Kingdom Reflections Part 1

For the past six weeks, we've been on a churchwide journey called "Kingdom Experiment". I'm sharing some of my reflections here as I continue to journal them out. Thanks for reading.

During our Kingdom group, we talked about the letter writing exercise (and how most of us didn't do it!), an exercise that several of us had done in the past however. While we were discussing all of this, it came to my memory of the time that I wrote one of those letters myself. I was 19 years old and wrote a (never mailed) letter to the neighborhood boys/young men who had terrorized, humiliated and raped me for 12 years, from the time I was just a baby of 4 until I was 16. At 19, I was battling depression and other destructive patterns of behavior and finally sought help. It wasn't a letter of forgiveness, actually, but a letter of unburdening myself with all of the garbage they had laid on me that I had decided wasn't mine to carry around any longer -- the anger, the self-doubt, the low self-esteem, the fear, the self-loathing, the loneliness, the terrible pain so deep and so wounding and yet so close to the surface I could almost hear it screaming -- and the shame. The terrible, terrible shame that followed me for years afterwards, long into my adulthood. I told them none of that belonged to me any longer, it wasn't mine to begin with, and I was giving it back to them to carry around. I was too tired to
do it any longer. It was more of a letter that said "Take this back, you jerks. FEEL the pain! FEEL IT! LIVE IT! SUFFER the same pain you made ME suffer!"

I guess I thought that was "my way" of forgiving
them.

And I thought it worked. Until the subject came up that
night in group a couple of weeks ago. As I was telling others in my group about this letter I wrote 25 years ago, God spoke to my heart. He told me "No, Joyce. You can't give it back to them. You have to forgive them. In other words, you have to give all of that stuff to ME -- I need you to forgive them. I will take all of that stuff, and then I will give it back to them. Vengenance is Mine; not so they will be harmed or await a certain hell, but I will give this load they put on you back to them. But you have to give it to Me first. Then they will have to give it back to Me and to receive the same freedom and forgiveness as you have. Let me take all of that for you. I'll handle it from there." What a revelation. It seems simple, but it was huge and complex and awesome and convicting all at once. Wow.

Fast forward to the Prayer Experiment. Not really thinking about this, but trying to just have an open mind and heart, I walked into the rock room. I picked up a BIG rock ... I couldn't believe how long I had to hold on to it and how very heavy it became so quickly. I couldn't wait to be able to unload it.

And then it clicked. God was waiting to take that very
load away from me. I gave it to Him in the illustration of dropping it in that pond. The water was so murky (or appeared to be) that I couldn't even see it after I dropped it in there. It was gone!

When I walked into the bowl room, I sat and prayed and listened -- and wept. I sat there for a very long time, just sitting in His presence, waiting until I was ready to take the next step. Now that I had agreed to give that burden to Him, it was time to really let Him keep it. Forgiving those guys seemed the logical thing to write down, and I did. But then I continued to write -- about forgiving myself. I forgive you, Joyce, for being afraid. I forgive you, Joyce, for being jealous. I forgive you, Joyce, for being insecure. I forgive you, Joyce, for not trusting God's promises. I forgive you, Joyce, I forgive you, Joyce. The list went on and on. Finally, I finished writing and dropped my paper into the bowl. As I watched and saw my words begin to fade, the paper began to tear, from top to bottom, slowly but completely. It was to me exactly how I envisioned the veil was torn in the Holy of Holies when Jesus offered His forgiveness on the Cross and it was finished -- exactly. It was as though God was showing me just how my unforgiveness separates me from being in the full glory of His presence and He was reminding me by this beautiful vision right in front of my eyes. Jesus' forgiveness tore that veil that sheilded my eyes from focusing completely and fully on Him. He did that for me! Me!

I was so excited that the next room was a place to just
write down my praise and awe and joy and marvel about Who God is and about how much I love Him -- and how much He loves me! I mean, I know all of this and have known Jesus for decades but this was so fresh and so huge and so new to me -- a new freedom and a new place where I've finally allowed His light to shine, into the deepest, darkest places of my shame. There is light there now! I feel so bouyant, as though I had been walking with shoes made of cement for so many years and now I have on ballet slippers that allow me to dance in a way that I wouldn't have dared to have hoped I could have.

And now my prayer is just to have more opportunities to
reflect His beautiful light to others.

Amazing. God is simply ... amazing.