I Don't Like the Way You are Treating my Daughter

“I don’t like the way you are treating my daughter.” This is what God told me at a two-day church retreat called Kairos, which means “an appointed time with God.” I knew that He was talking about me and how I was treating myself. I am too hard on myself. Way too hard. This often carries over onto other people, especially in my marriage. A few days prior to this I wrote this in my journal:

God just showed me that I still hate myself. I don’t, but I know that He is right. I am constantly irritated or depressed or overwhelmed or angry or hurt. How have I gone on for so long? I need to get set free to BE myself. But who am I?

I am a creative, contemplative free-spirited girl. I absolutely love having fun and laughing. Something inside of me likes the person that I am. Its not true that I am always irritated or depressed, but I feel like something isn’t right inside of me and it has been like that for a long time. As I look back over my past journal entries, I see a common theme: pain, melancholy, doubt and fear. I can’t pin point when all this started. Then the lines I wrote occurred to me:

My heart feels like

Scattered pieces

My mind feels like

A thunderstorm.

This world is fallen

Broken bodies

Fix me, Jesus

Take me home.

We live in a fallen world of pain and death. Life is hard, but we have eternity buried deep with in us which makes us yearn for more. Surrender what you have, everything you can see for what you can’t see. Give it all away, all of the hurt and pain inside of you.

“So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” (2. Cor. 4:18, NLT)

Don’t you just love God’s Word! It is my Rock and my Sanity in this fallen world. I just can not get enough of it! Not only everything that I see now, but those feelings of hurt, pain, fear, doubt, anxiety, depression and insecurity will soon be gone! Hallelujah!

Lord, let my eyes be fixed upon you so that I can endure until this fallen world has passed away and everything in it. FIX ME JESUS, TAKE ME HOME!

What is Real?

We have all heard the phrase raw emotion, but what is real emotion? Is it the same? Is it an impossibility—an oxymoron—a paradox? I argue that we embrace the idea of a paradox. Afterall, God Himself is a paradox. Real emotion is real. What is real is what has happened as evidenced by physical, emotional or mental witnesses. It is not what is wrong or right, but what is real. Though they may be wrong, they can still be real and deserve to be acknowledged. So I have been journaling about it and googling about the idea of things real and came across this quote from The Velveteen Rabbit:

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Being real is messy. It takes a long time, because what is real isn't just a simple answer. Being real is about having real emotions. We are alive because we can feel and we feel because we are alive.

What's more is that Jesus said that He came to heal the broken hearted. He didn't come to tell us that we shouldn't be broken hearted, but to heal us. God cares about our emotions. He created them. And expressing our emotions in a constructive way creates room for God to heal us.

All of this may be prompting a book, so please, share your insights and ideas!

House of Cards

I have a confession. I am an expert at appearing and not being. Just like Machiavelli's The Prince, I have perfected the art of seeming and not being. I am a house of cards, that may look pretty, but comes crashing down at the first sign of trouble. I did not come to be this way by accident. In grade school I wanted to appear smart, yet cool, so I would purposely get things wrong on my tests and school work so that I wouldn't get made fun of for being smart and getting 100's. How sad. How very sad that insecurity had its grips on me so early. Fast forward to modeling. Oh, if ever there was a career that destroyed the inner woman at the expense of the way she looks it is modeling. I loved modeling, but I hated what I let it do to me. That's right. I was not a victim. I chose to become a professional model and listen to what the world said I should look like. This all reminds me of a poem I wrote and the importance of who we are rather than what we appear. Enjoy.

Be

We are like squirming children

darting our attention to whatever sparkles or moves

Be still my child and know that I am God

We fill our days with emptiness—

that all consuming void which violates our souls

Be still my child and know that I am God

We do busy

We do stress

We do not rest

The human-doing is not

being

feeling

breathing

Be still my child and know that I am God

The truth is out

But do we care?

The verdict is guilty—

We are lost, but if we would only stop

we would be there

we would find the way—

Be still my child and know that I am God

I close my eyes—

I breathe

I love

I feel

I am—

Are you?

"True Things" by JJ Heller

These song lyrics are amazing. We constantly, me above all, try to find our identity outside of who God says we are. Lord, help our unbelief. Let the truth of these words wash over your insecurity and self-doubt. We are wonderfully and fearfully made. God is so good!

I’m not the clothes I’m wearing
I’m not a photograph
I’m not the car I drive

I’m not the money I make
I’m not the things I lack
I’m not the songs that I write

I am … who I am
I am who I am

There are true things inside of me
I have been afraid to see
I believe, help my unbelief
Would you say again what you said to me
I am loved and I am free
I believe, help my unbelief

I’m not the house I live in
I’m not the man I love
I’m not the mistakes that I carry

I’m not the food that I don’t eat
I’m not what I’m above
I’m not my scars and my history

There are true things inside of me
I have been afraid to see
I believe, help my unbelief
Would you say again what you said to me
I am loved and I am free
I believe, help my unbelief

To your love I’m waking up
In your love I’m waking up

Free to Be Me?

So I wish that I was one of those clever writers who wrote effortlessly in their blogs, profound truths and revelation. Oh well, for the time being it is going to have to be my insecurities and off the wall thoughts.

Its Saturday and I am claiming this day to enjoy to be me. So what if I don't look like someone else, act like someone else or write like someone else?! I am trying to love me as God made me. Last night I had a major meltdown and identity crisis. Let the truth be told, I was questioning my very salvation because I find myself having a hard time accepting God's grace with out trying to earn it. I am reading (several books, one of which is) Free to Be Me by Betty Robinson in which she writes about her life growing from fear to freedom. She too questioned her salvation because she had trouble enjoying a personal and intimate relationship with God. I share this with you because I have a hunch that I am not the only one who struggles to enjoy themselves as God made them. We are usually too hard on our selves and I think that is precisely what I have been doing the past few days. I have just been in a funk. :( Phooey. Anyways, I now have peace about my salvation, but I often get sick of God taking me the long way through everything. Like Joyce Meyers and the Israelites, I too end up going around the same stupid mountain over and over whining in the desert: What is taking so long?!?! Is it possible to be given a mature dose of patience with out actually growing in it the hard way? I will let you know if I figure it out. Until then, I came to the frustrating truth that I am stubborn and pig-headed and nothing comes easy to types like me. In other words, I am just going to have to trust as God sorts me out.

It is never a dull moment in my mind.