My Week of Transformation (redeux)

I had to re-do this post because somehow huge chunks of email discussion ended up in the post – they didn’t show up in the editor, but they came through in the published version. Very odd. So I trashed the whole thing, copied out the actual post, and here it is:

I sent the following in an email to a friend yesterday morning:

I’m vulnerable and that’s ok.

Men can tell me I’m beautiful and that’s ok.

My brain is mush, my database dumped its tables, my theology is trashed, my identity is shattered, and that’s ok.

I danced in a skirt last night and it felt not just ok, it felt great.

I’m trying to sit and journal all of this and the person I was last week is so far gone I can’t get words about her to come to mind.

This…. is incredible.

Ken and I have been in training for healing ministry for a couple of months. What does the Bible say about healing, how to apply that to our own lives, how to minister healing, what salvation means (it’s not “just” getting to go to heaven “someday”). Sozo. Saved, healed, delivered, set free, every promise of God alive in you.

We’re re-learning a lot of new things that we’ve always known… on new levels, deep levels, deeper than heart.

Part of the training – and part of what was simply necessary even if we were not engaging in this ministry – is to go through sozo ministry ourselves. There are several practical reasons for this – it’s very dangerous to minister out of any place of hurt, it’s helpful to understand how the person you are ministering to is feeling, and there’s no better way to understand something than to DO it. But most of all, if you’re not walking in sozo yourself, you’re missing out on all that God has for you… and you’re definitely not going to be effective in helping others to get there.

So Bill (who heads up the healing ministry at New Day) set up a time for us to meet and start the process. He’s taking Ken and I through it simultaneously.

Sozo ministry is not therapy, though it does involve talking things out. It’s not prayer, tho it certainly involves prayer. It’s not deliverance, even though deliverance frequently happens. It’s not confrontational (in fact it’s very gentle) but it does involve confronting a lot of things head-on. Lies. Memories. Assumptions. Hurts. Character flaws. Tracing things back to the root and cutting them off. Replacing lies with truth and hurt with healing. Exposing things to the light of Christ means that it’s a fairly quick process; it doesn’t take months and months. God changes things in a moment of time. BAM! it happens.

Keep in mind that all of this is happening at a time when our theology is also being blown to smithereens… things like the nature of heaven, our position in Christ, the way we pray, the finished work of the Cross… I’ll write about all of that in subsequent posts. It’s not really anything “new” so much as it’s coming alive on the inside and all of the assumptions about “it’s not that way” are being shattered. BAM!

When Bill started asking me questions – very pointed questions – about my past and present… it hit me hard. Why do I think the way I think? Why do I feel the way I feel? What makes me put walls up?

That started an avalanche in me. We scheduled an appointment to continue the following week but I couldn’t stop. So I bombarded the poor guy’s in-box all week long

“The process” touched some nerves. Underlying pain, or hurt, or a lie one has believed…

In response to his questions, I quickly figured out that because of some issues from my childhood, I had built a rather elaborate “database” in my mind, that my world fit into. Plug in enough variables and I could handle any situation. Plug in enough variables and I could handle any situation… and not disappoint anyone who was counting on me. Not disappoint God…

Woah.

I knew that’s how I approached the world. I’d even joked about it. I didn’t realize the root cause of it (fear), nor how much it impacted everything I did, nor how convoluted that process of needing to know every variable in advance made relying on the Spirit “in the moment”.

Now I’m joking with people that God caused my database tables to dump Because that’s what happened. It all came crashing down. And it’s no joke. It’s like in an instant He re-wired my brain.

The next night I had an amazing encounter with God that shattered me even more. Here’s what I wrote about it:

So I’m driving home and singing that Steve Swanson song, “Seated Together in Heavenly Places” and suddenly the Spirit says to me, “Sitting?”

That tone of voice is an invitation to dig. I love it when He talks to me that way. He rarely says much but leads me to treasures.

So I’m driving along pondering the question and Hebrews 1:3 dropped into my spirit… about how Jesus sat down at the right hand of God. Why? Because it’s finished. Work is done.

Sitting? together in heavenly places? Not Him sitting and me standing. Seated together.

So in my mind I paged forward to Hebrews 4 where it talks about the rest of God and entering into His rest.

For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

And the Spirit whispered, “So why are you striving?”

I nearly drove off the road and hit a tree… That revelation… that I’d been striving… that I was, deep down, driven by a need for acceptance and a fear of rejection, absolutely shattered 101 lies that I’d subconsciously believed.

