When you move (or actually when any big life event happens) it’s an opportunity to re-assess, re-postition, re-move and re-start.
Moving to the Gold Coast in January was that for me:)
I was super excited.
In NZ, I was extremely blessed to have been doing EVERYTHING I love. I love variety so no day was the same for me - Strength & Conditioning at the college, group fitness, dynamic movement, Personal Training, remedial massage, Injury and Trauma Therapy, Autoimmune, Hormones etc. I had the privilege of working with young, old, Dementia, Blindness, Multiple sclerosis, Anxiety, Eating Disorders….I felt so fulfilled and I just loved it all.
I was pretty confident that with my modalities, I’d eventually find my work groove somewhere.
But it just hasn’t been like that.
Everything I have put my hand to has felt like a big punch back into my gut.
In trying to light match after match after match, it actually lit fire after fire after fire of financial burn rather than igniting anything good.
The roller-coaster between knowing what I do IS absolutely what I’m meant to do, and still being open to do anything else has been exhausting.(Like applying for a job to pack grocery shelves and saying “really?” when they declined my application -true story🤣🤣)
I had become so filled with heart-racing anxiety and fear-breathing panic that it literally caused me to swell with inflammation and physical dis-ease. I woke up and went to sleep in overwhelm.
I can say I’ve felt this has been the rock of the rock bottom.
So in all of this, I had an amazing revelation - it was a picture of an Apple tree. I was being replanted, and I was throwing my apples out seeing who would bite. They weren’t bad apples AT ALL and I loved the apples and it wasn’t that I was neglecting my roots either, I just was distracted by the apples while thinking the roots were secure. I was running around like an orphan trying to make things happen.
Stick with me, cos the encouraging point of this is coming.
If I’d continued to Apple chuck (or bob🤣) I would yes run out of apples but I was looking at the fruit, wondering what I was doing wrong, questioning my hearing, questioning my calling, feeling frustrated in this limitation. When actually it was the limitation in the roots, there was no space to expand and deepen. They were being suffocated.
The truth is, our external circumstances will ALWAYS shrink to our internal realities. We can’t think little and expect big. We can’t have little roots and a big tree. It’s not how we are designed. As a man thinks so is he. Our roots might not be rotten or shrivelled, but they are not designed to stay at just one level. We are meant to go to deeper, to more spacious levels. Surface level gives more opportunity for elements to rob kill and destroy. Depth brings freedom and peace and upward growth. Depth brings a sure, trustworthy foundation. Capacity on the outside requires an immutable foundation on the inside.
The change for me came when I heard a quote “fear and anxiety is to the devil what praise and worship is to the Lord, the only power the devil has is your co-operation”. That wasn’t an option for me. It almost felt repulsive.
That statement felt like a ground burst explosion down deep, and in that surrender, the grip of this mammon was loosed, creating space and depth.
Sometimes “surrender” or letting go, can be seen as victim mentality or weakness, but for me, it felt like a rising up of a “so far and no further” boldness and confidence - not in myself but in the truth and I verbally stated out loud “I refuse”. I’m trying to say that letting go - or dying to self - is actually the boldness, it’s not weakness. I won’t pretend there is no such thing as fear and anxiety, hurt, pain, disappointment etc, but there’s no way I’m giving it precious space to hook and disable me. I’m cutting it off with “I refuse”.
Refusal is an unwillingness, a resolve and a clear cut defining line in the sand. It stops here; no more; klaar; it is finished. It’s the line between the roots and the tree. It’s an individual choice of what we each refuse to do and what we will do.
I decided to place my bold, sure stakes of truth in the ground and make declarations of the unchanging KNOWING in my being.
And you can too.
Whatever situation you are facing now, (and this is whether you believe in God or not - because a truth is a truth, like the law of gravity), you have capacity in you to choose truth and refuse lies. Deep down inside you know what is true and false. You don’t have to tell yourself the stories of the past, or the stories social media want you to believe. You’re an essential part of a beautiful story…the image of God has marked you with everything beautiful. You’ve got to see it and choose it. Growth is change from a deepening of understanding and knowing AFTER you’ve drawn the line.
Draw a line in the sand. You can’t wish or pretend struggle away, but you can refuse it’s grip.
Here are my “I refuse and I will” declarations:
📍If fear and anxiety are not from God, then I REFUSE to be robbed of rest and assurance.
📍I REFUSE to be the tail when I have all that the Head has available.
📍I REFUSE to shrivel when I have all this free life giving space.
📍I REFUSE to rob others of the gift and calling God has given me, for His glory and for the serving of others.
📍I REFUSE to steward my life and legacy to anywhere other than to the heart of God.
📍I REFUSE to choose deathly words over the Words of Life. Let it be unto me according to Your Word.
📍Whoever God is to me, He WILL be through me. And I want God to be bigger than anything else so that others have the opportunity to experience His absolute relentless love for them.
📍I WILL honour my ministry of encouraging health, sharing a vision to see people set free in spirit, soul and body. I therefore REFUSE distraction and I WILL honour the simple message of health.
📍I WILL declare my unwavering faith - like the friends of the paralytic man (Mark 2) - on behalf of and for my family, friends and clients.
📍I WILL let the excellence of my work be a testimony of hope and healing.
📍I WILL tell His people how much God loves them.
📍I WILL have the mind of Christ, a heart-cry for people, and I WILL be Spirit-Led.
I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. (Phil 3:12) I WILL do all and then I WILL boldly stand.
For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8)