Truth

“I am doing ALL THE THINGS!” Desperation clung to every word. I was hurt and angry and broken and depleted and desperate for change. I was not desperate for a physical change, I was desperate for an inner change.

“ I am consistently doing all the practices that have been suggested to me from consistent time in the word to reaching out for prayer, bringing my grief to God, counseling, playing worship music…I just want the truth I’ve been white knuckling onto to become the Living Word that carries me, rather than the words i fight to speak over my life. I fight to speak and believe the truth every day…it’s been years and years of speaking truth to myself…and it is exhausting…I feel like that is a reasonable request of God.” I was laughing now. Laughing at the enormity of the situation, laughing at how i was repeating myself, again, reaching for God, desperate for the truth to be alive, knowing he is with me but finding his timing is not even close to my timing. 

Somewhere along the lines my prayers had changed. Through counseling and study I had learned that traumatic events in our lives physically change our brains. Just as we would seek help for a broken leg, we need to seek help when we have a brain injury. Just as Finley’s brain needs healing, mine does too. When I pray for Finley’s brain injury to be healed, I also pray for my brain to be healed. I began to view the truths of God not just as emotionally healing, but physically healing for my brain. 

This may sound far fetched to “heal the brain through truth” but for me it made sense. God began laying a foundation for this work in my life when I was sixteen and read Dave Holden’s book “Battle of the Mind.” It explains how the spiritual battles we face are a literal, physical rewiring of our brain as we choose to believe the truth to allow new thought patterns to grow, making little chinks in old thought patterns. As we tell ourselves the truth when our thoughts and feelings say otherwise there is physical change that takes place in our brains. The more we practice this, slowly but surely we create new ways of thinking. This was one of the most helpful books I’ve read on the mind.

For me, understanding how God wired our brains to function gave me grace to make space for healing and self compassion..not self pity, I’ve resided there plenty of times and it is death and destruction. Self compassion is fruitful and ultimately allows us to serve and love others well. 

The same space and grace Finley needs to grow and learn, I need as well. It may look different but the premise is the same. Change takes time. Truth does not take deep root in our hearts overnight. It starts out as a tiny seed. Tiny. And slowly, slowly, slowly, with consistent sun and water and good soil grows and grows deep into fertile soil. 

In May of 2019 I saw the first signs that truth was taking root, even though those roots had been quietly growing for years.  The seeds Jesus had graciously planted years ago were growing. In the book, “Every Bitter Thing is Sweet” Sara Haggerty writes about how the root system of a tree is twice the size of what you see above ground. I often think of that illustration. I remember reading those words and praying God would develop a deep root sytem deeply and fully rooted in Him and in His word. 

Whatever you or I face today, may we lean into and live in and rely on the word of God like it is the very breath we breathe. 

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.”

Psalms 1:1-3