Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Something happened this weekend that surprised me as much as anyone....but, of course, there's a story...and I gotta start way back...get a cup of tea or coffee and settle in; there's a lot here, lol.
My faithful friends who have been reading the blog since I started back in 2008 have been with me through highs and lows and struggles and confessions...all the stuff of life. So, some of this will sound a little familiar, perhaps.
My church believes in inner healing ministry. I was first exposed to it back in 2002; our co-pastor, who would just be called the pastor's wife in many churches, led a ladies study of a book called Prayers that Heal the Heart. That was a completely new area for me; the concepts of identifying lies we'd believed and lived by, and forgiving ourselves and others for the messes those lies caused, were paradigm shifting.
I did the class twice.
Years later, the church offered a curriculum called 'Elijah House', which went deeper into the same subject matter. I kinda felt like I had covered it well enough, and there were one or two points that I had heard about in that curriculum that I wasn't sure I could agree with. And, at the time, I was teaching two - three classes per week in the Girls' ministry, so I didn't have time to listen to the CD lessons, read the books, answer the questions, and attend a 5.5 hour class every other week for three months. Nonetheless, there were folks who worked in that ministry who were ....strongly encouraging me to take the class. 'Everyone needs it!' They'd say.
I dodged it for quite a while, but when the classes I was teaching ended in 2014 I didn't have a good excuse anymore. So, just being honest, I took the first and second level classes, which were what was offered at our church, so I wouldn't have to fend off the encouragers, lol. The classes were good; and yes, there was one particular area that I just could not fall in line with, but despite my reluctance I did learn. Like, I should identify my self as 'Hi, I'm Lisa Performance-oriented Willis' (that is a joke. Mostly).
I also went to Rita Springer's DIVE school that fall, and in the gift bag that all students got was a set of CD's of Gateway church's inner healing ministry. I've listened to them two or three times through...and they are very good .
In 2018 or maybe early 2019, a couple of ladies from Bethel came and took us through a Sozo class...which is Bethel's inner healing model. It was somewhat different from the Prayers that Heal the heart/ Elijah House model, and I would like to study that more; it had a stronger emphasis on helping others.
So...all that to say that, over the last 20ish years, I've done a good bit of inner healing coursework, and I came to the conclusion that inner healing basically boils down to 1) forgiveness...of ones' self, others who, intentionally or not, caused wounds, and even recognizing that it was possible to be offended with God over those things; and 2) dealing with the truth.
So, when we replaced the Elijah House curriculum with one based on the Freedom curriculum from Church of the Highlands, I did not exactly jump right into it. It's nine classes, with small group discussion and a workbook, followed by a conference at the end of the semester. Our first course was last fall; I worked registration at the conference but could hear most of the sessions on the speakers in the lobby, even if I wasn't in the auditorium. I was in spite of myself, impressed by one thing...there is a boatload of individual prayer ministry at the conference. There are 7 short sessions, composed mostly of the teacher's own testimony of being delivered from [pride, anger, fear, etc]. Then...and this is the secret sauce...every single person in the conference is directed to the prayer line, where one of the trained prayer workers will talk the individual through identifying the particular lie related to that session, asking for forgiveness for believing and partnering with the lie, forgiving the individual(s) who caused or who reinforced the lie, renouncing the lie, and replacing the lie with the truth about that aspect of life from the scripture. They ended the conference by having water baptism available for those who wanted,
By the time the conference is over, every single person there will have been prayed for, individually and intentionally, for anywhere from about 35 minutes to an hour. THAT, my friend, is life changing. Like I said, I was impressed.
But...you know, I've been through all this inner healing stuff before. I really didn't want to do it again. But our Wednesday night class offerings were slim this spring, due to construction in the building, and, again, I was getting lots of 'encouragement' from folks to go through the class, lol. 'Everyone needs it.' LOL . But, to be honest, I had a bit of a nudge in my spirit that this was the opportunity, before I had classes to teach again, to do the Freedom class. Partly just to check it off the list, but also... maybe...just maybe...work through some of the disquiet I have been increasingly dealing with. So I took a deep breath and signed up.
If I were not familiar with inner healing by now, I probably would have had the same reaction to the Freedom coursework that I had back in Prayers that Heal the Heart. Now, I was reading along, answering questions, and writing out scripture verses with agreement. Our small group discussion was warm and embracing and really good; I loved that. We didn't just go through the lesson questions...like we did in Elijah House...we discussed the topics and how they related to our personal struggles. We talked about living out of self versus living out of faith, God's love and mercy, etc.
