Love Broke Through

For many years after meeting Jesus, It was all about me. I needed healing. I had been wounded growing up with rejection tattooed on my heart. John Eldridge says in his book Waking the Dead that our heart is the true "us". It is who we really are. My heart had been so wounded I had nothing to give. I gave, but the Lord showed me it was like I was giving out of my emptiness and in my own strength. He gave me this picture that helped me understand. It was like I was giving to people, but with long arms that came out from behind a room that no one could come inside. I was hiding my heart, my true self. I was ashamed of who I was. Some call it your pseudo or we can just call it a mask. I was pretending. I was not living in truth. I believed if I showed anyone who I really was then they would reject me like my earthly father did and then many others after him. I could not risk experiencing that pain again. So I hid my true self.

Fast forward to the meeting that changed my life. Through a series of circumstances, that now I look back on that were totally ordained by God, I met a man who showed me "true love". He showed me Jesus' love.

I think it is amazing that I was going to church for so long and never experienced the Love of the Father. Part of this was that I don't think I was ready to let down the walls in the fort Knox I had built around my heart yet. The Bible says, that Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He is so patient and kind. He doesn't push his way into our heart. He waits to be invited in.

When I met Dr. T. I was in so much pain. God was using a church situation and an in- law situation to show me that I did not know His love and did not have good boundaries in my life. Basically I was codependent on others approval to feel good about my self. Well, people were not cooperating with My Plan. They were rejecting me, which was touching the pain in my heart a little too close.

Then I met Dr. T. and he showed me love over a period of seven years. One of the ways he showed me love was spending time with me "just listening". I don't know how it happened exactly, but God,through Dr. T. broke through to my heart. Slowly, I began to I share my heart a little at a time and started to let him see who I really was.

He felt safe. He accepted me. A scared, little girl who was too afraid to tell others "no" for fear of rejection. I literally could not say the word, "no". The one thing I remember about Dr. T is his eyes. He had eyes of Love. When I was with him I felt like I could do anything, be anything. He made me feel special, loved. I did not have to "do" anything. He just loved and accepted me for "who I was". He believed in me. I think He loved me more than I loved myself. I believe God's Spirit lived so strong in Him that it was God's love touching me through him.

It did because God's love broke through to the scared little girl and she slowly began to believe she was valuable and lovable. She began to let go of the lie she believed that she deserved all the rejection she had received by her father. Then she was able to give all the shame and rejection back to Satan, the father of lies, where it came from.

I will never be able to thank God enough or Dr. T. enough for loving the rejection and shame out of me. I want to lovingly pay it forward to the one's God puts in my life. Even then, I don't think I could ever pay the debt I owe to Jesus for setting me free and loving me.

Blessings,
Tammy