Category Archives: God

faith, Faith - Strength, God, identity

A Case of “Mask”taken-identity  

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Have you ever been mistaken for someone else or tried to be someone else? I know with Halloween right around the corner everyone tends to dress up in costumes, something that they are not normally, but is that really just for Halloween or are we wearing a mask every day? 

Throughout my life I have worn many mask – to try and be popular, the party girl, the people pleaser, the hypocritical Christian, the overachiever, and several others. Over the last several years I have started breaking down the mask that I would hide behind to try and find the person that God created me to be. When you deny your true identity to come forward, we end up with a case of mistaken identity. We use the mask for a new identity to be something or someone that we are not.  

When I first started wearing masks in middle school it started easy, just be who people want you to be but then the internal dilemmas started that I didn’t know how to process. Instead of working through those internal dilemmas, I started creating more masks and trying to cover up and stay away from who I was because I didn’t like her and I didn’t think anyone else would like her. I didn’t really know her, but I didn’t like her. You may be thinking how do you not like someone you’ve never met? By believing lies about them. 

 I didn’t think that anyone else would like her so I decided to hide her. It became easier to change the mask because it started to become my “armor” to take away the pain of not having real friends and feeling lonely. After a while the armor allowed me to be numb and not worry about anyone but myself, or so I thought, but I was still the lonely girl the only difference was that I was numb to the pain that I was feeling. The problem with being numb is that eventually the numbness wears off and the pain comes back and when you have been numb for years the pain that bubbles up is unbearable, it feels shameful, its hard to walk through the wreckage.  

After years of struggles, therapy and deepening my faith in Christ I had to confess to myself that I actually had a deep hate for myself because I felt as though I was never enough. Growing up I started to learn about God and his love but then I started listening to the lies of the devil that after small mistakes had me thinking I wasn’t worthy of God’s love let alone anyone else’s but yet I craved it. The lies made me think that I had to do and be all things for everyone instead of who God created me to be.  

I asked God’s forgiveness for hating myself, for not believing in who he created me to be, falling into a life of sin to try and hide the pain and made a promise to start working through my problems.  

The journey to break through the masks has been hard and painful but it’s been extremely rewarding to truly find out who I am. A woman who loves Christ, who loves those closest to her, has big feelings and is emotional (yes I cry reading a good card), and is still working on herself daily.  

This past week I was in a spin class and the instructor was talking about how she used to fake putting on more resistance on the wheel and make it look like she was struggling. She explained that when she faked it she only cheated herself from growth. It made me start thinking about the mask that I have used in my life. They all cheated me out of finding who God created me to be earlier in my life and building that confidence. They cheated me of opportunities to let God into my heart earlier to help me through problems and rely on him. Instead, I wore the masks and relied on myself, leaving me broken and lonely.  

Now that I have committed to following Christ I have started to break down the masks and take up my cross. It has been a long process that still continues. It is a daily battle, continual surrender to be who God is calling me to be. It is not easy, I meet opposition all the time to discourage me from following the path God has on my life, (like trying to write blog post) but I have to endure and press forward in faith, in who God created me to be.

Paul reminds us in Ephesians that we are to “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (6:11-17) 

The difference with my worldly mask that I thought was armor is that it was just the appearance of armor but with God, he gives us armor to protect ourselves and to fight back. The masks that I wore didn’t protect me, it only hurt me, God’s armor protects me.  

The world wants us to be acceptable by the world’s standards (money, fame, looks, clothes, cars etc.) God wants us to pursue his heart just as we are. We can come as broken and ugly as we believe we are and he loves us that way and works within our broken pieces to make us new, not because he doesn’t love us but because he DOES love us. 

His love for us wants what is best for us. That is a life that is following his word, full of faith, helping and loving other, and learning to love ourselves.  

