The Face in the Mirror

Do you like who you see in the mirror? Sadly, I can honestly say that I used to hate the person who stared back at me from that reflection. I am fifty-five years old, and up until a few days ago, I didn't have much positive to say about the person I saw in my mirror every morning. I can trace the origin of my insecurity as far back as elementary school ... that feeling of not being sure of myself and how I fit into the world. 

I became a master of deception. There aren't many who knew how I truly felt about myself. I allowed a few precious people to slip past the cracks in my facade, but all except the most perceptive probably had no idea how I really felt about me. For years, I was even able to convince myself that I was just fine. I mean, it's just natural to struggle with self-esteem, right?  

I can still recall in vivid detail the first time serious rejection rocked my world. I was stunned, blind-sided, never saw it coming. That person was a safe place ... or at least that person had been a safe place, my protector, my champion. The hateful words that shattered my naivete' rattled around in my mind for years; they still attempt to rise from the ashes of my past at times.  

I felt impenetrable walls instantly rise around my heart. NO ONE will ever hurt me that way again. No way! The only person I can safely trust in this world is me. Self-protection. That too is only natural. And for years that's how I lived my life. 

The downside is that even I (the one who would have the most vested interest in doing a good job) did a lousy job of protecting myself. Countless poor choices, one after the other, chipping away at my sense of security, my sense of identity, my sense of self. Each time I deemed it safe to let down the walls a bit, safe to let this one or that one have access to my heart, I would again be disappointed by the reality of human nature. Another hole in my heart. And a bigger one in my head!

Eventually this truth prevailed: the only way to avoid rejection is to reject them before they can reject me. Oh, I might not actually reject them outright, but I lived armed and dangerous. Always on the defensive. At the first hint of negativity, my weapons were at the ready. I had a quiver full of various arrows: criticism, judgment, self-righteousness, resentment, sarcasm, the cold shoulder, the silent treatment, bitterness, unforgiveness ... just to name a few. 

You can't hurt me if I hurt you first, right? 

Wow! How in the world did I have any friends at all? you might be wondering. 

That's the saddest part. 

Every single one of these methods of self-protection can be employed by Christians and non-Christians alike. They are equal-opportunity solutions. They can be delivered in mean and hateful ways, OR they can be hammered home in sweetness. 

If you are feeling self-righteous (aka: self-deceptive, and sanctimonious) it might sound like this: "Oh, I just hate to feel this way. We really need to pray for so-and-so. Do you know what they did to me?" 

If you are just sincerely struggling, it can go like so: "Please pray for me. I am having a terrible struggle. I need to come to a place of forgiveness for..."

Sometimes the intent is to harm. Sometimes the motive is pure: Please, God, I just want to stop the pain and keep from being harmed anymore. 

No matter why or how, we should be clear on this fact: Harboring these kinds of thoughts and feelings is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die. (I have no idea who should get credit for this quote, but it fits too perfectly not to use it here. I Googled to find out who originally said it, and this is what I found: click here.) 

The honest truth of the matter is this: If we insist on protecting ourselves, if we wall off our hearts to avoid being hurt, if we reject others before they can reject us, eventually we will reject ourselves. We will grow to hate the person we see in the mirror every morning. And that's no way to live. 

How do I know? I lived it. 

You see, I gave my heart and my life to Jesus Christ when I was twenty-five years old. He has been my Savior since the day I prayed and asked Him; my eternity in heaven has been secure. I am saved, but I haven't been truly free. 

I haven't trusted God to protect my heart. I've remained staunchly in control of my life and who could or couldn't get close enough to cause me hurt. That's not to say there has never been pain. As I said above, I haven't always done such a good job of protecting myself.

Jesus has been my Savior, but He was Lord only in select areas. For the thirty years I've walked with Him, I really saw little problem with that. But I had a lot of questions. Why does this or that keep happening to me, Lord? Why can't I find the victory?

And as the years have passed, the Holy Spirit has faithfully helped me, little by little, to pry my fingers off the steering wheel of my life, and He plucked the last one away a couple days ago. 

