Denial: Walking in Fire Without Knowing It

In the next episode, 'Denial: Walking in the Fire Without Even Knowing It,' I dive into the hidden danger of denial—how, when we’re in denial, our eyes stay closed, and we walk right into harm without realizing it. I share parts of my own story—how I ignored the signs and stayed comfortable in trauma and complacency, even when it was harming me. But the point of this episode is more than just my story—it’s a call for you to examine yourself. As I reflect on where I was, I pray this awakens you to do the same—to honestly assess where you are, and to see if denial has kept you distant from God. My hope is that, as you listen, you begin to awaken—so you can confess, repent, and draw closer to God, stepping into the deep intimacy He longs to have with you.

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Mundalee Ma podcast with your host Gwendolyn Malika Noah.

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Hey guys, and thank you so much for joining me on today's podcast. Now, I have to start off this podcast by apologizing and confessing. I have heard from some of you guys about um the length of time it is between episodes. And it's because I have been inconsistent. I have not planned out the way I'm supposed to plan. And life be life in you guys. You know, life be life. So I want to start this podcast off with sharing with you guys that I'm going to be doing this weekly. And please hold me accountable. Email me at loveabundantly ministry at gmail.com. Email me, you guys. You can even message me on Facebook or Instagram just to hold me accountable because I know I know that God has allowed me to have this ministry and he has put this in my heart to reach and help many people. And I just want to be obedient. And that's my whole thing. I want to be obedient. So I'm repenting. I'm repenting. And you know, these episodes, and I'm sorry for my voice sounding like this because I just got a little bronchitis too, which is another reason why I haven't been able to do the show. But this season on denial, the silent roadblock to intimacy with God, is a heavy one. It's heavy because, as I'm sharing with you, I have to face parts of my life where I've been in denial and really recognize that, really acknowledge that. I talk to my clients a lot about acceptance. And with acceptance, and that's a part of mindfulness practices, and even with dialectical behavior therapy, and with acceptance, it brings peace. It brings so much peace. But when we're in denial, we are closing our eyes on what reality is. It's like we're pretending and trying to mask or go around it without facing it, which leads us into remaining in the situation longer than what we're supposed to be. Today's topic, y'all, is walking in fire without knowing it. That's what we're talking about today. Today, walking in fire without knowing it. It's about how we normalize unhealthy behaviors and patterns and attitudes and remain in that because we're comfortable. We normalize dysfunction. I remember sharing this, and I don't know if I share this with on this podcast, but I'm gonna say it again. I may repeat some things, and I'm sorry, but I I I gotta say it. I was with some clients years ago in New York City, and I remember having this image because they were drug addicts, they were there at an outpatient rehab clinic. And during one of my sessions, I was listening to them, and I had an image as they were speaking. How we can, it was image like you were in this room, right? And in this room is full of trash. Imagine being in a room full of trash and garbage and even some doo-doo in there. Now imagine that I'm talking about my nose wrinkled, but imagine that. And you're sitting in this room with your arms folded, comfortable, because you become used to it, you adjusted to it, you have closed your eyes and to the garbage that's sitting around you, and you're sitting laid back within that garbage, right? Then someone, a friend of yours or someone that knows you, comes into this room and they say, Whoa, what is this male? Oh, and you're like, What? Ain't nothing wrong with you? What's wrong with you? And you're looking at them like they're crazy, and they're going like looking at you like you're crazy because you're sending this filth, this spunk, this stinking mess. And y'all, that's how walking in denial can be. It's a part of our brains, like I said last time, it's a defense mechanism, it's a unit's irrational thinking, basically, that leads us to remain in these situations that's unhealthy, that's toxic, because we normalize them. And it takes someone from the outside looking in to come in and say, Hey, wake up. Don't you see that this is a mess? Are you not seeing the way you're thinking is a mess? Are you not seeing the way that your life is a mess? Come on, this is not where God has brought you to, this is not where God wants you to be at. But it takes us taking off those veils of our eyes so that we can see. Because no matter how much someone comes into your life trying to wake you up and shake you, God has to wake you up. Because sometimes you normalize and you like, hold up. And when you wake up, you like, hold up, I've been sitting