Why Try?

Why Try?

The pain of the past keeps haunting me in my dreams and anxiety creeps into places unseen  The same mistakes keep happening though I have tried to change a thousand times

Why do I keep saying I am sorry…

Why do I keep seeing someone I am not, inauthentic, not the real me, the being created through the mask

Try again, start again, not again around the circle we go like a merry go round 

Seeing the same faces as we past the same markers once again, dizzy I want to get off, jump off but the rides not done yet. Paid for the ticket and so I spin.

Tired, just tired of the same ole same old.  

But the song says “a change is gonna come” Sam tell me when, I need to know when will it happen? If not today then when?  

This body can’t sustain this spirit that has been held back, beat down, and ready to emerge

So onward I surge, looking for my soul tribe that understands that I am more… than mortal flesh

One with the light within I shine on, lighter when the darkness overtakes the day

Feel the waves as I hold my head above water to breathe

You are there with me and so one more try, as I take baby steps forward 

Wobbly, I try to stand in the truth of your words and the facts of the mistakes

Again, I repent and make Teshuva

No one understands that the trauma of youth has covered and hidden the potential of a bright tomorrow

This dark cloud must go, calling on the wind to blow, blow over, for all flesh must die

And left in the flames of fire is just the truth and I   

The pain of the past keeps haunting me in my dreams and anxiety is creeping into places unseen. The same mistakes keep happening, though I have tried a thousand times.

Charmaine Hinds November 5, 2018

Truth and Reality- a story of depression and hope

I had just completed my third fashion show production under my company Charms Presentations and was in my hotel room at the Holiday Inn discussing  what had happened with my husband the following morning. The reviews were coming in and everyone was commenting how amazing the show was. It was flawless and they all loved it and though this was the answer I wanted to hear, I knew the truth. It was a disaster but only to those who could see behind the scenes. I had difficulty with the models, some of the clothing went missing, sales were low and I would have to financially cover the overage personally. In this very moment something inside me went still and I began a journey that would take me into my “pit” experience.

I am not quite sure exactly what happened but this I know – that the analogy of life being a fashion show and everyone only caring about what they saw on the outside and their perception of perfection being that everything they saw looked ok, triggered something in me to begin to deal with what the truth about what is really happening behind the scenes, in the wings.   I began to understand that success is measured in totality and truth not perception of reality.

I was living a lie. My life was all about the perception of reality and there were things in my life that were very wrong. I had lies I had told my self to just survive but now they were taking over and beginning to control me. I had begun a journey to deal with the truth.

I began to travel into a very dark place and after a while I found myself in what I now refer to as the “pit”.

This place is dark and lonely and desolate and cold and hard and you have no energy and you cry continually- some call it depression others have names to label it but all I know is that I was in a pit and I couldn’t do anything to get myself out. It was too deep and too wide and I was too tired and confused and overwhelmed and lost.

I gave up on everything – I was lost deep in myself. I stayed on my couch for days and couldn’t tend to anything, I struggled to do the very basic things, I couldn’t talk or pray or even the sight of my children caused me to cry. I had a new born infant during this time and this too may have been one of the reasons that I reached the precipice of the pit at this time. I was unable to bond with her and my mother instinct was dormant.

I knew I was in a bad way but my natural human instincts to pretend and get on with life were not working. I was facing truth and behind the scenes there was a mess. This mess was me.

I don’t know how long this went on for but it felt like months and years. But then one day when everything was really dark and I thought my life was over and I didn’t even care anymore then something amazing happened. I heard a voice deep in me telling me to grab His hand. I had heard so many voices during this time but this voice was different. The other voices were telling me that I was a failure, useless, a liar, I didn’t deserve to live. But this voice was sweet and gentle and strong and powerful and so full of Love and then I saw the hand. It was reaching down into “my pit” and offering me hope. I couldn’t believe that He would come this far for me and that He still loved me and wanted to rescue me. It took everything within me and all the strength I could find to grab a hold of that hand and let Him pull me up and out of that pit.

Now, I want to tell you that instantly everything was better, but in truth it was just the beginning. But  now I had hope.