Over the past ten weeks, I've been part of a Bible study called Freedom, and it culminated in a retreat this past weekend. At that retreat, so many things happened. One of the most significant for me was a newfound freedom; and that freedom came through surrender. I will no longer insist on protecting myself; I will trust God to protect me. I will no longer insist on staying in control; I will yield myself to the Holy Spirit and let Him lead me.

If you have seen yourself in anything I shared above, you might want to pray a prayer similar to the one I was led to pray:

Dear Father, 

I confess that I have not allowed You to be Lord of my life. I have tried to control people and things. Please forgive me. I have allowed a spirit of rejection to permeate my relationships with others, and I have even rejected myself. Forgive me. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am created in Your image. If I reject me, I reject You. I will no longer give that spirit of rejection access to my mind or my heart. I tell you, rejection, that you must go; you no longer have any legal right in my life. Fill me, Holy Spirit, with Your love, with Your life, with Your truth. Use me to carry that love and truth to others. 

Amen

I was Running Low on Ammo when I got to Church ...

Well...

Confession is good for the soul, right?

So I confess that I knew that title would grab your attention!

And, yes. Yes! Confession is good for the soul. It forces us to live honestly. It forces us to live on purpose. It forces us to live our lives like we really mean it. 

Please don't ever let anyone tell you that God doesn't have a sense of humor. I wrote my last post (Should We Stockpile Ammo?) a couple weeks before it actually made its debut; how was I to know that when I re-read it, God would use my very own words to bring conviction to my heart? 

Not funny, God! 

Actually, it did make me laugh. Caught red-handed. 

Let's see ... now where was I? 

Oh, that's right. 

I was running low on ammo when I got to church [click here to read the post :) ], and instead of paying attention to Pastor's message, I was forming a plan of attack on the clutter that is currently holding my home hostage. 

• We are going to clean out that room, deal with the boxes of "stuff" that reside there, reclaim our living space. 
• We are going to clean out our closets.
• We are going to clean the kitchen cupboards out. 

The din of my racing thoughts was deafening. 

But eventually the Spirit of God began to penetrate the clamor, and my spirit responded to His ministrations. Maybe it was the worship music. Maybe it was the Spirit calming the savage beast of perfection that raged within. Maybe it was just my Father in His great mercy, reaching out His hand to steady me.  

Let's see. What had I written in that earlier post? 

The more of His word that we have hidden in our arsenal ... in our hearts ... the more weapons we have available to us to address whatever assault the enemy has cooked up to turn our life upside down. 

Just whose words had I been listening to that morning? 

You are a failure. 
You are inadequate. 
You mess up everything. 

Oh, yes ... those would be the words of the enemy. The words of a liar bent on stealing my peace, bent on destroying my true identity as a daughter of the King, and determined to kill my joy. 

Whenever I am unsettled, I have noticed an unhealthy pattern. Instead of sitting with God and asking Him what He wants me to learn in the midst of my unrest, I want to DO SOMETHING! By getting busy "doing," it seems I feel convinced that I have worth, promise, and potential. So my natural tendency is to get Bound Under Satan's Yoke, performing to prove something, rather than recalling the truth of God's word that tells me who I am in Him. If I would simply speak that truth to myself, it would expose the lie and bring instant peace. 

In the spirit of confession, Thanksgiving Day was a two-week celebration in our family this year. Nothing at all wrong with that; we ought to be giving thanks every day, right? No, the confession is in the reality that when we are caught up in having company and pulled from our usual routine, I often don't make the time I need to for God in my life. 

Right about here is where there needs to be a warning label. (The genius of this photo will be lost on those too young to remember the television show Lost in Space, but I couldn't resist.)

In busy times like these, I acknowledge Him, but I'm not sitting in His presence the way I need to be in order to stockpile ammo, to keep myself steeped in His words of life. I find that I'm often trying to live on yesterday's manna. 