in this all this time. What's wrong with me? And I gotta get help now, I gotta get help now. Like I in my podcast, the first episode I shared last week, I was sharing with you guys about my relationship being codependent and how I normalize the behavior, my boy and friend's behavior, and I'm walking with him, even though I knew something was wrong. But because of my trauma, and a lot of us experience trauma that leads us to normalize these unhealthy behavior patterns until we wake up and see this is not healthy. Emotionally, this is not healthy, spiritually, this is not healthy. The therapy, so in my eyes, you're repeating these things because of your upbringing, what you grew up watching. You normalize arguing, you normalize hostility, you normalize anger, you normalize all these different things when it's not supposed to be normalized, it's unhealthy, it's not how God called you to be loved. I had to wake up and recognize that's not love. It's not, and even with love, we can misconstrue what love is because of our denial about what we're going through. Y'all, one of the most heartbreaking times I had was when I had a client tell me, even though they've been married, even though they had children, that they don't really know what love is. Because of all the things that they've experienced, because of dysfunction that they've experienced, and denial about even recognizing that this was really trauma that they've experienced. And I had to wake them up to see, like, hold up, you've been traumatized. No, this is not right. This is not how you're supposed to be treated. No, that's not how God loves you. No, and I don't know who's listening to this, and I hope and I hope this wakes you up. If you are in an abusive relationship, one that's mentally abusive, emotionally abusive, and y'all, it took me years to recognize that I was in an abusive relation, emotionally abusive relationship, mentally abusive relationship. I had to humble myself to recognize that and say that. If you are in that space right now, I pray in Jesus' name that this is your wake-up call. Wake up, recognize the fire that you're in, and walk out of that. Get out of that space because that is not love, that is not where God has called you to be. Y'all, I want to read y'all this scripture in Isaiah, Isaiah 43, and it's one of my favorite scriptures to read because it talks about how when we are in denial and ignoring that we are in denial, it hinders us from getting towards our healing. This scripture reminds us where God is in the midst of this. In Isaiah 43, I want to start in verse 1. I'm reading the NIV version. But now, this is what the Lord says: He who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze. But I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give you Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead, since you are precious and honored in my sight. And because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you and people in exchange for your life. I must not dare y'all. Thank you, Jesus. When I first read this scripture years ago, I was in this space of misunderstanding God's love for me because of my trauma, and thinking that God's love was fickle. That he loved me when I'm doing right, being legalistic or ritualistic or whatever it may be, and and not want to make mistakes and being having to be perfect and all those things, and be myself up when I do make mistakes and condemning myself and not having grace on myself and all those things. I don't know if you can relate to that. And he had to confront me and let me know that first of all, he's not my earthly dad. And if you listen to my first season, I talk about my upbringing and how my dad is loving, but when he's drunk, he wasn't loving, he became a demon. And I was confused about what love really was. But fast forward, when I read this scripture and I heard God speaking to me, the Lord speaking to me, and I changed it in this passage. I said, but now this is what the Lord says, He who created you, Gwen. And you can put your name in this space. He who formed you, Gwen. Fear not. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, Gwen, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, Gwen, they will not sweep over you. And when you walk through the fire, Gwen, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Says you, Gwen, are precious and honored in my sight. And because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. Yo, this was a wake-up call for me to see that I don't have to remain where I was at. I didn't have to remain in the burden of my trauma, playing it over and over again, or in the anger that I was consumed with. I didn't have to remain in it. Notice it says, when you walk, when you pass. A lot of us want to avoid the win-use. We want to avoid the win-use because we don't want to go through trauma. We don't want to go through recovery. We feel comfortable within the trauma, too, because it became a norm. It took years for me to recognize that I was traumatized because I had normalized it. I had normalized the dysfunction. I was in denial in that fire because I normalized what I went through. But it took a wake-up call. And I think I talk about this too