There are some viewpoints that only God could persuade me to change, but there are also many situations where I can step outside of my own perspective, let another person be where they are, and not have a need to defend or protect my own understanding. Over the last few weeks, I kept being reminded that God is my protector and defender. I don’t need to argue or defend myself to anyone when I am walking in obedience to Christ.

It started with one comment from someone who has not seen me in almost two years, and it wasn’t even me they were attacking. They were using what they thought was my situation to attack someone I care about. What stood out to me the most was how much of the actual truth of my situation this person clearly did not know because they are not in my life. They totally missed it. That particular attack coming from that person was so absurd that it was not worth anyone entertaining, but it was still the match that lit the fire, so to speak, and God used it to bring something to the surface in me. A few days later, the same situation played out again in a different way. I’m learning that not having the whole picture is a bigger deal than I had realized.

“That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 1:7

It has been a furnace season for a while, and I am so thankful to finally see some of the dross being removed from the surface.

As I have watched this pattern being exposed in my life, I have had to face situations where both my opinion and the opposing opinions I was being challenged by were faulty to some degree because none of us had all of the information. At first, I did not know how to navigate that because the information I was holding was not wrong. Yet, I was still wrong because I did not have the ability to see the situation through the filter of mercy. I was only looking at the consequences and how many people were getting hurt, and my protector was staying triggered. I could not get my emotions out of the way enough to let my spirit lead. 

We know that love covers a multitude of sins. We know that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against principalities and wickedness in high places. We know that we are supposed to take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. And we were trying. Goodness, were we trying. But it was a journey indeed, and there was still much work that needed to be done in my system before we could get to this place.

Having parts with different opinions, emotions, fears, and end goals for a situation is hard enough, but when the pain of rejection and betrayal are involved, all of the past wounds that have not been healed come with it. It activates deeply ingrained neuropathways that brought safety in the past but no longer serve us in healthy ways today. Parts scramble to do their jobs and return the body to a manageable state while I push back on them and try to sit with the Lord instead of dissociating it all away.

Our window of tolerance has grown substantially, so we no longer have boarded-up internal windows. Most days, we have open curtains and invite the Holy Spirit to bring the hidden things into the light. But if I am being honest, I have wanted to board the windows back up over the last few months. I wanted to board the doors up too. It felt like too much to deal with, but I was determined to prepare a new wineskin and that is never easy.

I needed to have no options left. I needed to get to the place where I could truly surrender the thing I was holding too tightly. I had to get to the point where I could say to the Lord, “Fine. Take everything I love away if that is what You want to do. I cannot do this anymore. Do whatever You want to do.” It wasn’t a pretty conversation, but it was a real one.

Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

It was not until I got to that point that the breakthrough came.

There are things we can want so badly that our system cannot tolerate the idea of losing them. My parts could not tolerate this war in the spirit realm over us. People fighting for us, witches fighting over us, the warfare was relentless. The thought of losing what we loved created chaos inside of us, and because of that, it was easier to keep trying to preserve the thing than to tell my parts no and endure what surrender was going to require from all of us. In doing that, instead of addressing the real issue, we extended our own suffering and my little parts got really hurt.

The Lord was patient while we fought, reasoned, protected, resisted, and tried to find another way. He waited until I reached the place where I stopped trying to control the outcome and gave Him permission to do whatever He wanted to do with it. When I placed the intolerable conflict on the altar, the breakthrough came. Jesus has to be our everything. Anything we cannot lay down is an idol holding us back and creating an open door for the enemy to attack us. It does not have to be something bad. The things I was dealing with were not bad or sinful. They were good things that I love deeply, but they were becoming more important than the most important thing, especially to my younger parts.

God was not going to allow me to stay there. I’m thankful that He is always prodding me forward to grow into the next new thing with Him. I’m even more glad that the worst of that situation has passed. Now, to learn how to navigate this new territory and work on relational repair within my system. There are lots of teaching moments for parts who did not move through the normal developmental stages of childhood hidden inside God’s discipline.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11

Once I released it and truly accepted that things might not go my way, that surrender might actually cost me some things I desperately did not want to lose, a supernatural peace came. Not only for me, but for my parts too. There was grief. There was fear of the unknown. There was pain in accepting that we could face some very big losses because of the choice I had made to surrender it all to Him. But the grief and fear were wrapped in His grace. What had been intolerable became tolerable.

I finally had eyes to see what was operating against me and why it so desperately wanted me removed, verses only seeing the person without seeing that they were in bondage and needing healing. Now, I can see both.  My system had been unable to hold the possibility of those losses without going into chaos. Once I surrendered the outcome to Him, that changed. The pain did not disappear, but it was no longer bigger than our ability to face it. The things we had been carrying could finally begin processing out of my body instead of remaining trapped there while my system kept fighting to prevent the loss.

I also realized that I had been trying to comfort my parts while I was still telling them, without saying it out loud, that we would only be okay if things turned out the way we wanted them to. I could tell them God was trustworthy, but my own heart was still clinging to an outcome. When I finally got myself into the posture of surrender, not with words but with my heart, I was able to comfort my parts and tell them, “We are going to be okay no matter what happens” and mean it. That’s when the chaos stopped and they stopped shutting me out.

Survivors are brilliant so I don’t know why I thought that my parts were not fully informed and making their own plans to fix things from day one. Forgetting how well they are trained and programmed is so easy to do when they are so quiet and kind in my presence, but we cannot underestimate them. Looking back now, I can see where they had gone to work in the only ways they know how to ensure that we were going to be okay. Some went straight to the secret place, some retreated, some went to sleep to not feel, and some were actually trying to help me in new ways that I haven’t felt before. I’m loving that the more parts integrate, the more resources we have to pull from in difficult situations.

Mercy does not require us to pretend something did not happen. Nor does it require us to minimize wrong, ignore betrayal, erase consequences, abandon boundaries, or call something good that was not good. I still stand on what I know God showed me, and I still pray that the people who need to see it will have eyes to see it from God’s perspective. Mercy never asked us to ignore the truth. However, it required me to surrender my need to control what happens with the truth. When I can give up control, I can see the truth more clearly and more of the picture starts getting revealed.

The pain still comes in waves, but it’s not triggering me now. I can acknowledge it and let it move through me and be released because there is no longer an intolerable conflict between me and letting the Lord have His way in my situation. It makes it a whole lot easier to let Him comfort me when there is not a big wall of terrifying pain being built to keep Him from taking something away. Now, we can go ask for new revelation and a new scroll and know that it will be something good for us even if it isn’t what we think we need.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”

That’s hard territory for me, but it’s also freedom. As for me and my system, we will serve the Lord.