Rinehart talks about how everything that makes life worth living - laughter, love, courage, sacrifice - is born in the inner depth of our heart. It is from where our passion comes.
When we lose heart, we lose our passion.
We become strangers even to ourselves.
She quotes Frederick Buechner -
"....we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little instead come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing."
Our fear of rejection or fear of being hurt again or whatever fear lurks deep inside, becomes the driving force behind our loss of passion and causes us to hide our true selves. Thinking we are "protecting" ourselves, we deny ourselves hope and pretend we have no expectations. That way, we are not disappointed.
A sad existence. And definitely God's best for our life!
I love the analogy she uses on page 51-52 from Anne Lamott. She compares having your tonsils out (a wound to the body) to pain and disappointments (wounds to the spirit). In order for healing to take place, one must use the muscles around the wound in order to begin to get relief and start the healing process.
Is pain real? Yes.
Will we encounter disappointments? Yes.
BUT!.... we continue living, hoping, expecting, knowing that God has good plans for us!
As David said in Psalms....
[What, what would have become of me] had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living! (Ps. 27:13 Amplified)
Purpose to regain your passion! Allow God to awaken those places in the secret chambers of your heart that have been hidden. Allow Him to restore your hope.
Rinehart states that "if we do not let ourselves hope in God, we will turn in another direction....depending on ourselves or putting our hope in other people."
"Hope that is pinned to God, rather than to people, has a buoyancy to it because it is grounded not in our own illusion of how our story should read, but in the character of God."
And two final quotes from this chapter that I couldn't leave out.....
"Only when the heart can hear, can we receive the experience of being loved, the joy of belonging to the Father,...and pain is often the megaphone that awakens."
"In the inner chambers of your heart, God steps past all your talent and hard work - all that you think He values. He goes straight for the messy, broken places in you because it's there that you can truly discover Him."
I am praying for you today....that you (and I) will allow God into the messy, broken places.......that you allow yourself to hope again, to embrace life, and to LIVE.......that you will know, today, the joy of belonging to the Father, and in those broken places, you truly discover Him......
Substantial Amount
1 week ago
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4 friends had this to say:
In my book I wrote about the fear of what other think and the stinking thinking we create on the inside...sometimes when going through tough times like now (dealing with more fear and rejection type issues) I start to wonder if I learned the lessons my book speaks of...but when it comes right down to it. I but scratched the surface of the roots of fear and the part the mind plays in all that. I am like an onion...I just still got some layers to go..:0)
This is so scary and so true:
"When we lose heart, we lose our passion. We become strangers even to ourselves."
I've been getting over losing heart in my career. Because its not a typical career, and it involves a lot of hustle (can't just sit on your tail and let the agent do the work for you). And I so became a stranger to myself. Now I'm taking steps, and I see the passion coming back. The God given passion.
Thank you for sharing this quote...."Hope that is pinned to God, rather than to people, has a buoyancy to it because it is grounded not in our own illusion of how our story should read, but in the character of God." I love this! And, I love the ever-constant, ever sure, all love - all the time, character of our God!
I so often want to minimize the sorrow and suffering by trying to take things into my own hands and try to circumvent the experience. I loved the story about Much Afraid and how she discovered that as she accepted her strange companions (sorrow and suffering) their names changed to joy and Peace. "If you want to know real joy in lifek then be willing to let pain tutor your soul" (pg 48).
It took me a bit to process "God ... will wound you deeply ... for in this way, He continues to open all the inner chambers of your soul" (pg 60). Yikes, this can be quite scary. So, I pray, "God, search the inner chambers of my soul and expose my real fears. Bring forth the deep convictions that have, and continue to, shape the way I see myself. Free my heart to love, to risk, and to grab hold of life for the joy that's there. In the precious name of Jesus, Amen."
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