Heavenly Father, I praise you that you helped me take off my mask and you revealed to me who you have called me to be. Though I still sometimes fail I praise your name that you do not give up on me. Lord thank you for the person that read this post and I pray that if they are still hiding behind a mask that you will move within their heart to take off the mask and reveal their true identity of who you created them to be. Heavenly Father you are the master creator and I praise you that you created me and all the people of this Earth, I pray that myself and others will come to you and fall at your feet. Lord lead us to follow you. Thank you for another day on this earth. In your son’s name, Amen.  

depression, faith, Faith - Strength, God

Surrender  

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It’s been a while since I have written anything for The Fire Within. Over the last few months, my life has changed in a big way and the Lord has been working on me and giving me things I need to learn.  

My life changed this year by having my son. Last year I started praying to God to change my heart to be ready to have a child. I have always wanted to be a mother, but I was still trying to pursue my career, and, in all transparency, I was terrified of becoming a mother. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be good at it, and I would be a failure. As I continued to pray to God about changing my heart, he started to impress upon me that he did create me for a purpose and that he did create me to be a mother. It was a gentle massage of the heart for months. Then one day as I was on a prayer walk God gave me a name. At that moment I felt the Holy Spirit give me the nudge, ‘you are ready’.  

Several months later I became pregnant and then the real journey began. I thought that just praying for my heart to be prepared was the hard part but that was only the tip of the iceberg. I was elated to find out that I was pregnant with our first child yet something inside of me still felt a little off.  

Because of the new hormones and growing a baby my body found a new wave of exhaustion that I had never experienced before. I didn’t have the energy to get up early to do my devotionals or go to the gym as I had grown accustomed to doing, not to mention I had to limit my coffee intake so that really threw a wrench into my morning routine (my veins have coffee in them). Then I realized that I needed to clean out my home office to make room for the baby. Then it hit me all at once. My body was longer my own, my home was no longer just for my husband, myself and our dog, my life was no longer the same. We were adding a new addition. My world was changing. You might be thinking, well yeah Morgan, your life is going to change because you are having a baby but this change was different. I felt like I was losing parts of myself and gaining a new identity that I didn’t know.  

Please don’t misunderstand me I was happy to be pregnant, I was excited, but I was also scared and anxious.  

As I worked through my emotions, I realized that when I prayed to have a change of heart for pregnancy the change hadn’t fully occurred yet because the real change was learning to fully surrender to the will of God. To surrender I have to lose myself and gain God’s identity for me.  

Romans 12:1-2 states, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.  

The significance of my body not being my own was realizing that my body was never mine to begin with, my body is a temple for God to dwell in so that he may use me to reach others. This home that I thought was mine is not, it’s a place to God to dwell and minister to those that I open the door to. My baby is not mine; he is the Lord’s child that he has blessed me with to take care of.  

Following Christ isn’t about keeping my body, my former lifestyle, doing things the way Morgan has always been doing things. It is about trying to do the will of God, God’s way.  

Following Christ is about surrendering my body and my soul to his plans and following his leadership through obedience and discipline. This is a daily surrender this isn’t a one and done kind of deal.  

Being pregnant I needed to change things in my life to ensure protection for my baby. Taking prenatal vitamins, limiting caffeine, continue to exercise, making room in our house for the baby’s room, allowing my body to slow down to give energy to my child and my body to grow to give room for my child to grow.  

With God every day is different, challenging me to grow deeper in relationship with him, yet he is constant. He is faithful, his love surrounds us in the world around us. By connecting to his word we can open our eyes and our hearts more clearly to his blessings around us. He provides when we don’t see a way, He give us strength when we are weak, He listens to us when we cry, and he listens when we sing praises to His name.  

My life isn’t about me, it’s about how God will work through me for the furthering of his kingdom. It’s about how God can work through me and on me to reach others around me.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I praise you that you created all of us, on purpose for a purpose. I pray that you will work within us to surrender to you daily and that you will use us to further your kingdom. Lord, I pray for the person that is far from you that they may be drawn into you, I pray for the person that is crippled with fear and anxiety and I pray that you will give them courage to overcome their fears and peace to calm their anxiety. Lord, I pray that we look to you daily that we may push forward in your name. Thank you for our many blessings and continue to be with us. In your son’s name. Amen.  

faith, Faith - Strength, God

Birds

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“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”” Hebrews 13:5 

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26 

He will take care of the birds; he will take care of you.  