I would hold onto that hand as a very lifeline as I daily began to find my way back from the distance that those lies had taken me to. I began to face the truth and speak out what was really happening and what I was experiencing and what I was struggling with. I began to tell shame and guilt that they were no longer welcome and that I was getting help from another source. Fear became my enemy and hope became my strength. Everyday I was becoming a little bit more … free. Free from the past, free from bondage of a reality that wasn’t based on truth, free from unhealthy relationships, free from letting the darkness overcome any light that was trying to shine through. I was letting Him pull me out of the pit.

Now I know I haven’t shared with you all the gory details of what happened in my counselling sessions, what steps did I take to become free and  I am sure you are wondering what were the lies she was believing? But none of those things really are the focus of what I am sharing with you. The reason I am telling this story is because I wanted to acknowledge my pit experience and let anyone out there know that your experience is real though it may be different than mine. You may feel like you are in a deep dark space or a wilderness, a desert, a dry place, or maybe locked in a cage, a jail or even feel like a slave or a prisoner, maybe you don’t even have words to describe where you are but I wanted you to know that there is someone who can help you. Listen to the voice that is extending His hand to you and let Him pull you out, lift you up, shine the light, unlock the door, give water to your soul. Let Him rescue you.

And then do the everyday work that may be hard sometimes, but is required to gain your freedom.

What you are experiencing is just the beginning of your journey from darkness to light, from pain to joy, from empty to full, from lies to truth and it can become glorious if you surrender and travel the path back from reality to truth.

I know you can do it – because I did.

Hope Anchor

Jewelry and me, we have a special kind of love affair.

It's very spiritual. 

Whenever God is doing something in me or wanting me to remember an important teaching or truth he will provide a piece of jewelry as a remembrance.

He has given me necklaces. pendants, rings, bracelets and brooches all symbolical in nature. 

Sometimes they are gifts from friends, family, strangers, or new acquaintances, randomly they are found or even purchased by myself. 

So after sharing this I will now tell you about the latest jewelry piece I received on a recent trip to Nova Scotia.

As I said this jewelry finds its way to me via unique circumstances and situations but one  precious friend from Nova Scotia has always stayed sensitive to the leading of the spirit and every time I have come she has a token from the Father that she has prayed and  sought the God about. 

Well this time He gave her one word "Anchor".

So on her way to visit with me she looked for a place to purchase an anchor as a gift.  Needless to say along the journey she only came upon one store in the middle of nowhere in the Rodden hills. It was old country store and she entered thinking they must definitely have some sort of anchor. To her utter amazement and surprise the only item they had was an unusual anklet bracelet with a rhinestone jeweled anchor attached to it. She purchased it for me and it came in a beautiful box. As she presented it to me she shared the story and this is the message she wrote in the box.

"Beloved friend, God is doing a new thing . Not to replace you as an eagle or butterfly . A new freedom of the assurance that your life is anchored in Him. A deep peace, unswayable. Let this settle in your spirit."

I received this lovely gift and sought God for the deeper message He was trying to give to me . I loved the fact that it was an anklet as it had meaning as it anchored my feet. Those who know me will understand the great significance in that message.

When I got home I was contemplating this gift and my heart overwhelmed with a gratitude and love for my relationship with God and the security I felt in Him. I was excited because He had restored my HOPE. 

Then the scripture came to me that my HOPE is anchored in Him. Hebrews 6:19. Then at 2am in the morning these words came to me. It was a description of the Hope anchor that I am intimate with.   It is also the name of the design of this anchor I had been given, as it has a cross at  the top

I’m not a drifting vessel floating aimlessly without direction

I have been firmly fastened under your arm of protection

You are the Hope that has anchored my soul

This Love has made me whole

Secured me to that Thing that holds me

Yet simultaneously makes me free

You are my safety, my security, my stability and tranquility

My identity is balanced by the weight of understanding who You are

During the many storms of life You hold me in place – yet still you give me space

To travel to the true destination

Never anchored by a rope

But secured within the Hope

That I have discovered in You

For I am found in You and You are in me

Where does it begin and where will it end?

Does it matter except that I know this one thing to be true

I am anchored by You…

What a feeling of liberty!

 To be grounded and yet remain free

Hebrew 6:19 We have this Hope as an anchor for our souls

Charmaine Hinds 

God can Fix Us

Yesterday at our fellowship we had a very powerful speaker teach on how we put up walls to protect ourselves and to safeguard our hearts. But in the process of doing this we have taken an attitude of self protection and ultimately have not fully yielded to trusting God in our lives.

