Healing In The Pain

If I can be honest with ya'll I've been going through one of the most excruciatingly painful times of my life. It has been a very difficult season in my life and my families as well. When momma ain't happy ain't no body happy, has been a true and tried motto in this house. I've asked that God's grace would cover much of the crazy mood swings I've been having and I know that his grace HAS covered so much of my shortcomings this past year. 

I am going through a healing time with God. He has called me to the wilderness with him and we are sitting in a very dark, very painful and uncomfortable place Him and I. Before I started reading my bible a lot more consistetnly I didn't know that there was much of my life that needed to be changed. I think I was living in a safe reality that I had so carefuly created for myself. I was safe. I pretended to myself that I  was "content" with my place in life and I wasn't going to take many risks. As long as my little world spinned my way, I was fine. I did so much to try to control my life and that of my husband and kids, in order to not feel out of control.  But to be honest it was getting to be too exhausting and I could tell something was wrong, I just coudln't tell you what the heck the matter WAS. I was trying to fix things as they poped up instead of going to the root of my issues. 

I knew before I started reading my bibile that I had many flaws. I knew that. But I didn't know that God wanted to help me shed some of the things that were hindering me from knowing him better and from living a life full of adventure, joy and peace. FREEDOM was something I thought I had, until now. I KNOW God is setting me free as we speak. It wasn't until I was honest with myself and with God about the state of my heart that the healing began.  I didn't trust God. I wasn't free and I didn't show many signs of the fruit of His spirit. I knew I was being a hypocrite calling myself a Christian when the life I lead pointed the opposite direction. 

As I am healing, God keeps helping me understand each step when I am ready. Right now I am in the stage of acceptance. I am praying for God to help me have acceptance be the backbone of my healing. When I first learned that I had been sexualy abused I didn't want to belive the little girl inside me telling me there was something wrong. God exposed all the truth so it would set me free. It has been the most painful thing I've ever felt as a thrity year old woman to admit to herlsef that she has been badly hurt. But in accepting it, I have been able to experience peace.  I have been able to understand myself a little deeper and to KNOW that it was NOT my fault. It was not ME. THAT didn't come from me not matter how my body reacted. There has been an extreme change in my heart. I no longer feel angry all the time. God has allowed me to process my emotions in His loving arms. I struggle with anxiety and I have had more panic attacks than I'd like to admit. But through every one, the minute I allowed it to just be, the minute I surrendered ALL of my emotions to God; it was as if black tar was flowing from my heart outward into the His light and being changed into good energy instead of being stuck inside of me and coming out at non-welcomed times and places. I knew that if I didn't decide to heal with God on this, that it would eventually kill me. If it didn't kill me physically it would have mentally and emotionally. 

That is why I am trusting God to help me heal. But with healing, comes pain. I have been so badly hurt in my life that I am terrified of pain. The more I heal, the more accepting of pain I become. I welcome it because  I would rather be in pain and know peace and my savior than be pretending nothing is wrong and feeling hopeless, bitter and angry. There is healing in the pain. There is an end to the madness. My pain becomes energy to help someone else with their pain and my hope is that their pain will help someone else with their pain, and so on and so forth. I have learned that all of the things that happened to me have the opportunity to work for the good of me and other people. Genesis 50:20 Joseph said to his brothers. "You intended to hurt me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." I know that this is hard stuff to hear and to talk about. But the devil loves secrecy for that very reason. It isolates us and makes us feel like we're the only damaged one. That is a lie from the pit of hell! 

God has such a loving and compassionate heart he knows what we all have been through and he wants to heal us from all of our pain. In this life my pain may never go away completely. I know that I will remember the feeling I had when I started to heal, so I can empathise with another sister or brother of mine that has gone through the same thing. So that I can hold them tightly and tell them of how God has redeemed me and  that he will do the same for them. I actually don't want to forget. The people that have helped me the most in this trying time have been people that have also suffered pain and know how to give an encouraging hug and point me to Jesus. We will never have the ability to heal anyone in our lives, we have to realase them into the hands of Jesus;  but what we can do is what the bible instructs us to do which is "Mourn with those who mourn; rejoice with those who rejoice." Romans 12:15

I might be in pain right now but I am recovering. The one thing I won't do is give up. I heard Christine Caine say this today and I could not agree more. " The devil on his BEST day didn't take me out on MY WORST day." God has already won the fight. We need only to grasp his hand tighly and let Him help us embrace the pain of recovery. Because the devil will tell you that because you're in pain you are still not healed. NO FRIENDS! It's because we are healing that we feel pain. Praise God. 

By allowing God to help me heal the quality and amazingness of my life has doubled! I can now hold my head up high with the dignity that God provides me. I do believe that in heaven I will not experience any of this pain. And you won't either. 

