I have a hunch I'm not the only one dealing with some underbelly power of INTIMIDATION. Since hearing this message on Saturday, I can look back and see clearly that I've suffered under it for 20+ years, all while thinking it was Divine Wisdom.
The processes of resisting the devil have taken me FOR E VER to learn.
Having been reared in schools of a certain way of perceiving biblical ideas, it's taken more than 2 decades to find the roots of a stronghold which touts: if something is wrong it's your fault (sin), which means we need to perpetually confess, repent, and keep on submitting.
YES that's a part, but only the first in the sequence.RESISTING is the next step, and one I discern clearly now...finally.
While having been in a LONG (!) and deep season of submitting myself to God, resisting the devil was something I felt completely wimpy at. The learning curve has been steep the past couple of years, and now I enter what is known in the digital gaming world as The Big Boss Challenge.
I am grateful for men and women who work to equip the Saints so we can be about the business of our own ministry to others!
In my down time, recouping from mysterious and odd infirmities which seemed to have no root cause, and yet which kept me severely pinned down, I worked diligently and intentionally to rewire my nervous system to face foes without cowering.
It's been really fun, and I look forward to sharing those details soon, because they will show how big and good God is even in our culture where bleakness, evil and misery can be found en masse. Hint: Hyrule
To give a bit of a teaser, while I have loved video gaming since I was a kid, I would always have others fight big bosses for me because I had no inner ability to stand firm against those gargantuan opposing forces of strength. My heart would race, hands sweat, and I would be terrified; unable to understand how to use weapons which had long worked on other smaller foes.
No longer.
Knowing what I am called to do, and having all I need to DO IT... I now only have to resist that lying sack of filth who twisted things so I felt completely scared to release what's within.
OH, how I am going to wrestle this thing to the ground. It has kept me back from writing, speaking, sharing, publishing, creating, traveling, etc all because I thought it was Wisdom's voice warning me to heed her.
Working with Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father for years to heal body, soul, spirit, heart, and mind I have gained wonderful freedom after decades of hardship and struggles. Learning to submit myself to God and to resist the devil has taken all my years to understand and comprehend.
Still, a formidable nemesis remained.
Thanks to these guys, I now know its name, and am elated there's an answer. Being able to see the cause of my cowardice gives me hope -the Romans 5 kind -which does not disappoint. The well spring of life has begun to gurgle again!
The nasty bugger who caused me to keep myself held back, in a dozen ways, all while believing I was heeding Providence, has been identified.
I'm so happy to finally have an answer to what's been causing me to shut my mouth about so many wonders of God in our world. HIS WAYS WORK all the time, and I'm going to shout it from the rooftops....after I get a nasty monster off the shingles.
I share this post with you in faith, knowing that my Redeemer lives, is seated at the right hand of Father, and is in me, while I am in Him.
Dis-regulation happens when we do not know how to act like ourselves when big feelings occur. When upsetting emotions, oftentimes more than one, seem to take over we can feel overwhelmed. In that mental/emotional state, solving problems is impossible.
There can be one emotion, or a combination of them. This overwhelming feeling can cause us to loose our sense of emotional peace, which is our built-in, neutral emotion which we are meant to be in most of the time.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and regulating your feelings is an intricate and amazing set of systems, similar to our excretive system. Just like we need to eliminate wastes from our bodies so we need to learn the skills of “feelings training” like we learned “potty training.”
The feelings do not need to be eliminated, but they do need attention. As we learn to recognize the feeling when our bodies need to urinate or defecate, so we can learn HOW TO process the emotions which come up. They are necessary sensations in an emotionally healthy life.
REPRESSING those feelings, or ignoring, shaming (etc) them creates similar problems we face if we are not allowing the “elimination” sensations to alert us that we need to take action.
1) Name the feeling.
This can take time, and the Holy Spirit can help your innards attune to what it is, where you feel it in your body, and what it's called.
For example: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Normal Embarrassment (the healthy kind, not the toxic sort), Hopeless Despair, Sadness...
2) Give it (them) to Jesus. Emotions we have not learned to regulate can be burdens too much for us to bear. Giving them to Jesus helps!
“Jesus, I give You (name each emotion), and I ask You to take them (bear them!), because they are too much for me.”
3) Ask the Holy Spirit for healing.
Holy Spirit, I ask You to heal all the heart, spirit, soul, body, time, land, birthright, office, and community wounds associated with those feelings.
4) Thank the Father, and receive.
“THANK YOU Father, for Your healing. I receive it. I ask also for the opposite emotion (s), and for complete wholeness.”
