I have been thinking lately about how I often write about the church I was raised in on this blog; I do not use glowing terms when I reference it. The things I write about on here are mostly about spiritual things and the journey I’m walking with the Lord, and much of the refining work God has to do in me requires me to examine the messiness and uproot the deep lies or untwist the messages I retained about who He is and who I am. I share them because I’m unwilling to hide when freedom is found in the light. I also share them because many of my extended family are still in the cult that the church of my youth broke off of or have left and are carry wounds because of all the broken things they’ve gone through and I want them to know who God really is. And I share them because maybe...maybe someone will read what I write and they will believe the hope and healing and affection of God for them.
But sometimes I wonder if my words hurt the hearts of the people who taught me there or brought me there. And that makes me sad because when I think of them...ALL of them...I feel no resentment or anger or fear or ill-will. I choose to believe that they did the best they could with what they had, and as strange as that may appear to you reading this, that was enough to soften my heart many years ago. Also, if you’re reading this and you ARE still angry, resentful, hurt, fearful or any other painful emotion not listed here...I don’t blame you. Those are absolutely justifiable, understandable feelings to have--you were harmed and that has never been acceptable. The people who harmed you are accountable to God for what they have done, whether you forgive them or not. Also, I am so sorry for your wounds (I seriously have tears running down my face as I just wrote that because I've seen some of them).
I had a good childhood, I really did. I grew up on a farm and played outside for hours with my brothers. Yes, we had a lot of rules and things weren’t always glorious, but I had a family who loved me, parents who encouraged me, a mom who listened to me, and a dad who taught me how to do things like fix my car. I had every physical need provided for, built sweet relationships with my siblings, and I even had some opportunities to do things I enjoyed (like sing in the choir and public speaking). Some nuggets I still carry with me: “Embrace your weirdness” (i.e. You don’t have to follow the crowd). “Know what you believe and why you believe it” (i.e. Think for yourself). “You are capable. Anything my boys can do, my girls can do” (i.e. Here’s a power tool, enjoy).
And there is one vivid thing that I took with me from the church I was raise in that I am very grateful for and I want to share it with you. I was taught to revere God. God was presented to me as a holy, majestic, perfect, mighty Being who was SO far above me that I couldn’t even grasp the wonder of who He was because the plane that He resided upon was far too great to bear the likes of a sinner like me, that this God was just in His wrath toward me and I should do nothing but tremble before Him.
That’s what I remember being told about God (in harsher terms, and for the record, that is a VERY lopsided view of God). But honestly, that was a great gift.
Because it is true that God is holy, majestic, perfect, mighty, just and angry at sin...
and when THAT God bends down and whispers His affection to you in the darkest pit of your life....when THAT God cups your face in His hands and lifts your head and pulls you close...when THAT God sits beside you while you sort through the harm you’ve done to others and the harm you’ve done to yourself and the harm done to you without even once cringing at your ugliness...when THAT God pours out Himself to heal your wounds and bring beauty from your ashes...when THAT God says to you, “You are Mine and I am yours”...
then you will never be the same.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Monday, March 26, 2018
"Death and life are in the power of the tongue..."
I’ve been processing through my insecurity with the Lord; it’s been a somewhat ugly journey so far...but sanctifying as I am intentionally leaving no stone I come upon unturned.
I came to the realization yesterday that I find myself facing a deep juxtaposition in regards to my voice. In one hand I see the opportunity to bring life and in the other, the fear of bringing death. When I hold these together, I become painfully paralyzed.
If you know me well or have heard my story, you’ve possibly heard testimony of my physical voice’s disappearance and return and what God did in the space between. I am very much indebted to the Lord to even have the ability TO speak. Since that point in my life, I have often held up my voice in wonder to the Lord asking, “You gave it back to me, how do You wish to use it?”
In one hand I hold a deep desire to be heard: I long for opportunities to testify and to teach; to encourage and to exhort; to bless and to prophecy; to proclaim Truth and freedom; and to impact the world for the glory of the Lord and for His kingdom.
