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

Love in the Little Things...

As I shared at the end of last month, God has been speaking Psalm 46:10 to my heart for quite some time now. And my focus has been on the "Cease striving" part of that verse. Recently, He very pointedly directed my attention to the second part of that statement: "Cease striving AND KNOW..."

To be known in the sense of the Bible often implies an intimacy in relationship, a type of knowing that implies vulnerability and transparency ... it is more than an academic understanding. I have come to realize that I have walked with the Lord for over thirty years, yet I have kept Him in the box of my limited understanding, for the most part. There are wounded places in my soul that have kept walls around some parts of my heart, limiting my ability to trust and rest in Him. It's been easier to know Him as the helper in my plans, with me being careful to maintain enough control of those endeavors to keep me feeling comfortable. 

So I have begun praying for God to touch those wounded places and make them whole again. And I have asked God to help me to truly know Him in the deepest sense of relationship. 

Last week, after praying that way for a couple days, I woke with a tune running through my mind, catchy and familiar, yet I couldn't quite place it. I remembered once being taught that God sings over His kids.

"The Lord your God is with you,

the Mighty Warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you;

in His love He will no longer rebuke you,

but will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17

                                                                                       

Our teacher said if we woke with a song in our heads, we could envision the Holy Spirit singing over us as we slept. That thought has always warmed my heart. 

I headed off to work, still pondering. I felt nudged in my spirit to turn on the radio. So I tuned to my favorite Christian Station, The Bridge. 

I'll bet my song is going to play! I thought. 

The first song I heard was Forgiveness, by Matthew Ward.

I was stunned as I let the lyrics soak in. It's not that I haven't heard the song before, but this time, I listened like it was God speaking directly to me. It was almost verbatim what my last Bible study lesson had taught, and God had indeed shown me some people I needed to forgive.

The next song I heard was my song, the one the Spirit had been singing over me as I slept, the one I'd been humming since I'd climbed out of bed. It was Greater, by Mercy Me.




Another recent Bible study had taught on the importance of speaking life and not death, the importance of breaking words of death which had been spoken over you in your life, or even those words of death you might have spoken over yourself ... like what a failure you are ... words of rejection ... words of self-hatred, etc. I'd agreed with God that I had some work to do in this area, as well. 

And now my heavenly Father, the Creator of the universe, was sending me specific words of encouragement to help me succeed! 

That's love! Love in the big things. Love in the little things, like the song that stayed with me all day long. 

He longs to love us. Just ask Him!

Pins and Needles ... and the Waiting Thing

To say our family has been waiting, sometimes on pins and needles, for close to a month, is putting it lightly. 

On May 23^rd, our son and his sweet wife had their first child, a sweet baby boy. When time permits, she plans to share their story on this blog.

For now, let’s suffice it to say that we never once anticipated or expected the unthinkable. Our grandson arrived without incident, all 7 pounds and 14 ounces of him; and within an hour of his birth, we almost lost him. We will be forever grateful to the Lord for His miracle touch, and for working through the incredible NICU staff at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe, LA, to give us back our sweet boy.

Yesterday, our son celebrated his very first Father’s Day! What a blessing!

Our daughter and her husband are also ready to welcome their second child, a little girl, into this world. To say that they have been ready since her cousin was born is an understatement. Her actual due date is today, but the doctor has said, for the past three weeks, that he didn’t expect her to last another week before delivery. She certainly looks like she can’t last another day. We all thought a Father’s Day appearance would be perfect! And yet, Father’s Day has come and gone, and we are still waiting …

Expectantly …   

… on pins and needles.

God has spoken to my heart much about waiting over the past year. I’ve discovered that there is a difference between waiting and waiting well. I wait well ONLY when I am trusting in Him completely, when I am totally surrendered to Him, His plan, His purpose, His timing, free of any expectations of my own, except those founded in His character and His promises.

At other times, when I’m waiting with strong opinions of my own as to how something should happen, or when it should happen, that is when I merely wait … on pins and needles.

Oh how I’d love to say that I’ve mastered this waiting thing. But the truth of the matter is this: If I’d really mastered the waiting thing, there would be no pins or needles to it. There would be only peace. I would wait well every time, resting completely in my Father’s plan, His touch, His care … His ability to work all things together for good in my life.

Romans 8:28 says this: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

I love God, and I am called according to His purpose, so I stand on His promise to work all things together for good to me. There have been many a time in my life that I have stood on this promise in perfect peace, in the face of difficult trials; I have walked through those places feeling His strength carrying me through. At those times in my life, when all is beyond my grasp, beyond my poor attempts to fix or control, those are the times I seem to hunker down and wait well. I have no other choice. And I have learned to praise Him for those times! Our vigil for our grandson a few weeks ago was such a time. He poured out His grace and mercy on each one of us as we waited, and we waited in victorious fashion. His testimony at these times is exceptionally powerful!

But what about the times I don’t wait well? What about the times when I wait on pins and needles, every other breath a battle to stifle my own opinions and desires and to rest in His goodness, trust in His mercy, in His plans, as I wait on Him to move … in a heart, in my life, in answer to a prayer, in any given circumstance …

What about then?

Is His testimony any less powerful?

Is His promise any less true?

To His great glory and to my great relief, and to the testimony of His unending mercy, His working of all things together for good in my life isn’t completely dependent on me. It is more dependent on His character and His inability to be unfaithful to Himself, except for times when I choose to walk contrary to His calling. If I choose to sin, God is not bound to keep a promise to me. But as soon as I repent and turn back to Him in love, He is still willing to work even my mistakes towards His good purpose in my life. I have seen Him do it.  

So, yes, even if I am not waiting well, His promise is still true; He can still work all things together for good to me, for I still love Him, and in the midst of the battle between my desire and His, I am still called according to His purpose.

But my testimony for Him suffers when I don’t wait well, because the peace is missing. His peace that He died to give me. His peace that passes all understanding. The thing that others would see, that would draw them unto Him. It is dimmed, hidden behind my impatient flesh.

Philippians 4:6-7 says: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

My pins and needles are a form of anxiety; therefore, when I’m waiting on God, but not waiting well, I do not have the peace that passes understanding. I look like every other impatient person in the world. I still have the promise of God available to me, that He will work everything to my good, but no one but me knows it!

How much better it is when I can surrender my expectations, my will, my opinions, my demands to a good and loving Father, for He longs only to bless me. I am a work in progress, and I’m happy to say that I “wait well” more often than I used to, not just after I have exhausted all my other options first and have no other choice; but how I long for a time when it is a rarity that I feel that pins and needles feeling as I wait.

James 1:2-7 NASB, instructs us:

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord.” 

I'll end with this. It was either the first or second day that our grandson was in the NICU. Wayne and I had stopped by our hotel to get something before heading back to the hospital. I glanced up at the sky, and I saw this:

To the bottom left of that upper cloud formation, I clearly saw what looked to me like the imprint of a hand. It brought great peace to my heart, because as I stared at it, I felt the whisper of God's love, like He was impressing upon my spirit that my life and the lives of my loved ones are in His care. He has us covered. His hands of blessing, protection, and prayer are outstretched toward us. 

May you know that truth in your spirit. May we each know it. And may it strengthen us to walk through our trials with confidence, to wait well, as we trust Him.