Wow. This summer has been amazing. I love walking out my life with Yahweh because I am never the same person from month to month. I love growing and changing and being more of who He made me to be before the beginning of time.
I am a vastly different person leaving this summer than I was when it began. I walk in new revelations, I live in a new place, and I have stood on foreign soil.
The most amazing thing about this summer, I would say, is that Yahweh has taught me some things about life, about Him, and about me. I have learned to trust Him more, to believe that whatever I experience in life is in His power. No, He will not cause bad things to happen or even allow bad things to happen as if that is His desire all along. Yet, in His sovereignty, He can redeem all of the things that happen to me and make them good. He has made me good. Sovereignty is amazing because somehow, some unfathomable way, He made justice and mercy one again. He fixed everything.
I have learned that I am not broken; not a terrible person or a waste of space. I am not something that needs to be fixed, improved upon, or put back together again. I was, but I am not anymore, for Yahweh has made me whole. He has given me life and revelation of that life so that I can actually walk in it instead of only hoping for it. He has shown me that He loves me and, though I am not perfect, all I have to do to grow is let Him work in me. I don't have to strive or make things happen. Again, all I have to do is trust Him.
I have learned about the immutability of Yahweh. He will never change, His Word will never change, His will toward me will never change. I cannot break His Kingdom or make Him stop loving me any more than I can fix myself or make myself holy.
And then, He gave me a house. It's a little house, cute and perfect for me and my dog. The rent is less than it was in my apartment, and the house has so many beautiful windows. I don't have horribly loud neighbors playing the bass at all hours of the night or smoking illicit substances downstairs. My windows are open to see Yahweh's beautiful nature that He created. My yard is large and green and my landlord mows it for me. And Yahweh gave it to me to live in. Tired of apartments, I searched for a house online and none of them were in my budget range; it was not even doable to be able to live in a house on my own. Just when I began to give up, my coworker offers me this house to live in. He gave it to me, I did not have to seek it out.
And then I went to London. I've read so much about it, I know so much of English history, and to see the places I've always read about, paintings I've seen online that I'd never seen in person. To stand on foundations that were thousands of years old and touch soil that was not the land I was born in. It was amazing and it was marvelous. And I couldn't have ever afforded it without Yahweh. He gave me this, too. And then He used it to teach me some things about people, about being in a family and loving people no matter what happens and knowing that they will always love you, too.
Finally, I got a new car. It is used, but new to me. It had less than 17,000 miles on it and it is less than a year old. It is exactly what I've dreamed of in a car since I rented one in 2011. It has all the latest technological capabilities and everything I wanted. Again, I could never have afforded it without Yahweh. The car retails used for $2,000-$3,000 more than I could pay, and my trade-in was damaged. Still, I was diligent and I believed that He would give me the car He had for me. I did research and test-driving for two months, and then I felt a peace, like my car was out there. One day, I'm looking up cars on the Internet and I find it. The exact car I want with everything I wanted on it for an exactly affordable price. It was only $200 above wholesale value and I drove 3 hours to get it. Driving home in my new silver car was the sweetest experience. Again, Yahweh gave it to me. While I was faithful in my part of research, I did not seek out or jump at bad offers that were "almost right." I waited for Him to give me the right car, and when I found it, I knew.
It has been a beautiful summer, and my visions of the future are bright and beautiful. I am being called on to operate in some of the graces Yahweh has placed in me in new ways next year. I get to pour into the lives of many children that I love. I finally get to feel like I know what I'm doing. And I will walk into this next school year a different person than I left the last one. More confident, more steady, more me.
It is the year of shining brightly and it is time, once again, to bring Yahweh's glory into the Earth in new ways, expanding His Kingdom one step at a time. I am Faithful and He is perfectly faithful. And as I cross this threshold into the new school year, I do so in faith and confidence because I am graced for this. I am not broken. I am capable of all things in Yahweh.
It is such an amazing thing to be at peace with my God and myself.
Thank You, Yahweh!
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
You Are Not Broken
I'm writing this post, being real, in hopes that it will help someone else who has gone through similar things to what I've been through. I know many women, and probably men, too, go through these kinds of things. For absolutely no explainable reason, and through no fault of our own, we hate ourselves.
I don't know what it is about us that makes us downplay our strengths and highlight our faults in our own minds, but it is all too easy to do. Even when there's no specific fault in view, often there is a general discontent with who we are as people. Then, there are the actual flaws that are inherent in being human. Heaven forbid I actually make a mistake on the job or someone next door does something better than me! I just must be too terrible of a person. Somehow, I failed. I didn't try hard enough, I was too lazy to bother, I just can't do it as well. It would probably be easier if I just didn't exist. After all, I take more from the world than I give to it.
It doesn't even really help to know that the person next door who does such a good job at what I cannot do is feeling the exact same way I am for equally ridiculous reasons.
I have to believe that this is all part of the fall, a ploy of the enemy to keep us from returning to Yahweh, who really, really, really wants us back. I mean, He wants us back so much that He was willing to cut Himself off from His own perfect Son and sacrifice Him on a cross, gruesomely, to get us back. But He can't make us come back to Him, and if we are so sure we're not worthy of it, we may never come. Clever enemy. He can't stop Yahweh from loving us, so he decided to do the next best thing and stop us from loving ourselves.
