Month: November 2025

The HIGH before the storm

Not all storms are preceded by calm … think the miracles of mass feeding, Elijah after calling fire from heaven etc

A high raised by a demonstration of God’s undeniable power, is an invitation for spiritual attack from God’s enemy. This must NOT deter us!

Twenty years ago, my counsellor once remarked,

‘When you stand up and out, as well as speaking up and out, you effectively put a target on your back’.

As a navigator of serial, near back-to-back storms in recent years, I have learned much that cannot be learned in the calm. Upon reaching my fiftieth which I wasn’t always confident of reaching, I chose to use my jubilee party to celebrate the God who brought me through every storm. God has used these storms to update my internal software at the deepest level by changing man-made beliefs, for God’s truths and by making my weak places strong. It gave me enormous joy to celebrate this God with the amazing FAMILY who have brought me through.

As a visual person, seeing and sharing with so many of the family God has surrounded me with (plus a few relative unknowns) during these seasons of storms, made a super-sized, super-strength deposit in my love-bank. My true family members were touched by the power and presence of God’s love in the room. Those who arrived wobbly, left feeling strengthened. And I was lifted high on wings of joy, love and gratitude.

This high was short-lived … the inevitable spiritual attack started just one short week later.

While this was intended for harm to drag me down to the level of those responsible, who also wished to exert control over me, the God who CONVERTS all harm to good, utilised this INTEL, for my learning, growth and deeper healing.

When we fly so high, shout so loud, or rejoice with so many, about the goodness of God, we invite ‘gifts’ from those unwilling to rejoice with, or for us. These ‘gifts’ are precious in so far as we do not receive them, from those who see, hear, understand and love us.

Those who launch such attacks or are complicit in them, highlight themselves as not being our people. There is nothing to be gained by speaking to those who refuse to see or hear us. And there is everything to be gained by walking away, closing the door, bolting it firmly, praying them in to God’s care and leaving them with others who belong only in your past.

While such attacks are shocking, especially when launched by those you overlooked the ‘off-signs’ for, and invested in emotionally anyway, it does signal that the storm sender/permitter deemed you ready for it and designed it to remove those not coming forward with you.

Either way, storm-training, trains us to recognise that every storm contains key INTEL. When we know that John 16:33 is a guaranteed, repeating life-long theme (!), we can meet it as the gift of growth that it is.

Irrespective of source, the storm HIGHLIGHTS in NEON FLASHING LIGHTS, where our WEAK SPOTS are. This is profoundly helpful when partnering with the God who turns our weaknesses in to strengths. What may otherwise remain off the radar is swiftly put on it via the attention-grabbing-presence of pain, when we are attacked in the weak spot!  What a good-gift giving God we have!!

In addition to signposting us to our weak spots so God can help us strengthen them, the storm also shows us what conditions evoke our INNER THOMAS. Or the doubter within; whether doubts about us, others, or God himself. By putting these on the map, under the super illuminating light of the Almighty, we can clearly see the lies that underpin the doubts. When we bring the enemy lies before the truth giving God, they dissipate.

These attacks also alert us to where we have allowed, or even invited, harm in – this is critical as it points us to the essential repair work we must undertake to prevent harm entering via whatever breaks in the boundary wall, allowed our attackers in.

Furthermore, we are invited to partner with God in identifying our God-given-gifts along with their need for God-ordained-protection from those who see them, but have self-serving motives.

On a deeper level, an attack-based-storm can make invisible beliefs become visible eg ‘if you are kind, open, trusting and giving, others will treat you in the same vein.’ God’s truth is that we must be as wise as a serpent and as pure as doves. We must wake up and wise up, for wolves have no limits when it comes to their penchant for fancy dress; the more deceptive and unexpected the disguise, the greater the power to damage.

In summary, God allows the storm and those who attack us. He uses it to show us how to protect ourselves better to prepare us for future spiritual battles.  These are guaranteed when we step out, stand up and speak out for God.

To summarise, THE GIFTS OF THE STORM …

  • Highlight who will not be coming with us wherever God leads
  • Exposes what evokes our inner Thomas so we can seek, see and double down on the deity giving truths that replace doubts, as well as building endurance and stretching our storm coping capacity.
  • Signpost the gaps in the boundary wall that allowed these people in so we can prevent their access in future by repairing the walls & using what they have taught us about how to recognise what such people look, sound and feel like.
  • Gives us the opportunity to name our God-given-gifts & recognise the need to protect them from those with insincere motives/unaddressed envy/unacknowledged losses/pain
  • Insist we trade beliefs based on the lies of the enemy, irrespective of whether containing a partial truth, for God’s unshakeable full truths

Most storms shake us so hard we learn new truths about ourselves, our God and the at-times duplicitous nature of the human species!