This morning another bird flew into my house.  

Yes, I said another because a year ago I had 3 fly in at the same time and I didn’t know until my dog, Arnie, started barking at the one on the chandelier. I was preoccupied with work and left the door open so Arnie could go in and out. The first time the birds flew in I only saw two, one on the chandelier and the other on the bar cart next to the window. I ran to the back door to fling it open and eventually got the 2 birds I saw out. I closed the door in a sigh of relief. I won’t relieve the story of calling my husband, my mother and freaking out in the middle of the call with my boss. After the two birds left, I went back to work in my office and as I reached a stopping point and was on the phone with my husband, I came around the corner to find another bird popping out of the basket with an extra blanket and throw pillows. I freaked out again. I went through the same hoopla and eventually got the bird out before my husband got home.  

You would think after that I would be well versed in the art of not keeping the door open and getting birds to escape your home, but I am not.  

This morning, I was lying in bed with the door open finishing up my devotional about to get ready to kick off my day when all a sudden a bird flew into my bedroom into the plantation shutters getting itself stuck. I immediately go into a small panic of crap not again. Knowing I wasn’t supposed to leave the door open.  

I open the shutters and shoo the bird out of my room only for him to fly right into another set of shutters, by passing the door that he just came in through. As I watched the bird struggle with the shutters, I closed the rest on the other windows and started to close the doors so that he wouldn’t go into the other rooms or windows. I swing the back door open as wide as it will go. I get my floor swifter to hit on the floor to make sounds to keep it away from the other side of the house and my dog is sitting watching me as if to say, lady you did it again and you still don’t know what to do. I talked to the bird, tried to persuade it to go back out the door by even walking out the door myself. I was trying to bring out my inner Dr. Dolittle, needless to say I am not Dr. Dolittle as hard as I tried. 

The bird did not follow my directions, pretty sure that I was scaring him and not helping him. He went in the opposite direction and went to the front door. At which point I ran to the other side of the house and started making noises to try and prevent him from going into other parts of the house. The noises worked because sure enough he took off from the front door back to the same window he was just at, this time he went beak first into the window and fell straight to the ground. In that moment I questioned whether he was stunned or was he dead. I feared that he was dead because I didn’t see his little body move to show signs he was breathing. I was too terrified to touch the bird and put a rocking chair in front of it to prevent Arnie from getting any ideas about trying to go after it. After a while I wanted to take a picture to prove to my husband that he needed to leave work and come get this dead bird and as soon as I moved the chair the bird miraculously came to and started to fly and flew right back into the same window. I started to leave him alone and opened the back door again. I even opened the front door this time to see if he would go that way and he wouldn’t, he was determined to go out that window. The wind caused the front door to close which just left the door that he came in through as his only exit. 

I decided that I would make my breakfast and take it to my bedroom and shut the door, leave him in peace to see if he would leave. The shutters in our room were still open so I could see out my window, through the open door to the window where the bird was still trying to figure out how to get out. I watched as he jumped from the window seal to the bar cart, to the ground, to the console table over and over. As I watched the bird in confusion I gave up on him ever leaving my house I decided to focus on some work and after about 30 minutes I came back out to see that I couldn’t find the bird. I didn’t see him fly away but I checked the whole house, and he wasn’t there. He finally figured it out. He made his way back out.  

I started thinking as this was going on. Is that how God feels when I go in doors I’m not supposed to go into. He is trying to do things to get my attention to get me out. To talk to me through people, through the Holy Spirit and guide me out and yet I don’t listen. I know in my own life I have been so stubborn that like the bird I have bumped into the same window over and over again. Like the bird I have ran into the window to only knock myself out for a time but like the bird I have been knocked out yet not destroyed.  

As I thought about God, I think he would have been calmer when getting my attention, touched me when I knocked myself out but as I think back on the things in my life that he has had to do to get my attention. He sent a youth pastor to tell me that people in my youth group did want me to be there, it was in my head that I wasn’t enough and that they didn’t like me (I didn’t realize it until 10 years later). Save me from being in a car wreck, to hear the Holy Spirit remind me that I need to trust him and chasing a robber only to realize that I have spent my entire life chasing the world instead of the one true God.  

