Checking your vitals & repenting.

Hello my beautiful sisters, I realize it has been quite some time since I last wrote either a new blog post, or life update, so I determine to achieve both within this framework today.

If you are following along on the Sister talk podcast, you would have heard that I now have two days a week where I am able to dedicate hours into Sister talk, meaning, time to blog, record podcasts, work on content, but most of all, carve out time to mentor and coach some of you wonderful ladies!

Hi from Bergen!! xx

I am still working, teaching and mentoring at the Bible school, Impact, which is based in Bergen, Norway.

I am still in Norway.

And that is what I want to write to you ladies about today, my choice to stay and continue in Norway.

Despite the beautiful surroundings, community we had built and wonderful job, I was beginning to feel my heart was slowly dying. My dreams for the future were scarcely breathing, and my sense of connection to self, God and purpose was so thin it was almost transparent. I had allowed bitterness to wrap its scaly evil body around my heart and make me feel colder than scandinavian winter. I was not doing well, and it suddenly hit me that I wanted OUT. I remember around March / April, I wrote a very personal journal entry entitled "the cost" where I processed this inner struggle between the idealised expectation of how I should be as a missionary, and the harsh reality that I felt like I didn't want to pick up that cross anymore. The list of what it was costing me to be here here far outweighed the reward because I had lost vision. I had a weak "why", and I was beginning to freak out at the idea that I had made a terrible mistake in casting my whole life into the realm of faith, letting go of the future.

But the reality was that I had, in fact, NOT let go of my future. I actually had not laid my life down, as I so thought I had. I was kidding myself. Maybe I was flying a kite in the realm of "faith" but my feet were still very much walking on the soil of control. And it was this inner double life that was costing me my peace, my joy, and my sense of groundedness.

You see, dying to yourself should not equate to you feeling miserable and unenthusiastic about life. After every death there comes a resurrection. But death is total, not partial. You cannot be dead in your upper body and yet alive in the other half. That is just religious sabotage. Maybe it has you feeling good about yourself in pharisaic kind of way, but this way of life is a trap that makes you vulnerable to the poison of performance, comparison, bitterness and pride.

Sure, there are some real costs that come with being here in Norway, and it is not a bad thing to pay a price for something, because a price reveals the value for it. I just had my heart out of alignment and had sold out for the fake version of surrender, so the cost was killing me.

The reasons for my not letting go were rooted in a few different things that were holding me back. One thing was the notion that who I was a few years before hand was the best version of me there had ever been, and I was forever trying to somehow attain that mountain peak of "success" that I believed determined my identity. It was impossible to fully embrace this season and become thankful and present for today because it looks NOTHING like a few years back.

Sisters, we should not compare to our past selves, or any person, as a goal. These things make for terrible compasses. But how often do we construct templates, theologies and maps for us, based off of our past experiences! We must rid ourselves of the idols we cling to as guides in the journey of life, repent, and follow only Jesus. When I realized that I had allowed the past to become an idol, I was quick to repent (though it was scary because to repent means to completely turn away from a method or a way that you had grown so comfortable with, and choose to trust that the way of the Lord will be everything you need).

I then asked the Lord if I had any other idols set up in my heart, listed them down, and repented for each one. One book of the bible that really helped me through this was the book of Jonah. And if you have never done a study on that, I highly recommend you do, especially if you are struggling with surrender, bitterness or pride. And hey, there's no shame if that has been your struggle, we all battle with sin in different ways and at different times, but remember that the gift of repentance is your door out of it!

This journey of freedom and surrender that I went on lasted for many months, and if I were to share every gemstone of wisdom that the Lord showed, every word of wisdom from mentors and leaders, and every piece of scripture that fed me along the process, I would be writing a book. But it all came down to these two things.

1) I mentioned earlier that I had allowed bitterness to entangle my heart.

Ladies, I cannot stress how toxic and poisonous the essence of bitterness is to the human heart! It is not good for our spiritual, emotional, mental or physical health. And it may even have us turning our faces away from the very one who can save us, God. Sisters, if you have bitterness in your heart today, I strongly encourage you to look at that, realize that it is in fact sin, that it is hurting you and it is hurting your father to see you choosing bitterness and choking like this.