And in the other, I hold a great fear of my voice: I am terrified that I will unintentionally deceive someone or discourage a fainting soul; I am petrified of misrepresenting and dishonoring the name of Jesus; I am afraid that I will say something that leads someone astray or that my opinions would speak louder than the Truth; I find the idea of my voice adding to the destruction of another’s soul utterly unbearable.
Because “death and life are in the power of the tongue,” (Proverbs 18:21a) and I know what death from the tongue feels like--both to receive and to give. As I look over my past, both the desire and the fear are no surprise.
I didn’t really get a voice growing up; I’m female, in the context of the church I was raised in, that meant I was born into a position of silence. I also was a pretty strong people-pleaser, so I mostly quietly stayed within the bounds I was given. I was told what to think, what to wear, what to do and what not to do. My voice was usually downed out or cut off.
And I was told a lot of things in the name of Jesus: I was fed twisted theology under the guise of truth and beat into compliance to the rules of men with pieces of God’s word. I was manipulated with fear, and presented an image of the Lord that was so lopsided it is a wonder I ever learned to trust Him. My honest questions were met with condemnation and I was deceived by the ones who claimed all others would deceive me. And until I became a believer in Jesus, I used my tongue in the ways I had learned; controlling my environment and the people around me with my words and manipulative tactics (in case you were wondering, yes, my first journey of repentance when I became a believer was a long and painful one).
But I am not who I was, I am redeemed by the pure blood of Jesus and there are 14 years of sanctification and learning behind me. I am sitting now praying that the Lord would help me discern between healthy fear and unhealthy fear. Because the former will secure me humbly at the feet of the Lord, intentionally submitting all I say to Him, while the latter will paralyze and silence me, rendering me ineffective for the Kingdom. I must learn to speak in my new life with confidence, secure in the Lord’s hands. I must not doubt that the One who calls me to stand and speak will protect my voice and respond to the deep desire of my heart to honor Him and not myself. Because He’s a good Father and He does not send us out to succeed or fail on our own; He empowers, equips and upholds us in the work He has for us to do.
I need to trust Him, friends. I need to wrap myself in the security of my identity in Him and not waver. And sometimes that's a hard thing to do because I must look my fear directly in the eye and remain there until it flees amid the assurance and presence of His unfailing love for me.
So that is where I find myself in this journey; bowed down at the Mercy Seat with my fear laid out before me.
I came to the realization yesterday that I find myself facing a deep juxtaposition in regards to my voice. In one hand I see the opportunity to bring life and in the other, the fear of bringing death. When I hold these together, I become painfully paralyzed.
If you know me well or have heard my story, you’ve possibly heard testimony of my physical voice’s disappearance and return and what God did in the space between. I am very much indebted to the Lord to even have the ability TO speak. Since that point in my life, I have often held up my voice in wonder to the Lord asking, “You gave it back to me, how do You wish to use it?”
In one hand I hold a deep desire to be heard: I long for opportunities to testify and to teach; to encourage and to exhort; to bless and to prophecy; to proclaim Truth and freedom; and to impact the world for the glory of the Lord and for His kingdom.
And in the other, I hold a great fear of my voice: I am terrified that I will unintentionally deceive someone or discourage a fainting soul; I am petrified of misrepresenting and dishonoring the name of Jesus; I am afraid that I will say something that leads someone astray or that my opinions would speak louder than the Truth; I find the idea of my voice adding to the destruction of another’s soul utterly unbearable.
Because “death and life are in the power of the tongue,” (Proverbs 18:21a) and I know what death from the tongue feels like--both to receive and to give. As I look over my past, both the desire and the fear are no surprise.
I didn’t really get a voice growing up; I’m female, in the context of the church I was raised in, that meant I was born into a position of silence. I also was a pretty strong people-pleaser, so I mostly quietly stayed within the bounds I was given. I was told what to think, what to wear, what to do and what not to do. My voice was usually downed out or cut off.
