A weekend with God...

Having never been to a 'Christian Weekend' I had no idea what to expect, as for the content and the worship, it was better than I had imagined and I enjoyed starting each day physically worshipping God and now have an emotional understanding of the idea of fellowship and the community of God. I was able to speak with people over the weekend and ask questions, even answer some(!!) without the confines of society - God could be in everything. This invariably led me to the realisation that God should be in everything and IS, whether we like it or not.

Bearing this revelation in mind...
As I have said above, I enjoyed the weekend immensely but I found it very hard and am now left reeling from my moves along the path and unsure how to deal with it.
Throughout the weekend there were numerous words from God, a large majority pertaining to personal hurdles and self worth and how God wants to take the pain away but He has to be given it, we have to 'step through the door' and admit our struggles and ask God to help us. This really struck a chord with me. As i have mentioned in many of my other posts, I have a big hurdle in the shape of forgiveness and regardless of all that I have written on it about forgiving daily and not being able to grow in God without sorting all the hate and hurt out...I have merely been paying lip service because although I truly want to forgive in my head and logically understand that it is not my place to judge others' actions and that God with deal with it in good time...my heart has not been following. A huge part of my heart has not wanted to forgive and not known where to start...my honest thoughts about the people I need to forgive have been more vengeful and murderous in some cases than they have been merciful and loving.

Linked to this is my tendency to 'control freak' ways and my learned habit of not letting go emotionally. All of this thrown together leaves a very messed up person who has learned to 'forget' (for this read - brush under the carpet) because she couldn't forgive. So I became a little annoyed at God in the middle part of the weekend because all the words that we for me were saying that I had to give all of this up and hand it to God and I knew that that would mean a dis-assembly of my very being. The hurt and anger is so deep and has been a part of my life for so long that to give it up to God means that I'm not sure what will be left, I'm not sure if there is anything left. I can't imagine being free of this and although I want to be desperately, I am also scared.

This was in my head as I went to the final worship of the weekend and although I had had a chat with my pastor and been told the truths that I already knew - that I needed to let go - I had found it impossible and resigned myself to the idea of carrying on with life as I had and just getting over it..........................until.....................................God stepped in.

Halfway through the worship part of the meeting we were singing a song that I had never heard before and a line in the chorus said something like 'I give my heart to You' and I found myself silently singing 'I give my broken heart to you' and visualising my smashed up heart being handed to God on a silver plate physically and I felt Him recieve it. This was when I started to cry and I continued to cry for the remainder of the meeting. This was a BIG breakthrough as I haven't cried properly for years and have been frustrated that I couldn't or felt I should hide my feelings.

So i left the weekend feeling drained and more emotional than I have ever felt. The problem I have is that I am now back in a life where no one knows about the things I am confronting and so I have to put the mask back on, which is hard because the glue isn't there anymore. This means that I am now fearing a relapse into old ways to cope, only now I have more gulit about that because I know that God will know.

My only answer at present is to pray almost continually to God to help me to survive this because I haven't even started and already it is too painful.