when I went to that conference on trauma and on being growing up as a child of trauma. And sitting there and saying, like, oh, that's me. And before I went to the conference, I was like, Oh, I ain't got this, I ain't experienced that, I ain't experienced that. And I'm sitting there hearing about domestic violence. And I'm like, hold up. I witnessed that. Oh, wait a minute. My dad did hit my mom and he did call out her name several times, and we did get guns pulled on us, and we weren't kicked out of the house. I'm telling you, wait a minute. Oh that was trauma. I think in our culture, you guys, we normalize trauma. We normalize it and say, Oh, that's just how that person is, oh, that's just how I grew up. No. It's time to wake up and recognize that you've been in the fire and you're still in the fire when you're not facing the fact that you've been hurt, you've been harmed, you've been traumatized in these different ways. And the great thing about this passion, God is telling us that when we walk through it, when we go through the healing process of it, that we will not be burned. Why? Why won't we be why won't we be burned? He answers that in verse three. For I am the Lord your God, your God. And in this next verse, in verse three, y'all know. Yeah, in verse three, it talks about how he gave Egypt for a ransom. And when he when I read that, that he reminded me how he gave up his only son for my ransom. He gave up his only son for your ransom. Why did he do that? Why verse 4 answers that since you are precious and honored in my sight? And when I heard him say this part, because I love you, it was the first time I heard God say to me that he loved me, and I had to accept that. This space of where I where I was consumed in. Because of this underlying belief system that I'm not lovable, y'all, my sisters. To wake up and see the fire that you're in. When you are remaining and choosing to remain, I'm saying it's a choice. Because it is a choice. Even though it's a kind of distortions that's happening, irrational thought patterns is happening. We're choosing what we're listening to. And I pray right now that you choose to listen to the truth that is in God. The truth is that you are worthy because God gave his only son for you, ransomed you. Ransom Jesus for you. Gave him up. You guys, yeah. You are precious and honored in God's sight. And some of you are walking in the fire without knowing that you're in the fire right now, in this moment. And I pray that this podcast reaches you and wakes you up to recognize where you are and the lack of love that you are allowing in your life by remaining in toxic relationships and go towards love. The love that is in Christ, the love that is in God, the love that says, I am patient with you. I am chasing after you because I want you to see my love for you. And if you are listening to this podcast, this is no coincidence. God is wanting you to see how intensely He is in love with you in order for you to open up your eyes, to recognize your worth, to recognize how precious and honored you are in his sight. And draw towards that love. Go towards that love. Take off the things that's in your mind that says, No, I'm not worthy of this love. Y'all, one of my favorite scriptures is a passage about the simple woman. And go back and read it. It's in Luke and it's in Matthew 2. And in my it's in the gospels, simple woman. And how she goes knowingly to this Pharisee's house, knowing how the Pharisees see her. But before she even went there, think about all the things that she had to overcome in her own mindset. The parts of her that had to wake up from the denial of where her life was. It says that she's a simple woman, and in Galatians 5, it talks about how sins are obvious, and it talks about sexual morality. It's one of those obvious sins. So I can infer that she must have been a prostitute or something that people could see was her singing. Because the Pharisee said to in his thoughts, and as he as she was going to Jesus' feet and wiping Jesus' feet with her tears and washing them with her hair, the Pharisee said if he knew that this woman was a sinful woman, he would not allow her to touch him. So something that they saw. But imagine that she had the First, wake up and see where her life was, to see that she was sitting in this filt, to see that she was sitting in this fire, comfortable being burned within this fire, and then she had to become uncomfortable within that fire, become uncomfortable within this filth to say, Hold up, let me get up out of this and go and seek the one who can save me, the one who can cleanse me, the one who loves me. She had to overcome the barriers in her own mind, in her own mind first, in order to face that Pharisee and go into the house knowing that they were gonna talk about her. She didn't care anymore because she had conquered herself first. My sisters, and I pray this reaches you, my younger sisters too. We have to acknowledge, wake up, and acknowledge where we are and the distance that is keeping us from our relationship with God. But what happens is, and in churches, and I apologize to you, and I'm praying that these churches wake up, they normalize sin. And normalizing sin is