I love Ephesians 3:17-18:
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the
Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."
Being ROOTED and ESTABLISHED in love. That is so cool to think about.
I spent most of my life believing I was not worth being alive. Having felt so much rejection from a mother who chose addiction over her children, a lie was planted in my core. Even after I had been placed in a loving foster family, the devil continued to build on a foundation of lies planted while I continued to give him the power to add more wood to the fire.
Fast-forward 19 years and I'm at Global Challenge training in Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa. I realize that rejection is still causing me pain, creating a platform for other feelings such as shame, guilt and worthlessness.
Why are these feelings still flooding my mind? Why am I still giving them the power to invade my heart?
I have been told over and over again of God's love for me and how much I am worth to him. Heck, I have so many verses memorised that say those very things. But KNOWING and BELIEVING are two very different things.
Halfway through training I realized I had never felt loved by God because I didn't believe it. I had spent so much time building up lies and allowing my heart to literally soak in them. After having this realization, I knew my walk with God would be at a stand still until I somehow found a way to truly believe in God's love for me over the lies of rejection and worthlessness.
My first experience of God's love was FREEDOM. I read a quote the other day that said:
"God is like oxygen. you can't see it, but you can't live without it."
Well for lack of better words, it was exactly like this. I released the things I was feeling and experiencing that were not of Him (after a lot of battling), and fell face first into His all-consuming love. Like in the song Great Are You Lord "It's your breath, in our lungs" I felt like I was finally breathing.
Everyday He reminds me that I am ROOTED and ESTABLISHED in HIS love.
So when asked to sum up my experience of training in one word, I can't. Because God is just THAT glorious.