Written by: Crystal Chislum
A Mine is defined as a place of excavation of precious minerals, metals such as Gold, Diamonds or Coal. An abundant source of something. Mine is also a pronoun that is used to show ownership of things or a thing belonging to the speaker.
The human mind is the house of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and a security vault of memories, Good or bad. Trauma, Pain, Heartbreak, Hate, Joy, Excitement, Pleasure and Love. All excavated from the mine as associated with the appropriate circumstances.
Sometimes the wrong feeling is dispersed or issued because of a misunderstanding or a lack of knowledge. This can produce mental illness such as depression, paranoia, delusions, deceit, distrust, and even prejudices.
I, myself have become aware of a mental dark cavern that was hidden neatly in my subconscious for nearly 40 years. It was brought to my surface during a Sunday morning original sermon series by my Senior Pastor of Kingdom Fellowship Christian Life Center, Timothy E. Findley, Jr. titled "I'VE GOT ISSUES." I knew the first installment subtitled "Overcoming Trust Issues," wasn't going to be an attack or personalized to one individual. I knew it was going to be revealing, enlightening, yet completely comforting. That's the gentleness and honesty our Pastor relays to the Congregation simultaneously. The particular text of Proverbs 3 KJV was emphasized:
1 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: 2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: 4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. 8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
As I pondered and anticipated this forthcoming teaching, I said, "Lord give me a sneak peek about me in this message coming Sunday," and immediately, the Spirit of the Lord whispered:
1980
1st grade.
Your father had passed away in 1978.
You were missing him.
Your mother overcompensated you by buying you anything you wanted.
Next, there was a replay of my life. He showed me that I had the coolest school supplies. There was an assignment to color. While I was quiet, shy and invisible, a cool girl came up to me and asked me if she could share my crayons. The awesome Big 64 crayons that any child would've been delighted to own!! I was so happy and excited to have her at my desk that I said "YES!" She talked to me. I didn't talk much in return; I just felt cool.
As we colored, she got up to go speak with the other cool girls that were sitting at another desk. After a few minutes I turned around she was laughing and talking with them. I felt so embarrassed, angry and abandoned that I broke up all of the crayons. After that, she came back to color, sat down and looked at all of those snapped crayons and asked loudly, "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!!"
She, then, left and talked about me. I was so embarrassed and emotional because I realized that she was nice and she was coming back to my desk to finish coloring.
Fast Forward to the present— nearly 40 years later. The Lord said that after 39 years, I am still breaking up my crayons. If someone leaves you that you like, and you don't understand why, you break the crayon. Who only will melt and mend together but The Lord our God?
I've learned that people may leave me or move on because I am not their type. Maybe our lives don't mesh. Perhaps it's divorce, sickness, careers, petty disagreements and/or death may cause separation as well.
Death. There's a cavernous excavation in need, indeed. My daddy left me. He dropped me and I became lame. A lame and lamentation of survival by staying out of the way unless hurt for no reason. A lament that if I come out of isolation to love and reciprocate assault or betrayal then that bridge or crayon is snapped.
Biblically, I am a Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 4:4). Revealed during the same compelling and consoling sermon, "I'VE GOT ISSUES," at Kingdom Fellowship CLC on that said Sunday morning. It reached into the depths of the hearts and minds of those mentally wounded. This sermon made direct contact to those of us in the congregation who were ready to uncover unseemly mental scabs for healing. We, the mentally wounded have had a tendency to accelerate the acceptance of a mental dysfunction as a coping mechanism that will eventually progress into a mortal wound. One must overcome the wound of complacency in order to become a beacon of wellbeing.
My daddy dropped me as innocently as the nurse dropped Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 4:4), the son of Jonathan, the beloved friend of the future king of Israel, David (1 Samuel 18:1). She was leaving and tried to take the boy as far as she could, just as my father took me as far as he could before he released me.
On Sunday, September 3rd 1978, my father had a heart attack at church. He was in remission from lung cancer and was rushed to the emergency room of Louisville General Hospital. After some time, he called the family into the hospital room where he lie in bed. He spoke to my mother, his mother and all of us children. He told us that he loved us; he was going home to be with the Lord. Going home to be with the Lord? It was the God in the sky taking him yonder the clouds, so he dropped me because I couldn't go that high. I only got as high on his shoulders when he paraded me around the house each day. He proclaimed that all must bow down to me. Especially since I was named after his mother, Elizabeth. I was fashioned after Great Britain's beloved current Queen Elizabeth. It was a feeling of elation for me from this complete routine of pomp and circumstance!
There are a lot of components that left me crippled when I was dropped. When my mother picked me up from Kindergarten, sometimes she was late. I'd panic because daddy was always
on time in his work khakis. I had the privilege and forever reservation of the front seat of his silver Oldsmobile Ninety Eight with black interior, even though my brothers were older. Daddy listened to me all the time. Even when I sent him silent body signals as momma washed, conditioned and pressed my hair with the hot comb. Father would stand close the entire time my hair got styled. When I felt I couldn't breathe as she washed my hair, if that hair grease was too hot or my ear got nicked, immediately, he'd say to my momma,"Watch what you are doing," sternly. He would then speak assuredly and softly to me. After all of those cherished moments, how could he carry me so very far and drop me. I was left functionally crippled, trying my best to get along and cope.
Daddy was like Superman when he went into the clouds but he never returned. So, I taught
myself to limp out of sight, walking softly and quickly. My mother showered me with anything I wanted and desired including excess food. All that I was given was like imaginary steel or titanium braces on my legs to help cover my lamentations— my lame pedistry on a rough pedway. During this time is when I soon realized that I was not everyone's Queen. My high and lifted up paraded prance was lowered as his health became lower. I went from being spun around in the air and sitting on his shoulders to resting on his chest and now I'm sitting in my daddy's lap because he is permanently in his wheelchair. In an effort of a 4-year-old, I had to maintain continuity of our bond. I would sleep on the floor and sit near his electric home hospital bed.
My father was nice to me and I was nice to him. The real world doesn't have that policy. In retaliation, I snapped my mental crayons, so I wouldn't hurt again. That practice was costumed in many ways— arguments, arrogance, no call returns or no hellos. The worst was saying the most hurtful thing to purposely rid them from me.
My daddy dropped me because it was the end of his mortality. In time, I accepted that it wasn't on purpose. It was the plan of the True and Living God. It was for the Glory of God to witness my future comfort.
Today, I sit in healing. Unlike Mephibosheth, I am no longer lame at the King's table. I can walk and run on that smooth path. Love more and forgive more. Possess mercy and truth. God demands love and a release of retaliation. I asked Him during my humbling healing experience how? How can I love and forgive? The gentle Holy Spirit responded, the same way Hosea loved his wife as an example for my love towards my people (Hosea 2:19-23).
God's ways and unconditional love are past finding out. He's loved me since I was precious in His eyes. Before He formed me and my gifts, in my mom's belly, he knew me. He lives in me with an everlasting, everlining promise, "When your mother and father forsake you then the Lord will take you up." (Psalm 27:10). My father was royal out of the house of Saul and I've been asked to sit with King David at his table daily. Why? because my daddy, Richard, literally a lionhearted man, is a friend of the King Jesus.
Anyone lame is indeed invited to sit at the feet of The Saviour Jesus Christ. He also said "Mine," as He spoke to the Holy Father that we belong to Him. (John 17 9-10) "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all "Mine" are "Thine and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them."
The Lord's prayer inconspicuously solidifies "Mine" as "Thine" (Matthew 6:13b)
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For we are His, those in this world that the Father gave to the only begotten Son for His kingdom, purpose and our Destiny.
Comments