"The sun filtered lazily through large pecan trees creating a soft leaf pattern on the grass, a little girl hummed absentmindedly as her little feet made an endless patter through the back yard. Clutching a shinny bottle in one hand she ran about picking small leaves and handfuls of grass, assembling it all in a pile. She proceeded to arrange and survey, and bottle her wares..... choosing carefully, rose pedaled finger tips plopped four pebbles into the bottle, the pebbles making tiny musical notes as they clattered down to join the greenery. Being tempted by the soft smell of honeysuckle, the curly top made her way to the other end of the garden; still humming she relieved the bush of several of its flowers. Cradling them in one hand, she skipped lightly back to her bottle and let them float in to join their plucked relations. Mind whirling with thoughts of wedding dress, being a mommy, and cooking wonderful dinners for her family, the little one added some dirt and water to her concoction with the vigor of a busy house wife, leaving little muddy hand prints on the outside of the once shinny bottle. Suddenly there was a tremulous clap *bang* whirling around the young heart leaped in fear as she noticed the terrifying storm clouds that had gathered suddenly. Then without warning pounding rains began in a torrent to berail the soft head. Dropping the now over stuffed bottle, the frightened creature ran for shelter, all the joy of the day forgotten in the terror of the storm.......
Wind whipped relentlessly around the forsaken bottle and the waters began to surround it, after awhile the bottle began to move with the vigor of the currant and was swept up under a bush where it stuck…….for months there it sat at the mercy of the weather, steam rose slowly form the tip of the bottle as the sun heated the water inside. Sucked dry, the mud on the inside hardened like rock. The greenery began to die slowly soaking up the water and rotting in the heat, the stench inside the bottle became unbearable and the different things inside completely unrecognizable………”
Have you ever noticed that understanding things is so much easier once you are looking back at them….. It is always easier to see the message written in the wheat field when you’re standing on the mountain and not lost in the field itself. This is often how I feel in my journey with the Lord. When I look back it all makes so much sense! So why the random little story about the little girl and her bottle you ask, well that is what the Lord has been teaching me about lately, bottles! I am talking about the bottle inside of me, the place I store all my unwanted pain and emotions. Ever since I was very small I have had this mindset that if I just took all the blame and pretended like nothing ever bothered me there would never be any disaster in my life. I wouldn’t have to be angry or bitter towards anyone if I just blamed myself. If you bottle the water you don’t rock the boat so to speak. There’s is only one problem with this method though….. a bottle can only hold so much. Eventually the bottle must be emptied. You can even drop it in a moment of great fear, let it roll under a bush and forget about it for years, but its still there, its rotted insides seeping over into every area of your life. So what’s the solution? Well in all obviousness the answer is simple, empty the bottle. Only one problem, unlike a bottle filled with clean water; rotten, sun baked, mud and leaves don’t really just dump out. This is where I was stuck…...
