YIKES! Can I turn this in for a new one?

Check out this picture, does it look familiar?

So, uh, well...........yeah, I need a new heart. It's not like Santa Claus can fulfill an order this huge (as if he exists, lol), I need the Lord.

Over time, past pains and hurts forgotten and covered, as I grew older the memories became faint and almost as if they never happened to me. Yet, the seedling and root remained and behaviors stemmed from that pain to mask and protect me today. Well, they have to go. This journey requires something deeper and a vulnerability that is incomparable to any previous effort.

Hi, my name is Liberty and I am a suppressor, I lock my feelings away in my heart and as a robot, I would reprogram myself to function (or so I thought) without emotions. The issue would die but the remnants would live deep within my heart.  Now at maximum capacity, I have to get Jesus to do something with this heart. I can't improve this heart, I need a new one.

So let me first start by telling you the truth. As my blog family to maintain the integrity of this page I have to come by it honest and honest is exactly what you are going to get. Instead of the vague reference to things I am going through, I will be frank. I am a firm believer that honesty is the gateway to freedom so, may the transparency be used to connect with you, show you that God is all powerful and can do anything and that I am not perfect, make mistakes, and need God as much as you do.

The Gate to Freedom


So to be honest, let's discuss where I am right now. For years I have battled with certain concepts and the  appearance of victory while I was being defeated internally. I have acted out irrationally, let my hurt consume me, and picked up several bad habits to protect myself. To be honest, people frighten me and have since childhood. The expectation from others would consume me and I would flee society. The bubbly jokester with the extrovert personality is far from it. To recharge, I need to be alone with God-period. I realize that most of my life was created from business teachings and the expectations of parents, friends, people I admire- etc. I got tired of keeping up appearances, some of my bad decisions led me to be hurt immensely. Some circumstances made my heart cold and I long for an internal revival.

So you ask, where are you? Here I am. I desired to live by faith and now, no job, moved out, took a huge leap of faith...... well, I am homeless. lol Not what you expected huh? Well yes, I am. With the finances drained and certain ties severed, I stand on God with no other option but to have faith, its all I have. When I say its hard, it is. Everything that could have gone wrong in the course of four days did. What took so long to establish was crumbled within four days. I became overwhelmed with things and needed to leave the area to settle the mind and really hear. I depended on the kindness of strangers for everything, my family took their usual role of not being supportive, however, this time was different. I did not get angry or make any scenes. I simply let them know that I envision more for my life and God had more for me than the life I was living. I forgave them for anything I had against them and left, it was hard for them to conceptualize but it was something they had to except- I was leaving. My dad poked his head in several days after the conversation to ensure that I did not leave. Of course I was packing and preparing to depart, on the day I left no one was home and it was quite a liberating experience. I was free.

You see, my home for me meant compromise and comfortable living. I could do whatever I wanted and have no accountability and never had to change, matter of fact, the environment spoke death for me. Depression loomed the walls and suppression was a regular practice. You could be dying and the elephant was standing in the room at full attention and no one would even inquire, so you die. No one around would notice because everyone is dying themselves in their own way. My challenges were merely another story, everyone believed that I would make it out because, hey I always have.  My christian race went from running sprints to a slight jog, to taking a breath, to sitting down beside the track- not good enough. I would come across preachers who traveled the world and gave thousands of invitations to Christ out and my heart would leap. Any message on faith in God and overcoming the impossible (which sometimes is ourselves) would excite me. Then I would go back to the same life, the depression and compromise. Now it was really murdering me because it was very subtle. I was not drinking, drugging and acting completely out of my character but in the small ways Satan would come in, I would let him. This would lead to other opportunities for him to have control and I would give it up.

Am I called, yes. Am I certain, yes. Am I perfect, no. Do I struggle, yes. Do I need God more than anything in my life because I have tried a multitude of things in life only to realize that nothing works but Jesus.....ABSOLUTELY!  Jesus is truly the way, the truth, and my life. I know that because I have been so close to losing myself, my life, and my mind several times. My intellect or foolish attempts to ground myself could not sustain me, only Jesus. When people would not have the words or treat me like garbage (their sandpaper method of ministering), or even my own battle with condemnation believing that it was for my own good- Jesus crept beside my bed as I cried and comforted me. I would even be haunted with   horrific visions in which my life could end in an instant, in those moments God would only speak of his love. So no, no self-help, no friend, no job, no love, or no book, no hype spiritual encounters could cure this disease. I can't deal with substitutes, only Jesus, His blood. Just Jesus, my antidote.

