At the beginning of every new year, I spend time reflecting on the frustrations and struggles I encountered from the previous year, along with the lessons I learned and the growth I experienced as a result. I also reflect upon the “wins” from the year that moved me closer toward my goals, and the areas I want to continue to improve in the new year that will create even more positive change moving forward. Not only do I take time to do this for me personally, but I also do it for my business.
During this process, I am prayerful about what God wants to show me and intentional about listening to what He speaks to me about what His heart is into and how He desires to partner with me in this new season. This year, He revealed and spoke several things to me about my life, my own heart, my relationships, and how He wants me to spend my time, energy, and resourcesin this new year. Yet, one theme involving the business, the team at Arise, and the work He is doing in and through us with the people He entrusts in our care resonated loudly and deeply in my heart and mind.
He reminded me that what is most precious to His heart is our wholeheartedness, and He was very clear that the most important work He wants to do in us that will make the greatest impact in our lives is the transformational breakthrough work of healing our pain and restoring our hearts. I heard Him say very clearly, “You are a Heart Warrior. I want you to war for people’s hearts. Do the hard and deep healing work. Do the heart work. I want to heal their hearts because it’s the pain inside of them that keeps my people in bondage and struggle. I want to tear down strongholds, break ties that bind, and set them free.”
Though a powerful word from God, it was not entirely new to me. I have been doing this work for the last fifteen years as both a professional Counselor and Coach. Our mission at Arise, which God gave to me several years ago, is that we provide professional Counseling and Coaching services to individuals, couples, families, and groups that result in deep heart change and powerful transformation so they can thrive in a life of freedom and fullness. Yet, we all need to be reminded and refocused from time to time, and this revelation served as that for me. It shifted something deeply in my spirit and reignited a spark in my heart for doing the deeper healing work that I was created and called to do in the hearts and lives of those He has anointed and appointed me to serve.
The truth is that we live at the level of our healing. What keeps us all stuck more than anything else is our own pain inside. When we are wounded emotionally in the painful experiences in our lives, we come to believe lies about ourselves, about God, and about what is available to us in life as a result. The lies we believe create a filter for us, and it is from that filter that we view the world and all our experiences moving forward. The lies that color our filter perpetuate the pain, anger, resentment, frustration, hopelessness, and despair we feel, and as a result we disconnect from our own heart and from the heart of God, and from others, too. The deep, perfect love and connection we were created to experience is replaced by mistrust, disconnection, fear and shame. Those create isolation, which then breeds more separation, fear, and shame. Our shame and fear, along with isolation entice us to feed our various addictions as a way to cope with our pain. When we feel disconnected from God’s love and provision, and from the connection of others, our trust in God’s love is broken, and we end up feeling alienated and alone. We believe He doesn’t care, so we aren’t going to have what we need, and that it’s up to us.
In our pain and mistrust, we live like orphans – survivors. We come to believe that we are not loved, that we can’t trust God or others, and our needs will not get met. Our resulting avoidance of vulnerability and honesty leads us to engage in self-protective behavior patterns that enable us to merely survive. We hide in various ways. We anaesthetize our pain. We become self-sufficient and self-focused. We are drawn into perfectionism, performance, approval seeking, and people pleasing. And every day, we strive to do enough, to have enough, to try to be enough, and we settle for a much smaller and harder existence than we were created for. We are robbed blind by the enemy who opposes us as sons and daughters of God, and he knows exactly what he is doing by deceiving us and ensnaring us in his trap.
Yet, it doesn’t end there. There is so much more for us, and we don’t have to continue to settle for striving, struggling, or surviving. We were created to Thrive. You see, God is not the author of our pain and suffering. He didn’t create it, and He never intended it for us. Most of all, He isn’t leaving us there in it, unless we choose to stay there.
But it is our choice. To be free from the bondage of struggling, striving, and surviving, we must be courageous enough to do the hard work. We must choose to do the heart work. When we do the deep, inner work to heal our hearts from the piercing arrows (the painful experiences and lies that wound us) and to clean our filter once and for all, we are able to reclaim His truth – the truth about who He really is, the truth about who we really are, and the truth about the life we were intended to live. It is His powerful truth and love that breaks all strongholds, heals all wounds, and breaks all bondage, and empowers us to live bravely, freely, and wholeheartedly in the life we were created for!
So, are you up for the challenge? Are you weary, burdened, and plain sick and tired of striving, struggling, and surviving? Believe me when I tell you this. Your pain is not too ugly, too shameful, or too big for God, but it is hurting and hindering you more the longer you carry it. It’s okay to ask for help from a professional for the healing you need and desire. If you knew how to breakthrough to the freedom you yearn for so deeply on your own, you would have done it already. It’s too hard to do on our own, and we weren’t created to do it alone. That’s the very lie that evil wants us to keep buying into, so he can continue stealing from us. But it is your choice. I hope you choose healing. Because your heart matters, and your life depends on it.
-Connie