She asked us to examine areas in our lives where we need to repent and ask God for forgiveness for not trusting Him and ask Him to break down the walls of separation that were hindering His work in our lives.

 During the ministry time I was ministering to one woman and I heard the Lord say the following;

“ Just as you have jewelry that you deem valuable and even though it is broken, you have not thrown it away, you have stored it and eventually take it to a jeweler, a person who is skilled in fixing and putting together and has a full understanding of how jewelry works. You wouldn't take it to a mechanic, because he is skilled in cars not jewelry, you would take a computer to a computer technician, a TV to a television repair man and lamps to an electrician.  So I am the only one who knows how to fix broken people. My people are not working correctly; they have misused and abused the creation I have designed. They don’t know how to put themselves back together, but I know exactly how each person was designed and when I fix them , they are like brand new. I shine them and clean them and set them in order to work as they were originally created to. I am the one that fixes broken people.”

After saying this aloud to the woman I was ministering to, God by the power of Holy Spirit did what only He could do and He burdened me with an understanding of how much He wants to fix His creation. How He longs to set us on the right course, tune up our hearing, give us new paradigm ways of thinking, realign our thought life, replace the lies with the truth, heal us from the inside out and all we have to do is bring our broken selves to Him and leave it there and let Him do what He does best. Fix His creation.

I wailed loudly as the burden became stronger and as I felt the pain He feels when He sees us trying to fix ourselves or others in our own strength, it is like taking your jewelry which is so valuable to the mechanic and expecting him to know how to fix this delicate, precious, sentimental object and not cause any further damage. People are valuable and of great worth to God and He doesn't throw us away because we are broken. He treasures us enough to deem us worth fixing. He is just waiting for us to come. Free of charge as the price has already been paid.

Some of us have been trained in how to allow inner healing to flow and to give Holy Spirit an opportunity to minister to the inner man, the spirit and to the soul of a person. The time is now to allow what Jesus has done as the Lamb of God to cause the curses and lies of Egypt to Passover Gods chosen people. As we lead each of them out of slavery and bondage and into the freedom of the Promised land.

Hope . Faith . Love

The party had just begun but she was already tired of all of the people and the celebration activities.
It was great to be around everyone but she needed just a moment of silence to catch her breath and to take in all that was happening. Everyone was here in honour of her grandmother who was 90 years old today. She saw so many faces that she hadn’t seen in while and her face hurt from smiling so hard. Truly she was happy to be in the midst of all these amazing people but her heart wasn’t in it, not today
She found an empty pathway down the hall, opened the door and snuck into the room. Then she let out the breath that she had been holding in and her shoulders loosened as she locked the door and lay down on the bed. She curled up in her favourite position holding her body closely as she grabbed her knees and tucked her head down in foetal position.
Then the tears began to flow. It was like a wellspring inside of her that she couldn’t turn off. She didn’t want to turn it off. It was hurting so badly on her insides but somehow as the tears flowed she felt herself letting go, just a little bit. Then it came. The voice she didn’t want to hear but couldn’t stop lately. It kept asking her questions but in a way that sounded like it was her very own voice. “Why me? What did I do to deserve this” “ am I not a good person?” “ how can this be happening”, with every question she felt the situation becoming more and more helpless. She instinctively put her hands over her ears as if doing so could stop the thoughts from invading her. But the thoughts were not coming from outside, now they were coming from within. She was wishing she could turn back the hands of time and do everything differently. But what could she do to change what the doctor’s report said to her. Then more questions came as doubt and blame began to settle in.

“If only I had gone to the doctors sooner and paid more attention to the signals my body was giving to me, maybe then I wouldn’t be facing this.” “Maybe I should have asked for more tests at my physical last year?”, “ I’m not ready to die yet” and finally the question she really wanted answered “ Doesn’t God love me? what have I done to deserve this?”

A sense and a feeling of hopelessness entered the room and settled on her like a blanket covering over her. She closed her eyes and decided to just sleep underneath this feeling as she was drained, tired and feeling unloved. Just a few minutes of rest and she would get up and join the people that had come to celebrate.