And this self-loathing is not based in reality, so it cannot be reasoned away. That bad day on the job? Yes, realistically it was one bad day in which I was simply tired and so were the kids and so I lost my temper. Still, I must be the worst teacher in the world, right? I mean, who yells at children? Or maybe I just might make a mistake later today... Perhaps I, even with the best of intentions, might unintentionally sin, or even give into temptation and intentionally do something I know to be wrong. The fear of messing up in the future is just as hampering as the regret over having messed up in the past, and just as unwarranted, for it denies the power of Yahweh to redeem and fix any mistakes that I might make. As if the power I have to mess up is greater than Yahweh's power of redemption. My heart is pure. I desire to please Yahweh. He is big enough to ensure that I do.
So if self-deprecation can't be reasoned away, can't be argued away, what can we do? We could, perhaps, strive really hard and work our tails off to be better than that teacher or neighbor next door or become super saintly and do a lot of really good deeds and avoid doing bad things? Except that self-confidence based on what I do only lasts as long as that good deed. It's impossible to stay on top forever when striving in our own efforts. We just don't have enough energy to be the best all the time. If we did, we wouldn't need Holy Spirit and the power of Yahweh to save us.
So if we can't reason away self-loathing, and if we can't be good enough to outdistance it, then what? The answer is simple. Our self-worth must not be based on something as arbitrary as feelings or as changing as our own actions or comparisons to others. It must be based on something that is constant, steady, unchanging. It must be based on Yahweh Himself. On His unchanging Word.
And do you know what the most amazing thing is? His Word is that we are not broken. We are not bad. There is nothing wrong with us. He has redeemed us. All we have to do is let Him, is believe this truth. No matter what we've done or thought or not done enough, no matter what we might do tomorrow or fail to do the next day, we are not broken. We are loved. This will not change, and as long as we allow Yahweh to operate in our lives, we can never be broken. We can never be less-than. And we can allow ourselves to accept the one thing we've always desired all of our lives, the Love of Yahweh. We can come home.
So think about that. Make the enemy's day horrible and love yourself, for Yahweh loves you. He accepts you. You are not broken.
I don't know what it is about us that makes us downplay our strengths and highlight our faults in our own minds, but it is all too easy to do. Even when there's no specific fault in view, often there is a general discontent with who we are as people. Then, there are the actual flaws that are inherent in being human. Heaven forbid I actually make a mistake on the job or someone next door does something better than me! I just must be too terrible of a person. Somehow, I failed. I didn't try hard enough, I was too lazy to bother, I just can't do it as well. It would probably be easier if I just didn't exist. After all, I take more from the world than I give to it.
It doesn't even really help to know that the person next door who does such a good job at what I cannot do is feeling the exact same way I am for equally ridiculous reasons.
I have to believe that this is all part of the fall, a ploy of the enemy to keep us from returning to Yahweh, who really, really, really wants us back. I mean, He wants us back so much that He was willing to cut Himself off from His own perfect Son and sacrifice Him on a cross, gruesomely, to get us back. But He can't make us come back to Him, and if we are so sure we're not worthy of it, we may never come. Clever enemy. He can't stop Yahweh from loving us, so he decided to do the next best thing and stop us from loving ourselves.
And this self-loathing is not based in reality, so it cannot be reasoned away. That bad day on the job? Yes, realistically it was one bad day in which I was simply tired and so were the kids and so I lost my temper. Still, I must be the worst teacher in the world, right? I mean, who yells at children? Or maybe I just might make a mistake later today... Perhaps I, even with the best of intentions, might unintentionally sin, or even give into temptation and intentionally do something I know to be wrong. The fear of messing up in the future is just as hampering as the regret over having messed up in the past, and just as unwarranted, for it denies the power of Yahweh to redeem and fix any mistakes that I might make. As if the power I have to mess up is greater than Yahweh's power of redemption. My heart is pure. I desire to please Yahweh. He is big enough to ensure that I do.
So if self-deprecation can't be reasoned away, can't be argued away, what can we do? We could, perhaps, strive really hard and work our tails off to be better than that teacher or neighbor next door or become super saintly and do a lot of really good deeds and avoid doing bad things? Except that self-confidence based on what I do only lasts as long as that good deed. It's impossible to stay on top forever when striving in our own efforts. We just don't have enough energy to be the best all the time. If we did, we wouldn't need Holy Spirit and the power of Yahweh to save us.
So if we can't reason away self-loathing, and if we can't be good enough to outdistance it, then what? The answer is simple. Our self-worth must not be based on something as arbitrary as feelings or as changing as our own actions or comparisons to others. It must be based on something that is constant, steady, unchanging. It must be based on Yahweh Himself. On His unchanging Word.
And do you know what the most amazing thing is? His Word is that we are not broken. We are not bad. There is nothing wrong with us. He has redeemed us. All we have to do is let Him, is believe this truth. No matter what we've done or thought or not done enough, no matter what we might do tomorrow or fail to do the next day, we are not broken. We are loved. This will not change, and as long as we allow Yahweh to operate in our lives, we can never be broken. We can never be less-than. And we can allow ourselves to accept the one thing we've always desired all of our lives, the Love of Yahweh. We can come home.
So think about that. Make the enemy's day horrible and love yourself, for Yahweh loves you. He accepts you. You are not broken.
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