Living on yesterday's manna is never a good thing. People are like tires with a nail in them; or like helium balloons several days past their prime. The truth of the matter is that we leak. We can take great care to keep ourselves filled with the Holy Spirit, but this is a daily endeavor; if we don't refresh our supply, we will run low on ammo. 

As long as I'm confessing here, I might as well give you the full monty. In all long-term relationships, you know that there will be those days when things just don't seem "right" between you and your loved one. That particular Sunday, my sweet husband and I were dealing with a repetitive struggle, a certain concern that arises every so often between us, especially at times when I allow my spiritual tank to leak. Each time this particular issue surfaces, we share our hearts and our thoughts, but we still seem to come away without full resolution. Things improve each time we tread the pathways of this challenge, but the fact remains that we still have a ways to go. 

Instead of focusing on the positives, the fact that we get closer and closer to full resolution each time we reach this place in our relationship, that Sunday I was full of frustration and self-condemnation. I was irritated at him and at myself. I ended up in church, but I wasn't worshiping my Lord. No, I was steeped in bondage, at least until the Holy Spirit was able to shine some light into the darkness and remind me to use my ammo; to remind me to speak truth to the lie and be freed; to stop the enemy in his lying, cheating tracks.

Hubby and I sorted everything out as the day progressed, and as I prayed and reflected the next day, I told God how very blessed I am to be His daughter and Wayne's wife. In fact, I can say without doubt that my husband is the one of the best things that has ever happened to me. God gently whispered in my ear: 

Tell him, then. And live like you mean it. 

Stop living as if you have a choice; spiritual warfare is not an option in the Christian life. Put your fatigues on and get back in the war. 

By the way, take all your ammo. 

Putting my Money Where my Mouth is...

The name of this blog is Dare to Share. So now I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. I'm going to take a giant leap of faith... 

Let me digress for a minute. You may have noticed the picture up above ... that's me atop a 30+ feet-tall pole, attempting to perch atop a teeny, tiny board ... preparing to take a leap for the bar that's extended in front of me. I may hit that bar, or I might miss it. Either way, those harnesses that they put around my chest and my hips are going to catch me in my fall. I am safe. At least that's what they told me before I climbed that pole...

And they were telling me the truth! But for me to find that out for myself, I had to take the leap and test the harnesses. 

This event took place at the Outdoor Wilderness Learning Center, in Dubach, LA. We celebrated our daughter-in-law's birthday there at the end of October. 

As I reflected on my time atop that pole in the days that followed, God reminded me of what my husband told me the day after the event: "I've never loved you more than I did when I saw you up there on top of that pole." That love wasn't based on externals. It was based on his knowing that I was facing my fears, and that I was willing to learn to trust. God showed me that our faith in Him is just like that. He is crazy about us from the start, but His love is kindled anew when He sees us facing our fears, trusting Him to prove Himself ever faithful to us in each circumstance that comes our way. When we leap forward in faith, He is that harness that will catch us and carry us forward. We might hit the intended mark, or we might fail and have to try again; either way, we are not on our own. He is right by our side, carrying us through. I call it "living in the leap"!

Okay, so I've avoided it long enough. I said I was going to put my money where my mouth was. Here goes: 

When I first wrote Worth Every Tear, I had aspirations of setting the world on fire! I would bring hope to countless families battling with wayward children. While there is nothing wrong with desiring to help others, my motives were not as pure as I imagined. It wasn't just a desire to help, but a desire to prove myself to God, to earn His favor by showing Him what I could do for Him. 

Aren't I grand? Aren't You glad You saved me? 

Yuck!

Ugh!

Sickens me to admit it, and I'm not sure I even recognized it until recently.

But confession is good for the soul, right?

So move onward a few years. What am I doing for God now? It has to be something big right? Well, at least that's the lie I bought into. Part of the challenge of living in this world is not to be of this world, and the world measures success by how important something seems to be, how significant... how big... how expensive... So our Western culture teaches us, anyhow. We are supposed to Think Big! 

I've spent the last couple years wondering What Now? The book is complete. I'm back in the workforce. Homeschooling is a thing of the past. Who am I now? What am I doing for God now? And I wasn't able to come up with anything that seemed good enough, big enough, important enough... 

