{"id":1234,"date":"2019-02-14T13:40:38","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T18:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/?p=1234"},"modified":"2019-10-22T09:00:40","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T13:00:40","slug":"stone-by-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/stone-by-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Stone by Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Stone by Stone: Tear Down the Wall Between God\u2019s Heart and Yours<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

by Jasona Brown<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would your life change if you knew in your bones that God looks on you not with disappointment, anger, or tepid tolerance, but with joyous love and delight? Jasona Brown understands, through personal experience and years of ministering to others, that when a wall of stones blocks our heart from receiving God\u2019s love we live a stunted Christian life. With Stone by Stone<\/em> she will help you identify and remove ten stones that may block your intimacy with the God of love\u2014including guilt, unforgiveness, lies, and unhealed memories\u2014so that you can live in the joy of knowing you are God\u2019s beloved son or daughter.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Chapter 1<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t

A Boat, a Box, and\na Girl Who Built a Wall <\/h1>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBehold,\nI have engraved you on the palms of my hands;<\/em>\n
\n your walls are continually before me\u201d <\/em>(Isaiah 49:16). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cYou\nwill seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwill be found by you, declares the Lord\u201d <\/em>(Jeremiah 29:13-14). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nBoat and the Box<\/a>\n<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The sea shimmered under the sun as\nthe Cape Hason<\/em>, my family\u2019s\ncommercial fishing boat, chugged into the harbor of Tokeen, Alaska, in May of\n1973. I was four and excited about docking, eager to run up and down on land,\nvisit with fish-buyers and fuel-dock operators, and drink a cold orange\nsoda\u2014all impossible during the long, slow days we spent trolling for king salmon.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad slowed the boat to avoid\nmaking a wake, and the diesel engine rumbled deeper. He slowed it again and we\nwere hardly moving. How could I speed this up? My dad would soon offload the\nsalmon iced in the hold, down near the hull. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I open the hatch, Dad?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said. Then, \u201cWell, I guess\nthat\u2019s okay. Go ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wooden hatch\u2014nautical grey\u2014fit\nas a lid over an opening to the hold. I pulled it up, tugged it over, and\nshoved it aside while the boat sidled toward the dock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mom climbed out of the pilot\nhouse with a red handkerchief knotted over her black braids and grabbed a\ntie-up line. She stood with one leg over the rail, ready to leap off the boat\nand tie it to the faded wooden dock. My orange life-jacket pressed against my\nchest and scratched at the back of my neck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glancing down, I saw one of my shoes\nwas untied. I couldn\u2019t run like that. I turned to sit and tie my shoe, and I\nsat in the open hatch. I fell backward, tumbling six feet to the bottom of the\nhold. The left side of my head crashed into the corner of the wooden box that\ncovered the shaft, and I lay still against the cold wooden beams of the hull. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad threw the boat into neutral,\nleaving us drifting, and leapt down the hatch after me. As he lifted me up to\nmy mom, the left side of my face drooped and my left arm hung awkwardly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tokeen, where less than fifteen\npeople live year-round, is several days\u2019 travel by boat to a city with a\nhospital, and there were no phones to call for a plane. My parents relayed\nmessages by CB radio, boat to boat, to reach the Coast Guard and ask for a\nsea-plane to come for me. Hours later in the hospital in Ketchikan, I cried as\na nurse used scissors to cut my favorite striped T-shirt off my chest. And Dr.