This is the first story in a new series that I will be calling ‘REAL’. It is a compilation of experiences that people I know, have had that have changed their lives and the lives of those around them – forever.
I am using people that I know, so that I can ensure that the stories are true and the impact of their ‘Godly encounter’ has indisputably changed their lives.
2 Peter 1:3 New Living Translation (NLT)
Growing in Faith
3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
Here is my story!
Me and my psychologist
It felt as if everything was unravelling again. Like I was standing outside of myself and battling to see the joy in the life that I was living. My happiness seemed to be completely depleted. I felt as everyone needed a part of me and no-one was giving anything back to me.
And I felt that I didn’t have the energy to stop the process. Almost as if I was entitled to this ‘melt-down’. The pity party was in full swing!
But after it had gone on for 4 days and I could not shake it, I began to worry about my emotional state.
This ‘emotional collapse’ seemed to happen every 3 to 4 months. Was it my wonky biorhythms. Or my hormones? Was it all me? Am I emotionally unbalanced, just keeping it together until I can’t keep the train on the tracks any longer and I become completely de-railed all over again.
Actually, in the very back of my mind, I knew what was dragging me down. But I felt helpless because there was nothing I could do about it. Or so it seemed from my ‘perspective’ .
But the Lord has an entirely different perspective.
So, instead of giving up hope and finding the strength and courage to pull myself together and move on, I decided to pray about it. Well actually, journal about it, because this is where I usually get my answers. When I put pen to paper, I was writing in an imploring tone. ‘ What am I supposed to do? Is there something that I can do? Is there something that I must say? How do I make this feeling go away?’
I didn’t expect an immediate answer but I trusted that the Lord would bring it to me when I needed it. It felt like such a humungous situation and a simple answer could never cut it.
Well, the answer came in a way that I never expected.
It was personal, one on one and straight to the point.
It happened in the dead of the night, just after our daughter woke us for a toiled run. At 4am when I climbed back into bed I just could not get to sleep. So I began to pray, which is quite normal for me but this time, I was taken right into a ‘one on one’ with the ultimate Psychologist. It was totally unexpected. It wasn’t a radically ‘holy’ experience like the one when I was stuck to the floor and the Lord healed my emotional wounds in a movie-like manner.
This was much more gentle and un-invasive. It was like the Lord saying to me ‘Ok, tell me what is bothering you? I am listening.’ And I just got to say it all – without any interruptions – without any judgements and at the same time I was getting a clear realization or understanding of the situation.
The key to this kind of ‘heavenly’ psychology is that God sees into our very hearts – he knows everything about us, inside and out and so he opened my eyes to see things from my places of neediness and brokenness. He helped me to see why certain circumstances have the impact on me that they do and how if I talk about these things, I will soon move beyond these hindrances and fears. As we conversed, I began to feel such peace. The heaviness was lifting.
This will definitely go down as one of my most profound and solidly real, spiritual experiences.
The changing and the growth always begins in our own hearts and lives and as we change and become more like our savior, so we begin to impact and change the ones around us. They cannot help but be transformed by the light of our lives.