 Stay blessed and stay saucy 

-Libier Reynolds 

Ouch My Finger

Sometimes the simplest things in life can have such an amazing lesson. Take my finger for instance. I was a happy girl the night of May 25th ,2012. Everything was normal around the house. I was chatting it up with my friend and cutting up some delicious mangoes for us to enjoy like good friends should. In the blink of an eye everything turned black and blurry. I was in so much pain I almost passed out, gushing blood was spraying BOTH my eyes. All I could think to do was to put pressure on the very deep wound on my finger. The serrated knife I was using to cut my delicious yet somewhat lethal mangoes was to blame (you're RIGHT who in their right mind uses a serrated knife to cut a mango? Me THAT'S who!)

OKAY. YIKES! I'm so dramatic. Yes I cut my finger, yes it was deep but it really wasn't all that bad. I've had a band-aid on it most of this week and it's been so annoying. I kept feeling like it was going to finally close up and heal but somehow something would snag on the skin and it would bust open again. It was painful and simply annoying. And today it dawned on me. What if I'm not letting it heal because I keep wanting the "dead" skin to repair itself and I'm just too scared to cut if off? Finally I bit the hard and calloused dead skin off my finger ( I do realize I could have been less discussing and used scissors or something but meeh) And guess who was surprised two alphabet letters- A.- It didn't really hurt as bad as I thought it would. - AND B.- the skin BELOW the dead one was already healed and it was no longer cut, nothing is snagging it and it feels 100% better. Who knew!

Well then I took it a step further and thought, WOW we as people can't ever completely HEAL from things if we don't cut our calloused hearts and make way for the nice blank slate one. (I hope you can see the analogy, I don't actually mean CUT YOUR HEART OUT, if you know what I mean...) I can't let the healing begin in my heart if I continue to put bandages over my past, my fears, or my future anxieties. I have to CUT the calloused dead skin to move forward with a brand new heart. I have to put my faith all in and yank that sucker out to make way for a brand new start. No pre-judgments. No fear of being hurt. No thinking of "what's going to happen later" without FAITH that everything will be okay. I know it's much harder said than done. But think of how relieved my finger is....

Stay blessed and stay saucy!

If You've Lost A Parent For Any Reason...

I know how much you've been hurt. Nothing on this earth can ever replace the loss of a father or a mother. Be it whatever circumstance- your mother not being able to be there for you because she battles with depression or your father unable to be there for you because his best friend used to be the bottle of vodka you so desperately poured down the drain to prevent him from taking another drink. Or simply because death came so unexpectedly and took one of your parents or both, or any other horrible circumstances...The bond that one forms with a parent is something that is out of this world. A bond so ferocious that if broken can leave you feeling lost, void, and looking for something in this life, in this world, to fill what you crave the most-guidance to the one and only who can be the ultimate and perfect FATHER.  I can say that God provided me with the perfect parents to make me turn to Him. In many ways both my mother and my father have let me down and I've had to turn to God for fulfillment. In many ways the good in both of my parents has given me hope that one person can not be judged solely on the wrong they've done. I've seen God work in both of my parents now as an adult and can happily say that he has saved my father from a massive alcohol addiction and is currently working on my beautiful mother on her battle with anxiety and depression.


Trying to be positive has helped me in my walk with God. However, it's been through prayer that God has used my brokenness and vulnerability. I've let God get in my soul to show me why I've done some of the dumbest things in my life. Forgiving and letting go of all the anger, sadness and resentment has provided me with so much healing and peace. It has not been easy, but I would not have it any other way, it has provided me with a close and intimate relationship with God that I never would of had otherwise.  The interesting thing is that everything that I think has been a mistake in my life reverts back to wanting my parent's approval and love. It goes back to that bond. God knows who our parents are going to be and he knows what children He is going to entrust onto us. He knows that we are at some point going to be let down or be the ones to let someone down. Even the most wonderful of parents can let their children down from time to time. Or they can be taken away from this life too soon (in this case, don't regret the time you didn't have with them and run through a list of all the things you could'a, would'a, should'a done. Instead, be grateful for the time you DID have and those precious moments that were a gift of God).

The world is going to let us down! I will say it again, the world and the people in it, even the ones we love the most, are going to let us down. That is why God has to be the answer to our search. The void we so eagerly want to fill with sex, shoes and cigarettes will only and forever be satiated with a close relationship with our creator, God Almighty.

I hope that if you are reading this and you find yourself in my shoes you can be able to ask God for your own healing. I pray this super crazy-sauce because I've never felt more full and joyful in my life than at this time. This is where the healing begins...

Stay blessed and stay saucy!

-Libier