And I was told a lot of things in the name of Jesus: I was fed twisted theology under the guise of truth and beat into compliance to the rules of men with pieces of God’s word. I was manipulated with fear, and presented an image of the Lord that was so lopsided it is a wonder I ever learned to trust Him. My honest questions were met with condemnation and I was deceived by the ones who claimed all others would deceive me. And until I became a believer in Jesus, I used my tongue in the ways I had learned; controlling my environment and the people around me with my words and manipulative tactics (in case you were wondering, yes, my first journey of repentance when I became a believer was a long and painful one).
But I am not who I was, I am redeemed by the pure blood of Jesus and there are 14 years of sanctification and learning behind me. I am sitting now praying that the Lord would help me discern between healthy fear and unhealthy fear. Because the former will secure me humbly at the feet of the Lord, intentionally submitting all I say to Him, while the latter will paralyze and silence me, rendering me ineffective for the Kingdom. I must learn to speak in my new life with confidence, secure in the Lord’s hands. I must not doubt that the One who calls me to stand and speak will protect my voice and respond to the deep desire of my heart to honor Him and not myself. Because He’s a good Father and He does not send us out to succeed or fail on our own; He empowers, equips and upholds us in the work He has for us to do.
I need to trust Him, friends. I need to wrap myself in the security of my identity in Him and not waver. And sometimes that's a hard thing to do because I must look my fear directly in the eye and remain there until it flees amid the assurance and presence of His unfailing love for me.
So that is where I find myself in this journey; bowed down at the Mercy Seat with my fear laid out before me.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
the sorrow of a tired woman
unchanging tomorrows
©3-21-18 hannah mclean
my fight is over
drained of perseverance
i gave my all
and came up empty
every last hope laid out
and i have gathered in
only empty sheaves
my head hangs
my feet drag
my knees bloodied
from feeble, staggered steps
there is nowhere to sit
no comfort on which to lay my head
and so i limp slowly on
in the sloughs of my discontent
how do i stand
without hope for my present pains?
on what can i lean?
where can i rest
to regain strength to face my
unchanging tomorrows?
i am too tired
to look upon this journey
another day
You call out
“shamar”
to preserve
to keep
to guard
psalm 145:20
“the Lord [shamar]s all who love Him”
in this promise
i close my eyes
©3-21-18 hannah mclean
my fight is over
drained of perseverance
i gave my all
and came up empty
every last hope laid out
and i have gathered in
only empty sheaves
my head hangs
my feet drag
my knees bloodied
from feeble, staggered steps
there is nowhere to sit
no comfort on which to lay my head
and so i limp slowly on
in the sloughs of my discontent
how do i stand
without hope for my present pains?
on what can i lean?
where can i rest
to regain strength to face my
unchanging tomorrows?
i am too tired
to look upon this journey
another day
You call out
“shamar”
to preserve
to keep
to guard
psalm 145:20
“the Lord [shamar]s all who love Him”
in this promise
i close my eyes
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Insecurity and Impending Freedom
I’ve been feeling really insecure lately. This is unusual for me; I have found that if I know where and how I stand before the Lord, the things around me that could have the capacity to make me feel insecure lose their power to press me down. So I have been eager to identify the source of my faltering and to reposition myself on the Rock that doesn’t waver when I do.
I started reading a book the other day about freedom in Christ, and felt the urge to stop and share with you my insecurity. It’s something I have struggled with off and on for years, and perhaps now--if I will let Him--God wants to uproot the lies that feed it once and for all.
I am a very intense person; I feel things deeply, I process things deeply, I articulate things deeply (and oddly...sometimes everything comes out in the form of poetry because, let's be honest, I’m sort of weird), and I have no qualms about sharing openly all the things I am walking through AS I am walking through them whether they are good, bad or terribly ugly. For better or for worse, that is how I am built. Correction: All but the last one fall into the category of "how I’m built," the last one showed up after I started following Jesus.
My biggest insecurity is that I overwhelm people...like an unwelcome hurricane crashing into a coffee drinker while they are relaxing on their peaceful patio, or a massive gust of wind rushing on an unsuspecting picnicker just wanting to take in some fresh air. As I just wrote them, I notice that these analogies both produce the same result: Their nature and presence push away the things they meet.
So when I go through seasons of being bombarded by this insecurity, I find that I shut up, and I shrink down, and I withhold my thoughts and myself because of my assumptions of how I will be received.