If peace eludes you, consider revisiting the 4 steps. New feelings may emerge, or the same ones. Feel free to repeat as necessary. ** If these steps do not seem to work, there are other techniques you can try, until you find what works.
We were designed to be able to feel our six right-brained emotions and get back to peace within 90 seconds by the time we are four years old. This first requires a specific development of knowing we are loved. Having someone attune to us in our toddler years, and work with us is how we can do this. It's part of why the toddler years are so intense.
A toddler whose parents have been a safe place during the phases when these big emotional processes occur will look to and trust them when they have the next developmental emotional surge around age 13. Feeling safe to be ourselves around our parents is part of the designed wonders of life in family.
If the first level of development has happened, these skills can be learned anytime in life, similar to tying one's own shoes. It takes time, and concentrated effort.
Exuberant for Life exists to disseminate concepts so individuals and families can work on remedial emotional skills, as well as to encourage parents with young children realize the steps needed to help. This particular technique is very helpful for emotions which come up in the moment for adults who are learning to feel their own feelings.
To process PTSD emotions, there is another technique we have learned which we will share as soon as time permits.
Pondering love and hate a lot recently, I'm convinced that the love of the true God is what we need.
Our own human love will always fall short, and is terribly persuadable.
Our human "love" isn't pure love, though we wish it to be.
Abiding in Jesus, who came showing us the heart, and true love of the Father, and letting the Holy Spirit shed that love abroad in our hearts is, in my opinion, the only hope I -or any of us- have.
Otherwise, we end up hating "evil," which can sometimes look like what happened when they crucified our LORD.
There is an enemy mode we can slip into, feeling justified that we are correct and "in the right." The sermon on the mount spoken to those 12 men sheds light on what the Father thinks love is...and to be honest I think it offends all of us in some way, deeply down to our human core.
The idea of giving empathy without also having justice is anathema to the God of creation. There must be both. We're to love one of those, and do the other. If we only focus on one (love or justice), we take up weapons with the one who came to steal, kill, and destroy ~ without realizing it.
We are told to do justice and love mercy. The balance needed seems to only be available via supernatural Divine empowerment.
Being able to receive His love might be a problem for a lot more of us than we'd like to think, because it's perfectly mingled with justice.
Some of us tend to love one, or the other, but few seem to grasp both unless they are surrendered to the One rather than being dogmatic about their "ways" being right.
Do we follow Him, or our ideas of Him?
Do we adore Him and His ways, or do we privately, and very deeply prefer concepts of our own beliefs of what we feel or think He means/meant rather than He Himself?
I think He stands in the perfect middle between justice and mercy, and invites us to both within Himself.
It means we cannot pick a side, and still be in the right.
This, methinks, is the stuff of wonder, and perplexing, and beautiful, and mysterious.
{This post contains affiliate links and is dedicated to my first cousin Holly. :) }
I have long been impacted by character.
Growing up, I saw inimately the idea of switching in a moment. My Mum would be madder than a hornet at me, spitting mad in fact and in my face. If the phonoe rang or someone happened to kncocked at n the front door, immediatly a different person would emerge and sound and look lovely, sweet.
Time after time I expereinced this behavoire. It continues even today with the loved one not even acting as though they remember an event where they raged, said inappropriate things and hurt an already non existant realtionsihp.
Growing up with that as my baseline for normal, I am very affected when I see this type of behavior. it shows up in diferent places at different times and looks diferent in the lives of different people.
I care about what someone does when no one's looking. It matters to me, because as I read the old and new testaments I see it matters to God, too. Not that doing well can subsititue for knwoing beyond a shoadow of a doubet that you're adored; that HAS to come first or we struggle with all srots of things.
When I came to understand I was loved by the Creator af all good things, I soon realized there was a LOT I didn't know about basic living. I wasn't exactly raised in a barn, but my parents were very busy with other things and mostly left me to learn on my own.
Quest for Character by Charles Swindoll
Mr Germann forver changed my life during that one semester (okay..two) in bible college. Oh, how he was passionate about character and about ROTC. I felt SO challenged by him to keep reaching for excellence in my life God's daugther.
Paul Washer made me shiver with his messages given at a friends' bible school. WOW did he raisse the bar for me in a bunch of ways.
Later in life as I sought to undertsand my loved one's switching (going from calm to horratiously angered in a split second), Arthur Burk shed a lot of light on the subject and gave me some tools to begin understanding how to deal with the switching in my midst.
I have a lot of patience for something things...but COVERING UP what we're really like in provate is something I have very little tolerance for. I don't mean I think evertyhing should be braodcast; I just mean knowing who we are and what our weaknesses are should be something we can handle and share with others.
