Tag: faith

Finding You

Posted on by From Brokenness to Beauty

God is after you. You might think He is only interested in people who have it all together. After all, why would He care about your struggles, your pain and your failures? Even the ones who look good on the outside often feel lost, unloved and unable to move past their pain. How does Jesus speak to us in our brokenness?  We can get a glimpse of His heart when we read the story about the woman at the well. It wasn’t an accident that Jesus chose to speak to the Samaritan woman that hot afternoon. She was used, broken and yearning for freedom. She had searched far and wide for something to satisfy her soul. There is a little bit of her in all of us. 

Then one day, He came. This is when Jesus steps into her life. Instead of seeing her sins, He saw her worth. Jesus broke every rule when He chose to speak to her. He wanted her to know how she is loved, accepted and how she could be free. Free from judgment, free from worthlessness and free from searching all over for something that was never meant for her. How can she satisfy the longing in her heart? Jesus said to her, “But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14) In this encounter, Jesus was speaking to all people. Us, you and I. God sees you and he cares for you. He is not going to judge you by what you have done, the wrong choices you have made or what has been done to you. He still seeks after you and wants you to know that you are loved and accepted. 

Rejection can really pierce a deep longing in your soul for love and acceptance. Pain makes us go searching for it from all the wrong places. This empty space is only filled with the love of Jesus. That is where your true worth is found. Beautiful one, when you find Jesus, you find yourself. 

The enemy of your soul wants to keep you bound by everything imaginable, relationships, pain, unforgiveness, lust, fights, difficulties, failures and lies. If he can keep you believing his lies you will never reach your God intended purpose. Choose to walk away from anything that holds you back. God uses your pain to teach you valuable lessons about Him and His ability to change your circumstances. We try to avoid pain but dare I say, your freedom is on the other side. Face it head on and let God use it for His glory. Freedom is worth going after. Don’t stop chasing it. Don’t give up on pursuing it. Forgive the hurt. Find healing for your soul. Fill your mind with the truths of Christ and renew your mind daily in His Word. You are forever loved and filled by Jesus. Your value and your worth is found in Him.

Written by Eeva-Maria George, Brokenness to Beauty

Lump of Fear

Posted on by From Brokenness to Beauty

I used to be terrified of being real. Being the real me would expose who I really was, and people would see me and be very disappointed. I felt inadequate to do what was required of me. Fear had me good. Living with someone who reminded me every day of my inadequacies made it even harder to climb over the mountain of fear.

Inadequate:

Lacking the quality or quantity required. Insufficient for a purpose. Unable to deal with situations or with life.

That definition is exactly how I felt, and that was my reality. The Devil had me craftily believing his lies. Or so he thought. For a very long time I believed that I was only who he said I was. Believing this lie caused me to hide and run away from the things I needed to do. I didn’t feel like I was enough.  I felt that God had made a very, very big mistake placing me in the middle of ministry. I kept telling God I didn’t have what it takes. And He reminded me many times that He would give me the tools that I needed. But I was too wrapped up in my own self that I couldn’t understand or believe what God was telling me.

I remember sitting with leaders and speakers in meetings on the platform and feeling as thought I was someone who had been invited to the wrong party. I had no idea what I was doing, and I felt as if I was watching a movie. I was kind of living the motto “fake it until you make it.” I was terrified. But I always put my brave on and did what I needed to do. I felt as I couldn’t speak right, do right, or wear the right things. I remember one of the first times I had to do greeting in Canada at the women’s conference – I nearly passed out. I’m not even kidding. I tried to quietly work for God and stay as much as I could in the background, in my comfort zone not being seen or heard. I loved people, and hoped that just smiling and loving them would be enough because it was the only thing I knew how to do well. I wasn’t much allowed to shine next to my husband either. He kept me in my place, and if I thought I had done a good job at something, he quickly reminded me that it was him all along who’d done everything. Him. Not me. Fear kept me believing that life would never change or get better. I was grasping for air, for freedom, for someone to tell me that I was loved and accepted and that things would get better eventually. 

This is the very place where the enemy of your soul wants to keep you and me. God has placed an eternity in our souls. I knew deep down in my heart that this was not all I was created to be. I had to fight and break a lot of barriers on my way. It takes time and courage to start climbing over to the other side. On the other side of fear is freedom. Freedom to be me, to feel loved not by man but by God. The moment I quit believing the lies the enemy was whispering in my ear and believed the truths of whom Christ says I am, things started to pick up.

You are fully loved and accepted, and nothing and no one can take it away. Whatever you did or didn’t do wouldn’t make God love you any less. You don’t need the approval of anyone else. Just rest in this truth that you are the daughter of the most high God. Always. Period.

I was already invited in. I have a place at the table just with my name on it. I could fully enter all God has for me on the same ground that anyone else can. There was nothing wrong with me. I just had to learn to love and embrace me. To live loved as God’s daughter. Lisa TerKeurst puts it this way: “Live from a deep assurance that you are fully loved, and you won’t find yourself begging other for scraps of love.” (Uninvited, Study Guide pg. 9)

It took a while for you to end up where you are, and it will take time and work to change the patterns of our thought process to get out of where you are. Instead of fearing man, God taught me how to fear Him more than man. This changed everything. If God’s got my back, who am I to fear? If I am walking in His ways, loving and serving Him with all I have, nothing else really matters. If I fail, which sometimes, most definitely I will, He will be there to take me in. I started believing who God really says I am in Him. It wasn’t about me at all, but it was about Him. It wasn’t about my honor or shame; it was about God’s honor. He is who He says He is, and He never changes or fails.

