God Speaks #1

The pic has absolutely nothing to do with the post...I'd just hate to have a long post with no pictures however!! :)
This is Madelyn snuggling with Dakota...as my sister says, "oh break my heart!!".

As I had promised a week or more ago...I have compiled a list of things that I have learned about how God was trying to get my attention and what He was doing in order to speak to me. (and still is!) I'm very convinced that God will speak to every believer. This is just not an added perk to being a pastor, Christian author or deacon...its for all of us! God wants to speak to us, He wants us to hear also! We can learn to train our ears and hearts, I know this for sure!

First, I want to add a small disclaimer here...I am by no means saying that this is how God must always speak, or that there are not other ways God uses to call us to Him. God is just that...God. He can and does do whatever He sees fit. This is just what I have come to understand recently, just my experience...but I do know that you will find others who will have very similar experiences!

I also must communicate that I am "learning"...meaning that I haven't gotten this all figured out yet! I'm only offering what I have more recently learned and how God is speaking into my life at this current time. I am still trying to put pieces of this puzzle together, still trying to wrap my mind around some difficult experiences when I feel as if God wasn't so clear. Still trying to find a place for some questions concerning "WHY?". The difference from questions now versus several years ago...I'm not alone. I have a Father that is bigger than any question and can take the heat!
I love Beth Moore's statement: "I may be a drama queen, but thank God, I have a drama KING!".

With that said, here goes.
I have pin pointed 5 things that were huge for me in this process. I will list them for you in somewhat of a chronological order. Meaning that this is the order in which I began to have a change in my thinking. When I started to notice that something was up...

1) God used emotions and physical means to get my attention.
Tears, racing heart rate, anxiety, nausea, insomnia, etc.
This was the first revelation that I had...and it was huge for me. I have always been a tender hearted person, crying when anyone cried in my presence (even if they weren't talking to me directly...if I saw them very emotionally distraught, I cried!). But something changed when I began to notice that my tears where unexplainable. When I would start crying during a song, during a sermon, while listening to an interview on the radio, tv...anything. There was no apparent reason for the tears, but they would come with such force that I couldn't hide from them! I found myself working very hard to think about something else, trying to suppress the flood that was surfacing. I began avoid certain things. Things that seemed to trigger the rise in heart rate and then lead to never ending tears. I eventually ended up very medicated on Zoloft! Trying to numb the alarm that was going off, Zoloft did give me some relief. But then it took more, and more. My physicians said that stress and hormones were probably to blame. Please know that I understand that hormones can get really whacked out enough to need Zoloft for the right reasons. I had previously needed them during one of my pregnancies that sent my hormones into fits. They were helpful and I soon got off them when things seemed to settle down after the baby was born. There are times when medication is truly a blessing and a much needed tool to control some imbalances. I, however, more recently was using them to avoid something, even though I wouldn't have been able to vocalize that at the time. It was too deep and I couldn't see clearly what was actually taking place.

I see now that God was turning up the intensity of the alarm that I was desperately trying to silence! There was a clear avoidance mode that I was in. Looking back, I know that God was stirring things up inside me...ringing my alarm, if you will...because there were some things that He wanted to deal with me about! He wanted to help me sort through some baggage. He wanted my attention and He was gunna get it one way or another.

Now that I have come to understand this about my God...I am very careful to notice how things feel. When I feel uncomfortable. When my heart races and I can't sleep! When a reaccuring thought surfaces or tears begin to find their way out. I now sense that my Father is knocking/ringing the doorbell, and instead of running from the door, instead of running in fear of the emotions...I'm learning to go toward the knock. Opening up what might need some tending to. The sweet thing here is that the Lord was standing there (wondering what took me sooo long) wanting to walk me through this experience!

Actually, in times when I am doing something really uncomfortable...but knowing God is asking me to be there anyways...the racing heart is a relief. For I know that my God is living inside me and I often see (in my mind) Him holding my heart in His hands. I know He controls the beating of every heartbeat.

For timing sake...let me end this here. I will come back another day (soon) with the others.
The others are not as in depth...but I don't want to loose you and I have got to get off this computer!

I pray that you would ponder this in your own life...could it be that God is using your emotions or other physical reactions to get your attention? Is your alarm going off?

I found it much easier (and healing) to deal with the alarm than to work feverishly at silencing it!!