I’m sitting on the steps after a run. Spring has finally come to Alberta, and the air smells like new things: like garden dirt and budding trees and unsung heroes: fallen leaves and broken stems.
Snow has done a number but it’s left everything rested and saturated and ready to grow.
And I’m praying here on the steps, because I too, feel ready to grow.
I’ve been resting this week. Last week’s post at Prodigal did a number on all of us, and I left a number of people wondering what had happened to e.wierenga, the soft-spoken prose-writing, redemption-dwelling woman who was suddenly on fire for purity and submission.
Sometimes I’m left wondering, too.
I’m no longer in the middle place, a place I once found so comfortable, the grey place, the place of questions and doubts and woundedness, a place of grace and of being a wanderer. I was there for a long time, and I started this blog in that place, but as of January, something changed.
As of January I flew down to Portland, Oregon, to meet with a psychologist friend of mine to plan a book we’re writing. And while I was there, she prayed with me, but it wasn’t just a folding our hands and closing our eyes prayer. She took the child Emily to Jesus. This one–the one in the suitcase, who had just moved to Congo with her missionary parents:
And she took that child to Jesus who in turn, took that girl, and the four-year-old and seven-year-old version of me too, he took us to his father, to Abba father, and that little girl just broke down before Abba and he healed her.
Since then, my soul has shifted.
I’m no longer angry–particularly at men in general, because Abba became my father that day, and so all of my daddy-issues disappeared. I forgave my dad in full and Abba filled in the gaps.
And Trent and I haven’t argued in months. But more than that. I no longer feel like I have to prove myself. I know, deep down, I am enough, just as me, but also, that I have an eternal purpose, and Abba and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are showing it to me.
So there’s that. The wounds from my childhood have been healed, and all of a sudden, I’m not only not angry at men anymore; my heart is breaking for them. I’m sitting in church and weeping for them. It’s like the anger had kept me from truly seeing them, all these years; from seeing the vital role they play in the church and community and home.
And I’m finally accepting me in all of my femininity, as a woman, and rising up to the strong, beautiful, surrendered yet capable role that God has designed, specifically for me–and I no longer feel afraid or defensive.
I’ve been devouring Scripture in the way I always hoped I would. I can’t get enough because suddenly I trust Abba. I believe every single word in Scripture, whereas before I would approach the Bible with a lens of doubt, because I’ve had trust issues, all these 32 years, with men, and with God, and he’s healed those.
I do not say all this to boast or to say that we all need to reach this place or that some of us haven’t. No, please know that I am just sharing from my heart why my words in this place have changed.
I’ve continued blogging through all of this, and you, poor readers, have been left wondering where this radical Emily has come from.
I’ve been grappling with this. Because it’s like Paul says… originally, like infants, we start on spiritual milk but there comes a time in our lives when we begin to crave spiritual solids. And the thing is: no matter where we are on this journey, we’re in it together.
I’m not going anywhere, friends. But I’m changing and growing, and I will continue to change, as I hope you will, because aren’t we here to spur each other on towards the goal, which is, eternal life with Christ Jesus? The fullest kind of life, the kind that is willing to give up everything for Him?
So, bear with me as I experience growing pains. As together, we stretch our minds and souls and hunger after righteousness while still acknowledging our brokenness.
I love you. Thank you for being patient with me. I’ll probably continue to surprise and challenge you, as the spirit leads me down this new and exciting path but I hope you’ll come along for the ride. Because I need you friends.
With all my heart, e.
(btw, here is an interesting video by Gabby Reece, who says submission is strength, not weakness)