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?
We can say we believe, but do we? When the way grows rough and the storm looms close do we believe as much as we did when the way was smooth and the skies clear? When it feels like you cannot catch your breath because the waves are crashing with increasing ferocity, do you believe with the same amount of fervor as when the water was as smooth as glass?
This question comes up to haunt me in the night. It hounds me when I am trapped in shame. It challenges my desperation. It ramrods my pride.
Yet, belief was the key to the sick woman and the synagogue ruler. It was their belief that fueled their desperation. It was their belief that prompted their seeking Jesus. Belief fueled their reception of their personal miracle.
Belief.
There were those in the synagogue leader’s and the woman’s life that did not believe that healing could come. Think of the woman: she spent all she had searching for health through the hands of mere men and instead of getting better she grew worse. She was probably written off as a lost cause and there was no one left to believe that she would be restored. Think of Jairus: his daughter was still alive when he fell at Jesus’ feet begging for Jesus to come and heal his daughter, yet, when Jesus finally arrived, Jairus’ daughter was dead. There was no hope because there was no life.
There have been and probably always will be those folks in my life who challenge my belief in my Jesus. There will be those that will tell me to stop bothering Jesus with the request that obviously is dead. I have those kind of latent dreams that I wonder if they will ever happen in this world. But the dreams persist and I hear Jesus tell me, just as he told Jairus: ‘Don’t be afraid, just believe.’
In that statement, Jairus had to choose who he was going to believe. Would he believe his friends and family or would he believe Jesus? Can you imagine the single-mindedness of Jairus as he walked those last, long, short steps to his home? Can you imagine the battle within his heart and what his mind was telling him? His heart is telling him to believe and reverberating through his mind is the news that his daughter is dead. Whose voice will be louder? Jesus or the crowd?
This is the challenge that I face. Will I let Jesus’ voice be louder in my mind and heart or will I let the crowd of doubt and logic drown it?
It wasn’t logical that by just one touch of Jesus’ hem would the woman be healed. It wasn’t logical that a child could be raised from the dead. There is no human logic that could explain or support a healing touch.
But what part of Jesus follows our human logic? I have experienced a peace that makes no sense when I look at the circumstances in my life. I have experienced the courage to take the next step to tear down idols that prevent the people I serve from growing in their worship experience. I have experienced freedom from the approval seeking junkie I once was.
These things are unexplainable outside the power of the touch of Jesus in my life.Will you believe? Will you be desperate? Will you seek out the presence of Jesus in your life? If you can, if you will to, you might experience miracles in your life that defy our human logic as well. And that is a very exciting place to be.
Mirror mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all….
The face looking back at me runs through the litany of comments….
fat
ugly
selfish
prideful
wounded
graceless
blunt
tactless
opinionated
dominating
controlling
manipulative
jealous
this list could grow and continue and morph into whatever you see or hear when you look into the mirror.
Mirror mirror on the wall….you are a liar or maybe I am the one with the warped perceptions of myself.
I have seen the truth of these words in myself, but also within these words I have seen the lies.
The reality is that I can be domineering. I can be controlling. I can be ugly. I am wounded. I have wounded. I can be graceless. I can be blunt.
But the truth is that my wounds can be used for God’s glory. The truth is that when I wound, I can experience the beautiful gift of forgiveness. The truth is when I am domineering I have the opportunity to submit to the control of my holy, loving, gracious God. The truth is that all the parts of who I am–the good, the bad and the ugly– are all a part of me and who am I to reject what I see in the mirror. Rather than rejecting the ‘less than’ part of myself what if I were to offer those parts of me up to Jesus and surrender to whatever he wants to do to turn those weaknesses into a strength.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not giving myself license to be the worst side of me, I am giving myself grace to grow into the best side of me and that side is only found in Jesus Christ. If I am going to grow then I can expect failures. But failures are not a sign that I failed per se, they are an opportunity to grow in a specific tangible way. Only in him can we be our best and if we detect patterns of thought that produce our worst, and we don’t hold them up to him like a child holding up a broken lovey and saying ‘fix?’ then I am not submitting to whatever he wants to do to turn those weaknesses into strengths.
the truth within these words is that there is redemption through Jesus Christ.
Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all….