We're all weak in some ways. That's okay. Those who grew up in families where weakness was despised end up turning out not so great. Well, they might look great from the outside, but once you see within what's going on, behind the facade of perfectioin is a lot of pain, woundedness and inability to deal.
I say all this to expalin a bit why I am sharing some of these tid bits about a former very important female figure. Hilary seems to have the lurking issue of some pretty bad stuff inside of her as this article shines a bit of light. Maybe Hilary suffers from D.I.D. If she does, it isn't fun.
Showing ourselves to be something we are not makes my stomach churn with disgust. I am an exorting type person and love showing the best foot forard...apprearcnes matter to me but mostly I care that the apprearances be transparent. I remember a friend suprorising us one christmas. I was very discouraged about a good many things and felt no joy whatsoever abou tthe chaos of a day of gluttony and frivoloty. I had let eveyrthing go, including myself, certain NO ONE would see. THEN CAME THE KNOCK.
My friend was gracious and I was horrified; I don't think I had EVER had I let my home get so bad. Recovering from two near death experiences after bringing twin boys into the world via cecearian, I was not in a good place in my life.
I don't really know my neighbors. I wonder once in a while what our life looks like from their perspective. I don't much care what they think, as I am busy to bursting with handling exuberant life with six children under toe; there is almost always more toys (etc) in the yard than I'd like; and I'm certain my occasional raised voice echos throughout the woods and neighborhood.
What I don't want to be is phoney. I don't want to represtent myself as one thing and be another. I don't always know HOW to be myself and am on an exciting adventure liearning, about it (link to Who Am I post) . I was very used to people who represent themselves one way yet are different behind closed doors.
Character matters. How we treat people is of utmost imporance. I have known people claim to do and be and believe all sorts of things who act like apes to those they perceive as being weaker. I am espcially disgusted by that and work much to lift up those around me who are weaker. I submt we are all weak and all strong. SOme of us are good at something while being dafta nd inept at other things. That's just life. When we're plagued by fear someone will discovere we aren't really as strong as we pretend, we are living a very dark life.
I ahve always apprecaited popel who are honest about thei rjunk and struggles. It's so refereshing to hear a wife say, "I really love my husband, but I'm having a hard time respecting him." BINGO! Being honest doesn't solve the problem but it sure makes friendship feel more comfortable.
It takes some time to be able to know our wekenssas and have wrods fro them. I am on that journey, too. I'll share more about that another day.
I don't recommend these books if you're wanting to get dirt on someone who is running for office, but instead rather to give you a change to reada bout her characher. You decide if she's really DOING things based on who she is, or if she's putting on a show. You decide. To me, it looks as though she spends a lot of time talking down to people who she deems beneath her.
As I have had that experience throughout my life, that is not the kind of leader I will follow. I think it's important to have certain criteria for selecting leaders to do the work which needs to be done.
Dr. Ben Carson shares about some of the background with HIlary's reasons for doing what she does in public. While I think the entire speech is certainly worth your 15 minutes, to hear the bits about her, go forward to
For further examination:
The journalist gone filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza who made 2 films on Barack Obama was imprisoned for 8 months afterward. Then he learned about Progressivism. His new film, "Hillary's America" opens tomorrow (Friday) in select theatres. If film does well this opening weekend, more theatres across the nation will show it. Anybody going? To my TC friends, new Carmike theatre has 5 show times.
Thank you for stopping here at Exuberant for Life! I’m so glad you are here.
I started EFL in 2016 to focus on sharing blogs, podcasts, digital graphics (art) and more, all with the hope of sharing video content eventually. As child-rearing and health issues took center stage, I wrote and spoke what I could while focusing on my 1st priorities. Many years have passed, and as these blogs are bursting with content I am now ready to transition into sharing via different methods. These blogs will remain for now as an archive of sorts, and occasionally as I find unpublished content I may add here for future reference. My goal is to expand to write books on various topics, while building a subscription base at Substack, and develop a robust Youtube channel.
Please feel free to dig around here and on the connected blog sites, take whatever is helpful and share anything you want to. If you’re able to leave a tip, that would be fantastic. You can also become a Patron to contribute financially to our digital content. We also have online shopping available with items created by our artistic family members. Check out links below to give into my work.
During the decades of rearing our young children and tending to our big family, my energies for writing were minimal. Now that the youngest are nearing young adulthood and almost 13, I have a lot more time to get into the depths of perspectives I so enjoy through the mode of written words. In order to bless my family too, I decided to leave all blog content here for free, while allowing readers to subscribe for $7 a month to my written articles over at Substack.
