09/04/2016
4newbeginnings
So, I think this will at first glance look like a therapy session on steroids…but in fact it is an account of a reversal of a metamorphosis. Healing comes in many different forms and in many different ways. Sometimes it merely takes a cleansing and antiseptic work. Sometimes the battle is years long. It is the latter that has taken place in my life.
My journey into creature care and rescue came divinely from God about 20 years ago. The actual physical work as a licensed rescuer occurred in 2008. It was a needed prescription for the years of battery that I have endured from the ones I should have been able to trust the most.
As a very young child I was wounded and instead of dying inside I built protective layers that shielded my hurting soul and allowed me to survive.
My tolerance for love was absent. It became that way because a natural human response to being hurt deeply is just to seal off EVERYTHING, good and bad, hurtful and helpful.
I was married and had a family under that pretentious lifestyle. It was not done intentionally but now when I look back I understand that I wasn’t “real” to even me. Until now.
Much like the man that had suffered from a crippling disease for 38 years* that couldn’t receive help from the healing pool because of his inability to get to it, and the woman with a bleeding disorder for 12 years* that had exhausted every known antidote and all of her resources, my life has been spent not knowing what I needed or where to find it to become REAL: Someone that is authentic; that can receive from others without fear of offense. The biblical real that operates in the fruit of the Spirit and not the flesh. My “go to” had changed. Healing had begun.
These past four months have been an amazing antithesis…”hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all things”.
Separation from the ones I love most has brought forth the opening that I needed to go deep.
I finally reached a point where I truly felt the emotion of the quote “Give me liberty or give me death”! I thought I knew it when I was recovering from a serious colon issue but that was purely physical, God has brought me now to a place that I understand the magnitude of the emotional healing that was non-negotiable.
Freedom from the oppression of the inability to trust my own heart was an absolute necessity for me to go on. In the past when my thoughts led me to hopelessness, my only comprehendible emotion was to give up and disappear and pour myself into the busyness of caring for others. But unlike the past rollercoaster I would ride emotionally, my state of affairs in these last months has brought about a clarity that I have never known before. Praise God!
Understanding is a good thing. While I don’t camp out in the place that every past experience must be analyzed and talked about, what has occurred with me is a realization that my childhood was cut off and my innocent laughter and creativity was snuffed out. I had accepted that LIE as truth. But while watching a fire in my pit last night that restarted after apparently being put out on Thursday, a full two days before, it started as tiny embers and climaxed to a final roar. It was so ablaze and the coals were so vibrant that I couldn’t go to sleep in trepidation that my property would end up destroyed by flames. At 10:30 pm I was in my yard in my nightgown in the dark, dousing it over and over again with a large dog water bowl until I could feel safe. And then joy came in the morning!
I attended a church service at a place I have never been and what was sung at the beginning of the service was a song by United Pursuit; “Let it Happen” off their album Simple Gospel. The charge that seared my very soul was the stanza that said “So take me back, Back to the beginning, When I was young, Running through the fields with you.” The reality is that some 20 years ago when God saved me and I knew in my knower that I was born again, my heart was not healed and I didn’t run through the fields and I didn’t have freedom. The freedom that Jesus died and rose again to give me.
The thing that has taken years for me to possess a new heart. The one God intended for me to have from the beginning. And He showed me that I can truly be young at 50 something and start again.
Restoration. Pure and Simple.
I have forgiven all of the hurts and have repented for all the ones I caused and am thankful for the chance to begin again.
All of the past experiences have led me to now and I am thankful for them. No bitterness or blame.
Like with the animals I care for it takes as long as it takes and now is now. The focus of NOW is a powerful thing.
Which leads me to the announcement of a new organization, one that will fulfill the vision that God gave me 26 years ago. 4newbeginnings is experiencing God’s favor already and while I hope to see it through to its completion, I am honored to just be an instrument used by God to set its foundation.
More to come in the near future.
In the meantime, I would like for you to know the fullness of the song that is “Let it Happen”…
Chorus
You’re full of
life now
You’re full of
passion
That’s how He
made you
Just let it
happen
Verse 1
And He
calls each one of
us
By our
names, to come
away
And He
whispers to your
heart
To let it
go and to be a
light
Pre-Chorus
And He
whispers to your
heart
To let it
go and to be a
light
image: http://static.urx.io/units/web/urx-unit-loader.gif
And He
whispers to your
heart
To let it
go and to be a
light
Be a
light, be a
light, be a
light, be a
light
Come
alive, come
alive, come
alive
Come
alive
Chorus
Instrumental
Chorus 2
So take me
back,
back to the beginning
When I was
young
Running through the fields with You
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/united-pursuit/let-it-happen-lyrics/ .99
And finally to the picture seen at the beginning of this blog; the true inspiration in making myself sit down and take the time to share this was captured by my dear friend and most exceptional artist, Sarah Dailey.
It is the cornerstone of our new logo and I am so impressed by the message that as so Sarah so amply put it….”That’s the funny thing about living. Life will always find a way to flourish where you least expect it”. I have finally reached a place to allow deadness to become alive again....to let it happen.
I pray Shalom as we all find the peace that a tiny ember can spark in all of our new beginnings! It IS A wonderful Life!
In His refuge,
Karen
Psalm 5
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
The Refuge of the Righteous
For the choir director: with the flutes. A Davidic psalm.
1 Listen to my words, Lord;
consider my sighing.
2 Pay attention to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for I pray to You.
3 At daybreak, Lord, You hear my voice;
at daybreak I plead my case to You and watch expectantly.
4 For You are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil cannot dwell with You.
5 The boastful cannot stand in Your presence;
You hate all evildoers.
6 You destroy those who tell lies;
the Lord abhors a man of bloodshed and treachery.
7 But I enter Your house
by the abundance of Your faithful love;
I bow down toward Your holy temple
in reverential awe of You.
8 Lord, lead me in Your righteousness
because of my adversaries;[a]
make Your way straight before me.
9 For there is nothing reliable in what they say;[b]
destruction is within them;
their throat is an open grave;
they flatter with their tongues.
10 Punish them, God;
let them fall by their own schemes.
Drive them out because of their many crimes,
for they rebel against You.
11 But let all who take refuge in You rejoice;
let them shout for joy forever.
May You shelter them,
and may those who love Your name boast about You.
12 For You, Lord, bless the righteous one;
You surround him with favor like a shield.
