On the Path to Healing

    Several months ago, I wrote 2 blog posts about my beautiful friend Paula. I want to continue her story. However, if you haven’t read the first parts of her story please read them first: When the Spirit Shows Up… & God’s Merciful Thwarting. Honestly, one of the BEST parts about being somewhere long-term is that your “big moments” with people are not the end of the story. I don’t just get to have conversations like Paula and I had in August and in October, but I am able to journey alongside her and see what the Lord is going to do in her heart. It’s beautiful and my absolute favorite part about living here.

    So, in August Paula and I began talking about her life. She was carrying so much hurt and told me, “I don’t think that God can hear me. I cry out to Him and He never answers me. I never hear Him speak.” She was hurting so much, but unwilling to allow the Lord to enter into her pain and speak His truth and love over her hurting places. I remember challenging her to just take that first step to invite the Lord to speak to her pain and to be willing to follow Him on a journey through her heart.

   For awhile she continued to resist His work. Then the Lord began to block her way with thorn bushes (just like in Hosea 2:6-7) and call her to Himself. In October she finally reached a point of recognizing that what she had wasn’t life and would destroy her heart. She finally surrendered to the loving whispers of the Lord asking her to begin the difficult journey to inner healing.

   I have been watching over the last 5 or 6 months as Paula has become a different person. She is alive in a way I have never seen before. She is worshiping. She is dancing before the Lord. She has joy. Not to say that she no longer hurts or has problems, but she is turning to the Lord in those things now rather than hiding and numbing. She is beginning to experience how it feels to walk in freedom and healing.
    Last night I was talking again with Paula and she was telling me about an experience she had with the Lord as she was worshiping alone at her home. She was listening to worship music and singing before the Lord. One of the songs came on and the Lord began to speak to her heart through this song. He began to tell her of His immense love for her and began to speak the truth that He has beautiful and grand plans for her life (Jeremiah 29:11). As the Lord spoke His truth over her heart, she just began to weep in His presence.
   As she recounted her experience, she just looked at me with tears welling in her eyes and said, “Lisa- He spoke to me. The Lord spoke to me.” Immediately my mind flashed back to that first day in August when she told me that she didn’t think the Lord could hear her because He never answers her. I reminded her of that day. She just smiled and said, “I know. I remember. But it’s not true. I know it’s not because HE spoke TO ME.”  She also told me, “Now I know, deep down in my heart, that the Lord has big plans for my life. He has a special purpose for me to serve Him. I know that will all of my heart.”
   What beautiful fruit has sprung forth in her life from a simple invitation: Lord I give you permission to enter my broken and hurting places to bring Your truth, love, and healing to my heart.
   We talked about her dreams and her passions. She has a longing to begin teaching others the Word of God. I told her to begin praying and preparing a teaching and then when she was ready we would give her the opportunity to teach the youth on Wednesday night.
   Oh, I don’t even think I can put into words my excitement about all that the Lord is doing in her heart!! This is what I long for in the lives of all of my youth- that they find healing and life in the Lord, that they experience intimacy in His presence and learn to hear His voice, that they discover their passions within the Kingdom, and then put their hands to the plow and begin using their passions to build up the church and bring transformation in their community.