Waves of Recovery
At the beach today I jumped in the water with my clothes on and the waves were powerful pulling me in as I approached them. They picked me up and I began to lose control. The waves carried me and I started to freak out but then I realized that I was being moved towards the shore and would be safe. I was slammed down onto the shore and it hurt but I was okay.
God says that I must move towards the waves even though they scare me and I am going to feel overwhelmed and powerless. I know it will be painful but the waves will move me towards Him. The waves of pain, memories, emotions, truth, and reality are overwhelming but I must face them, move towards them. I must go through this process in order to be moved toward God and into a position where I am powerless and need to let go and trust Him alone.
As they are stripped away I realize that God is not safe but He is good and He is with me there in the crashing tide. He will replace that which I lost into the water with good things (sand: faith, hope, sanity, truth, new healthy relationships).
My Savior will lift me up after I fall onto the shore and direct me back towards the next wave. Jesus will encourage me to keep going until I am spent lying there on the shore in a sprawl, sand everywhere, done, broken and totally surrendered and ready to get up in His strength, wisdom and power alone.
I am now ready and willing to go back to the waves and this time I will allow Jesus Christ to lift me up above that which overwhelmed me. Holding onto Him I will see clearly what I could not see or understand before; I am healed, willing and available for God to use me for His righteous purposes.
I realize that I am not alone in the waves. My brothers and sisters in Christ are out there with me being tossed about and all of us being moved towards our Healer, Jesus Christ. Like a huge washing machine the salt is purifying us as the waves churn and the sand is rubbing away the rough edges, our character defects.
I have experience, strength and hope now in the areas of recovery that I have been lifted above and I reach down and help lift up others up and where I am still broken I reach up to those above me and we all are able to ride the waves of recovery togetherJ.
Some of my sisters and brothers are sitting on the shore and afraid to jump in. Some are in up to their knees and afraid to go in any farther lest they be overcome by the waves. They wait, watch and realize that although we are being tossed about and do not look very pretty when we are dumped upon the shore; we have come back with so much more than what we had when we jumped into the waves. They see our changed lives, our courage and seeing this they become willing to go in over their heads with us and with God.
A brother swims out past where any of us have gone and those of us in the water and on the shore call out to him but he cannot hear us. We start waving to him to come back to us as we do not want to lose him.
Some on the beach want us to be quiet but we will not be silenced and continue to call out and wave to our brother until he is back with us and no longer alone out there, vulnerable and in danger.
We are not to swim alone.
We are to be in recovery together.
We are crashing and bumping into each other in the waves as we exhort and encourage and sharpen each other until the end product that ends up on the shore are broken, surrendered, healed children of God who are ready and willing to be wounded healers. We are so aware of where we came from and where God is taking us, firm in our foundation, in the knowledge of who our Father is and what His Son, Jesus Christ, paid on our behalf and who we are in Him.
“How can I keep from singing Your praise?
How can I ever say enough,
How amazing is your love.
How can I keep from shouting Your name?
I know I am loved by the King…
And it makes my heart want to sing.
I know I am loved by the King…
And it makes my heart want to sing”
I brought things with me in my pockets (fear, doubt, unhealthy relationships, circumstances, insanity) when I first jumped into the water and in the process of being tumbled in the waves they were taken away. In the waves of recovery I will lose these things that I held onto as I am able to trust and release them to be taken away by the water that washes over me.
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