Free Your Mind!!!

Well, I’ve not written and shared for quite some time.  I’ve been working on getting my physical better in order that my mind would follow.  That old saying ‘free your mind and the rest will follow’, is truer than I ever wanted to admit.  Freedom - Isn’t that why I chose to follow Christ?  I realized I should focus more on the positive things life has to offer.  For so many years the focus has been on the punishment and not the pleasures of God.  Being bound by the condemnation of my sin/bad habits/addictions and not reveling in the freedom of forgiveness.

Trust me, I know it seems easier to say than to do a lot of the time.  Especially, when circumstances make you want to think the other way.  It has taken me quite some time to truly grasp this concept. I’ve been in that place so often when praise is the last thing I feel I have the energy to muster up.  Face it y’all, the love of God is far greater and more sustaining than the principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.

I was so stressed out about not feeling well, my body is in turmoil and my mind was a straight mess.  No matter how hard I tried to keep my thoughts positive it seemed like the more I was hit with issues.  The worst part is some of the issues I was stressing over (that I should have been praying about instead of fretting about) weren’t even mine.  Then I remembered the advice given to me by my spiritual mom, Frances Henry: Praise you raise, complain and remain!

I’m the kind of person that takes it personally when one of the people I love is hurting and going through something.  Especially, when those I love are so far from me and I am unable to be there physically to assist.  It never occurred to me I was taking them a little too personally.  It was my Doctor who pointed out to me I seemed like that personality type.

This scripture I have really taken seriously and is written on my heart: I Corinthians 12:25-26 “That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.  And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.”

I, personally, am not very good at suffering. I tossed around the idea that maybe I need to stop being the "go to" person.  Then I heard that voice say, then how are you going to minister?  My first response; well I guess ministry is not for me.  If my being there to have other’s trials and battles become mine, then I need something to help me keep those things from overtaking me.  My prayer is Lord, help me to not take every issue and circumstance of my loved ones so personally. 

Then I heard that voice again, What If my Son had done that? (Talk about hitting below the belt.)  Me, being who I am; said well I’m not your son and I don’t have the strength nor the confidence to carry the burdens of others without them weighing me down. Then my motto scripture was like a neon sign in my mind. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13.  The Message translation says it like this. “Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.”

It finally hit me, I was fighting with the wrong mindset and all the wrong weapons.  I was leaning to what I’ve been doing all my life and not fully comprehending how to be dressed for the things being thrown at me.  Mistake number one, I was leaning to my own understanding.  I’ve heard for years the greatest weapon of a Christian is prayer.

 

It’s was at that moment the Lord brought back to my memory the vision he showed me several weeks ago.  I’ve only shared this with one person, but now I feel led to share here.  I’m standing on a huge map of the United States. I'm covering the area where I live and there is a dark fog just a little above my head.  I can see the entire map and the fog extends from end to end of the map.  Then I begin to pray and as I prayed a bright yellow light burst through the fog causing an opening.  Through the opening I saw an Angel step down. I look around and in other places of the map I see this same light bursting through.

Enough said!?