\nWilson told my parents I had a depressed skull fracture; pieces of bone were cutting\ninto my brain, disabling the left side of my body. No one at the hospital in\nKetchikan could perform the surgery I needed to survive, and the airport was\nclosed for the night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Dr. Wilson ferociously pursued\nhelp for me. He argued on the phone with administrators at Alaska Airlines,\ndemanding they reroute and land the last commercial flight leaving Alaska that\nday, due to pass over Ketchikan en route from Anchorage to Seattle. Finally, he\nshouted that if they did not land the plane, he would lie in a field and shoot\nit down. They listened, and a commercial jet made an unscheduled landing to\nrescue me and fly me to Seattle for the surgery that saved my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\na Little Girl Builds a Big Wall<\/a> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My mom brought me some old pictures\na few years ago, and I looked for a long time at a shot of me taken in Seattle\nas I recovered from six hours of neurosurgery. I sit hunched in a bathtub,\nnaked except for the white bandages wrapped around my head. The left side\nbulges. My lips are pressed together and turned up at the corners in a tentative\nsmile. But while my mouth smiles, my eyes do not. Looking at the photo, I\nrecognized in my four-year-old eyes the heavy fear that entered my heart that\nday. The enemy of my soul had begun his assault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trauma churns up our need to make\nmeaning out of life: Why did this happen? What does this mean about me? About\nGod? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our enemy eagerly supplies his\nanswers: lies. Jesus said when Satan lies \u201che speaks his native language\u201d (John\n8:44 NIV). The devil knows our wounds make us vulnerable, and he strikes just\nthen. He wants us to absorb his lies so that we build a wall between God\u2019s\nheart and ours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I shattered my skull, my heart\nheard him hiss, \u201cGod will not protect you. He does not love you. You are not\nsafe. This accident was your fault.\u201d God had rescued me, but I did not see it. I\nlistened to my enemy. Accepting his lies, I cemented lie-stones into a wall between\nmy heart and God\u2019s heart. They stood\u2014preventing me from knowing the truth about\nGod\u2019s love for me\u2014for the next thirty years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years after my accident, a\nfriend invited me to Sunday school in Petersburg, Alaska. I remember walking\nalone through the rain and mud on dark winter Sundays to the wooden Baptist\nchurch at the edge of town. There among the felt boards in a classroom full of\ncolor, under the care of a smiling woman, I asked Jesus to come into my heart.\nI do not remember a day after that when I did not know Jesus was God\u2019s Son and\nthe Bible was true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But part of my heart stayed\ntrapped\u2014full of fear\u2014behind the wall of lies. No matter how often I heard God\nloved me, I felt unlovable and unsafe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids ran by me on the playground,\nknocking on the helmet I wore daily for six years as my skull healed. \u201cKnock.\nKnock. Anybody home?\u201d they taunted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re ugly,\u201d the enemy told me.\n\u201cNo one will love you.\u201d I\nbelieved him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until I was thirteen I had an aunt\u2014Nora\u2014who\nsang, played the piano, and sewed life-sized dolls for me. And she had a little\ngirl, Lauren. But when Nora was twenty-four and Lauren was four, my uncle John beat\nthem to death with a steel rod from his weight-lifting set. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cSee. God does not love you. Violence will\ndestroy you or those you love,\u201d the enemy said. I didn\u2019t protest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each lie, like a malignant grain of\nsand in the soft flesh of an oyster, grew not into a pearl but into another\nstone. I had no idea I was blocking out the very love that would heal me. My\nwall grew as I cemented in other types of stones: anger at God, a mask,\nmemories that would not heal, demonic oppression, and others. I will share with\nyou more about them as we go on together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So even as my commitment to God grew\nduring my college years, my heart remained unable to experience his love. The\nstone wall kept it out. I knew my faith in God should make me unafraid, but it\ndidn\u2019t. I feared brutal violence would strike me or people I loved and it would\nbe my fault. I knew a Christian should be hopeful, but I wasn\u2019t. I dreaded that\nwhen I faced God at the end of my life, he would toss me out. I knew<\/em> God loved me because the Bible said\nhe did, but I felt<\/em> unloved and abandoned. I despaired I could ever trust\nhim enough, or serve him enough, to be someone he loved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nWall Comes Down<\/a>\n<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Then one night God helped me tear\ndown some of the stones in this wall, and he engulfed my heart with his love. I\nshook with sobs and laughter. In astonishment and joy I understood God desired\nme, rejoiced over me, and treasured me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt I had not\u2014until that moment\u2014understood\nthe Christian life. I marveled that I could have been so obtuse. How could I\nhave been a Christian for thirty-two years and not have comprehended the joyousness,\nimmensity, and generosity of the love of God? How could my\nimagination have conjured him so meagerly?