Thankfully, God sent me a kind sweet neighbor who knows the Lord. She pointed at me and told me "you need to repent for your bitterness and you need to repent to the person for being bitter to them". And the truth cut me to the heart. I cried like a lost child finally coming home to their father as I repented and forgave those who had hurt me. I then went to the key person who, by their actions, bitterness was first birthed in my heart. This person had done nothing wrong, they had simply made an insensitive statement, unaware that I was in a sensitive state at the time.

Once I released that person, and all the persons who followed, I felt my heart warming up again. I felt the tenderness of the father wrap all around me and I wept at the sweetness of his incredible love for me.

2) The point of surrender.

We all have some kind of idea of what success should look like for us. Many of us have these secret little ladders to climb in our careers, relationships, fame, and favor. Sometimes, we can get so caught up in these ideas, plans and ladders, that we find ourselves so far off of the plans that God has for us. The plan that links us to our purpose and destiny whilst all the while, infilling us with our real identity. Once we align our hearts to His, everything from purpose to destiny and provision will overflow. Everything comes from Him. And everything He gives produces good fruit and multiplies. Everything we try to hold on to that is not Him, will eventually rob us of everything we were made for.

So came the moment I surrendered. With tears I told him that I was scared, but I was tired of doing it my own way, of feeling disconnected from who I am and from struggling through the burdens I had made for myself. A sense of relief came upon me and my tears turned to joy as I died and was raised to life again. I told God that he could have my future, He could have my wealth, my success, my family, my joy, my peace, my dreams, everything. I asked Him to become everything I was looking for: my summer, my family, my friends, my significance, my provider, my sense of adventure and need for travel, everything was handed over to him, all my rights, all of it.

I was warned that it would be tested, and it really was.

We had made a financial investment, and were two days away from being able to take out double of what we had put in when the company fell apart and was being investigated. We lost a lot of money. I got angry at God because I had actually put some hope in a future based off of the money we were investing. But once the kicking and screaming settled down, I repented for making that an Idol, and surrendered once again.

Then, one of the last real tests came: I hadn't seen my best friend for two years due to covid. Finally, we would be reunited. She would drive from Sweden and I would fly from Bergen to meet in the middle. A few days before, Sweden became a red zone and we had to cancel. We moved the flight back by 4 months, in hope that we could try again in the future. I was sad for sure, but not bitten, bitter or broken. I let it go. I surrendered, and I made a choice to do it. "I cannot control my life anyway, and I will see her eventually. My joy comes from the Lord."

I was so surprised by the reaction of my heart! I felt incredibly light and free.

I began to realise that I could live in this unusual balance of feeling the pain of various situations, but the sting of that pain would be unable to penetrate my heart with discouragement, bitterness, anxiety or hopelessness. It wasn't that I became detached from myself at all, it was that I had entrusted Jesus as the wall around my heart. It is a little hard to explain, but trust me, my emotional health has never been better!

Since this process, I have not felt so free and alive in my time in Norway as now! My heart overflows with gratitude for life, I feel born again, all over again! And this has been tested sustained for months now. It is nothing I worked hard for, I simply surrendered and entrusted it all to Jesus. It was scary initially... what if he asks me to live in Norway forever??? But I had to push past that and trust that whatever plan God has for my life, is the BEST. He knows me, and He knows what I need most. Following this, I also began to notice an increased love for others begin to overflow, and I am still amazed at my capacity for people 😂. I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning "A cooked goose for everybody!" 😆

I am so satisfied and complete in Jesus, and it is so real. I don't lack anything!

In the months following the surrender, I must also add that God has blessed us in multiple ways! Financially, we have been given amazing opportunities, including the blossoming business of mentoring and coaching through Sister Talk. I feel like God has really surrounded me with people and community even more so than before. I am also really thriving at work. I have the privilege to teach every week, and at the moment, my topic is worship. Oh what a joy! What an honor to give Jesus the Lordship over my entire life and be a living sacrifice of worship to him! I am so complete, and overtaken by his love!

We feel so settled in Jesus right now. He is our home wherever on the planet we find ourselves, and in whatever season we wander through.

Oh and I settled on a new "why" behind my yes: To be refined more and more into the likeness of Jesus. To submit myself to the refiner's fire, to welcome it as a gift and embrace it as a good friend.

May this blog post encourage you sisters.

Yours in Christ, Moorea xx