Journey to Love, 10th Anniversary Edition

By Janeen Michael

Abused! The Preacher’s Wife! Divorced! How had I gotten to this place?

Not believing the truth of God’s unconditional love was the root of the problem. How could a child of God not believe He loves or cares about them? Though your life may look like He doesn’t love you and the disconnection that you may be experiencing in

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640887008

Book preview

Preface

There was an unexplainable distance that I felt between God and me; the cold shoulder, the silent treatment. Having that space between us was so painful. It hurt in such a deeply profound way but that pain was the impetus to my Journey to Love. It provoked me in a way unlike any other that I’d previously experienced, to seek God.

I tried to close the distance through my own self-effort and as a result was beat, gagged, and burned-out. I didn’t believe that God loved me because my life was so full of violating experiences and injury. Not believing that God loved me was the root of the problem, the pain, the distance, my issue.

To believe requires a measure of risk and risk makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability was the posture that I had to assume in order to hear God’s affirming voice and unwavering promise that He did, in fact, unconditionally love me. But I did not want to be vulnerable because it was far too regularly associated with heartbreak and pain. Due to some violating experiences that I had, I was afraid to trust. Fear is a whale of a burden.

I couldn’t see His love for me until I accepted His invitation for a piggyback ride. He longed to navigate me away from my fears, unbelief and issues. In the meantime, before I hopped aboard, I was waiting for God and expected Him to fix this distance thing between us only to discover that He was waiting on me.

God desires that there be no space between Him and His children—just transparent, raw and unashamed communion 24/7. He showed me His love for me and He escorted me along to the pathway to wholeness and freedom. He showed me His commitment to His children and His miraculously powerful ability to deliver us from anything that has tangled us up and drawn us away from His side. I pray this book helps to do the same for you.

"Jesus loves me! This I know,

For the Bible tells me so;

Little ones to Him belong,

They are weak but He is strong."

By Anna Bartlet Warner (1860)

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my new Trilogy Publishing family for their support. Their careful consideration and elevation of my ministry has sharpened my purpose and encouraged my heart. May their investment in me bear much fruit in the lives of countless others for the glory of God, as is consistent with the incredible legacy of faith that they have carried out for over forty years.

Introduction

Journey To Love

Where was my Love?

He said He’d be with me always. So why was my heart hurting from loneliness and weeping from the pain? Fear and unbelief disconnected me from my maker, my Love.

There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God’s judgment] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love].

1 John 4:18 (AMPC)

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6, KJV).

When I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I was heaven-bound for sure, but the intimate relationship, the closeness and affection that I so desperately longed to feel from God was sorely missing.

Surely I had to do something for that level of relationship with God; earn it somehow or beg for it—something! I couldn’t believe that having Him close to me in such an intimate and personal way 24/7 would ever happen, though I craved it to the point of aching. Rejection and abandonment was all that I felt.

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5b, KJV).

…and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20b, KJV).

For years I lived with the disconnection between knowing God and consciously experiencing an intimate relationship with Him: meaningful connection and closeness. I could neither hear nor take His promise to be with me into my heart fully due to all of the circus noise and turmoil in my life.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. (Ephesians 6:16, KJV).

The season of craziness that I was going through was relentless and blinding because my spiritual battle shield was down. My fear and unbelief seemingly uncovered and exposed me to every cruel dart of unworthiness and guilt that the enemy hurled at me, hindering the truth of God’s promise from sinking deep into my heart.

I can identify with the Hebrews sentiments when after more than 400 years of enslavement, Moses was sent to facilitate their deliverance from the grips of Pharaoh. The Hebrews were so disconnected from the truth and promises of God that they did not believe that their deepest hope for freedom from the cruel clutches of the Egyptians would ever be heard by God or ever come to pass. They were blinded by their tumultuous situation.

Moses told the Hebrews that God said they would be set free,…but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage. (Exodus 6:9b, NIV).

Not believing that God loved me was the root of my problem; the pain; the distance; my issue.

I believed God dealt with me only because He was obligated to do so as my Maker. Oh the questions that pile up on the heart and mind that cruelly beat you down when you believe you’re being tolerated, in what should otherwise be an excitedly passionate, committed relationship.

The depth of embarrassment and shame that I tried to keep hidden was tormenting and wearisome; God’s secret unwanted love child. Efforts to hide this struggle amounted to desperately pushing down a lid on an emotional volcano, ready to blow! It consumed me though I tried to feign a disposition of being in full control.

Oh how hard I tried to be good enough to make Him want me, yet despite my best efforts I failed miserably to get this deep sense of meaningful connection between us realized.

I wanted to be in the Cool Kids Club that God was the captain of but instead I felt like the ridiculed flunky because of all of the stuff going on in my life.

I trust that many holding this book and beginning to walk through these pages together with me, can relate to how despairing and hurtful this can feel.

The distress in my heart was so great and securing a meaningful connection with God seemed so elusive that I made attempts to cure myself by filling the emptiness of what my heart longed for from God with substitutes. Unfortunately, I wound up causing myself greater injury as I sought alternatives for intimacy with God that I could intellectually grasp and measure up to. Each alternative, or better said, substitute, for God’s love that I gathered for myself, let me down hard and carelessly; unmercifully dashing me and my expectations to the ground; for nothing can compare with the real thing.

Heckled by the impotent struggle and shattered by the fruitless results, I finally mustered the courage. In an exhausted, pitiful whisper I asked God, Why don’t you want me? My life surely looked like He didn’t want me and the lack of meaningful connection and relational closeness made me feel like He didn’t want me.

