Today, I would like to share with you how God called me to a life of greater freedom: I was 14 when I came to know the Lord. On Valentine’s Day actually. A teacher led me to the Lord, her name was Mrs Lewis. I will forever be grateful for her. But it was only many years later in my relationship with the Lord that I came to understand what His love really meant for me and understood the greater freedom I could have.
I was knee-deep in motherhood, not working, lonely and spiritually flat lining when God decided to step into my life in a new way. I still loved Him, but felt that my life had no purpose, no value, no meaning like other people’s lives seemed to have. But the worst was that I seemed to be on this emotional roller coaster where everything I did, everything I was, was just not right.
Have you ever felt that:
- You “don’t even know who you are anymore?”
- Or that everyone “wants a piece of you” and you don’t know if you have anything to offer.
- You wonder deep inside if anyone would really miss you if you went away.
- You have been trying so hard to keep everyone else happy and you have given up hope of anything changing
- Anger springs up inside of you about the smallest of things, like it‘s the steam to a volcano of anger that is waiting inside you to explode.
- You are disappointed with the way your life has turned out, it is nothing like you expected.
- You feel like you are the only one, all alone, isolated.
Well all those feelings described me at that time of my life. I was at a crossroad in my life and knew something had to change. I started asking God for change, to put “eternal value” into my life as I once heard someone say.
One day while driving, listening to the radio and thinking about my broken life; Phil Colin’s song – True Colours came onto the radio. While I am listening to this song: I get a picture of a dull butterfly with its wings crumpled up like a piece of paper. God speaks to me through the words of the song and impresses upon my heart that the butterfly in the picture, is me. He sees that my wings are crumpled and that I don’t see my true colours anymore. He promises that He is going to straighten them out and restore them to their true colours, the one’s that He designed, that He thinks are beautiful.
Then I will be able to fly.
It was a picture that stayed with me, as well as the words of the song, that go as follows:
I see your true colours shining through
I see your true colours and that’s why I love you,
so don’t be afraid to let them show,
your true colours, true colours are beautiful….
You with the sad eyes,
don’t be discouraged though I realise,
It’s hard to take courage,
In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it
and the darkness inside you, makes you feel so small.
And I see your true colours shining through
I see your true colours and that’s why I love you,
so don’t be afraid to let them show,
your true colours, true colours are beautiful….
oh, like a rainbow.
Show me your smile, don’t be unhappy
Can’t remember when… I last saw you laughing
When this world makes you crazy and you taken all you can, then…
Just call me up, cos you know I’ll be there.
In that moment, I recognized that even though I loved the Lord and was in relationship with Him, my life and I was broken.
I felt like a crumpled up butterfly. But He said that He knew who I was, He knew my colours (my design) and that He thought I was beautiful like a rainbow. He knew that I was afraid to let my true colours show, that I was discouraged and sad, that the darkness inside of me was making me feel so small. He knew I was unhappy, that it had been a long time since I was laughing and that the world was making me crazy.
“All of this?” you may ask. No, not all at once. If God gives you a picture and you keep asking Him about it, He will speak to you. For some reason this song was a new hit on the radio and every time I turned the radio on, it would play and God would keep speaking to me. You see, God never stops speaking to us, He is always interested in what is happening to us. How we feel. He knows who we are because God sees.
Psalm 33:18 “But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love and God gives us promises.”
Psalm 34:15 “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry.”
I discovered that not only did God see me, but He made a promise to me too.
He promised to restore me to my True Colours and enable me to fly again. When I live my True Colours, I live in wholeness and He is the only One who can make me whole again.
My dear friend, if you are in this dark place in your life right now, I want you to know that God sees and encourages you to listen for Him. He is speaking to you and making a promise to restore your life, to set you back on solid ground.
I know because He did it for me. Not only did He restore my wings, show me my colours, restore my life to something beautiful, but He is still doing it today.
For more on my story, read:
Wow, all those feelings you had describe how I have been feeling for a long time, in my marriage to someone who has addictions and who isba narcissist (or so I believe), as well as a mother. I have never felt more lonely, disillusioned, lost and confused (no direction). Your message helped me to think positively for a short moment, at least, before going to bed this evening. I will pray for a picture for my life from God and ask Him to speak to me very clearly l, every day to draw my eyes (and ears) to the details of His promise for my life. I will also ask that he opens the eyes and ears of my heart, so I can love myself in order to heal and then further learn to love my girls His way, giving them the best version of me that I can be.
Lisa,
My heart goes out to you for I know the impact of addiction and narcissistic behavior in a marriage. Hold on girl, God will show you a way forward.
My go to Psalm is Psalm 27 and in my life verses 13-14 have sustained me on many a day. When everything is black, I remind myself that I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living, i.e. in my lifetime. When you look for the lifeline God throws you, He will help you to see it. Be strong and take heart and ask Him to intervene. Then watch how God fights for you.
As one sister to another, watch for His goodness sister. Michelle
These words really spoke to me today. Thank you so much for sharing. X
Always touches me no matter how many times I hear it xx
Thank You Mich…I like it a lot.