The Lord had brought to my attention my bottling habit, ok great check that one off, so I know I do it and need to stop but what about the disgusting mess I already have?? If you have ever tried to clean the inside of an old dirty bottle you know it’s not easy so when it’s a young woman’s heart it gets really painful. As many of you know the Father created me to be an emotional person (some of you are rolling your eyes with a knowing smile and others are thinking hateful things lol) so in the light of your greatest strength is also being your greatest weakness, my emotional make up made the bottling even worse. After many years of not being aware of my bottle something terrible/wonderful happened, you guessed it the bottle erupted. I mean slinging nasty rotted mud goo everywhere!!! No it wasn’t pretty. The worst part was I had no idea why I was suddenly SO angry, it just wasn’t like me, but it was simply just the rotting pile up of years of pain that overflowed. I was completely full of bad emotions didn't even I know had. This in turn produced another result, pain! My spirit was suddenly crushed. For so many years I had trained myself to not let it hurt, I put things in my bottle, blaming them on myself, deciding it didn’t matter and therefore I shouldn’t care and as a result I trained hurts in my life to bypass my heart all together and land right, curplunk, into the correctly labeled bottle. So in a way it was emotional armor, I didn’t feel anything, but not in a good way. If someone has no nerves in their hand they could hold it on a hot burner and not feel anything, they don’t think it’s effecting them because they can’t feel it but in reality the skin and muscle is being destroyed and great harm is being done, this was the condition of my heart. Now imagine that person burns down far enough to where they can suddenly feel it, you bet your buttons their not going to keep standing there like that! I was that person I had become, aware of the pain and what it meant but now there was a problem…….things hurt! So here I am realizing what’s been going on for 17 years and having no idea how to change anything. So I simply pulled out some brick and built a huge wall around my heart. Pain was being hurled at me everyday so to defend myself I put up a wall, I knew no better. It was there, huddled behind my wall that my bleeding heart turned to stone, my bottle cleaning attempts became as frustrated as my desire to be new and all hope burned out. But in His grace and mercy it was also there that my wonderful heavenly protector met me, in a place where I couldn’t change, didn’t even want to, He met me.
During this time in which I had been hiding behind my wall my relationships with people whom I care very much about had suffered greatly and I didn’t even know why. I began to panic I seemed to be hurting one person after another and it scared me horribly but I couldn’t change on my own. This resulted in me putting distance between me and everyone close to me. I built a wall around my heart to keep out the pain but ended up keeping out everyone else even the Father as well. Finally there was an explosion my wall was exposed and I cried out for help. Through this and the help of some ministry I received freedom, it was disgusting how much junk and unforgiveness came out, stuff I had no idea I had saved but was hurting me. I forgave people I had been holding accountable and received forgiveness from the Father. I realized I had been ashamedness to come to the Father because of all the junk inside me and I had cut Him out of the picture slowly, but with forgiveness came grace and mercy and the Lord did something I was unable to do….He emptied the bottle. Where I was unable to fix things He came in and totally washed me clean. He is so good:)
A few days after this I had worked these things out with the Lord I saw the most wonderful shooting star ever! It lasted so long I was able to get someone else to turn and look at it for like 30 seconds before it was gone, it was truly amazing! I knew the Lord was winking at me and reminding me that His promises are true really forever and always enough. This has been my journey the past few months. Daily He is teaching me to empty my bottle the minute something enters allowing for much easier clean up. Unforgiveness always gets revenge on you, bottles, will explode, but the grace of the Father is everlasting and for all time. Bottles full of junk create walls that wall out everyone not just the ones hurting you and in the end the love of the Father is much better when it can shine through an empty bottle…..
Wind whipped relentlessly around the forsaken bottle and the waters began to surround it, after awhile the bottle began to move with the vigor of the currant and was swept up under a bush where it stuck…….for months there it sat at the mercy of the weather, steam rose slowly form the tip of the bottle as the sun heated the water inside. Sucked dry, the mud on the inside hardened like rock. The greenery began to die slowly soaking up the water and rotting in the heat, the stench inside the bottle became unbearable and the different things inside completely unrecognizable………”
Have you ever noticed that understanding things is so much easier once you are looking back at them….. It is always easier to see the message written in the wheat field when you’re standing on the mountain and not lost in the field itself. This is often how I feel in my journey with the Lord. When I look back it all makes so much sense! So why the random little story about the little girl and her bottle you ask, well that is what the Lord has been teaching me about lately, bottles! I am talking about the bottle inside of me, the place I store all my unwanted pain and emotions. Ever since I was very small I have had this mindset that if I just took all the blame and pretended like nothing ever bothered me there would never be any disaster in my life. I wouldn’t have to be angry or bitter towards anyone if I just blamed myself. If you bottle the water you don’t rock the boat so to speak. There’s is only one problem with this method though….. a bottle can only hold so much. Eventually the bottle must be emptied. You can even drop it in a moment of great fear, let it roll under a bush and forget about it for years, but its still there, its rotted insides seeping over into every area of your life. So what’s the solution? Well in all obviousness the answer is simple, empty the bottle. Only one problem, unlike a bottle filled with clean water; rotten, sun baked, mud and leaves don’t really just dump out. This is where I was stuck…...