I believe that's because my focus was still on me and not Him. Earlier this year, He pulled me up short and told me to STOP! He needed to get my attention. I wrote about it several days ago: Are you BUSY too?

In the past four months, God has radically changed the way I perceive many things. He's shown me that I don't have to earn His favor; I already have it. He's shown me that I don't have to make things happen; He's got it all under control. He's shown me that I don't have to understand everything He is up to ... I just need to trust that He is up to good things, especially when I don't understand! 

Recently, a friend posted something on Facebook that has totally reshaped how I view ministry. It is worth reading: Click here. 

What I do for God doesn't have to be a great big thing. No, I can do the smallest thing from a pure heart, and my GREAT BIG God will use it for His glory and for the good of all who are touched by it. 

All that's required of me is to focus on my relationship with Him, spend time getting to know Him better and better. As I learn to hear His still, small voice more and more clearly, in the midst of the chaos of the world, and as I obey without worrying, trusting Him to "catch me if I fall," He will make a difference. I simply need to live ready, and leave the results in His hands. 

So be encouraged today! Your leap of faith may be to smile at the next person you pass in the grocery store. Or it may be to leave a $100 tip to a waitress, as my friend did. Or whatever God whispers to your spirit. Just be ready to obey and leave the results to Him.

Today, He told me to share what He has been teaching me, so I have put my money where my mouth is and "dared to share." The results are up to Him. 

Learning to live in the leap (of faith) is setting me free from performance and perfectionism. There's room on my perch! Join me today!

God bless you! 

Are you BUSY too?

You may have noticed that my blog has been inactive and eerily silent for four months. (But more likely, in life's general chaos, you haven't even missed me ... sometimes I overestimate my own importance!) 

It's almost been like a writer's block, but in truth ... God told me to rest. Not "rest" in the sense of relax, but "rest" in the sense of STOP! 

Psalm 46:10, in many translations, reads: "Be still, and know that I am God..." In the NLT, it reads: "Be silent, and know that I am God!" The Complete Jewish Bible says: "Desist, and learn that I am God..." God's Word translation says, "Let go [of your concerns]! Then you will know that I am God." And the Holman Christian Standard translation says, "Stop [your fighting] - and know that I am God ..."

For most of my three decades of walking with the Lord, I've been busy ... busy filling my life with good things ... busy trying to live as a "good Christian" ought to live ... busy doing everything I could to erase all the negative things that come against folks ~ shame, rejection, fear, humiliation ... busy trying to fight off all the bad stuff in life and to keep my family from having to deal with it in theirs. But the more I fought against it, the more I honed in on it to "take it out" (I won't think those thoughts; I won't lose my temper; I won't eat all those cookies...), the larger it often seemed to loom on my horizon. There's a reason for that; what we focus on becomes the mainstay of our life. 

I recently heard this acronym for the word BUSY:

B - Bound
U - Under
S - Satan's
Y - Yoke


Seems God's been trying hard to get my attention, and it only took thirty years to do it! I've wasted three decades fighting to earn God's favor, when I already have it! The more we plod through life trying to accomplish what God has already done for us, the more bound and imprisoned we become. He doesn't need us to impress Him. He is already crazy about us! So much so that He let His only Son die, so that He could have a relationship with us. And He did that while we were still thumbing our noses at Him! (John 3:16; Romans 5:8)

So if you are tired, feeling bound and hemmed in, if you are wondering just where is that abundant life God promised me? (John 10:10), it might be time for a divine cease and desist order in your life too. 

It's time for all of us, Christians and seekers alike, to stop "doing" and to start resting in what's already been "done" for us. It's time for us to find freedom. It's time for us to exchange Satan's yoke (busyness) for Christ's yoke: 

"Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Dear one, you don't need to earn God's love. You need only to receive it. 

Now that's good news!