We have searched for ways to experience win/win/win options. This new way forward gives:
1) Me the pleasure (when I have extra time and bandwidth from tending to family and home) of being able to write to my hearts content and share what bubbles with my dear readers.
2) Readers get to follow along the written journey as I share from heart, soul and mind.
3) My family gets the benefit of financial provision by way of your subscription.
I really like win/win/win scenarios and am thrilled to finally be putting it all together.
Note: as of today I am laying all the foundations and digital connections required for Substack, as well as getting the YouTube channel ready where we will begin releasing content any day.
There is a back log of material waiting to be edited and uploaded, and it finally seems like things are in order, the time is right and Spirit says NOW.
To get more into the depths with me via my writing, which is my passion, please consider subscribing below today. I offer a free week trial in case you would like that.
As always, I bless you to seek the Holy Spirit for His leadership, direction, comfort, correction, peace, attunement, and joy for your life.
You are adored
(no matter what).
~Kate Mazur
From the Castle (our 700 square foot home on a hilly, sand duned-forrest)
As I worked to take several pounds of shredded cabbage which we acquired from the food rescue truck earlier this week, I put on a video to keep me moving in my tiny kitchen while sons and daughter do their things nearby.
Having long been on the search for understanding in order to heal-to-wholeness from daunting home life growing up, I have felt very clearly that CPTSD is what I have been dealing with inside of me - nerves, cells, brain, emotions and body.
So many videos I have heard...and many even this week, as I work to sort out what's going on. Sometimes I am injecting the information like I'm Neo plugged into the Matrix and getting rapid downloads...
Assimilating it all, and integrating the knowledge and wisdom into understanding seems to be a more than full time work, which continues to produce great fruit, encouragement and lurches forward.
****
When Mom was arrested and diagnosed with Cluster B personality disorder a few years ago, it confirmed what I had been studying as I chased the Holy Spirit's leader and had been learning about NPD.
As some intense things are coming into my understanding this past couple of weeks, after decades of prayer and more than a year of intensive warfare praying (thank you Dan Duval!), so much is coming together!
In the video (below), H.P. expresses what so many of us who were raised in narcissistic family systems have needed, which is to take time, energy, effort and care in order to DEVELOP ourselves as a person- as an individual with needs and wants, likes and loves, etc.
Arthur Burk put that concept into practical detail over at THESLG, and I highly recommend it for anyone who was reared to be a commodity, or has a close loved one who was.
Who knew I'd find this video just moments after it was posted?
The Habits That Heal C-PSTD: Why Self-Care Matters Most When You Feel Unworthy Of It
Who would have thought it was a Holy Spirit initiated blessing for me as I was following along in the random flow of a morning full of a variety of activities which delighted my soul?
What I know for certain, is that on this journey of relying on, obeying, trusting in and clinging to Jesus, who ascended so that the Indwelling God could be released into this fallen world, my Deliverer Has Already Come.
The song below has continued to fan faith, hope, and love within as I seek to love God and receive His love into myself.
Following the advice of a mentor, our family embarked on a two year project, which I alluded to in the post just below this one.
As it winds down and we look forward to serving for another two years, I pause to reflect and look at so many other projects which have my heart's attention.
Sharing with you here on this blog is one of them.
A friend recently asked for a print out of this, in order to share it with some new friends.
As I looked through the massive amounts of files on my MacBook, renewed faith, hope and love sparked for working here on EFL.
I see the wisdom in having cleared some items off my schedule, freeing up time and bandwidth to tend to this place, which often gets forgotten in the day to day living when I feel like less than a conqueror.
Hearing of a friend's recent diagnosis, I'm reminded that learning to feel our feelings literally helps avoid life threatening diseases, which pop up due to our inability to know what to do with these invisible appendage-like realities (aka feelings/emotions).
Whether we believe they are the bane of our existence and shut ourselves off from a source of life within us (which needs to be managed, and tended like a garden), or cling to our excuse to carry on as if they are not there, our feelings MUST be dealt with less we perish. To those who shame others for learning to feel them, death waits ready to envelope them. It humbles me to remember that our loving God is the one who sets life and death in front of us each day, whispering (nudging) us to choose life. Respecting whichever we choose, He has set it up for us to reap from whatever we decide.
According to those who know more than me, every addiction and (almost?) every disease is caused by not attuning to our innards - gut and emotions. In our western culture, we are taught to ignore these life-lines, and praised for summoning the disconnect which results from attempting to hack off a very living (and vital) part of us.