Start believing today that you are loved, forever loved, and accepted at the table.

Jesus is calling you and me out of the darkness and out of the thinking patterns that we are never going to be enough. It’s a lie. You are invited in, and you have a place at the table.


“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.” 2 Samuel 22:17

Broken Love

Posted on by From Brokenness to Beauty

We all have to learn the delicate balance of allowing ourselves to be wronged at times, but not allowing ourselves to be set aside over and over again in a serious relationship. If you allow yourself to be set aside over and over again, it rips you from your self-dignity and self-love. When we are desperate for someone to love us, we start compromising who we really are. That is not what love was meant to do for anyone. Love, real love, is supposed to leave you feeling secure, never earned or worked for. If you find yourself working too hard for someone to love you, you are probably in an unhealthy relationship. When someone loves you, they will come after you. They will find you without you working overtime to make them love you. You are a precious treasure that someone is waiting to find. Keep your gems securely inside, and don’t give them away until it’s the right time.

Here are some truths that apply if you find yourself married or in a serious relationship with a person who continually disrespects, demeans, and leaves you feeling confused. If you’re not currently in an abusive relationship, these principles will allow you to best protect your heart from pain if you are looking for love:

Know your value:

Daughter, know your value. You are loved, forever loved, and accepted. Don’t ever make the mistake I made of trying to work harder and harder for someone to love me. The truth is that if a person makes you earn their love, they are themselves broken, unable to love even themselves. It’s a losing battle, where there are no winners. The love they are giving you is broken love.  It really is the worst thing you can do. You are responsible for no one’s happiness. There are people, broken people, out there who will stop at nothing to hurt your heart. It’s how they live, operate, and survive. They need a supply of someone’s pain to feed their sick soul. They are dangerous people to be in the relationship with because they will slowly, quietly kill your soul. It’s not easy to spot them, and lot of times you don’t see them until it’s too late.

There are people, broken people, out there who will stop at nothing to hurt your heart. It’s how they live, operate, and survive. They need a supply of someone’s pain to feed their sick soul.

Be transparent about your relationship:

My advice would be this: be as transparent about your relationship as you can, and let people who love and care for you the most know what goes on. My mistake was that I hid most of the abuse, which allowed him to continue fully thinking that I wouldn’t ever tell. One of the last things he told me after coming out was, “I thought you said you’d never tell.” He said this with the hurting face, almost like I had broken his heart.  Yes, he had counted on me keeping his secrets, but eventually I had gotten strong enough to tell the truth. I had made him feel that I would never tell people what he had done to the point that he thought he was safe to keep doing what he was doing. Well, it had been 16 years. But he didn’t know that God had, years before, started a master plan of awakening me to do the hard things.

Cover yourself:

People can’t help you if they don’t know.  If something doesn’t feel right, sound it off with someone who has more experience and has your best interest at heart.  If you have a history of making bad choices in relationships, the more important the principle becomes. Cover yourself. Talk to your friends, family or pastor. You might miss important red flags that other people with no emotional ties will see. Be open to admitting you’ve made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Sometimes the pride in us keeps us letting the loved ones around us know what really is happening in our life. Many other reasons such as fear, shame, and love for that person can also stop us from opening up. And know this, you are never too deep in a relationship, or even in marriage if it turns abusive, for you to turn around and say, “I don’t want this.” You have a voice, so use it. You are never too deep for God to help you and pull you out of what ever situation you find yourself in. You have to remember this. It is never your fault if someone decides to hurt you physically or verbally break you down. You chose a beautiful thing to love a person. The other person chose to misuse that love and take it for granted. Don’t blame yourself for loving, but know this:  sometimes there comes a time when you have to walk away and never look back.

Be emotionally healthy:

The best defense for making good relationship choices is that your heart and self-esteem is healthy. If you know this is an area of weakness, it can set you up for a failure. Even if you find yourself a good man who is wonderful, he cannot be responsible for fixing you heart. Many marriages struggle because of this. Find yourself and allow God to fill those empty holes in your soul that no man can fill. Learn to love yourself, seek counsel, read books, go after the things of God, and do what ever it takes to get you heart healthy.

A year and a half later after I had left, I found myself pleading with God to make me whole. My heart was shredded into million pieces and I so desperately wanted to be whole. I didn’t want to be person anymore who begged people for scraps of love. I knew I needed help. It became almost a life obsession on my part. I was determined to find my healing. I was telling God, “Make me whole again.” I was desperate.  I was intentional. And I think that is what God honors. When He sees we are desperate for Him to change our lives, He bends His ear to hear.  I sat for hours outside at end of summer 2016 drinking my coffee and desperate for change in my heart. I studied the word, surrounded myself with loving friends, went to therapy, read books like Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst, Unashamed by Christine Caine, and The Lioness Arising by Lisa Bevere. I went on a quest for healing.  God really started deep healing process in my heart that no one else could have done. This process was painful because I had to look at myself honestly and find the holes in my heart that allowed a person to degrade, demean, and devalue me for over 16 years. The damage he’d made to my heart was deep. I cried many, many tears. But, oh, the sweetness of life when the love of Jesus started pouring into my desperate broken heart and started to put it back together piece by piece. My life started broken but ended with beauty. It really is beauty from the ashes, from brokenness to beauty!  I love Jesus so much for what He did for me, and this is the reason I write today.

This love and truth is available for everyone.

Nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:39