Sunday, April 12, 2009

Last Call: The Destiny Project

This past Thursday was the last official session of my journey through the Destiny Project.

It took a bit for me to be able to fully focus on the call. Part of that might have been because I simply didn't want the journey to end. I'd come to rely on the calls and the connections made during them. Part of the struggle for me was that I felt incredibly scattered. I felt like I was being swarmed by a bunch of insects, some were gnats and some were hornets. Adding to that, I was exhausted.

The Destiny Project is an amazing journey into discovering who, at the very core of a woman's being, she was created by God to be in this world. Out of that core identity flows what she was created to do in this world. Through this journey I discovered that I was born to warm others and create a safe space where they can be who they were born to be. I've already been doing that, which is why some of the people who open their lives to me are comfortable doing so, I just didn't realize that was me walking out God's purpose for me.

I find myself frequently encouraging others, when they feel like they have to pull back in saying what they truly think or feel, not to hide or pretend with me. Those words are easy to say. A lot of people do say them, then when the other person has let his or her guard down the truth comes out and judgment falls. Then the person who let his or her guard down regrets having trusted the one who presented themselves as safe.

In religious circles, that sort of thing happens all the time. But that's not who I am, that's not who I want to be. That's not who the Lord created me to be.

Jesus is the safest person in the universe to go to and let it all hang out. Christians should be the same way, but too often they're not.

I decided some years ago that I didn't want to be "a good Christian girl" because I've met too many who are plastic. I do, however, want to be the best Christ follower I can be. That's one of the reasons I decided to go through the Destiny Project. It is, in fact, the primary reason. I can't follow Christ well if I'm not authentically being who He made me to be.

I didn't expect the hounds of hell to come chasing after me almost every day of every week of the project. In the wonderful view of hindsight, I suppose I should have seen it coming.

The enemy of everything and everyone whom God loves, and that includes everything and everyone in all of creation, doesn't like it when people take steps toward their destiny. He certainly didn't like it when I did.

Warfare is exhausting. I spent the better part of two months in the middle of a full-scale war. The Lord was revealing wonderful things during those two months, and there was a lot of joy and amazement. What the Lord was revealing to me is big, bigger than I would have ever thought. Actually, it's still all pretty overwhelming.

The enemy set me in his crosshairs and came after me with everything he could, trying to drag me or drive me back to the place where I had lived in cold darkness and isolation. There were days when it was a very close call. There were days when I wanted nothing more than to simply curl up and die, so it wouldn't hurt so much.

Even in the last week of the Destiny Project, it was a full on battle. I still hear him whispering to my soul, telling me that it was all in vain and that the connections made throughout the journey will fail. I keep telling him to go to hell, where he belongs, and shut up.

Here's the thing - the Lord's promise to me during the final session of the Destiny Project, spoken so profoundly that it shattered something inside my heart, is that all will be well.

While I don't have the particulars of what that will look like, I do know that it's not cold darkness and isolation. I do know that it's not what I fear the most, which is being thrown away as a person and utterly abandoned. Actually, it's highly likely that it's quite the opposite.

I wouldn't have recognized that truth had I not begun and completed the Destiny Project. Knowing what I now know was worth every bit of agony and warfare I experienced throughout the journey.

The Destiny Project is powerful. It's amazing. It's full of wonder and delight. It's also not for the faint of heart. I am recommending it to every woman I know.

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