Acts 3:19-20

¹⁹ Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. ²⁰ Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah

For reasons speculated and unknown, the Dandelion was a childhood favorite for kids all over. If you had these plants growing in your neighborhood, you more than likely picked them and blew the seeds off them. When I was younger, I didn’t realize those were seeds or that Dandelions were categorized as weeds. To me they were pretty, fluffy flowers that we would blow on and watch the fluffy pieces float away.

These Dandelions remind me of so many of us who are going through our day to day lives and losing pieces of ourselves. We were born carefree, going with the flow of life however, at some point and seemingly without notice, we’re on the outside looking in. We’ve found ourselves cut off from everyone and have become alienated from the simple joys of life.

Alienation doesn’t have to be this big or blatant place of loneliness where you have no friends to hang out with or family around you to call on and visit. For most, it’s a subtle or undercover loneliness, it’s not allowing anyone to really get close to you, friends and family alike. It’s having no real, significant or meaningful relationship in any shape, way, form or fashion. You typically hold everyone at arm’s length and if there is anyone you do allow to get close to you, they’re kept in a compartment of sorts. Meaning, you trust them to make you laugh, but you don’t trust them with your goals, and aspirations. You never show all your cards to any one person. There’s so many walls around you and masks to hide behind that no one can ever get to know the real you, in fact you start to become a stranger even to yourself which can lead to an identity crisis.

I’ve read that most of the Dandelion seeds that float off will typically land in other locations, where they will eventually grow all over again dispersed far from its source. Like the Dandelion seeds, we find ourselves scattered, far from God [our source] and taking root in situations that is detrimental to our lives and relationships with loved ones. We begin to take root in lying, stealing, cheating, perversions, drugs, alcohol, anger, depression, promiscuity and a myriad of other negative issues and we can’t regain control. For those of us who are saved and have committed our lives to Christ, our relationship with God suffers. We’ll repeatedly find ourselves hitting “spiritual brick walls”, no matter how anointed we how are, no matter the call on our lives, there’s always a weight that keeps us from truly excelling in the things of God.

Luke 6:27-32

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you. ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.

At my church, we’ve created a youth and young adult prayer group. In this group, we envelope them in a place of safety and security, we constantly tell them to “walk in their truth.” Whether they’re angry, depressed, bitter, hurt or insecure. We give them a safe and secure place of freedom and give them time to cry out to God and to be honest about what they’re dealing with and why. We remind them that it’s okay to confront your past hurts. It’s okay to admit someone said or did something that caused wounds so deep it feels like recovery will never happen. More importantly, in this group, we stress that you must forgive those who’ve offended you and repent for allowing unforgiveness to reside in you.

Most often we’ve been in this broken or scattered place for so long that we truly believe it’s normal. False notions of “I was born this way” begin to develop and form a dysfunctional mindset. At some point, we must take the time to truly self-evaluate; we really need to go back and revisit those childhood offenses and hurts and begin to forgive those who’ve rejected us, abused us, or made us feel inadequate. We can’t just keep sweeping it to the back of our minds or “under the rug” and call ourselves healed. The offenses must be addressed, not just acknowledged!

To acknowledge something is to say “yes, I know there’s something, somewhere that causes me to act a certain way” and that’s it. But to address it, you name it and begin to speak to that thing “rejection , yes I see you and I know exactly where it came from and I’m prepared to deal with it.” In golf terms, address means to take up one’s stance and prepare to hit (the ball). So when you begin to address these negative things in your life, it’s with the intent to get it out of your way.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18

¹⁶ But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate^[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Whether the issue(s) is addressed in your private time with God, your pastor or other leader in the church, a mentor or even a Christ-minded psychologist or counselor; we must turn to the Lord and confront our hurts and issues, we must remove the masks and be free through God. Because He’s our healer our lives should reflect healing and as we relate our story to others, it’s hard for them to believe we’ve survived; we truly don’t look like what we’ve been through but we look more like Jesus, our savior and healer.

We must also forgive ourselves, a lot of us carry self-resentment, self-doubt, self-consciousness and low self-esteem without truly understanding why. I believe it’s partly because we may blame ourselves for the offense and the other part is probably because we are frustrated with the fact that we’re in such a scattered and broken state. We have to understand that being abused in any way is not our fault, especially if it happened in childhood years. As we grow older and understand the abuse suffered, we must start to seek healing in God, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. For some who are suffering physically, once you really begin to heal on all other the levels the physical healing will closely follow.

We should be in the habit of regularly checking ourselves. There should be regular mental and spiritual self-evaluation to make sure we are sound and whole. A good way to check ourselves is to watch how people respond to us and how we respond to people. When we encounter certain personality traits in others, does it send us off into the deep end of anger or resentment? Do they cause us to retreat in fear, anxiety or stress? If so, do we know why? Generational curses/issues are real. There are some battles we face simply because it’s been passed down from generation to generation and no one ever took the time to stand up and say my family will be healed of these unhealthy emotional, social or behavioral issues.

As the scripture above states, when we forgive others and repent of our own sins, God will cleanse us. He will refresh, renew and strengthen us. We will receive revival and rejuvenation in our spirits. Every day we need to make daily confessions of healing in our lives. We must declare it and decree that it may be established (Job 22:28), and we must speak things into existence, (Romans 4:17) meaning even though we may be hurting and it may even be a struggle to get up and perform the simplest function, we must learn to speak life to our present situation until you have no other choice to believe it will happen; until it becomes your reality.