I think somewhere at the core of my fear is the familiar pain of being alone. I grew up alone; the environment I was raised in was super exclusive, I was very cut off from people and developed an identity of being a misfit in the world around me. No place to belong, no people to belong with. When I discovered fellowship in the Body of Christ, I delighted in it like no one else I have ever met...I grabbed ahold of it SO hard that the lies that could have kept me from it didn’t stand a chance at holding me back. And when I learned how to build friendships in my mid 20s, I relished the privilege of walking through life with others; shoulder-to-shoulder, learning from each other, helping each other, weathering life in the intimacy of the highs and lows we encountered. I love people; I love getting to know who they are and how they are built and what makes them tick. I love watching them change and grow and remain. I love discovering their unique quirks and getting to understand them. I love learning from them and getting to glean from their presence and purpose in the world. I love connecting to and with people from any age or walk or place.
All that to say, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to return to the loneliness of my past. I don’t want to miss out on the people around me (because let’s be honest, people are the most important thing in this world). And so, when my insecurity rears its ugly head, it holds a lot of power over me because it calls out to me that the cost of my voice and my presence and my nature is too much...it will simply push away the opportunity for relationship or fellowship. And I find myself back in the familiar (yet painfully uncomfortable place) of being an observer of life, not a participant.
So there it is. I haven’t processed and prayed my way out of this and into freedom yet, but step one is to bring it into the light, right? I hope I will get to share with you the end of this journey, not just the beginning. :)
I started reading a book the other day about freedom in Christ, and felt the urge to stop and share with you my insecurity. It’s something I have struggled with off and on for years, and perhaps now--if I will let Him--God wants to uproot the lies that feed it once and for all.
I am a very intense person; I feel things deeply, I process things deeply, I articulate things deeply (and oddly...sometimes everything comes out in the form of poetry because, let's be honest, I’m sort of weird), and I have no qualms about sharing openly all the things I am walking through AS I am walking through them whether they are good, bad or terribly ugly. For better or for worse, that is how I am built. Correction: All but the last one fall into the category of "how I’m built," the last one showed up after I started following Jesus.
My biggest insecurity is that I overwhelm people...like an unwelcome hurricane crashing into a coffee drinker while they are relaxing on their peaceful patio, or a massive gust of wind rushing on an unsuspecting picnicker just wanting to take in some fresh air. As I just wrote them, I notice that these analogies both produce the same result: Their nature and presence push away the things they meet.
So when I go through seasons of being bombarded by this insecurity, I find that I shut up, and I shrink down, and I withhold my thoughts and myself because of my assumptions of how I will be received.
I think somewhere at the core of my fear is the familiar pain of being alone. I grew up alone; the environment I was raised in was super exclusive, I was very cut off from people and developed an identity of being a misfit in the world around me. No place to belong, no people to belong with. When I discovered fellowship in the Body of Christ, I delighted in it like no one else I have ever met...I grabbed ahold of it SO hard that the lies that could have kept me from it didn’t stand a chance at holding me back. And when I learned how to build friendships in my mid 20s, I relished the privilege of walking through life with others; shoulder-to-shoulder, learning from each other, helping each other, weathering life in the intimacy of the highs and lows we encountered. I love people; I love getting to know who they are and how they are built and what makes them tick. I love watching them change and grow and remain. I love discovering their unique quirks and getting to understand them. I love learning from them and getting to glean from their presence and purpose in the world. I love connecting to and with people from any age or walk or place.
All that to say, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to return to the loneliness of my past. I don’t want to miss out on the people around me (because let’s be honest, people are the most important thing in this world). And so, when my insecurity rears its ugly head, it holds a lot of power over me because it calls out to me that the cost of my voice and my presence and my nature is too much...it will simply push away the opportunity for relationship or fellowship. And I find myself back in the familiar (yet painfully uncomfortable place) of being an observer of life, not a participant.
So there it is. I haven’t processed and prayed my way out of this and into freedom yet, but step one is to bring it into the light, right? I hope I will get to share with you the end of this journey, not just the beginning. :)
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