I didn't feel a stirring yesterday. Sure, there were things on my heart that I thought would make a good post, and things I "transparently" wanted to write about, but nothing that I felt was of Him.
That was, until this morning.
God is doing weird, crazy, amazing things in me and in my family. And I could not be more thrilled.
Yesterday we had dinner with a ministry couple, and to say that they helped answer the question I've been asking God would be an understatement.
Have you ever felt like God cannot use you?
Have you ever been TOLD that God cannot use you?
I have. Both. I've felt like there was nothing important or powerful inside of me and I've been told that there was nothing good inside of me.
When I first started walking intimately with God six years ago, I began writing less than Three. At that time, I heard many people say that I needed to understand what my "place" was. I needed to understand that I couldn't teach youth, I couldn't speak openly because I was a woman and various other things; some of the issues were my gender, and some were the sinful life I had come out of.
I warred with myself because of this. I was angry with God. I was angry with myself. I wanted to serve Him, I felt this calling to serve Him, and when I "felt" like no one accepted me, I became more and more bitter.
I couldn't understand why God would allow me to experience the horrendous life I experienced if there wasn't something powerful and amazing He was going to do in my life NOW.
Was the amazing and powerful thing simply my salvation? That's what I was told often; that I needed to just appreciate that God had saved me from my wretched ways and sit back and bask in His goodness.
I tried that; but I had a spirit that wanted to come alive. It couldn't come alive because I kept squashing it.
I met new friends, tried church after church, tried to mold myself into the perfect Christian woman that did everything as I was asked. Finally, I started to blackslide into my old ways. I couldn't keep the fascade up. I couldn't be this woman that everyone kept saying I needed to be.
I remember falling down in my shower at an old house and just crying out to God, "why, why won't you just save me? Why won't you work in me? What is wrong with me?"
I never felt like I heard an answer.
Until recently--and undoubtedly last night. Last night He pulled the scales off that had formed over my eyes.
He wasn't able to use me the way He wanted to because I wasn't truly being the woman HE wanted me to be. I wasn't stepping into the calling He set forth for me. I was trying to mold myself into every version that this world wanted, but never the one that He knit together in my mother's womb. He cannot use someone that isn't accepting the gifts He gives them. He cannot use someone that fights against His calling.
Do you do this friend? Accept what the world says, or your own head, instead of trusting and believing that He has something special and powerful JUST FOR YOU? Do you think it's impossible for God to use you because you have messed up so badly, been such a disgrace in the world that you believe it is a reflection of who you truly are?
Don't believe that lie. Don't believe that nonsense. Because, let me assure you my friend, it is nonsense. God has a plan and a purpose for each of us, and that plan and purpose will advance His kingdom in some way.
I have believed for a long time that God wouldn't use me because I was was so disgraceful. It turns out, the disgrace I brought to myself, it's the exact reason HE CHOSE TO USE ME.
Be who God called you to be, sweet friend, and don't accept what anyone else says, and that includes yourself. Step into God's calling for your life, and step out of the mere existence you're living today.
Remember, you are less than only Three.
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