hear those voices too?

The ones that tell you

You’re not enough

You’ll never change

All you do is make things worse?

Do you hear the voice that follows then

The one that tells you

Defend yourself

Hold on tight

To who you

Wish you were

Lest he rips it from your weary

Tight-clenched hands?

Or the one that pushes you

To lie there in that bed

A bed that covers you in blankets

Grief, despair and loathing cruel

Chaining you to who

You believe you truly are

Lost

Forevermore?

Now, stop

And still

Feel an angel’s hand

Upon your shoulder

Warm bread

And cool water

Set lovingly before you

Hear his call

To rise, to eat, to drink.

Follow him out that cave

Feel the ground shake fierce

See the fire blaze hot

Let glorious truth

Shake off the dust

Burn all the dross

To reveal

The gold in you.

Now be still

And listen for

The whisper

For glorious Truth

Kissing

The kind, sweet

Gentle Voice of

Grace.

Feel those

Rushing waters pure

Waterfalls of grace

Pouring from your Savior’s mouth

Washing away

All that’s died

Upon the Cross

To now reveal

The lavish gift

Of Christ

In you.

Hear His gentle

Tender Voice

Unveiling

The many gifts

Hidden in

His heart

In you.

Beloved

Chosen

Holy

Pure

Purposed

True

You are His

Masterpiece.

Created anew

In Christ Jesus

You shall perform

The good works

HE

Has long

Prepared for

You.

No accusing tongue

Has power here

For God Himself

Has cast these columns

This Temple

Not of human hands

But with His own

Establishing

And strengthening.

For, it’s no longer you

Who lives

But the great

I AM:

Our One and Only

Slayer of all sin

Stiller of all accusations

Defender True.

NO sin is too bad, too shameful, too ugly for Christ to forgive. Never let the enemy convince you otherwise. Christ isn’t ashamed of you in your sin. No! His heart breaks for you. His heart longs for you to know the depths of His compassion and mercy. 

Sin wages war against every human: yes, even Christians. But that’s why Christ came. Not for the (pretending to be) healthy, but the sick. To heal us from our affliction, piece by piece on earth, until in heaven we are fully healed and whole.

The beauty is that because we have given our lives to Jesus, we are already, even now, dead to sin and alive to Christ. Romans 6: 18 tells us: “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”  So, though the flesh wages war against us here on earth, it cannot overcome us. For Jesus continually gives life to our mortal bodies through His Holy Spirit, turning us to repentance and freeing us from our accuser.

Romans 8: 10-11, 16 – 17

10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus[d] from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

When I came home to Jesus, my dear friend Emily sent me this song:

God connected us on the internet, five years earlier, when I was a Prodigal. My friend Emily has constantly reminded me through her own boasting in her weakness that WITH Christ, our advocate and our atoning sacrifice, who has promised never to leave or forsake us, we are always more than enough.

Not only do we stand justified by the blood He shed on the Cross, we are also being transformed from glory to glory, moment by moment, to look more and more like Jesus. Through Christ, we in fact only make things more and more beautiful, through the blood of the Lamb and His testimony at work in us.

Our loving Heavenly Father is not ashamed of us or angry at us. He is furious when our enemy convinces us that we are captives to sin, shame and fear. Christ knows exactly what we have been through and are still going through, He knows our every weakness (Hebrews 2: 18, Isaiah 53:4). He also knows just how much our hearts yearn to do His will. He will never leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). Instead, He will move to defend us through the power of His Word and Holy Spirit.

He will shake off the old, burn away the dross and cover us in the waterfalls of His love, truth and grace (Psalm 42). He will lead us onward into greater and greater freedom from sin and shame. Let us be encouraged in the truth that “Those who look to Him are radiant, and their face shall never be ashamed (Psalm 34: 5 ESV).

For, Christ has already paid the price for the wages of our sin, cleansing us by His blood from our sin. Washing us in the refreshing truth of His Word, He reminds us that we are not defined by any of the impurity He shakes off us and burns away. For, we are already clean by the Word He has spoken to us (John 15:3). When the Father looks at us, He sees Jesus. No, nothing can separate us from His love for us (Romans 8:35-39).

Every single day, every single moment, we can walk afresh into the new awaiting us because of His blood shed at the Cross for us.

Will you join me in prayer?

Thank You, LORD, that in our imperfection, You offer us Your own perfection. Thank You for Your never-ending loving kindness to us in our weakness and need. LORD, when we get discouraged by the sins we commit and our frailty, help us to remember the truth of the Cross. Help us to cast our burdens at Your feet. Help us to pour out our hearts, allowing You to uncover any wickedness in us, to purify and cleanse us of our sin and to restore us unto Yourself.

When we are afraid and sinking in shame, send out Your kindness and perfect love to cast out all fear of punishment in us. Help us to draw near to You with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our heart sprinkled to cleanse us of a guilty conscience and having our body washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22).

Help us to remember that: ‘The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day’ (Proverbs 4:18). Help us to remain ‘confident of this, that he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 1: 6 NIV).

Forgive us for those moments we have turned away from You to hide our sins or have tried to defend ourselves, allowing the enemy to make us believe it is our perfection that will save us, rather than Yours. LORD, we turn to You now, confessing our sins to receive your waterfall of grace, believing and trusting that Your grace is sufficient for us, that Your power is perfected in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Thank You, LORD, that You are our Defender True and will always shepherd us in love, kindness, truth and grace. Father, I ask You to surround each reader of this post with brothers and sisters in Christ who openly boast in their weakness, confess their sins freely and give glory to Your saving power. And I ask You to pour back into Emily’s lap a pressed together and overflowing abundance of love and kindness – the same love and kindness You poured out upon me through her. Amen.

Be blessed in the knowledge today that His mercy is more. More than all our sins: past, present and future. More than enough to cover us in our nakedness of want and need. More than enough to hold us tight through any suffering that comes our way.