Donald Wickham’s Blog

A month ago I had the privilege to attend a Men at the Cross (MATC) weekend (www.crossmg.com)  The MATC weekend recognizes that God made us to relate to symbols and ceremonies  that connect us, thru our hearts, senses and emotions as well as our minds, to God’s truth.  The MATC staff is so welcoming.  In fact, they say, over and over, that who we are and whatever we bring is welcome.  We were never forced to participate in any of the activities but invited into them as we felt able to do so.  (I highly recommend this event and there is a Women at the Cross event as well.  They are held in a number of locations around the country.)

During one of the activities God revealed to me a hidden rage.  I was totally unaware of it.  All of my life I have struggled with rejection and desperately wanting to belong.  One of the pictures I saw of myself was being outside of a home, looking thru the window to everyone else enjoying themselves.  But I was left out.  Thru a time of ministry I saw what was the root of this and was able to let Jesus walk me through a severing of the tie that has always held me to that “never belonging” lie.

As I’ve watched the working out of this over the last 4 weeks I’m seeing how pervasive the wanting to belong has been in my life.  Everything, and I mean everything, has been touched and twisted by this.

Last weekend, at our church’s men’s retreat, the speaker talked about our brain’s limbic system.  That part of us that stores memories with all of the emotion tied to them, and that a picture, person or even a smell can trip the limbic to replay an experience with all the vividness of it having just occurred.  Then he related this to Rom 12 where we are encouraged to “renew our mind”, that our limbic system can be retrained.  God can give us a new response to things and set us free from the old responses.

This week I began to understand that along with emotional/spiritual healings that God brings that there needs to be a season of “renewing” or retraining.  For me, in the past, my involvement with activities was so strongly influenced by wanting to be accepted, to belong.   Now I can choose to participate because I want to or not, as God leads or not,  and not feel driven to join lest I be rejected.  I’m seeing that this will take some time to work into me.

Summarizing:

• Attending the MATC (www.crossmg.com) event, is life changing.
• Let Jesus deal with my stuff.   Otherwise my stuff will deal with me over and over.  And it affects everyone around me.
• Live with the truth that “renewing” will take time.
• That not being involved doesn’t mean I don’t belong

Tags:   belonging · cross · God · healing · Jesus · limbic · Men at the Cross · rejection · renew · Rom 12 · welcomeNo Comments