This gets me to the heart. To walk in the new creature I MUST, walk with the new heart- not this one. God is sending me back to every place of defeat and gave me Joshua 7/8 to stand on. My next blog will expound on where I am, the reveal of scripture, and my illumination. Let me just say it is not what you think.

I pray your eyes are enlightened with Jesus is all his fullness and that you will never be the same.

Love you much,

Libby*

ACTION: Challenged to Change!

Let's get running!

What does it really take for change and maintaining the momentum? This is what I plan to discover on my journey to the heart of Christ. My focus is on mind renewal and heart transformation. There are some areas in my life that I need to experience the resurrection power of Christ.

I reached a breaking point in my life where I realized that I was not living the life I desired. I gave up on some dreams, compromised in some areas, and accepted the life others paved for me. Overtime, I became complacent and accustomed to the life set before me. Steps away from an arranged marriage, a set career, and a cookie cut plan set for someone else, things began to unravel. Life began to get too real, I went from living someone else's life to losing control of my own. The result of the chaos, I had to leave everything- my home, family, friends, job.

I had to start over. For years these scriptures stood out to me:

 "One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living.  Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him.


  A little farther up the shore he saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets. And he called them to come, too. They immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind." -Matthew 4:18-22

They left everything to follow Jesus, in the beginning of my Christian walk these scriptures stuck out to me and always had, the concept of leaving everything. I thought it to be such an admirable task to drop everything for Christ, never imagining that someday I would be the one following that call, scary. It required a faith more than I possessed. I had to move from my run-of-the-mill relationship with God to rely on Him more than I ever have. I had been pushed to the unknown and was now living in the place of ambiguity, this drove me to a dependency on God like never before.

Due to the events, I was angry, hurt, betrayed, and overwhelmed, disappointment resonated within me. Afraid of dying from a hardened heart, I ran to God. With my Flo-Jo type sprint, I began to see Jesus clearer than ever before. Repentance turned my angry and pained heart to forgiving and interceding as I lifted those that hurt me, it wasn't worth it. My heart, thoughts, mind, and relationship with God were at risk and not worth losing. I truly never knew the depths of the statement "letting it all go" until I had to do it myself. I realized that I was dying, not only living a life that was not mine but dying in anger and unforgiveness, so I had to give it up.

The process was and continues to be hard but well worth it. The influx of emotions tries to take me into a place of despair and defeat but the Holy Spirit living inside of me gives me the strength to move when I hit those bumps in the road. Honestly, I have my good and heavy moments but even in the heavy moments, I grow closer to God- so it is well. God revealed to me that I was living in compromise, that I had allowed a lot to die and was killing who He created me to be trying to live under the restrictions of others and what I deemed to be acceptable. I had settled in major ways and made several bad decisions that had to play themselves out for me to truly see the death in them. Although hurtful, it was great for me to see and experience. God did not steer me wrong, He never has. I smothered the Holy Spirit and intellectualized a lot of choices, I thought them to be right because, well, they seemed right.....wrong! I had to experience the devastating blow of compromise and comparison. It was not the life God destined for me.


Now, I am not bitter, nor resentful because....... well, the word says:

"My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees."- Psalm 119:75

This word blessed my soul, in my pain God lead me to read Psalm 119 and reaffirm the importance of obedience and God's word to the believer-just what the doctor ordered.

so,

"I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments." -Psalm 119:45


The first step to the process was repentance, my lot was no one's fault but my own. No matter what the circumstances or what happens to me, what comes out of me is my choice, what lives inside of me is also my choice and God is aware of it all. I have one life and why live it in shoes that are not comfortable? I have such creative power in God to do amazing things in this world, I do not have time to be focused on things that are not life giving. So like the song says, I am going to get up, get out, and do something*
Crazy how in the place where things appear to be there worst, I know God is about to do what He does ....THE BEST. I truly believe in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ for not only myself but for everyone. I believe we can live the life intended and do wonderful things through Christ beyond what we could ever ask for or think-Ephesians 3:20.



Do you need healing? Christ has it. Deliverance, done. Faith to be built? He can do that too. Let's trust the process,  love God, seek the scriptures, pray in faith, practice obedience, stay repentant, maintain our peace, worship, work, and serve- keeping God first and giving him ALL the glory.

To seal this blog and close out I will leave you with one of my favorite prayers:

"When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen."  Ephesians 3:14-21

Love you with the love of Christ and wish God's best for each of you.

So, let us flourish,

Libby- for I am free indeed :)