This post continues to come to my mind. Therefore, I’ve been mulling it over.
I wasn’t very honest in it. It may seem like it was honest, but it was actually very reactive.
If anything about our outreach ministry comes across – here or elsewhere – as self-righteous or condemning, I have gone off course. If I ever share anything but grace, grace, and more grace, I am a hypocrite. Yes, there is a need for Truth, too. But the spirit in which it is shared – by me – has to be one of compassion and grace. Or it is inauthentic.
When a young girl is victimized, it can set off certain reactions in her heart. Ways to deal with the pain that are not God’s ways. In one sense, her sexuality can cause her great shame and she can deny or try to hide it. In another sense, because her sexuality was used against her, she can turn it into a way to feel powerful instead of a like a victim. It becomes a sense of power – but a false one. It is actually a lie. When a woman is involved in the sex industry because she feels she is taking back power that had been taken from her, it is the worst kind of self-deception. She is in bondage.
Even though no one on our team has been involved in the sex industry, there are ways in which I at least have done internally what they are externalizing. Before in my life I have sought to both deny femininity and sexuality – and used it to not feel like a victim. Therefore I feel very empathetic toward the struggle of women in the industry.
The problem comes when I assume others aren’t. That they wouldn’t understand or they would judge. It is just a reverse judgment. I am just as guilty of prejudging and accusing motives. This is wrong and I am sorry. I am sorry publicly because I have been wrong publicly.
Lately I have fallen into some people pleasing tendencies. I started blogging on here because I felt a very real pull from God to share some lessons. I still feel that pull, but I have done it in ways that are inauthentic or done it on days when He wasn’t tugging on my heart to share but I shared anyway, in the desire to be consistent. When I do that, instead of follow His gracious lead, I can get angry. At myself for people pleasing instead of God pleasing. I do not struggle with trying to earn God’s approval. That is not my self-righteous struggle. I struggle with wanting other believer’s approval. To appear righteous before them. That should not be my goal.
I will continue to share on here. I think I’m supposed to. It helps keep me honest. And hopefully it speaks to someone else. But I will do it as I feel led, when I know it will come across in the right spirit of gratitude. The spirit that is most true in my heart toward all God has done for me.
God is very tricky. He has used the tug toward women stuck in bondage to continue to show me areas of my heart that are still a daily battle of my own bondage. Places I still need to take down the wallpaper of lies in my mind and re-wallpaper with Truth from His Word. It is a continuation of the freedom journey He and I began 12 years ago. I think that’s good.
He is also tricky in dealing with my prejudices and trust issues toward people in churches. The very people I feared would judge and condemn have been so incredibly gracious and generous toward this ministry. Every time someone offers to help or supports the outreach, I feel so humbled and grateful. Maybe that’s taking it too personal, but all I know is it has been God’s way of whispering to my heart of His love and the love He desires His Body to show the world.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart my fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Psalm 73:25 & 26