“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” James 5:16

When is the last time YOU truly confessed what you’ve been up to? Confession is not just for the most heinous crimes, it is for the everyday issues, and little offenses that you have brought on to others…but when left unconfessed, these grow, fester, and get out of control.

We think we don’t really need to confess, or that it’s useless to confess, but there could be nothing further from the truth! Confession means you are in agreement that what you did, said or thought, was wrong…that you hurt someone, or did something that was not appropriate…and this does include in the realm of thoughts and emotions….because they actually impact others in ways we cannot imagine.

I get my values and my direction from my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So it is easy to know right away when I’ve done something I should not have…for a Christ follower, the question becomes: are you willing to obey (bow down) to God’s will? His will is for YOU to seek and find forgiveness, and for YOU to flourish…for YOUR relationships to grow and positively impact the world in His name, and for His glory! But that cannot happen without deep and true confession and repentance…as in, you dig up and expose, to agree that you have done wrong, ask for forgiveness, and then you show true repentance in turning away from continuing to do so!

Today I had a wonderful family meeting…and it wasn’t easy, but I had to confess…my confession was that it was wholly inappropriate for me to yell at my kids at any time (yet I’d been doing it for years). It is wrong…parents can try to justify it any way they want to, but yelling, screaming, and fits of anger are not godly, and they are not to be the go-to reaction when things don’t go our way. It’s the human reaction, to be sure, but when we have the power of God in us to do differently, we are to live in that power.

What was it that had hung me up for all these years, to simply confess, AND repent? Oh, I’ve gotten MUCH better over the years, to be sure…but that’s really not what God asks of us…He doesn’t ask for degrees of change, HE is Complete change…as in His power in us can and does change a person completely…yet it is up to us to lay down our way, and pick up His way. I thought merely wanting to be different would do it…nope! Wishing it…nope! Hoping it…nope! So, while I kept getting “better” (not as loud, not as often, not over every little thing), my basic reaction didn’t show the power of Christ in me.

How do I know that it will be different from now on? Because I have set aside the things that have been hindering my ability to stop myself from going past the point of no return. The biggest things that hinder us lie in our mind, our spirit, and our emotions! Address the root cause of where the breakdown is, and there will be healing and change!

You see, my anger had its root somewhere, but until recently I had not put it together. My anger always surfaced when I felt unheard, disrespected, or not listened to. While I’m not alone in wishing my parents would have been a little more involved emotionally and more hands-on, they really could not be to blame for the reactive anger that kept surfacing every time there was a situation in which I felt unheard, disrespected or not listened to. In God’s goodness, He orchestrated that I attend a Domestic Abuse class, centered on how essential oils can help overcome the pattern of abuse and emotional reactiveness. It took me several weeks for the information to saturate my whole being. Then I remembered how my mom had told me that she had dropped me off at her sister’s home, right after I was born, and did not see me again until I was 18 months old. It just so happened that my aunt lived in a domestic violence environment…with a husband that beat her to near death on several occasions, and also caused loss of hearing in one of his sons, through the force of a blow…just to name the highlights.

At the class we were taught about something called “cellular memory”… this is the body storing negative emotions in cells. Then every time the same situation pops up, the body instinctively recalls and plays the negative emotions felt during the time of trauma, and it kicks in automatically. Before you know it, you have done or said something that you regret…and you don’t even know how or why. That makes me think of the Scripture Paul talks about on doing things that he doesn’t want to do, yet not doing the things he wants to do…now that fell more into place not as a pattern of sheer sinfulness, but as a pattern of emotional bondage to cellular memory!

Clear that cellular memory, and you are ready to move on and have real, transformative change!!

BTW, until and unless you clear it from your cells, it actually gets passed on through your DNA, to the next generation! And guess what? Science now has “discovered” (I have to laugh at this, because God’s Word has been telling us for thousands of years) that the sins of the father/mother will be visited to the third and fourth generation, via DNA!!

How do you clear that cellular memory effectively, you ask…that will be another post, soon!!