Quantum Leap was one of my favourite shows growing up. It was about a man who got to time travel
back into different time zones and also into different people – male and
female! He had a travel buddy that
always went with him, Al. During his
travels, he was going back to make right some wrongs or to settle some
unsettled issues that those people had left undone. He had a great responsibility and a rewarding
job but he was never able to move on from that person’s life until he had
completed the “mission.”
Sometimes I feel like our lives can be just like that. Like we go, not back into someone else’s
life, but maybe back into areas or time zones in our own lives. Circumstance happens to bring up some “stuff”
in our inner being that we can trace back to our childhood or teenage years
where there was something left undone.
For me, this is how I viewed my broken foot experience. Not only did my foot break, but I also
suffered from a couple of really bad spouts of illness that left me bed ridden
for at least a week all together. In the
early days a lady came and prayed for me and prophesied over me. She had been praying for me the night before
and asked God for a “word of knowledge” for me.
If you don’t know what that is, there are some good books out there in
operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit J
Anyway, her word for me, from God was that this was not from
the devil. That this was allowed by God
because He wanted to spend some time with me.
And she was not the first person to tell me this message, so I have to
believe it was from God. See I am not
the type of person who likes to rest. I
like to be doing something, going somewhere, spending time with people, helping
people. But as Christians, this can be
damaging, even if it’s in the name of “ministry” because we can get so caught
up that we forget to spend time with God.
So I’m back in bed.
Resting. Learning that going out
is not always the best thing to do.
Learning that saying thank you is so important for building
relationships that you depend on.
Learning that patience and time will calcify not only my bone but also
the relationships and visions and purposes that may have been broken in the
past.
While in that place God took me back into other time zones
where I had been hurt. He showed me that
while He was COMPLETELY able and willing to heal my foot, that He was more out
to heal my heart. And that this
“mission” he was on, was not going to finish until that had been completed. My weary, broken, hole-ridden heart was about
to be filled with His LOVE.
I think if we all look back, we can see areas in our lives
where we have been hurt, where our hearts have been broken, damaged, torn. Those are the areas that, if not completely
healed, will continue to surface and shape the way that we view our world and
the future relationships we are entering into.
Hurt people, hurt people. So
important to know this when working with people. If we are still in a place of hurt, we need
to get that right!
My life has been such a smorgasbord of different events that
have shaped who I am today. There have
been good events and there have been bad.
There have been times where I’ve felt betrayed and times where I have
been abused. And over the years, God has
brought healing to so many of those places.
I continue to struggle though and never want to make out
like I am perfect because I am so far from it.
I want to help people because I know what it’s like to feel unworthy, to
feel shame and to feel unloved and unwanted.
The place that I help out of, though, is a place of restoration. God has restored me and redeemed me from all
of that “stuff”.
My friend Marianne nailed it this morning when she read from
James 1 in our devotion time:
Vs 2-8 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,
whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of
your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you
may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom,
you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it
will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because
the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in
all they do.
What God wants us to be is “mature and complete” but that
only comes when we face trials and have to persevere through that. In those trial processes, we often come full
frontal with the REAL us. Let me own
that- the real ME! The ME that reacts
and squirms like a baby when I don’t get my way! Or the ME that realizes that she’s seeking
satisfaction and recognition and love from people and not from the only one who
can bring COMPLETE satisfaction-God.
That’s me.
So sometimes I ask God for Him to help me to be mature and
complete and so He sends me a trial or puts me through a test. But that all comes with this promise found in
verse 12 of the same chapter:
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because,
having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord
has promised to those who love him.
He LOVES us, oh, how HE loves US. So we love Him, because He first loved
us. And because we know His love and His
love has made us complete and mature, we are able to LOVE others and help them
find the same thing. This is my
life. I feel like I passed this test. This recent one. Not the final exam. But this one where He,
the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, laid me up in bed so HE could spend
time with ME! And show me all the places
in my heart that needed healing, and I allowed HIM to heal me. OH, I am so thankful for that Quantum Leap!
