IBS: Shame is Residual...

Acts 12:8

And the angel said to him, “dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.”

The angel gave Peter commands to prepare himself but didn’t tell him what for or where they were going. Peter had to blindly follow the angel trusting in him that he knew what he was doing. Peter asked no questions, but just did as he was told.

How many times does the Lord tell us to do things, or prepare ourselves for things and we either ignore it or ask questions.

For those of you who don’t know, I have one arm that is scarred from shoulder to wrist. More than once the Lord has told me to be prepared for inquiries about the scars on my arms, but instead of preparing my heart and mind I decided to take things into my own hands. I would cover them up with clothes and act like they didn’t exist. Without fail they would show at one point in the day and someone would ask about them or make a rude remark and walk away. Every time this happened I got so thrown off guard and began to shake, scrambling in my brain to find the words to explain the marks. In these times I could have explained the story behind them and gone on to say how I’ve been saved by the love of the Lord and seized the opportunity to witness, but because I ignored the initial command of the Lord they all turned to opportunities missed. Just because the things the Lord tells us don’t always make sense doesn’t mean we can ignore them. We can never know what the Lord has in store for us.

When the Lord tells me to be prepared for things or get ready and go, I need to listen to him with no questions asked.

As part of our IBS class we all gather around and read what the Lord has revealed to us about the daily verse. When I read this post to the class I left out the middle (the blue part) paragraph and just skipped to my application. Shaylene, who was sitting next to me, read my paper over my shoulder. After class she gently pointed out to me that she had read what I wrote and by not posting it, or even reading the whole things, I was contradicting the very application I had pulled out. Although it wasn’t easy to hear, I knew she was right. I stayed after class to talk to Pastor G and I asked him to read the whole post. He explained to me that I didn’t want to share this post out loud because I feel ashamed of my scars and shame is residual. It comes and goes.

I felt the Lord assure me that by posting this entry I would be taking another step towards being set free, and that by posting this I would be obeying him as he comes to my side in this darkness to break me free of my chains and prison cell.

Written 8/11/11