Caretaker

I journal when I feel my thoughts and feelings are too deep to say aloud or process in my own head. Most of my journaling will never make it on to the internet, as it is for my own growth and for me alone. But there are times when my heart tells me to share with those who have to ears to hear and eyes to see what is beyond the things of this world.

I am writing this on November 25^th in the year 2013 and I write this down as it pours out of me. It has taken me a while to put into words something that happened to me on November 11^th.

On 11/11 I spent some time with the Word in the morning. I felt a burden in my heart, a wall was put up that I could not see around or climb over. This wall was thick, made of many red and maroon bricks and few grey ones and I feel its weight just by standing near it. Behind me was the landscape of my heart. Brilliant colors pulsed across its surface and I could sense this wave moving throughout it. The wave was warm and comforting. I knew Jesus was in that wave, tending to my heart. He already spent so much time making repairs, filling gaps, restoring dead and hardened areas. He had let His springs and wells over flow the surface and washed away the trash and dirt that cluttered the temple of my heart. But there was this wall, this giant obstacle that I knew nothing about, and Jesus had not broken it down. Why did He leave it up? Why was this wall such a mystery to me and why did I feel it only now?

When I arrived at work, I prayed over my job, my co-workers, my family and my faith. I thought that maybe I just needed to let some love out to God for others and my wall would fall. That’s when I realized the wall was a hindrance. The wall itself was a self-made distraction. The wall wasn’t the issue, it was what was behind the wall that I was meant to learn about, but didn’t want to confront it. So I reached out, I asked Zac and Tara for prayer, for them to ask Jesus for clarity to the issue at hand.

During work, I continued to pray and seek answers to why I would build this wall. I could tell it took time and energy and resources to stack those bricks. The trouble I went through to keep myself away and safe. Safe! LIE! I did not build this wall to be safe, I built it to hide and cower from TRUTH. That’s a strange feeling to have while working.

I went to my car on break and read a message from Zac… “Well I had a vision of you trying to get up a ladder in a tree and no one would help you. You were just a young boy and everyone else was in the tree but you. And your heart was hurt and felt abandoned and alone in the deepest sense of the word. Then the Father led me to this verse in Matthew (funny) chapter 10 verses 26-31. Focused on 26 and 27. ‘26 But don’t be afraid of those who threaten you. For the time is coming when everything that is covered will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known. 27 What I tell you now in darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!’ –Jesus”

This gave me the courage, no my own weakness and flesh lacked the courage. Jesus strengthened me enough to peer around my wall and see beyond it. My heart had a cliff, a jagged sharp cliff that fell into nothing. But out beyond my grasp were pieces and chunks of my heart, floating around. It looked like an asteroid field from Star Wars. Each piece broken off from my heart had a tint of red, but with a slight transparency to it so that I could see what was inside the fragment. There were so many pieces of my heart that it was rough to look at. Some pieces held memories; forgotten childhood dreams, injuries and physical pain, fears and moments crying, mistakes, lost friends and past girlfriends. Some pieces also held thoughts and feelings. I saw one piece that is hard to describe, but I knew “panic” was inside. So many shards broken off my heart. This didn’t seem right. I had Jesus, forgiveness, redemption, and most of all, love. Why did my heart look this?

My heart. My issues because of my flesh. These were not things Jesus was just going to sweep under the rug and call everything good. He wanted to sit with me and talk about each one, to show me truth behind them, give me understanding and give Him more of me in return.

The wall fell and was gone. No rubble left behind, like it had never even been there.  I knew with Jesus at my side, I had the strength to confront my personal monsters I created and cowered from. Instantly, He was amidst the chaos of the heart asteroids and in one smooth out stretch of His arms, brought them all together. He slowly descended towards me and asked which pieces we should put back first. I shrugged and said He had permission to put back which ever ones He wanted and on His time. I was just relieved to know He was willing to even help.

With that, he placed many pieces back into the cliff. Each one molding back into my heart like it had never been missed. But He held onto a few, just an armful that He was going to keep close. I saw one was carrying a piece of love and romance, but it was shrouded in a black fog. Another held an image of my family when I was young. It slowly focused in on my mom and her smile, then zoomed out quickly for me to see the picture of the whole family again. It just kept repeating this. I saw one more piece in Jesus’ arm, and it frightened me more than the others.

I knew I had given some of the love and romance I wanted for my wife to someone else. I knew I was ashamed of that and sad my wife would not be the first to hear those words from my mouth, but I was excited that Jesus picked that one out for us to work on!

I also knew the picture of my family and focus on my mom was about the pain I felt with my parents’ divorce. I had put all the blame on my mom, but He didn’t want it that way. Jesus wanted me to move past that and forgive my parents and help put that smile back on my mom. I was nervous about that piece, but not frightened.

The last piece He wanted to work on held something very powerful. The small fragment of my heart that contained it was merely a joke and I knew only Jesus could hold it in such a gentle way. Inside that portion of my heart, was such a destructive force to me that I didn’t want to look at it.

Memories flooded my thoughts. When I was a kid, there were times when I’d get a feeling around somebody that made me absolutely love to be with them. I would just sit there and picture them having an amazing life, doing great things and being really cool. I never said anything because I didn’t know how to talk like that. As time went on, the feelings went away and something else came in. I’d listen to friends talk about their parents. I’d get this feeling of hate, of a dark force seeping out of their pores and poisoning whatever it touched. It wasn’t that I was around really good, loving people or evil, angry kids, they were all normal, all sane everyday people. But this scared me. I didn’t like these feelings that came before that I couldn’t talk about. As years passed, the good feelings I had around people disappeared and only the bad remained. No one knew this about me, I kept it all internal where it eventually took hold.

Before long, I hated God. He made me so angry, in fact everything made me angry. I would form terrible thoughts on people and wish bad upon them. I had captured this thing I had since I was a kid, feared it, and let it become a demon that ate me inside out. All of this, of course, unknown to me. I always thought I was just weird or broken mentally. This thing gave me enormous anxiety and depression.

Years I went downhill like this. Then it all stopped the night I was born-again. God had squeezed it out of me, literally squeezed my entire body to wring out the evil that had taken ahold of me. Very interesting moment, so close to death. So all this time, over two years walking with God, those feelings never came about, not the good or bad. Until this moment when Jesus held it in His hand.

Jesus said this is my Gift from the Spirit that I was born with. Without the right direction in my childhood, the enemy grabbed a hold of it and used it against me. Now that Jesus had it back, He has blessed me with the Gift of Exhortation. The ability to encourage other believers. To feel the presence of God in them and speak to their hearts to remind them God is with them. And in a much deeper level on a personal note.

Jesus restored me! Freed me from a very deep and awful fear I carried for a long time. This shard of heart, before so frightening, now carried a brilliant light and when He put it back into my heart, the colors became more vivid, my entire heart grew, became warm, felt solid and cried out to Father for the Joy He brought me! He knew me and loved since before I could walk.

Jesus, my savior and Lord, knows my heart and is the caretaker forever and ever. He loves me more than I could understand, and will even take me to see Him work on my heart and walk me through it.

I know I have much more to learn and an endless amount of growth with Jesus, but I am so thankful He takes the time to love me and talk to me. There are still pieces of my heart that need work and that’s okay. I am eager to see where God takes my life and happy to know the Spirit has made plans for a gift He blessed me with so long ago.