To Be Seen

Hello again all, About a week ago, I wrote about SEEing. Funny thing is, I mentioned Steven Curtis Chapman and someone told me that the book by his wife, Choosing to See, was up at the boys' school library!! So I began to read it and am almost done already! This has been an ok week. Sam is gone to Budapest - he left a week ago Saturday morning and is on the plane back home as we speak. He won't actually make it to the house until about 10 tonight. It's 6:45 right now. A theme that I was struggling with about 2 weeks ago is what led me to blog last week on SEEing. It is 'being seen'. I have learned over the past, oh, 6 years, that shame has to be with being seen. Many times, the shame or embarrassment we feel - whether rightly - because we have done something to deserve it - or even more, wrongly - what we feel that stems from the lies we have believed about our own value or worth. That underlying sense that something is not right - and usually the focus is that something is not essentially right with us. So many times, when I am feeling less than or devalued or shameful, I need to stop and follow the feeling back to what I am believing at that point. What lie have I believed about myself? So, bring this idea into my life right now - or at least a week ago. I am starting this small group called The Journey. There are 5 of us who are meeting via Skype to go through a workbook. It is a workbook. We will be walking through a lot of deep stuff. It will require vulnerability and honesty and looking back through our lives to see where we have been wounded - and walk through those times together and find the healing that God offers. There is a lady in my town here that is doing it with me. I have enjoyed the times that I have spent with her before the meetings. But I could tell that SOMETHING was up inside of me because I was self conscious and nervous when I was around her. Hmm. So one morning while everyone was still in bed, I sat down and started journaling about this and other issues. When I journal, I'm really just writing a letter to God, sharing with him what's going on and how I feel. What I think about things, etc. Well, I realized that I see myself as bumbling. Bumbling in that I trip over things and walk heavily and see myself as 'less than'. Also, bumbling in relationships. I see others as competent and capable and 'together' and I see myself as awkward. I don't know what to say. I sound stupid. I don't have anything valuable to add to the conversation, etc. ad infinitum. It's NOTHING the other person has said or done to make me feel this way. I am the issue!! I realize that, so many times when I have difficulties with someone - or they have difficulties with me, it's not that one or the other has really done anything wrong to the other person. So much is our PERCEPTION!! And this is fueled by how we feel and what we think about ourselves. Most of what fuels these feelings and thoughts about myself are the lies that I believed when I was little. So much comes from our 'family of origin'. Most of the time, our families never meant to hurt us. They wanted to protect us and help us. But we were taught the sinful 'coping strategies' that they were taught by their parents and their parents were taught by THEIR parents. It's that 'sins of the parents being passed on to the third and forth generation'. I am always encouraged that I can at least recognize the problem!! That's one of the things that this group does that I am meeting with. We talk about our past and explore it for themes and lies and ways that we have not allowed God into the problem and allowed his healing and restoration. The bottom line is that I need to believe what God says about me. Not all the lies and distortions that I have picked up along the way. I have been taught that I am a 'sinner saved by grace'. But the focus is on the 'sinner' and how I have to clean myself up to be acceptable. But that's not the issue!! I have been saved. The 'sinner' label doesn't apply anymore!! I am a saint. No, I'm not perfect. I still sin. But God says he is PLEASED with me. He 'delights over me with singing'. He 'quiets me with his love'. I so see the image of a father with his children - holding them, accepting them. Loving them. Not looking disapproving or angry or disappointed. I am his child and, as his child, I hold a special place in his heart and his love. Yes, he wants to transform me and make me like him. But not so that I will be acceptable!! So that he can heal me of all this junk that makes me less than who He has created me to be. So, we need to lift up our heads, not in pride and self-adulation - but knowing who we are in Him. We can be SEEN by those who don't understand, by those who judge, by those who hate, by those who condemn us by our actions and not by our hearts. We can be seen and not be overcome because we have 'entrusted ourselves to the One who judges justly'. I can allow you to SEE me - my warts, my failings, my bumblings, my anger, my hurt, my striving - because I know that HE has already seen me to the depths of who I am - further into my heart than even I have ever seen - and he loves and accepts and smiles. I pray this for you too, my dear friend. Hugs from here!! Jill