Bare Naked Lady

"I'm not sure about the whole courtship thing," my daughter, married now for two years, shared. She went on to explain that she'd not felt ready to handle some of the things she encountered when she first experienced a young man show interest in her. "Maybe if I'd dated a few guys, I'd have known how to handle that situation without freaking out."

Admittedly, her thoughts surprised me.

Over the next few days, as I pondered what she'd shared, I realized that even if I'd allowed or encouraged her to date, she would have still been unprepared, because I couldn't give her what I never had.

I'd done plenty of dating. And it was those experiences that led me to favor the idea of courtship for my own daughters. I'd been unprepared for dating. I assumed that having my kids wait until they were older to begin those opposite-sex encounters would protect them from the stupid mistakes I myself made. By the time I married their father, my heart was bruised and battered. I'd given pieces of my heart to each young man I dated, and I entered marriage with large chunks of it missing.

In fact, after thirty years of marriage, God is still restoring my heart. Some of the major repair work has taken place over the past year.

A little over a year ago, in April of 2013, I attended a women's conference called The Ruach Journey. It was a wonderful experience. Ruach means "the breath of God." I truly did feel the breath of the Holy Spirit in my spirit at that conference. I came back home, ready to change the world.

Here I Am, Lord. Send me! (Isaiah 6:8)

And in my quiet time with the Lord, He gave me my marching orders.

Wait upon Me. (Isaiah 40:31)

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

He was calling me to a time of rest, rest in Him.

My sails quickly deflated. But I've learned to trust my God. So I settled in to obey His mandate to rest and wait. I began to feel that He had me ensconced in a cocoon of sorts; a holy chrysalis, if you will. For the sake of information, I learned that the British dictionary defines chrysalis as: anything in the process of developing. Well, that was me. God clearly had me in a development process. And He wasn't particularly concerned with how long that development might take, or in sharing that news with me.

In November of 2013, I attended Ruach 2. Honestly, I'd grown so comfortable waiting with God that I thought maybe I wasn't ready for Ruach 2, but as I filled out the necessary application to attend, He made it quite clear that I was to go. It was yet another step in my development process.

Over the course of the past year, He used many resources to minister to me. To name a few:

• Various resources from The Father's Business, a ministry by Sylvia and Elizabeth Gunter
• The Ruach Journey, and Ruach Journey 2 
• A Guide for Listening and Inner Healing Prayer: Meeting God in the Broken Places, by Rusty Rustenbach.
• The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown
• Believing God, by Beth Moore

God used these tools and my time with Him, to help me understand that though I'd walked with Him for over three decades, I was still in a very embryonic place in specific areas of my spiritual development. I'd spent many years being who I thought He wanted me to be, who I thought others expected me to be, but I truly had no idea who I was created to be. It is this sense of self that was missing in me. The question never had been whether or not I (or my daughters) should pursue dating or courtship; the question was (and still is): Did I ... Do I know who I am in the Lord? Do I truly know that I am His beloved? That He has chosen me? That I am accepted in Him? That He is able to redeem and forgive me? That His love is all that I truly need, and that love gives me worth and purpose in this world?

As He has enlightened (Ephesians 1:18) me over the past months, I've begun to realize that there are many women just like me "out there." Precious daughters of the King who have no idea who they are in Him. Coming to understand who they are will bring incredible freedom and joy. That's what I hope to accomplish in sharing my journey on this blog. I don't have all the answers. All I have are my two fish and five loaves (John 6:1-15), but I'll share them willingly and let God do the rest.

I've been feeling quite restless the past few days. The desire to reach out has been growing in my heart. But I've been letting fear rob me of my joy, letting it keep me from stepping out into the deep. I've been asking God for more confirmation, more reassurance that this is His call for me. During my quiet time with the Lord, for the past two days, He has prodded me.

Go. Now. I've freed you from the chrysalis. It's time to soar, little butterfly! Go.

So here I am. Soul bared naked before whoever takes the time to read this blog. (I'll bet you were wondering how in the world I was going to tie that title to this post!) And I pray that God will bless you, that anything He asks me to share here will help you along your own journey to freedom, joy, peace, and understanding in Him. Amen!