The group of women sat before a beautiful alabaster box my husband had made out of a exotic wood. I sat there quietly envisioning a different time when Mary’s original box perhaps kept the vial of expensive perfumed used to anoint Jesus's feet as I scribbled my prayer onto the paper and put it in the box never to be seen again.
Betrayal, envy, jealousy, strife, and add some backstabbing, gossip, lies and underhandedness. Sounds like one of those new fall television series doesn’t it?
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| Steamboat Springs, CO |
I have thought back on many incidents and such thing that had accumulated over time leaving me wounded. I have had many arrows of betrayal by those I loved or said they loved me. Close friends, strangers, family and even a boss or two. Then I recalled when a person who I did not even know prayed for my heart one afternoon.
She said, “God is dropping a plumb line with healing balm down over your punctured heart.” I tried to get my head around Abba’s true love as I pictured arrows dropping on the floor.
It was a fall day much like today when I felt the point of the arrow in my heart. The story is like a prism, many facets of God and his created people, gut wrenching sorrow, violation of trust, a ripping away of relationships. For those who share their bleeding hearts through status posts, much like myself, I want you to know this happens to everyone. It is one of the enemy’s tools to bleed hearts and to destroy intimacy.
He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. PS 147:3c
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Rebekah's symbolic sketch
heart, arrow and angel wing
Psalms 91 |
It happened n the midst of this Bible series on my favorite book Esther with some well known anointed women. An intimate close group. Ones who promised to be open and proudly said each of us present were there for a reason. Women with whom I had witnessed a miracle healing the previous week, that occurred through Jesus Christ name. We again turned on the video and listened to a blonde woman who poured out her greatest fears. The voice spoke about Queen Esther's fears as well. The story unfolds with plans revealed that would annihilate her relatives, her people by a bully. Much like some of the pretend characters in the recent TV shows. Arrows were being sharpened by the enemy in the true story of Esther and in my world.
He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
As I crossed the grass to my car, my feet walked across the fall leaves. I heard crunching and saw leaves flying down from the trees and doing their fall swirl. It was a pleasant warm day with a slight presence of a Fall chill. You could feel the season in motion and I felt happy, excited for new growth and to be included into this group.
“God doesn’t allow pain unless He’s allowing something new to be born.” Ann Voskamp
Through a series of events betrayal was being set up around me even though I had not spoken a word or been in the presence of these people. I now picture a lion pacing back and forth. “ ...be alert. Your enemy the devil is like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1Peter 5:8 My enemy was loading his arrow into the bow.
The caller said she and the others had sought the Lord and had given it much prayer about the circumstances that had unfolded that week. They told me I was not welcome to return to the Bible study group because of some events with someone close to me. The arrow labeled “unwanted” was in midair.
You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day
It knocked me to the floor How could these Godly women hurt me, exclude me and dismiss me? They said they heard from God. They were so off. Jesus loves all. Isn’t this what being a Christian is all about? Ministering by example to those who are next to us as sisters in Christ, excluding not one soul?
I had one of those dark night and dark days. I curled up in the bed and could not function because of the heavy weight on me, the arrow in my heart from those I trusted. My eyes leaked rivers of tears! Have you ever experienced this?
My husband put me in the car that night and drove me to our church to visit, “The Healing Rooms.” I laid at the foot of the altar and openly wept with a seeping wound. People walked around me, stared at me, stopped and laid a hand on me, understood or not. I did not care. I was in a dark place. Again God intervened. The woman playing the music stopped the singing. She prayed for a hurting person who was experiencing betrayal from God’s own people that night. Oh yes, the pain was real not imagined, not in my head. Abba Father showed someone the truth again and she spoke it out loud to all that were present. Confirmation of the love of the living God on an inconsolable woman.
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| The sting of the arrow head |
As I was called back into the prayer room the man escorting me said. “You know Jesus experienced betrayal also.” Oh my, how true! I felt the instant recognition of the pain that the Father had felt as his son hurt from the betrayal of those closest to him.
Jesus’s feet had been anointed with perfume before he was betrayed, brought out of an alabaster box that carried the cries and needs of women just like me. The difference was it was Judas being used by the enemy to get Jesus to the cross. Just as the enemy used Christian women to hurt me. The cross he went to was the one I needed so much then, in that place. As for me, the enemy roaring, the archer with the poison arrow, was trying to get me to feel exactly like I pictured myself. Worthless, devalued, unimportant.
The cross that Jesus walked to was the one that I reached for that night- to touch the healing power of the blood that he bled for me.
As I think on the arrow that is flying though these TV shows, I cry for the one’s who see this betrayal and have no hope of a Redeemer. No hope of healing, No understanding of the need to forgive in order to shut the door from the past. No hope to overcome the hurt as their wounds bleed from their hearts on each sofa, by those whom they trusted.
Oh, come to the feet of Yeshua. Reach out and smell the fragrance of the perfume of the living Savior. Let him touch your heart wounds and heal them.
Resources in regards to this blog:
Prayers that Bring Change by Kimberly Daniels, Prayer: Breaking the Spirit of Betrayal
Esther: It’s Tough Being a Woman. Bible Study by Beth Moore