She had almost dozed off when she heard a thud at the window. It sounded like something had hit the window pane and had fallen. She got up and opened the screen , then slid the glass pane open. Looking down she saw a bird that had fallen onto the rose bush just outside the window. It was brightly coloured and very unusual looking. It almost looked tropical but the color of its wings were the most vivid forms of light. The bird was obviously injured from its recent collision with the clear glass. She was not an animal lover, didn’t even like having pets, but her heart was huge and she couldn’t leave the injured bird there to die or even worse be found by an unknown predator. She grabbed the table covering off of the dresser and scooped up the lifeless looking bird into her hands and the moment she did this the most bizarre thing began to happen. Colors of light started shooting everywhere, they were so bright and brilliant that everything became blurry around her and she became dizzy and started falling backwards. She felt the sensation of falling backwards but again this was weird because she never hit the ground, she just kept falling. As she opened her eyes she realized she wasn’t falling at all but that she was floating. Her body had become light and as she looked down at herself she saw that she was covered with bright coloured feathers, the same feathers that were on the fallen bird. The bird? Where was the bird? Where was she?

She was no longer in the room and she no longer felt all the same emotions and feelings that she had a minute ago. Her eyesight was becoming clearer and she could see past all the colours now and there just a short distance from her head was the bird flying just above her. Flying? A minute ago this bird was lifeless and injured, now it seemed healthy, alive and vibrant. But where was she? What had just happened?

The bird began singing the most beautiful heavenly song. That was the only way to describe it. And as it sang her heart began to beat rapidly. With every beat she could understand the words that were being sung.

“ Hope is my name, Hope is my name,
And I have been sent to you this very day.
Nothing could stop me, or get in my way
For heaven has heard you, the moment you prayed.”

The sounds that filled her being now caused the coloured feathers that were around her body to begin to float together creating a sort of canopy around her and the bird she now knew as “Hope”.
Then she heard a majestic booming voice say these words “ Faith is the substance of things hoped for The evidence of things not seen” then she heard “Without hope there is no faith”

In an instant she remembered her prayer to God. It was right after the doctor visit as she sat in the car trying to put together the words that had just been spoken to her. She didn’t know what else to do but she remembered what her grandmother had taught her all those years. So she bowed her head and said a prayer to God to please help her to have faith.

Faith? What was she really asking for? Faith for what? To believe that she could be healed ? To believe that God really loved her and that He didn’t want her to die? Faith to remove this awful death sentence that had been placed over her life? Faith for a miracle? Yes she wanted faith to believe all of these things.

The bird began to sing again, or maybe Hope had never stopped singing but she was tuning in again to understand the words being sung.

“Hope in the colors of spring,
Hope in the joy that I bring,
Hope when you cant see anything
Hope is the song that I sing”

There was something special in the words in those lyrics that spoke to her about new life and creation. It brought revelation and understanding beyond what her natural mind could comprehend. She knew that in order to see the things the way they truly were that she would have to grab a hold of this gift of Hope. She reached out and for the second time she put her hands delicately around this fluttering creature that she dared not to call a bird.

As her hands grabbed a hold of “Hope” all the color that was imbedded in the wings of this supernatural creature was now coming into her hands and surrounding her body and filling her with the greatest feeling of knowing, a sense that everything was the way it should be. Instantly she knew that God was in control and that He loved her and had a plan for her life. Everything changed in that moment she now was the sum of the total and not the end of a beginning. Then she heard the bells ringing ,large church bells tolling as if they were chiming out the time. She closed her eyes and tried to focus as she didn’t want to let go of this new sensation that was tingling all over her body... hope. But the sound of the bells was jolting her and she began to float again.

Suddenly she opened her eyes and she was back in the room on the bed and the telephone was ringing, probably a guest calling for directions. She lay there for a brief moment wondering if what she had just experienced was nothing more than a simple day dream. As she sat up on the bed something floated out of her hand and instinctively she grabbed at it.
It was a feather, a beautiful multi coloured feather laying in the palm of her right hand.

It answered all of her questions, but greater than that was how she now felt and what she now knew. She  knew that He who took care of the birds of the air, loved and valued her so much and she could trust Him to take care of her too.

With that she jumped up off the bed, took a tissue and wiped her face, breathed in a deep breath and as she unlocked the door she purposed in her heart to go back to the festivities and to celebrate today with Hope, Love, and Faith.

Charmaine Hinds September 2012