sitting in that fire because you're being burnt, because you're normalizing sin. Sensual morality is a sin. And no matter how much you go to church and you sit in the church and you're praying, Jesus in your heart, and you're asking God for forgiveness and all those things, but the more you remain in it, it's still gonna be distant from you because you're not waking up to see that you're in a fire and you're being burned, and you're not waking up to see it because the church said it's okay, God has grace on you, it's okay for you to remain where you are in your life, God's gonna forgive you. Y'all, that's heresy, that is not biblical. Jesus calls us to repent. Why would he say that it's okay for you to remain where you are if he came and died for you? And he went through the fogging, he went through all the persecution, he went through the emotional abuse, he went through the physical abuse, he went through the crucifixion all for sin. Why would he say it's okay for you to remain in it then if he gave up his life for you? Because of it, why would he say, I want to be close to you and you still remain in a sin? Would you be close to someone who has mistreated you, who is constantly doing a thing against you that you that hurt you before? Think about that. If you have a friend in your life that you told him, hey, you saying this to me hurts me, or you doing this particular behavior hurts me, would you remain in that relationship with them? Would you be close to them? No, I guarantee you would not. So, why do we think that Jesus has the same mindset? He does it. Read John 14, y'all. I'm gonna read this with you because I pray that this wakes some of you up. In John 14 and verse 15, it says, If you love me, you will obey what I command. Catch that. Jesus is telling us how to love him, he's telling us how to respond to his love for us. And then he says in verse 16, and I will ask the Father, he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. Now, I'm gonna skip down. He says again in verse 23 if anyone loves me, that means anybody who's listening to this podcast, no matter what color you are, white, black, Chinese, Japanese, African, wherever you're from on this globe, anyone who loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Here's the next part, verse 24. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own, they will belong, they belong to the Father who sent me. Catch that. He who does not love me would not obey my teachings. What does that mean? Go back to the first part. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father would love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Stop there. So Jesus saying, if we love him, we will obey him, but he and the father will come and make their home with us, live inside of us, reside in us, abide in us. And the opposite is true too. If you are not loving me, if you're not obeying me, then I will not come and make my home with you. You will not have the intimacy with me that you desire. Even if you are denying in denial, and you think that you do, then you don't. If you're remaining in disobedience, if you're remaining in your sins, if you're closing your eyes to how you're living, living in sexuality, y'all, and I'm sticking on sexuality because I know that that's a sin that is the the that's covering this world. Pride too, immorality, impurity, masturbation, that's impurity. All of that is sin. Gossiping is sin, lying is sin, hatred is sin, all of it's sin. Go down the list. Homosexuality is sin, all of it, sin. And if you're thinking you're in a close relationship with God and you're still living in that life, then you are walking in the fire and not knowing it, and you are in denial. My sisters, I I love you, and I'm saying this because I love you, and I want you to wake up to really see where your lives are so that you can have the intimacy with God that He's calling and craving for you to have with Him. I pray in Jesus' name that you do not reject this, that your eyes open up to really see where you are. And I'm praying for myself too. In Jesus' name, I always pray that God help me see myself, Lord. Help me not to walk in denial and deceit like I used to walk, Father God, because I used to think that allowing men to touch me and going close enough to having sex but not having it was okay. Even still saying I'm a virgin, but I used to think that it was okay for me to watch pornography, or it was okay for me to lust. It was okay. I'm not having sex, but it's okay. But I was walking in the fire, not realizing I was being burned, y'all. I was in denial. So I'm sharing this because I was religious in that way, thinking it was okay for me to go to church and and go and grind at the club, grind on the guy at the club, or have lustful thoughts, or or allow my boyfriend to touch me and and kiss me in certain ways and all those different things. But when I looked at the scriptures and and and realized that I wasn't a Christian, I wasn't a disciple. I didn't even know what a disciple was, but I wasn't a disciple. I had to wake up, I had to wake up. It was like cold water being splashed on my face, waking up to see the reality where I was at, and to repent so that I can get