With that vulnerable question, I accepted His invitation to scoop up my wilted frame and calm my whimpering with His touch, His love, and His song:

For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

Zephaniah 3:17 (NLT)

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37, KJV).

Emptying myself before God and asking Him that question redirected the course of my life!

God had been offering me a piggy-back ride to escort and navigate me away from my fears, unbelief, and issues. I finally jumped aboard for the ride of a lifetime.

Journey to Love!

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,  Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,  May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19 (KJV)

10 Years of Journey To Love

Dear Reader & Friends,

It is such a joy to be able to share this tenth anniversary edition of Journey to Love with you! Some of the content has been refined and a few points sharpened, but the essence of the original work remains.

I have received testimonies of the helpfulness of this book in the lives of people who are now experiencing greater freedom and intimacy in their relationship with the Lord.

This edition now includes a study guide. This guide, affectionately referred to as the Journey Journal was also written ten years ago, but only used during speaking engagements. It has proven to be a useful tool for group or personal study, now found right in the back of the printed and e-book versions.

The Journey Journal was designed to encourage you to do the hard work of peeling away the layers and unearthing the fears, unbelief, and ish-yous that may be preventing a progressively deepening relationship and meaningful connection with the Lord.

The study guide is so important to me because this book was intended for more than just storytelling. This book was purposed to help connect people with God by helping them see Him more clearly through my limitations and frailty that I so openly share about; the study guide helps draw out this purpose.

May you confidently approach God, look to Him in all of your ways, and enjoy His powerfully loving embrace that awaits you.

With love,

Janeen

Chapter One

Selective Hearing

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah 1:1-2 (KJV)

Jonah was one of my favorite Bible stories growing up. It was far more exciting than any cartoon I had ever seen! Imagine it for a moment: a prophet disobeys God, runs to hide from Him and then God catches him like a baseball, using the belly of a huge fish as His supernatural baseball glove. Wow!

As an adult, I’ve heard some question whether this book in the Bible is truth or fairy tale, but seeing as Jesus referred to it during his ministry (Matthew 12:38-42; 16:4; Luke 11:29-32), I’m all in of the belief that it is truth!

I wonder what else was inside of the belly of the fish with Jonah as he sat in there, isolated from the rest of the world, in that whale-sized holding tank. In the midst of the sounds, smells, and possibly other undigested critters furiously flapping about in terror, what was Jonah thinking about?

Distance from your loved ones and support system can be lonely and painful. Being granted leave, scheduling time off work, and booking the flight can solve it most of the time, in one form or another, but there is another level of pain that distance can cause that cuts far deeper.

Remember the pain-filled cry that Jesus let out from the cross, as He experienced distance with the Father?

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46, KJV).

The disconnection grinding deep into His soul was happening at that moment on the cross because the Father was turning His back on Jesus. God is holy and can’t look upon sin and it was at that very moment that Jesus became the sacrifice and all of the world’s sin was placed upon Him.

Jesus’s anguish was not pain-filled because of mere distance in miles between His earthly location and the Father’s heavenly location; it was relational distance.

I had no whale-sized holding tank to explain the distance that I felt and I surely was not bearing the sins of the world upon a cross, but I was experiencing distance in my relationship with God, like He was giving me the cold shoulder or the silent treatment and it hurt bad.

Where was God? My God? My Savior? My Maker?

Can You Hear Me

Jonah hailed from the town of Gath Hepher (2 Kings 14:25). This town was given as an allotment for Zebulun (Joshua 19:13) who was one of Jacob’s sons, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. I wonder what this town’s environment was like that helped nurture the young Jonah.

Zebulun’s mother was Leah and she was the wife of Jacob but not the only wife and definitely not his favorite. Leah wound up married to Jacob because her dad tricked Jacob into marrying her. Though there are some cultural realities involved here which are very different from ours today, the thought of being in that situation just feels so humiliating and it makes me just want to give Leah a big hug.

To make matters worse, Jacob made clear that he did not want Leah but wanted Leah’s sister Rachel; of whom her dad made the original deal for her marriage to Jacob too and of whom was Jacob’s favorite wife. Ouch!

Leah was not loved but her situation mattered to God. He was especially kind to her and granted her a special grace: children.

When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren (Genesis 29:31, NIV).

It is logical to conclude that Leah didn’t believe that she mattered to Jacob and that she had unmet expectations in her relationship with him. Those reasonable expectations found in healthy relationships that communicate love include devoting time and attention, being intentional and protective toward maintaining intimate closeness, and guarding against anything that would come against your union. It hurts when these elements are not in place and distance and cold indifference are found instead. I believed I didn’t matter to my husband or to God.

Speak Up A Little

Hey, was the half-hearted greeting offered to me.

I was more hurt than angered by this greeting because I was still in the hospital after giving birth to our third child less than eight hours before.

So, did they bring the papers down yet? he asked, a bit sarcastically.

Yes, I answered.

What did you name her? he insisted.

I responded somewhat sheepishly with a joke and with a name contrary to what he wanted. He cursed me bitterly for nearly half an hour and broke for a couple of minutes only when the nurse took my newborn to have her picture and an ink impression of her hands and feet taken.

He wasn’t hearing my need for love at that extremely vulnerable moment. I needed him to protect me and be intimately near me.

For years it had been my responsibility to make things happy and calm—or so I believed. The success of our marriage and family life hinged on my ability to accommodate and cope with his extreme emotional instability—or so I thought.

The problem was that I was too often unable to tell where the emotional mines were hidden in the field of our relationship. I tip-toed around, one cautious step after another, to avoid setting off an explosion and I eventually grew tired.