As I ponder wellness, wholeness and where our culture stands in terms of emotional maturity, I am reminded that sharing what we've learned about it all might just be THE most important thing we can leave behind as a legacy for future generations. Significant deeds which we've accomplished will pale in comparison to what can be shared in places like this, which can be passed along in order to point to the One who exists beyond all realms.
It's to Him that I continue to surrender.
Oh, and along those lines of facing the tumults within, I'm thankful for whomever put Corrie ten Boom's video blurbs onto Youtube shorts.
In a recent one, which just happened to come across my feed "randomly" the other day as I pondered the deepest betrayal of my life ---which seems SO hard to overcome--- I marveled as Corrie explained that she COULD NOT forgive.
She explained that only the Holy Spirit within us can empower us to do that.
RIGHT.
Wow.
So now I've changed my position.
Rather than begging for ability to forgive, I recognize He has answered my prayer of late, which has been to teach us how to love our enemies.
I cannot do any of that, and now I do not feel ashamed or condemned!! It's not humanly possible.
Thankfully, I am reporting to you, Dear Reader of this simple blog which sits upon this website in the regions of internet-land, that I have flung it God-ward, confessing that I cannot do it- no matter how much time passes or efforts are given to talk it through, or any other well-intentioned tactics are deployed.
I have no power in my own Kate-ness to forgive all that needs to be.
Without the Vine I can do nothing.
I CANNOT.
I CANNOT.
I CANNOT.
How freeing that is.
WHAT A WEIGHT I have been under, believing I had to do it in my own power and strength, and will and emotion.
Trying, trying, trying, I have nearly driven myself into a faithless-frenzy. Whatever is not done in faith is sin, right? Yikes. What a mess I've been in, not even seeing it.
Is this the root of why I have not been able to get weight to budge?? It will not surprise me at all if the astonishing stress of trying to forgive with my own woefully inadequate capability is THE cause of what the doctors have not been able to pinpoint.
If you're struggling to forgive, you might like
1) telling God you can't and won't
2) asking for His power to do it,
3) asking Him to teach you how to trust Him for the timing and the power and resources and RESULTS.
Somehow, this has suddenly made all the difference to me. It also reminds me how sharing true principles for posterity is a REALLY, really good idea.
With the shifts this good news will inevitably bring, I might be at the point where I can see to do both projects: the one we've renewed for another two years, and continuing to build here at Exuberant for Life.
I like the idea more than I can express. Taking what has God's life in and adding value to it has become my favorite thing.
As I ponder aspects of being God's kid, my husband's wife and the mom to our kids, I revel that there are SO many principles bursting to be utilized. I think another word for it is WISDOM, and I feel like that's God's most exquisite gift.
Watering this season's seedings, I recalled hearing Joyce Meyer describe how God would wait to help her until she stopped struggling. Feeling this lesson becoming my own reality, I see it is as though He is a complete Gentleman...waiting until I ask for help, allowing me to struggle long. Knowing Romans 5 wisdom mysteries, I suppose there is good that comes from trying to no avail. What a great burden I have ditched and flung off. I remain forever indebted to the guy who taught us to discern between productive pain (the Romans 5 kind) and the OTHER kind.
I cannot forgive HER, or THEM, or him (or her or him, etc).
Know you are adored...not for anything you have done, are doing, or that you will do.
YOU, dear person, are adored because of WHO YOU ARE.
Your very essence and being is adored.
Period.
So there.
With love and respect,
Kate M
-From the writing studio/seed central/video game hub/living room of the Castle- on a sandy hill within a forest- which is stuffed full of people who eat and clean and do lessons around me while I natter away at you. :)
Feel free to say HI by email over at exuberantforlife@gmail.com. You can also find me on facebook, twitter and truth social. I'd love to hear from you.
p.s. I've just had prayer time and feel 2nd layer of understanding coming. In order to get THIS one out to you, I'll post now as is, and then hope to capture the essence of what is coming now. Thanks for traveling along with me. You are appreciated.
As Mrs F. and I recounted today the conversation between me and the tall guy, we went deeper into the idea he brought up this past Sunday: that our Constitution is not the foundation on which our great republic was built, but rather it is the BLUEPRINT.
So liking this concept, and seeing all sorts of significant connections to all sorts of issues we need to face in this generation, she reminded me again of the importance of the book she found on A.B.'s book shelf this past autumn.
"America's Providential History", she explains, details the faith our founding fathers had. She said studying it will help us as we go forward in order to think through going forward with our Republic.
