Well, our first week of Bare Face Challenge is coming to a close. It was a pretty good week and I felt held accountable by the girls I've been seeing at school and church. On Thursday morning I had a huge emotional breakdown. All of the pent up emotions, anger, and bitterness that I had smashed into me and had kept controlled, broke and exposed my rotting heart. Valentine's Day seems to be the topic all around and while others think of a sweet or maybe even a passionate love, I can only dwell on the love of my life, my Lord, grieving over my dysfunctional heart. I wish I could say it was broken, but I can't. Instead, I have a heart of rock. Cold, hard stone. The funny thing about a hard heart is that one hardens it to keep it from being hurt, but really the pain continues to seep into it while the joy reverberates from it. It rejects what is good and attracts what is not. All of the cruel words and actions that other people say or do to me hold fast to my heart, regardless of its stony appearance. My unforgiveness has spread like a disease and poisoned not only my mind, but also those around me. I am now considered fairly unenjoyable to be around by my family. I have become a cynic and a doubter, loud and obnoxious. Lord, I long to be a woman who clothes herself with a meek and quiet spirit, like you talk about in 1 Peter 3. I want to be as hospitable, kindhearted, and adventuresome as Rebekah, as lovely as Rachel and Leah, as wise, faithful, and obedient as Jocabed, a chosen and devoted prophetess like Miriam, as repentant as Rahab, as brave as Deborah, bold, selfless, and obedient as Ruth, with the beauty and majesty of Esther, and the faithfulness of Mary. Jesus, show me how to become the woman you have created me to be. Give me the strength to go against the current of the world and follow you and you only. Show me the way. bicycle
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Rancid Heart
Well, our first week of Bare Face Challenge is coming to a close. It was a pretty good week and I felt held accountable by the girls I've been seeing at school and church. On Thursday morning I had a huge emotional breakdown. All of the pent up emotions, anger, and bitterness that I had smashed into me and had kept controlled, broke and exposed my rotting heart. Valentine's Day seems to be the topic all around and while others think of a sweet or maybe even a passionate love, I can only dwell on the love of my life, my Lord, grieving over my dysfunctional heart. I wish I could say it was broken, but I can't. Instead, I have a heart of rock. Cold, hard stone. The funny thing about a hard heart is that one hardens it to keep it from being hurt, but really the pain continues to seep into it while the joy reverberates from it. It rejects what is good and attracts what is not. All of the cruel words and actions that other people say or do to me hold fast to my heart, regardless of its stony appearance. My unforgiveness has spread like a disease and poisoned not only my mind, but also those around me. I am now considered fairly unenjoyable to be around by my family. I have become a cynic and a doubter, loud and obnoxious. Lord, I long to be a woman who clothes herself with a meek and quiet spirit, like you talk about in 1 Peter 3. I want to be as hospitable, kindhearted, and adventuresome as Rebekah, as lovely as Rachel and Leah, as wise, faithful, and obedient as Jocabed, a chosen and devoted prophetess like Miriam, as repentant as Rahab, as brave as Deborah, bold, selfless, and obedient as Ruth, with the beauty and majesty of Esther, and the faithfulness of Mary. Jesus, show me how to become the woman you have created me to be. Give me the strength to go against the current of the world and follow you and you only. Show me the way. 
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Beautiful Daughter of God,
ReplyDeleteI just tried calling your home after reading this but you are embracing your retreat. I will save more of what I have to say to you for a time when I can actually get the full details of what's really going on. What I will post is, your heart may feel of stone but bind those words! Do NOT give them power! Your heart is so full of love for the LORD, Elizabeth. I may not know your pain. I may never know what you have gone through. What I do know is that you need to give yourself more credit. He didn't create you to be the next Ruth, the next Esther or the next Leah. He created you to be YOU. Now you may either find me super annoying through my words or you can listen to the truth I am speaking. I want you to trust me, dear. I want to listen to your heart speak. I love you. With all of my heart.
My dear Gabbie,
DeleteThank you so much for your encouragement! My blog post was about me recognizing that my heart had turned to stone, even when I didn't want to admit it. This wasn't me feeling sorry for myself and throwing a "Let's Bash Lizzy" party. This was more about me realizing how the seed of bitterness had grown deep and how I tried to harden my heart against the sources of hurt, but really I was just harming myself more. Sorry if that wasn't clear :) Also, about the women from the Holy Bible: I was not saying that these women are people I desire to be, but rather they had certain character traits I desire to work towards and have. All these women had their struggles and most made many mistakes. You are totally right in saying that God created me to be me and not anyone else. There is a one in octillion chance that I turned out, biologically, how I did. My prayer, for example, was similar to how one would pray for wisdom: Lord give me wisdom like Solomon's. I was just admiring the strengths in these holy women and asking God to take my heart of stone and replace it with a heart that loved as strongly as they did. He did, by the way :D
You are such a great friend and thank you for being concerned! I love you too girl! God bless you for being such an observant and detailed young lady. Love ya!