It makes me look rather flibberty-jibbet and totally unpredictable and not dependable. ugh.
Confession? I didn’t like the ‘comparison-itis’ or the slimy, gossipy feeling I had when I clicked off social media or the lack of consistent authenticity in real-life vs. on-line life. So I deactivated. For my mental and emotional health. For protection.
So. Why try it again?
One, I am looking for community with other writers, heart-stirrers, and word-warriors. I have questions and concerns. I want to know if there are other’s who struggle with the pride and insecurity that seem to plague me and if I’m alone and how someone else worked through it. I need your stories.
Two, there’s the message within me to call hearts out to perceive their brokenness as something beautiful if placed in the hands of Jesus. And there are a lot of other word-warriors proclaiming this truth. I want to know them so we can join our voices together to proclaim truth and freedom and grace and love.
I cannot tell you how many tears I have shed over social media and really? Isn’t that absolutely stupid? It’s real and raw and pretty messy. And social media is neat and tidy and putting our best foot forward. First impressions are everything. Help?
Two years ago, the Lord broke me free from the chain of the people-approval-seeking-junkie label I have worn my entire life and since that freedom day I have been learning to live free. It’s hard. I accepted the freedom breaking on the condition that God would show me how to live without that noose wrapped around my neck because what’s the point of freedom if I’m not going to live free?
So…
Social Media. It’s stirring things long buried.
My twelve-year-old self is screaming, ‘Danger! Danger! One day you will wake up and everyone will hate you.’
My 20-year-old self is whispering, ‘If you be what they want you to be, you will be liked and accepted.’
My 30-year-old self is whispering, ‘Rejection is going to follow you all the days of your life.’
My 37-year-old self is whispering, ‘You’ve been set free. Trust God. Please him–his voice is all that matters. ‘
My current-year-old self is whispering, ‘This is stinking hard, I don’t know how to do this, I am too weak to live free.’
Which brings me to today–staring down my fears that social media is stirring:
To my twelve-year-old self I say: ‘Sweet thing, you need to forgive those girls who rejected you and abandoned your friendship because of a lie told about you. You know the truth. Jesus knows the truth and you are justified through him. Not every girl or woman is going to be like that crowd of friends.
To my 20-year-old self I say: ‘You can try to please everyone, but you will lose yourself along the way and losing yourself to people makes it really hard to lose yourself in God.’
To my 30-year-old self I say: ‘Rejection is a part of life, but it doesn’t have to define you or control you.’
To my 37-year-old self I say: ‘The brokenness and pain was worth the freedom!’
To my current-year-old self I say: ‘The Holy Spirit will give you power to live, only do not be afraid. Look to your God and listen to him. Listen for him and trust him to light the way for the next step. Be faithful and consistent in what he has given you to do.’
God is showing me how to live in the freedom that being the apple of his eye brings. It’s not without trepidation but I am trusting him to hold me close to his heart. Maybe you have voices in your head too–the kind that are tied to events in your past that affect how you make decisions in your present relationships.
Do you have fears that you wrestle with in your relationships, online or in real life? How are you overcoming them?
Beauty and the Beast. I love this story. I even loved the Disney version. (If you get a chance, though, look up the story in a book of fairy tales–beautiful). I use to know the music. I use to sing along to the track in my ’76 Thunderbird, pretending to be Belle as she finds understanding and her destiny in the most unlikely of places: the castle of a beast.
When I look into a mirror, I don’t see beauty, I see a beast. I see the woman who has a sharp tongue oftener than a gentle one. I see a woman who is prone to impatience. I see a woman who distractedly listens to her people while trying to read an article or book or facebook post. I see a woman with freckles that make her face look dirty, especially in the summer, when she fails to use sunscreen. I see a woman who could stand to exercise more and eat less. I see a woman who failed at loving someone well. I see a woman who was quick to judge and slow to love. I see a woman struggling to love her neighbor.
I know that Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves. But let me ask this: How can I love my neighbor when I can’t stand myself? Why am I surprised when I struggle to accept my neighbor as they are when I cannot accept myself?