The Lord had brought to my attention my bottling habit, ok great check that one off, so I know I do it and need to stop but what about the disgusting mess I already have?? If you have ever tried to clean the inside of an old dirty bottle you know it’s not easy so when it’s a young woman’s heart it gets really painful. As many of you know the Father created me to be an emotional person (some of you are rolling your eyes with a knowing smile and others are thinking hateful things lol) so in the light of your greatest strength is also being your greatest weakness, my emotional make up made the bottling even worse. After many years of not being aware of my bottle something terrible/wonderful happened, you guessed it the bottle erupted. I mean slinging nasty rotted mud goo everywhere!!! No it wasn’t pretty. The worst part was I had no idea why I was suddenly SO angry, it just wasn’t like me, but it was simply just the rotting pile up of years of pain that overflowed. I was completely full of bad emotions didn't even I know had. This in turn produced another result, pain! My spirit was suddenly crushed. For so many years I had trained myself to not let it hurt, I put things in my bottle, blaming them on myself, deciding it didn’t matter and therefore I shouldn’t care and as a result I trained hurts in my life to bypass my heart all together and land right, curplunk, into the correctly labeled bottle. So in a way it was emotional armor, I didn’t feel anything, but not in a good way. If someone has no nerves in their hand they could hold it on a hot burner and not feel anything, they don’t think it’s effecting them because they can’t feel it but in reality the skin and muscle is being destroyed and great harm is being done, this was the condition of my heart. Now imagine that person burns down far enough to where they can suddenly feel it, you bet your buttons their not going to keep standing there like that! I was that person I had become, aware of the pain and what it meant but now there was a problem…….things hurt! So here I am realizing what’s been going on for 17 years and having no idea how to change anything. So I simply pulled out some brick and built a huge wall around my heart. Pain was being hurled at me everyday so to defend myself I put up a wall, I knew no better. It was there, huddled behind my wall that my bleeding heart turned to stone, my bottle cleaning attempts became as frustrated as my desire to be new and all hope burned out. But in His grace and mercy it was also there that my wonderful heavenly protector met me, in a place where I couldn’t change, didn’t even want to, He met me.
During this time in which I had been hiding behind my wall my relationships with people whom I care very much about had suffered greatly and I didn’t even know why. I began to panic I seemed to be hurting one person after another and it scared me horribly but I couldn’t change on my own. This resulted in me putting distance between me and everyone close to me. I built a wall around my heart to keep out the pain but ended up keeping out everyone else even the Father as well. Finally there was an explosion my wall was exposed and I cried out for help. Through this and the help of some ministry I received freedom, it was disgusting how much junk and unforgiveness came out, stuff I had no idea I had saved but was hurting me. I forgave people I had been holding accountable and received forgiveness from the Father. I realized I had been ashamedness to come to the Father because of all the junk inside me and I had cut Him out of the picture slowly, but with forgiveness came grace and mercy and the Lord did something I was unable to do….He emptied the bottle. Where I was unable to fix things He came in and totally washed me clean. He is so good:)
A few days after this I had worked these things out with the Lord I saw the most wonderful shooting star ever! It lasted so long I was able to get someone else to turn and look at it for like 30 seconds before it was gone, it was truly amazing! I knew the Lord was winking at me and reminding me that His promises are true really forever and always enough. This has been my journey the past few months. Daily He is teaching me to empty my bottle the minute something enters allowing for much easier clean up. Unforgiveness always gets revenge on you, bottles, will explode, but the grace of the Father is everlasting and for all time. Bottles full of junk create walls that wall out everyone not just the ones hurting you and in the end the love of the Father is much better when it can shine through an empty bottle…..