\nThe wall between his heart and mine had stood in my heart all along, not his. He\nhad waited, longing for me to tear it down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gasped with joy at a love \u201cbetter\nthan life\u201d (Psalm 63:3). And I realized that martyrs gladly give their lives\nfor Jesus, not because they are more committed, brave, or crazy than me, but because\nthey know this love. Knowing it, they desire to be with God more than they want\nto keep their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understood how God could command me\nto love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). How can I\nnot<\/em> love him this way, knowing the way he loves me? John\u2019s words, \u201cWe love because he first loved us\u201d (1 John\n4:19) rang true. The Christian life finally made sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I look forward to telling you more about this\nnight in the chapter on anger at God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\nThis Book Is for You<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I long for you to experience God\u2019s\nheart too. I pray this book will inspire and equip you to tear down\u2014stone by\nstone\u2014any wall standing between God\u2019s heart and yours. I hope you will flourish\nin the warmth of his passion for you. You have been looking for his love,\nwhether you know it or not, all your life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture a small plant rooted in the\ndirt. What does it need to grow? It needs soil and water, but it also needs exposure\nto the sun\u2014a radioactive fireball so vast it could swallow 1.3 billion earths. Imagine\nif our plant were blocked from soaking up the gifts of the sun. We know it\nwould wither. It might twist itself trying to find a scrap of artificial light,\nor its roots might go searching in dark places for some other source of\nnourishment for survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are like plant, except we require\nthe sunlight of God\u2019s love. A little love from one source or another will not\nsuffice. We need the infinite<\/em> and unending<\/em> love of the eternal\nGod to make us sane, healthy, and free to become all God created us to be. If a\nwall of stones blocks the warmth of God\u2019s love from reaching us, we will not\nflourish. We might become twisted, and in our desperation we might search in\ndark places for what we need to live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you feel frustrated because no\nmatter how often you hear that God loves you, your heart\u2014impervious to what you\nhear\u2014believes God looks upon you with disappointment or anger, I wrote Stone bv Stone<\/em> for you. I want to help\nyou identify the stones preventing God\u2019s love from reaching your heart and to\nhelp you seek God to tear them down\u2014stone by stone\u2014until your heart celebrates,\nknowing your Father not only loves you but delights<\/em>\nin you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each chapter in this book describes\na different stone you might find in the wall between God\u2019s heart and yours and\nincludes spiritual exercises to help you cooperate with God to remove that\nstone. Please spend as much time as you need with each exercise before moving\non to the next. Some exercises may not touch anything for you, and you may move\nthrough them quickly. Others may require more time. Still others may call you\nto come back to them a month, or a year, or five years from now. I hope Stone by Stone<\/em> will sit like a patient friend\non your shelf, available to guide you whenever the Lord reveals a stone he wants\nto help you tear down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will also find at the end of\neach chapter a list of discussion questions to help you read Stone by Stone<\/em> together with a friend,\nmentor, or small\ngroup. I pray you will have courage to seek at least one friend to journey\nthrough this book with you. God\u2019s love for you, shining in the eyes of another\nof his children, helps stones come down more quickly. And there is more power\nin praying with someone else than in praying alone (Matthew 18:20). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nPrayer for You<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I pray any wall between God\u2019s heart\nand yours will come down, stone by stone. May your Father\u2019s love\u2014an\n\u201ceverlasting love\u201d (Jeremiah 31:3) that reaches as \u201chigh as the heavens are\nabove the earth\u201d (Psalm 103:11)\u2014pour into your heart (Romans 5:5). I pray you\nwill come to know more deeply the One who is<\/em> love and be forever changed\n(1 John 4:16). <\/p>\n\n\n