the intimacy with God that I have been searching for, you guys. I haven't wanted his Holy Spirit in me, and I thought that he was, but he wasn't because I was baptized when I was 12, and I was going to churches and praying Jesus in my heart, going to the altar calls, and all those other things because I felt far from him and I was trying to do the things. My life never changed though, but it wasn't until I studied the Bible and became walked in obedience with the word of God that my life changed. If you are looking to do that same thing, y'all, with me, join me with an abundantly loved circle. And we will walk through studies, we will walk through the scriptures, we will walk through confess, we will walk having real talks, y'all, not surfacing talks. We will have these real honest thoughts so that we can confess and acknowledge where we are before God and grow deeper in intimacy with God. Join me on Thursday nights, on Thursday, so that we can walk together with Jesus. And pray for me and being consistent in this because I want to help you who may want this help. And I know God wants me to do this because He loves you so much, and I want to give to you what He gave to me. Y'all I pray in Jesus' name that your minds open up to see where you really are. And if you're walking in fire, that you repent, you come close to God, let go, shed the things that's on you, that's stopping you from growing intimacy with God. Face the reality of it, be honest about where you are, don't mask it, don't do it just because you want to be perfect or just because you're afraid of acknowledging who you are and where you are before God. No, acknowledge it so that you can change and grow closer to Him. That is the only way that we can grow deeper intimacy with Him. I love you guys. If you like this podcast, share it again. Go and check in my book, 40 Years of Virgin. Why the Wait, I talk about my life in this book and what I had to go through, everything I'm sharing with you guys right now. I go deeper in this book, check it out, it's on Amazon. Get the book, 40 Years of Virgin, y'all. And I'm still waiting. My next book is coming out about that. Still waiting, what that means right now, as a 51-year-old woman. Y'all, God loves you intensely. Let's walk closer to his love. Let's overcome the things that's blocking us from loving him. Follow my podcast, follow my YouTube, y'all. Love abundantly counseling and love abundantly ministry YouTube. Y'all check it out. Follow me on Instagram. I'm gonna I have a Patreon prep page. Patreon page for Love Abundantly Ministry. If you're interested in finding out more about that, email me and loveabundantly ministry at gmail.com. On the Patreon page, I have devotionals that's gonna be there. You can download. You guys follow me on this journey, and I can't wait to hear from you, my tribe, to walk with you in this. Y'all, this is a global ministry, and we are walking together to transform lives to grow deeper in intimacy with God. Many blessings. Let's pray, y'all. Father God, I love you so much, Father. I love you so much, Father. Thank you so much for your forgiveness. Thank you so much for your grace. And I pray for each one of us not to take your grace for granted. Lord, you gave so much, you came from heaven, Jesus. From being there with the Father. And you say yes, when he asks you to come, to walk on this earth, to show us what it looks like to live for the Father, so that we can have the chance to get back to intimacy, to get back to the Garden of Eden, God, to get back to heaven, Lord, to walk, to be in the presence with the Father, with you, Jesus, too. God, help us to overcome Satan's deceitfulness, the schemes that he's planted here on this earth to block us from really seeing and examining where we really are, and to have us walk in denial and thinking we're close, but not close at all, Father God. Help us to recognize in the scriptures, Lord, where we are before you. Help us to overcome him, God, overcome Satan, because you overcame him, Lord. You overcame him so we can overcome him too. But it takes us to recognize where we are first and to confess it and draw closer to you, Father. Thank you so much for blessing every heart that's listening to this podcast and helping their hearts to draw closer to you, Father God. Helping them to be enveloped in your love, Father God, because your love is lavished over all of us, my Lord, and anywhere in their lives, God, that they are questioning your love for them, Father God. Help them to see the reality of who you are, that you are Abba, Daddy, you are Baba, the God who loves us intensely more than what we can even understand. Help us in our eyes to open up, Father God, to see you and to seek you with all of our hearts, because you are not too far from us, like it says in Jeremiah 29. I love you and thank you so much for choosing me, for choosing me for this ministry, for anointing me, Father God, and setting me apart for your to be an instrument, a noble instrument, Father God, for your purposes. And I pray for many to join me on this cause, Father God, so that we reach the world, Father God, for you and for your glory. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.