In addition to this classwork contemplation, on Palm Sunday, our pastor did the altar time a bit differently; he specifically wanted just the staff pastoral team to do the altar time, so, he said, the leaders could take advantage of the prayer ministry instead of being the ones called upon to do it. And, over the course of the message I finally put language to that vague disquiet that had been growing...deep discouragement, in a number of areas. It's possible that the long-time readers may pick up on some of those areas, but there are a couple that I haven't shared here. I knew that awesome prayer time was coming at the fast-approaching conference at the end of the semester, and I was tempted to just wait and deal with it there. But, then I thought, let's get this one taken care of now, so I'll have one thing out of the way at conference. Just confessing the discouragement to my friend on staff who prayed for me felt like a shift.
The following Wednesday was the next-to-last Freedom lesson, which was the lesson that actually specifically dealt with those lies that shape how we see ourselves and interact with others. Again, I've done it before so I was just cruising through the workbook, doing my homework before class, nodding at the illustration of dealing with the lie of worthlessness...until I got to the part that said 'Pray forgiveness over the person that spoke worthlessness over you.'...and immediately had a memory from when I was about 9 of something my grandfather said. Followed by a few more things that he'd said as I grew older, followed by memories of things he didn't say.
I had internalized that message of worthlessness and, despite all the previous coursework, had never dealt with it fully. Did some work that day...and my resistance to the process got a big crack. Another shift.
Now I was really starting to believe I could see a change. At weekly night prayer last week, before the conference, in which we have the freedom to walk around the sanctuary and worship and pray and personally take communion...I took my little communion packet to the balcony and sat down on the floor in the alcove behind the projection screen...and asked God to show me what I needed to deal with over the weekend.
I had three mental pictures, back to back, in short order. The first appeared to be a storage unit...about garage sized...which was empty but the floor was littered with dust, grime, broken plastic bits, shreds of paper and cardboard, etc. It was especially dirty in the corners and along the edges of the floor. Empty...but not clean. The second picture was the sludge in the bottom of my coffee pot, after the coffee is poured out. The third was a big lump of Pla-Doh, which was rather old and stiff and just a little crusty. By Friday, the day the conference started, I'd come to the conclusion that I needed a fresh start. All the old positions I'd held, ministries I'd worked in; projects or productions I'd worked on...that were now not involving me for one reason or another...I needed to Let. Them. Go. I was no longer going to be the former (whatever) or the sometimes (other job) or looking for opportunities to bring back one spot or another. It's all OVER. Time to move on.
And you know, I got several confirmations in that prayer time over the weekend of fresh vision, new opportunities, moving on.
I went home Saturday evening feeling encouraged and on the verge of something new. This year they did not have a baptismal service at the end of the conference, because our every-other-month regular church baptism service was Sunday, the very next day. They were signing people up for that at the conference. Suddenly, I found myself considering signing up for baptism.
Now, I committed my life to Jesus and was baptized just before I turned 10. I remember it; I was sincere. I grew up loving Jesus and, while there are definitely moments that I wish I had made better choices, they were of the humiliating variety, not the life altering variety. I had worked through some areas of disappointment and not understanding. I never felt like I needed to do a rededication or a rebaptism...not even when I went to Israel and could have been baptized in the Jordan river. So my first reaction to that idea was to scoff at it. But I couldn't shake it. That evening, I talked to my hubby about it and he was supportive. Finally...since I had the power as the data base admin...I signed myself up and went to bed.
And...interesting...when I went to Israel I came very close to getting a small tattoo. The only thing that prevented it was a terrorist attack that closed the gates to the old city so we couldn't get to the 600 year old tattoo business. The night before we were scheduled to go, I had a very odd sensation that, the next morning, I would be changing the definition of myself by getting a tattoo. When I went to bed after submitting the registration form I had the exact same emotional reaction...that, with the morning, my perception of myself would change.
I was actually working registration for baptism, so I put myself last on the list. The church photographer got pics.
Guys...that was a solid shift, even though I have no idea what...if anything outside of just abiding in God's love...is in the near future. But I don't have to worry about it. I left that in the water.
.JPG)
