Where does my message find you today? Are you hurting? Do you find life seems to be pressing in more than you feel you can handle? Are there worries in your life that seem insurmountable? Past hurt, do they creep into your everyday thinking seeking to devour any hope you are clawing to? Have you been questioning the dreams you have for your life? Discouragement, has it become synonymous with your self-esteem? Do the painful words that have cut you like a knife try to raise up to cut again? The cycle of doubt, worry, fear, hurts, pains, doubters words…they cause such cavernous emptiness in our lives. And at points, we find ourselves feeling broken. When you find yourself at this juncture in life, desperation can easily start filling your heart. I remember when I reached these cross roads in my life. I still remember falling to the side of my bed and crying out, “How do I heal me? I’m broken. I don’t even know what I need?” Yet it was in that utter desperation that my life took the most powerful turn. I finally saw that there realistically was no way for me to fix myself. Healing my hurt was up to Jesus. I became broken at an early age. Before I even knew what it was like to be “whole” I found out what it was to be broken. I lived in a home of an alcoholic. Although he was a good man, the alcohol spoke louder than his heart. Along with the alcohol came his rage. This rage broke me. I became positive that I was all the reason why his life had come to the state it was in. Many years were lived in this environment. Although I refused to become anything less than a happy person, I lived with an enormous underlying pain within me. I think many of us live as I have, hurting immensely, and yet not willing to trust Jesus enough to start fixing the pain within us. Why would we do such an action? I truly believe it is due to the fact that at some juncture of life, we were taught very misleading information about the love of Jesus Christ. Somewhere along the line, someone discouraged you from being “real” with Jesus (stripped of all formality, raw in your emotion, and truthful of just how much life had hurt you) type of “real”.) I’ve been in love with Jesus Christ since my earliest years, but I kept not letting Jesus Christ be in love with me. I trusted Jesus with almost all of my life, but when it came to the true pains of my life, I decided that the only one that I could trust with that pain-was me! But I hit a brick wall, after many years of trying to hold all the pains of life within me, I came to my point of desperation. I fell to my knees, as I spoke of above, and cried out, “How do I heal me? I’m broken. I don’t even know what I need?” That breaking point that I reached was VITAL to my walk with Jesus. You see, out of that breaking point, I came face to face with one of the most life altering understandings I have ever experienced. I saw, for the first time of my life, that I could no longer trust myself with my pain. I came to a true understanding that I honestly could not heal my own pain. Through seeing this, it concreted my understanding that I WANTED Jesus to be the Lord of All things in my life, not just the areas I thought I could trust Him with, but EVERYTHING. What does this mean? It means that I stopped trying to shut Jesus out of my life due to the fear that He just wouldn’t truly understand how deeply HURT I really was. I slowly started to see that He would be gentler with me than I ever would have been with myself. Where I would spend hours in condemnation of myself, He never once rubbed my nose in my failures. I started to trust that Jesus not only cared about my pain, He was committed to being the healing that I was seeking. I am a work in progress, but I have full trust that Jesus will continue to be gentle and loving as He and I walk this life together. With each step of life, I am learning more and more of the utter love that Jesus truly is for us. On a personal note: When I write to you in these blogs, I share my life’s lessons. I hate to see people hurting. I was hurting for so many years and I felt captive within the pain. I don’t want this for anyone else in life. I am no more than what the Lord Jesus Christ makes me, but in Him…I can offer encouragement to you, and I couldn't be more thankful of this. I praise you, Jesus. You are my love, my friend, my life, my Savior. Blessings be with you this evening. Pastor Daniella. If you are interested in following my Twitter page: https://Twitter.com/PastorDaniella