Storms also train us to practice remaining connected to the constant source of calm that is Jesus Christ, living within us, DURING THE STORM! We learn resilience, endurance and faith building through every attack/battle/storm.

The way we RESPOND to storms and/or attacks, determines whether they become growth givers on steroids, or something that beats us down and sucks the life from us. If only temporarily.

When we trust in God and call upon His name, storms show us experientially that God is stronger than every attempt/power of the enemy, to lie to, or about us, to steal our shine or commitment to speaking of and sharing the goodness of God, or to destroy our focus by attempting to distract, drag us down or de-rail us.

The truth about God is that he really IS … ABLE TO FIGHT HIS OWN BATTLES! And does so much better without our assistance/interference!

God has the power to give and keep giving us LIFE TO THE FULL despite every attempt of the enemy to LIE, STEAL AND DESTROY our GOD-GIVEN fullness of life.

This storm has taught me to NEVER STOP STEPPING OUT, or SPEAKING OUT about the GOODNESS of GOD who helps me GROW through every STORM he allows me to go through. INSTEAD, to always trust that He really is ABLE to FIGHT his OWN BATTLES without my ‘help’ and to protect me in the process!!!

Praising the God who allows, reigns within, and after, every storm … now, always and forever! Tis great to be on God’s WINNING TEAM!

And to give thanks for those who gave the ‘gifts’ of learning and those who supported me to accept the growth, truth and learning within!

Stop gaslighting the human heart

No one likes it when someone complains about everything and everyone in their life while doing nothing about any of it. Or when their narrative consists only of their stellar ability to seek out something to criticise in every situation. When I spend time with such people, I feel like they plug in to my system, suck the energy out and leave me depleted and drained. This is unpleasant at best and interprets as,

‘Limit time and interactions with this person to protect my energy. As they are not ready to take responsibility for themselves, they may be seeking someone to take responsibility for making them feel better.’

The short version is a neon flashing sign reading.

DANGER – MAINTAIN DISTANCE

I have recently been reminded that to miss this negative sign is to blindly walk in to an exhausting dynamic which is costly to get caught in and costly to get uncaught from.

However, our prevailing culture largely demands that we deny such experiences and only speak of all things positive. We must utter words of complimentary praise for ourselves and our fellow human, no matter what. Or face the wrath of the positivity police who parade around seeking someone to shutdown/judge/silence for daring to voice anything different read negative irrespective of it being true.

Please note that I am not suggesting for a minute that we all become like the above example where we can’t open our mouths without speaking negativity or having a negative impact. What I am pointing out is that to demand only positive, or deliver only negative, are both unhealthy approaches that do not show the whole picture.

The cultural prohibition on anything negative, is ironic given the media’s role in feeding the world with words of never-ending negativity about death and destruction. Albeit prioritising certain parts of the world while ignoring the plights of others.

When I look at the human aversion to seeing or speaking of the non-positive alongside the seemingly unsatisfiable hunger for the negative that the media supplies, I see something bigger in the interplay between them. What we are banned from acknowledging in our own lives, we seek to see elsewhere.

The whole picture of the individual human heart and therefore every populated part of humanity; family/church/employer/government/country/world etc contains … positive, negative and the mess in the middle that combines both. When we deny either good or bad in ourselves, it must go somewhere – this is how disowned parts of the shadow self, get projected in to others, who are then condemned for them! Those who refuse to own, much less work on their shadow parts, are particularly prone to projecting in this way.

In psychotherapy terms we refer to the negative side as the shadow side. In current cultural terms, the non-shadow side could be likened to the FB side of ourselves. What we put out to the public is usually the shiniest, sparkliest, version of ourselves. There are also the exceptions of those who hang their dirtiest linen out on the FB line to dry. However, the majority remain somewhere in the middle while bearing more towards the best. This is ordinary human behaviour.

In life beyond Facebook, when we are honest about ourselves, we own our shadow and non-shadow sides. We require both sides to be whole. If we are too fragile to own our shadow sides, we will project these in to those around us, particularly those we don’t like or even envy. This is how the extremely fragile seek to protect themselves from their own shadows.

However, culture typically teaches us to always be positive and never to speak of or dwell on the negative. Nothing wrong with that when applied to the superficial day to day disappointments and frustrations. However, if we deny and dismiss the deeper, more difficult emotions along with what evokes them, we dismiss the invitation within them. The presence of pain whether physical or psychological, points to something that needs attention. To dismiss this, to avoid rocking the boat of the positivity police, is to override a warning at our own risk.

