Innocence Gone

God brought something to my mind this morning. He reminded me of when I was a little girl, in the first grade just starting school one September day.

I was pretty shy in those days (I know you don’t believe that now!) but anyway I was and I was sitting in the cafeteria all by myself eating my corn (I even remember what I was eating it was so significant to me) when out of the blue this teacher came up to me and grabbed both of my shoulders and shook me and yelled at me and said, “I don’t like your attitude!”

Shocked by the Teacher

I remember feeling shocked as I held back the tears, as a little child, because I didn’t know what I had done and I also remember feeling guilty for something I didn’t even know I had done, but I thought, “I know I must have done something…”

I searched my thoughts frantically wondering what I must have done for her to have shaken me that way, after all, my own mother had never shook me like that, so what was it about me that that woman was so displeased with?

The LORD began to show me this morning, that in this life we go through shaking’s and these shaking’s come on us suddenly and violently!

They seem to hit us blindsided! We do not know why they are happening to us but never the less they happen.

Sometimes, they happen to us through a person that we were suppose to trust in our lives or someone we looked up to.

We wanted to trust these people and thought they loved us but never the less, for some unknown reason, they got a thought from somewhere or from something in their past and something you did triggered their hatred and anger toward you and you were devastated!

This Light Affliction

The thing is, this light affliction and little shaking, which seemed huge at the time, caused me, as a little child, to search my heart, to see if I had any wicked way in me.

God knew I didn’t, after all, I was a little child and before this incident, I was just a carefree little girl, but now, I was checking my own heart and actions to see and guess what?

I realized that it was nothing in me after all, but that this teacher just had issues and was just plain old mean!

Sometimes, God allows our world to be shaken so that we will look at the situation and realize that we are on the right path and that we really didn’t do anything to provoke this attack but He also allowed it so that we will search our own heart.

Then again, He allowed it to show us what was in the heart of the people that hurt us, so that we can see what is in their heart and why they do the things they do to us.

It is Something in Them!

I am sure that teacher was having problems at home that day and didn’t know what she was doing, but she was someone in authority and we are suppose to trust those in authority aren’t we?

And surely, if they are in authority, they must know when you are out of line, don’t they?

When we are shaken by them it makes us believe we are somehow flawed sometimes and if they said it, it must be true after all?

But here is the thing, God will use even this for our good! Oh yes He will!

Sometimes, this will just drive us back to the ones who truly love us. In this case, at the time, it was my Mother and Father, who was the right authority in my life.

In many of your cases, God is trying to drive you back to Him, to the one who truly loves you, the one who knows you and will always correct you to guide you to a better place and not to embarrass you, or cause guilt and shame.

That is My Jesus!

“Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven,” Matthew 18:10.

 

~ by Jo Ellen Stevens
Arise Shine!

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Jo Ellen Stevens of TCIC Ministries is a Prophetic speaker, author, worshiper and intercessor. She has ministered with her husband for 23 years and was a worship leader at the Assembly of God for many years. She is an ordained minister (Restoration Ministries) and works with Restoration Ministries in their Ministry Rooms doing prophetic worship with her husband. She has taught many bible studies and have led many intercessory prayer groups.

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