Spiritual Barnacles

Hello Friends! Here are a few pictures I took at the Oregon Coast last week. My husband and I went there to celebrate our 21st anniversary. Where does the time go? I am so thankful for this man God has blessed me with. I don't deserve him.

Also wrote a few thoughts on what God has been working on and doing in my heart recently. Hope somehow it encourages you!


For the most part I am a very private person and most definitely an introvert, a square peg of sorts. I do have a lot of wonderful long time friends and new friends. I care about and love people.But I have had an ongoing struggle. As I have just turned 44, I have been taking a closer look at and dealing with a particular issue. Maybe you can relate? Maybe not?
I feel like the majority of my life, people have tried to change me into their extroverted traditional skills and social expectations. Big sigh.

I so appreciate people and their different giftedness, however at times I don't think they quite understand that God didn't make us with ALL the same dispositions. (only 1 out of 4 people are introverts)
I think they mean well, however the scriptures about God making us with different gifts and abilities somehow gets lost in translation. (1 Corinthians 12)


I confess, this has been a real struggle for me through the years and I admit it has built some resentment in my heart. And so God is very faithful and is working on me :)

The problem with resentment, bitterness, anger and the lack of forgiveness is that these powerful thoughts and emotions are like Barnacles on our spiritual life and soul.
Barnacles are literally a drag. They slow the boat by increasing the resistance in the water. Instead of smooth sailing, the boat has to use MORE ENERGY,more fuel just to navigate and to move forward. Barnacles impede progress.

I have been walking with the Lord most of my life. That is not a statement to look impressive or to sound piously religious.(yuk, gag) The way I see it, to be quite honest, He had to grab me early in life because I am so stubborn, narcissistic, thick headed and a real piece of work. Did I mention stubborn? HA HA
The problem for me, is that with growing up in “church", one can get a little bit “churchy” and out of touch with what Christ really meant in His Word. We start sounding like a parrot repeating vocabulary that has been heard, without really grasping deeply and understanding the context and impact that it is meant to have.

This reality, really came into focus for me when I took a class at a local Bible college .(Pacific Bible College) I took the class for enrichment, to stretch my thinking and I just want to KNOW Christ deeper. I got my desire met but not in the way I expected.
He knows what we have need of to make us grow. For me, He is removing the spiritual barnacles! OUCH!

In the class, the teacher said something that hit me like a sneaker wave.I haven't been the same since. (yea!) I quote the teacher loosely from memory and not verbatim.



" The things we hang onto, the hatred, the lack of forgiving someone, bitterness and resentment do more damage to us in every way, than it ever does to the person we have those feelings toward. The very fact that we hang onto these things without giving it a second thought, shows that we really haven't understood or grasped Christs' own extravagant forgiveness and unconditional love for US."


I could barely contain myself. My heart felt like it was going to explode and the tears began to stream. I thought, is it HOT in here? I looked over at my friend. She was tearing up, we smiled and giggled at each other. Then I could hear the sniffles from around the classroom. Women and men, attorneys, mechanics, doctors, housewives, college students and artists all hearing the impact, connecting with the reality that we don't get what HE did for us.




This made me reflect on the bigger fish to fry in my life. Those barnacles that are much more serious to my spiritual progress, than petty differences in personalities, social traditions and expectations.
I grew up in a very abusive,violent and dysfunctional home to put it mildly. The people keeping the statistics on kids like me, did not give me much hope for normal healthy life. But they never factor in God being real either.


I have begun to realize, I haven't forgiven my parents.



I have a new parent, a wonderful Father. He has given me His life
literally. And I trust Him and His character fully.


This forgiveness is super natural, beyond my human natural natures ability. I know I can’t do it without Him and His power. I fall short of grasping the depths, my limited mind just can't wrap around it. However, I want to move forward cooperating with His will and purpose. The barnacles are being chiseled away from my spiritual hull.
I want to love and forgive people as He loves and forgives me. I am SO aware I still have such a long way to go.
This passage of scripture that I leave you with is one of those passages that we hear quoted ALL the time. It has become all too familiar and we don’t study it, up close and personal. When I read it, I can hear more barnacles being pried off!! Oh so many more to go, but He is faithful to do the work.


1 Corinthians 13

If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.



Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.

There are three things that will endure — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love. NLT