It is not surprising that a culture that condemns us for daring to speak of the difficult, loves to binge on news that is full of the negative. At the opposite extreme, those overwhelmed by dealing with rather than denying the negative in their own lives, may avoid the news altogether. Again, every mix of this exists in between these extremes.

The banning of our shadow sides, individually and collectively, is how prejudices arise and continue. Whatever cannot be owned or tolerated in the individual becomes disowned, projected out, located in a conveniently different individual, who then becomes a target for the one who disowns their shadow side.

When you get a group of individuals who all choose another particular people group to project their collective disowned shadow sides on to, you get particularly shadowy behaviour from the group doing the projecting.

Humans get hurt; physically and psychologically. The pain we feel is a signpost to something that needs addressing. If we ignore this, we permit the ongoing, unquestioned, presence of the pain.

Typically, we do not gaslight ourselves or our fellow humans when feeling or healing from physical injuries. However, it is a cultural norm to gaslight the human hearts natural vulnerability to getting hurt within the ordinary business of living and relating. The norm of negating this natural heart-level-hurt still reigns supreme and largely unchallenged.

This propensity for gaslighting the human heart, has been handed down the generations. When we talk about breaking cycles, we are referring to the generation who stop to question, ‘the way it’s always been done – to establish whether there is a better way’. In this instance by addressing the polarity between the physical and the psychological.

Here are some of our cultural favourites from the, ‘here’s some we prepared earlier (but haven’t’ bothered to update) cue card offerings’. These are often pulled out in the face of some kind of serious heart level hurt.

Don’t dwell on it. It’s in the past. Draw a line. Put it behind you. You need to move on. You should be ok now.

While there can be truths in such sayings, they do not create a whole picture without allowing or acknowledging that healing is a process. These sayings show us how hard we find it to tolerate the hurts of the human heart on anything other than a fleeting level. When we are socially conditioned to believe that emotions are weak and unnecessary, or something to think or pray away, we lose the truth that the hearts capacity to feel the entire range of emotions, is its barometer for aliveness.

When we gaslight the human heart for feeling pain, we are saying,

‘Be better, happy and positive. Immediately. And always. Without needing to walk the messy, painful, lengthy, unpredictable path from whatever caused the hurt, through the impact/pain/cost of it, to the healing.’

This is not only ridiculous and unrealistic, but blatantly cruel. It can also be an expression of ignorance, which can yet be educated when people are willing! But to gaslight the human heart is to demand our fellow human or our self, be at a place of healing, without having to walk the pathway that leads from hurt to healing.

This is the equivalent of saying to someone with two broken legs,

‘It’s happened. It’s done. It’s behind you. You need to stop wallowing/dwelling on it, as you can’t change it. It happened x amount of time ago so you should put it behind you and be up and running by now.’

In other words … BE HEALED. NOW. MINUS THE PROCESS OF HEALING or you’re weak/failing/doing something wrong! This is GASLIGHTING!

Hearts, like every part of the human body, need time, care and sometimes medication/treatments to heal.

The heart does not need shaming, blaming, dismissing, belittling, denying, ignoring, forcing, hiding, overriding or put simply, abusing via refusing to see.

The heart does need seeing, hearing, acknowledging, understanding, respecting, honouring, valuing, supporting and loving, in to healing.

It is time to stop abusing the human heart; our own or each other’s.

It is time to say ‘no’, to gaslighting the human heart.

It is time to acknowledge some hard facts; full, not partial aliveness, includes heart level hurt; we cause it, we receive it.

We cannot jump from hurt, straight to healing. We must walk the path that joins one to the other. It is a process and a messy, painful, often unpredictable one at that.

By investing the time to heal our hearts, we also learn new insights which help us to better protect or prepare ourselves, for certain potentially harm-causing situations in future.

The alternative is to deny/gaslight our heart pain until the body speaks so loudly and disruptively that we are forced to stop and listen.

Or, we can hand out the baton of hurt that we are handed to all and sundry around us as a way of projecting/communicating the pain that cannot be owned or processed in to others.

Let us choose not to pass on the hurt that has been done to us by making those around us feel it.

Let us also choose not to deny the cost/impact/pain done to our hearts or the time required to process and heal a hurt heart.

We can all take steps to stop gaslighting the human heart, by learning to listen to, love and support our own heart.

Change always starts with us. And we start by looking after our own hearts. The healthier our hearts are, the healthier what flows from them, will be.