I realized that I had this view of God that was relationship-based, scripturally accurate, and really wonderful… and then underneath it I had this fear that He’d change. That there was some monster hiding in the closet and eventually I’d mess up badly enough to encounter it. Not a rational fear. Not even a conscious one. I couldn’t have articulated it; didn’t realize it was there, driving a whole lot of actions and reactions. I realized it for about ten seconds and it was gone. Smashed to smithereens.

We also touched on a lot of related issues from childhood. That Dad really, really wished I’d been a boy and how I’d tried my whole life to fit into boyhood. I was never “a girl” with pigtails and flying skirts and nailpolished toes. I tried really hard to hit a baseball, was unafraid of worms, and never wore a dress.

As I talked about this with Bill, I realized that I had really wanted Kayti to be a pigtails and skirts and nailpolished toes sort of girl (which she wasn’t, and that’s ok). Why did I want that? Because I had wanted that for myself and never had it. I didn’t believe I could have it. I’ve made little stabs at it over the years. But I’ve never considered myself “beautiful” and naturally “feminine”. Anything I’ve done has been veneer, window-dressing, unnatural.

BAM! My whole world that I’d constructed came crumbling down. I said, “So much is just falling away … Even the dust from the walls falling down is getting smashed to bits… I’m not who I was yesterday.”

As it all came crashing down, a new sense of God’s presence and my security in Him emerged. I really started feeling comfortable in my own skin. Free to REALLY be myself. No fear. Nothing but the love and presence and glory of God. And the KNOWING that I am accepted in the Beloved.

The next day, we rolled into the HUGE four-day conference at church with Georgian and Winnie Banov and Patricia King. I ended up in a really awesome role, helping and volunteering on many levels. In quite a few ways I accomplished more in those four days than I think I ever have, ever, on any project. And yet I did everything I did from a position of “seated together in heavenly places in Jesus”. I should have been exhausted but I was energized. I should have had moments of frustration but instead I had joy. I should have felt crispy but instead I felt tender. I should have been in pain (100 times a day up and down a full flight of stairs? Ha!) but instead I felt divine strength.

So… Sunday afternoon… we’re out with friends and I’m musing on all of this. The thought occurred to me, “Why don’t you go get a dress to wear to church tonight?”

I have to pause here to explain to my readers… we go to a VERY casual church. A couple of the ladies wear skirts or dresses because they like them, or because they come to church after work still dressed in a dress. Most of us wear blue jeans and t-shirts.

So I went (Ken held my hand, and Billy and Barbara encouraged me) and bought two skirts and shoes to go with both.

I knew, I knew, I knew that I had to do this. And do it now.

I walked into the church. Bill Perdue fainted dead away on the floor (no kidding!). Friends rejoiced. I was so grateful to all the ladies for understanding what this meant for me to be standing there dressed like that. They rallied around me… it was incredible.

When I started to dance I all of a sudden felt so free. I thought I’d float away. I danced and twirled and swirled in my skirt and I felt like a little girl. I ended up in the back of the sanctuary for a while… dancing, crying, dancing, crying… with utter blissful joy. We sang “Dove’s Eyes” by Rick Pino and I realized those words fully, fully, FULLY for myself. “I am my Beloved’s… and You are mine… Your desire is for me… nothing can change Your mind…”

And that’s where I realized everything in the first paragraph of this post.

I’m vulnerable and that’s ok.

Men can tell me I’m beautiful and that’s ok.

My brain is mush, my database dumped its tables, my theology is trashed, my identity is shattered, and that’s ok.

I danced in a skirt last night and it felt not just ok, it felt great.

I’m trying to sit and journal all of this and the person I was last week is so far gone I can’t get words about her to come to mind.

This…. is incredible.

This… is sozo. This is what it means to be free. Really, really free. And really, really me. Because God loves me – He cherishes me – He calls me beloved – He calls me beautiful – He is perfect love – He has delivered me from all my fears – Every promise He’s ever made is mine. That’s not intellectual knowledge, that’s not belief or faith or something I can say because I’m a believer. That’s manifest reality.

There’s probably more I could write… almost 11000 words and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what He’s done… I am so in awe of my wonderful Jesus…
So much is just falling away … Even the dust from the walls falling down is getting smashed to bits…

I’m not who I was yesterday.