Yet during all of the wrong turns in my life God never left me, just like today I never truly left the bird, I was watching him I was just waiting on him to make the move to find the way out. I believe that God tries to get our attention, gives us those moments where we know he is trying to help in our stubbornness, and we can hear it but never listen to it. That is when God becomes silent, he doesn’t leave, he just gets quiet so the words he has already told us will start to echo in our own hearts. So that we believe and truly start to hear the truth.  

That is how God is with us.   

He tries to guide us, he tries to give us opportunities to get ourselves out of the mess and then he waits on us to find our way out. I picked the verses from Hebrews because in my life I have gone into many wrong houses, especially in the pursuit of money, trying to find ways of being enough and accepted and every time I entered the wrong house God helped me get out and get to a point in my life where I am now content knowing that I am his and his is my Father, my God who will be there with me.  

The verse in Matthew is when Jesus is preaching about not worrying. When the bird flew in my house I was worried, in my own life when I am trying to do things my way and not listening to God I am consumed with worry and try to pretend that I can do things in my own strength and the truth is that I can’t do it in my own strength and God will always provide a way.  

I still face struggles but now I try and let God lead. I try to listen to him as he leads the way that he is calling me to go.  

What is God trying to get your attention to get you out of?  

Heavenly Father, I pray that you will continue to lead us and guide us all the days of our lives, especially the days when we are stubborn. Lord you are the light of our lives, help us to depend on you, to listen to you always but especially in those days when we are being stubborn. Show us Lord the areas of our lives that we need to give over to you that you are showing us are hindering us from being close to you and keeping us from your will. Lord love us, guide us, protect us. Thank you for all that you go in our lives. In your son’s name. Amen.  

depression, faith, Faith - Strength, God

Perfection

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“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet did not sin. Let us approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4: 15-16

God never asked us to be perfect. The world sells us this idea that we can obtain the “perfect” house, body, life, family, outfits etc. But in reality when we strive to appear perfect we are just left empty, depressed, anxious and left trying to fill a void that was created by our own striving that can’t be filled with what the world calls perfect.

The only man on Earth to be perfect was Jesus Christ. God sent him to this Earth as a living sacrifice for us to be saved. In my short life on Earth I have strived for perfect, to have the “perfect” day, to have the “perfect” body, career, and wedding day. I have strived to find perfection and the only thing I have found in the striving is loneliness, depression and anxiety because I was striving for a life that God never wanted for me.

Perfection is a cage that the world tries to sell us, to keep us locked into the world. To keep us isolated from what we were truly meant to do with our lives.

God’s plans for us are different. When God created us, he created us with a purpose and he knows what weaknesses we have, he knows our strengths, he knows our hearts. The world does not, the world tries to change us into what the world wants us to be and when we succumb to who the world is pressuring us to be we lose all sight of who God created us to be.

God isn’t asking us to be perfect, he is asking us to have a relationship with him. A real, honest, relationship where we bring our weakness, our strength, our fears, anxieties and we lay them at the feet of Jesus. We surrender ourselves and the ideas of us having to be perfect to the feet of God and we lean in to who God called us to be when he created us. There is something inside all of us.

The world will only leave you alone when you don’t reach “perfection” but God never will. God will be there even in the moments you think he is not. God is with you you just need to call to him. Align yourself with God and you will be let out of the cage that you walked into.

Stop striving for perfection and start calling out and running to the Father.

Heavenly Father, I pray that whoever reads this blog sees that you love them for who they are. That you love them and all of their imperfections and you long for them to draw closer to you so they may align with the plans that you have for their life. Lord I pray that if they are feeling depressed, anxious, or worried that you will take that from them and remind them that you take care of them and their problems if they will surrender it all to you. Lord i pray that whoever reads this may be blessed and grow closer to you and be released from the chains of bondage that comes from striving to be perfect for the world. Lord i pray that the person reading this may be comforted by your love and grace and that they may grow to know you in an intimate way, as the heavenly father, counselor and friend that will be there with them until the end. Lord I pray this in your son’s name. Amen.