Becoming Eve ♥

Fallen Eve demands that people 'come through' for her to fill a void.

Redeemed Eve is being met in the depths of her soul by Christ and is FREE to offer to others, FREE to desire, and WILLING to be disappointed.

Fallen Eve has been WOUNDED by others and WITHDRAWS in order to protect herself from further harm.

Redeemed Eve knows that she has something of value to offer; that she is made for relationship. Therefore, being safe and secure in her relationship with the Lord, she can RISK being vulnerable with others and offer her TRUE SELF.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to NO ONE, not even an animal. Wrap it careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. 
But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- IT WILL CHANGE.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...
The only place outside of Heaven you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell."
(C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)

Every time I re-read that quote by C.S. Lewis, part of my heart wakes up again. Last night at the Ruth study, we learned about Yare (greek word for fear), which means "to intellectually anticipate evil."

I was really convicted by that because we are not supposed to live in fear.How often do I live my life out of fear- letting the past hurts and regrets dictate my future. What kind of life is that? A selfish and sad one. Plus living in fear shows that something deep down in my heart doesn't trust that God is bigger than that. It shows that somehow I am not trusting Him to take care of my heart so I have to do it myself. And that's really dumb! He has NEVER let me down.
God is too gracious and too good for me to keep living with "old tapes running through my head (quoting my wonderful mentor)."  Today, I am consciously making the choice to take every thought captive to my Savior and my Redeemer and let Him reveal to me what is true while getting rid of the gunk.

No matter how cruel and awful life gets, I don't ever want to live a life of self-preservation. I don't want my life to be all about me. How empty is that? That's not the life we are called to live. I want to live life abundantly; falling in love with my Maker, and being poured out to bless and love others. Jesus is that never-ending fountain that I must drink of first, in order to channel it out towards others. You can't give what you don't have- We must be filled up in order to pour out.

He offers living water to all who are thirsty. What are we waiting for? :)