Do I try harder? Do I think positive thoughts? Do I re-imagine myself into a new being? Do I come up with a three-point plan to be executed to the best of my ability? Do I beat my breast and condemn myself in the hopes that that will produce more love for others?
Could this be approaching the problem backward? Love People, be kind to ourselves, love God. Or sometimes we try this approach: Work at loving God more so I can love people better. There is nothing inherently wrong with this statement. It’s a good and beautiful statement. But when we have to ‘work’ at loving God? But when we hate ourselves? When we despise ourselves? How does this fulfill the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself?
I find this truth: My ability to love is directly related to my ability to know how deeply I am loved.
Loving others cannot be something that is a task I check off my list. The harder I try to love others, the harder it seems. But? What if I started believing the immense truth of how much I am loved by God.
1 John 4:19 ‘We love because he first loved us.’
Love is impossible without recognizing this truth. We don’t love God because we are commanded to love God. We love God because he first loved us and because of that first arrow of love to our hearts we are enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to love God with all our hearts, souls, mind, and body.
My ability to love others is tied directly to my ability to receive the TRUTH of God’s love for me. You see, when I reject myself, which is what I do when I condemn myself for my failures and my imperfections, I am rejecting the love of God for me and in me. I am setting myself up as judge and jury in my life and determining me guilty.
If we press further, we see that the judge has set us free through his son. Not to live and do as we please, but only to live and do as he pleases. And that, my friend, is receiving the love he has for you and me and then allowing that love to flow genuinely through us to others.
Sometimes we have to start small.
Sometimes we have to tentatively step out in faith and say–‘God, I love you because you first loved me. I am going to ruminate on 1 John 4:19 that says that I love because you first loved me. Any love I have for another person has to flow out of that truth.’
And then, I pray that we hear these words of God sung over us:
‘You belong to me, you belong to me, you’re mine through and through. You belong to me, my Child.’
It’s in my ‘beastliness’ that I reach for and receive God’s grace of his love for me as it flows over and through me. I find my destiny in the truth of God’s love for me.
It’s one of those emotions that I try to avoid at all costs. Desperation reeks of humiliation. If I’m desperate for something then I have to embrace/admit the truth that I don’t know everything. I have to accept the fact that I cannot do something on my own. Hmm….shouldn’t I already know this? I like to be good at what I’m good at and leave it at that. But it’s those times when I try something new and have a good experience, which in turn reveals that all of a sudden I am in over my head and I want to back pedal and I find that there is no way back, but only the way through. It’s times like these that I am desperate.
Desperate to not look like the fool. Desperate to impress. Desperate that I won’t. Desperate to not fail. Desperate to know the outcome. Desperate.
It’s a state of mind and heart I try to avoid.
But…..
What if?
What if I have it all wrong? What if desperation is actually a good thing?
What if desperation positions my heart to receive the power of Christ in my life?
Multiple times this week the Lord has brought the story of ‘a dead girl and a sick woman’ to mind. It is found in three out of the four gospels. Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-42, and Luke 8:40-55 if you would like to read it.
These passages showcase two very different people. We have the woman–‘unclean’, isolated, bereft of physical touch, broke, bearing the burden to announce her uncleanness wherever she went to protect the integrity of other’s cleanness. Then we have the man–synagogue ruler, wealthy, respected, keeper of the rules, and well-known.
Two different people from two very different walks of life yet they shared a desperation. Each was desperate for Jesus.
In their desperation they received. They received life from Jesus.
Sustaining life.
Physical life.
Emotional life.
Spiritual life.
Could it be that what matters most in Kingdom Economy is desperation, not position or lack thereof, but a desperation for God himself?
This is desperation that we should never be ashamed of. This should be desperation that we cultivate. This desperation is life-giving desperation. Desperation for God himself.
I am desperate. I am desperate for God to come into my circumstance. God is attracted to a humble heart and if my heart is desperate then I come to him in humility, eyes open waiting to see him move, arms open to receive whatever he wants me to receive, and finally to have my desperation met.
