A few nights ago, as I watched a well-ordained Glee episode (yes, reruns are still an occasional guilty pleasure…) that was spiritually themed, I heard from God. Not right away. And not aloud. Before turning it on, I had been reading a devotion from my Freedom study regarding how to make worship part of everyday life, and the regular “you can’t keep anything focused in your mind” thought came through. So, feeling determined and a bit defiant, I pressed through to the end of the chapter in spite of initially thinking I wouldn’t go more than 15 minutes or so. I’d poured myself a glass of wine – this day was the first I’d had in a week – and as I nursed the second glass, frustrated with myself that I’d poured more than my original one-glass limit, it hit me.
THIS was satan’s hold on me. I would have one glass, but I wouldn’t be able to stop there. I’d want a second. I’d stay up to watch another show. I’d get to bed late AND a bit tipsy. So I’d have trouble getting up the next morning and wouldn’t feel clear-headed – both of which would make morning devotions difficult if not inevitably gone altogether as I pressed snooze, desperate for the rest I had missed. I’d tell myself all day long that I would find time and if I didn’t, I’d do them at night. And the cycle would start again. I cursed. And I got MAD.
THIS was a foothold. THIS was one of the pieces that kept the perpetual cycle going. I prayed. And I got mad. I cursed at Satan in a way that felt SHOULD be reserved only for him. And then, I realized that when my dad died, I’d been mad at the wrong..being. I should’ve been mad at Satan, but I was mad at God. I think I should clarify – I do believe that it’s okay to express anger with God. This time, however, I’d held onto it, and I’d blamed Him. I’d been angry with Him for taking my dad way too soon, and too suddenly. Contemplation flashed through my mind…What if….what if my dad was in satan’s grip and getting to where he was no longer fighting it? What if satan had a foothold on my dad and death caught him before he completely walked away from god?
As I thought about the years, my patterns and disengagement, my struggle and my pain, my anger grew. My face flushed with that feeling that often comes with shame and humiliation and anger. Satan will NOT have a foothold in my home, and he will not have a place with my children, my marriage, my finances, my home, my emotions, my mind. I cursed him 3 times (as somehow felt appropriate) and then continued to scold and denounce his place in my life. With anger I ordered him out of my home. He may have had a foothold in my past, but his power reigns no longer. He. Is. Finished. Done. No more. I will not be his minion to destroy my life and those around me. I am no longer willing to do his work or listen to his purrs. I was furious.
And at the same time…grateful. “Be still”, I recalled. I had been wrestling with what that was supposed to look like all week. I support I still am, to some degree. But there was a revelation in this moment, this experience. ALL I needed to do was to literally keep doing what I was doing. Read some. Clean some. Pour a glass of wine with a snack and watch a show. And there it was. I had no idea why, but I knew it as soon as they started the spirituality episode that I was being spoken to and I became alert.
God used my mess, my strongholds, my dissociations and patterns and routines to speak to me and speak to my heart. He didn’t need stars to align. He didn’t need me on my knees in a quiet sanctuary (though quiet time with God is definitely recommended). God could get ahold of my heart right where I was, in the middle of my mess. It is a truly beautiful thing, because while I’m not great at getting my ducks in a row, I DO know how to be in the middle of the ponds I find myself in.
God can – will – use you, just where you are. Seek him, and you will find him. “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the LORD. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.” Jeremiah 29: 12-14