In July 2021, A-School taught me that when we are wounded, we come to expect people will hurt us again & can't be trusted. We make judgements about people & subsequently inner vows to protect our hearts from being wounded in a similar way again. When we judge others, we doom ourselves to do the same thing. We harden our hearts & shut others out. This sets up for a cycle of reaping from the seeds we've sown.

Often we reap the judgement & consequences of dishonouring parents. I learnt that when we dishonour our parents by judging them for hurting/neglecting us, we will become like what we judged & that marriage & children create the perfect environment for these seeds to germinate & grow. As a little girl, I had hardened my heart & shut people out because keeping them at a distance makes rejection & abandonment les painful, or so I thought. When I became cold, distant & emotionally unavailable to name just a few aspects where my bitter root judgements, expectations & inner vows I had made even before birth had set me up for some serious reaping.  Every single lesson had moments of realisation when I would think "oh dear, that's me, I became what I judged & did that to my family..." but also how God has healed & restored the areas I’ve brought to effective death at the cross.

I discovered I am performance orientated & constantly keep falling back into striving to earn love by performing. We often live unaware that motives other than God’s love have begun to corrupt our serving through striving, tension & fear. I also learnt that we see God through our trauma-tainted glasses & relate to Him according to our judgements, expectations & inner vows. As a tiny girl, my basic trust had been shattered still find myself wondering “Can I really trust Him?”