post script

Some of you have been responding to my last post by email & text message offering words of encouragement etc. I really appreciate that.

Tonight I had a really good conversation with another staff member that was so encouraging, so enlightening. He shared some of the difficult things he found with the two times he did MPD, which was so true of my experience as well. I can't explain to you how important it is to hear about other people's experiences. It qualifies your own and shows you that you're not alone. Somehow knowing that other people have experienced things like mine makes it not as bad.

He also pointed out one of my big sins: fear of man. This is huge. Being able to put my finger on it, and address this is so key for me in being able to put my sin to death. He gave me practical advice on HOW to put it to death and encouragement that it's possible to kill it.

I realized, again, how greatly lies affect me. I uncovered a big big big (embarassing to think I believed it) lie that has been plaguing me about stepping down from women's ministry. I wont go into it right now .... it's pretty absurd, but it's also related to my fear of man. Basically, I realized that satan had convinced me that I was experiencing something that was actually imposisble -- that I was shamed in the act of stepping down from women's min .... when in reality a) that's not possible and b) so many people told me that they didn't htink differently about me after i did it. This is kind of a breakthrough moment for me in that I've been really trying to comprehend how satan can convince us SO thorroughly of things that are not true, that hold no water. For example, that we're slaves to sin, when really Christ has freed us from that bondage. Yet we behave as if we are not free. This has been a huge thing to wrestle through in my mind the last 2 months.

I think finally I have come into an understanding of this issue through experiencing it. God has taken of my blinders to the ways in which satan had been entangling me, which is actually an answer to a prayer i had prayed earlier today in one of my training sessions.