I have been thinking a lot about this over the last couple of weeks so I thought I’d write about it! I want to ask you if it’s time that you burst your bubbles! Let me explain!

Throughout our lives, stories happen and, let’s face it, we would rather some, of them hadn’t, but it’s life. Some of those stories could be something we caused, some are caused by others and some are entirely our imagination! Let me give some examples, abuse, divorce for you as a child or an adult, adoption, adultery, alcohol abuse, drugs, rejection, betrayal and so on… I want you to imagine that every story of yours is a bubble!

Kids, and, I think, most adults, love bubbles! It’s great to blow bubbles and watch children running around either trying to protect them or smash them with one blow. I want you to imagine our stories are a series of bubbles! There are some that you have no problem in popping, like the day your brother may have broken the head off one of your favourite dolls! Or your friend who you thought was your best friend in school pinched your boyfriend! You can, eventually go, ‘meh!’ And pop that bubble and move on! Others are a bit more tricky and we can, if we’re not careful, spend most of our lives trying to keep it floating around! So that we and everyone else can never forget what happened to you. Like the day the family member abused you, or the day your partner left your marriage, or the day you were left on a hospital step because your mum didn’t want you or the day you were told you wouldn’t be accepted in the role you dreamed of. These bubbles are little more tricky. As I write, one of my particulars stories comes to mind.

Back in 1996, we were on a church picnic. My husband John was impersonating Ian Botham with the boys on the cricket pitch, and I wasn’t impersonating anyone on the rounders pitch! Suddenly, there were yells and screams from the sideline for John to go quickly. As he walked onto the scene, (tears are coming, maybe I haven’t popped this one yet!) he saw to his horror, that our precious four year old daughter, Beth had been bitten by a dog. It had taken half of her eyebrow away and people were searching to see if they could find it! What followed was 11 days in Morriston hospital, South Wales where Beth received a skin graft. It was a truly horrible time! Everywhere we went, we told the story – he said, she said, I felt, it was awful, John said, the doctors said, Beth did etc. We had it down to a fine art -the whole terrible story! Eventually, I very clearly remember hearing God say to me, and this is my version, I’m sure God was more polite! He said, ‘ Deb, shut up with this story now, it’s time to turn over the page!’ It was so clear to me and I went and told John straight away and we did stop talking about it.

There comes a day when we have to stop holding the bubble in the air!

Let me talk to you about another kind of bubble – an imaginary one! Have you ever made a case against another person for so long, that you are utterly convinced you are right and they are wrong? This epidemic that we are living in right now is creating lots of bubbles! The classic one is: No-one has contacted me, no-one cares about me, I knew she/he never liked me, I’ve got so much going on in my life right now, and no-one cares!

I think you know what I mean. The problem with these kinds of bubbles are, if you find out the truth and that you were wrong after all, you have to burst your bubble and admit that you were wrong. Not easy. Of course the example I gave is a small thing compared to what some imaginary bubbles can become. ‘The divorce was all ‘their’ fault’; ‘I’m obnoxious because of my upbringing’; ‘I’m this way because I was abused’; We have a desire to protect our story, our bubbles and we all have a few. We can find ourselves avoiding certain passages in the Bible, certain meetings, certain preachers, certain conversations because we know that if we allow ourselves to be told something different, it’s going to mean letting go of my bubble and I’ve had this bubble for 30 years. What they did to me was horrific – If this is you, you absolutely don’t want to hear any message on forgiveness, do you? Once you do, even if your story wasn’t your fault, you now have a responsibility to pop it!

Choosing to pop an unforgiveness bubble, a rejection bubble, an insecurity bubble is huge! However, not popping it is huger! (I know that’s not a real word but I use it for effect!) It’s hard though, right? We want to protect our story! And to those around us, we say, stay away with your pins! Don’t you try and burst my bubble! If you’re serious about bursting bubbles, you may have to do it more than once! If it keeps appearing in your life, here’s what you need to do:

Ask this question – Have I really dealt with this? If the answer is a clear ‘yes’ then you need to tell the enemy that it’s done, finished, fin, over!! Be authoritative- the devil has no say over you except what you give him. If the answer is ‘no’ then keep popping!! Every time you see it rearing its head, pop it!

Trying to keep bubbles afloat is exhausting! So, let me encourage you today to grab a pin and go and play bursting bubbles! You will feel very free once you do!