We welcome Nicole from LovingRelentlessly back to the blog today. Her words are heavy and true, and will offer freedom through the Lord to you today! Leave her some love – we hope you are as moved as we were.
Psalm 139:17 (NLT) “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered.”
The way I think about myself has never been very healthy. As a child I was always overweight and convinced myself that my value as a person went down because of it. I would feel self conscious doing the most normal childhood activities from swimming to throwing the baseball around. I told myself that until I was skinny I wouldn’t like myself. Being skinny would change everything.
As I got older I held on to that mentality, but also added other things to the list of flaws I saw in myself. I wasn’t smart. I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t funny. I wasn’t good at anything. Despite having people in my life telling me otherwise, I truly believed these things about myself.
Marriage. He’s distant because you are an awful wife. He works all of the time because he cant stand to be around you. You are terrible at keeping up on the laundry and you make him do all of the cooking.
Then motherhood came, and that’s a plethora of insecurities in and of itself. Why are moms so hard on each other when we all know how difficult it is to keep our heads above water in the first place? I constantly compared my parenting to others who seemed to have it all together. I hated myself because I couldn’t breastfeed. I hated that during the end of my pregnancy with my second, my first watched endless tv while I sat on the couch next to her unable to muster the energy to do much else. Why am I so weak? I am a failure as a mother. My kids deserve more. I’m too crabby. I don’t do enough with them.
I would get stuck in my head for weeks at a time replaying these toxic thoughts on loop.
Beth Kinder, in her book Stronghold, says, “Faith is contagious, and each time we choose to respond to life by the power of the Word of God, we infect others. Likewise, our thoughts that do not align with the Word of God have equal power to influence and infect those around us.”
That’s the thing, isn’t it? I didn’t realize at the time that the things I thought about myself directly affected those I loved most. I can pretend that my thoughts don’t affect anyone else, but how do I treat my husband when I assume that he’s thinking the same toxic thoughts about me that are rolling around in my own head? Not well, I can tell you that. I distance myself, I go into defense thinking that I need to protect myself from the awful things he thinks about me when he doesn’t think those things at all. I do.
When I assume everyone else knows my deepest flaws it changes the way I act around them. The root of bad self talk is fear. I assume everyone is going to think bad things about me, so why not beat them to it, then they cant hurt me. If I am walking around thinking I am not measuring up in someway, I am not bringing glory to God with my thoughts.
There is a difference between knowing that you are a work in progress (because I really could stand to get better about putting laundry away), and thinking that the work you are doing on yourself isn’t good enough. It changes everything about your demeanor.
We need to relearn our thought patterns. In order to get out of this rut, we have to learn to view ourselves through a God filter instead of a list of failings. How sad it is that I think I have no value because of something as stupid as weight?
Isaiah 26:3 (NLT) “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!”
God can give us peace from these thoughts, but we need to remember who God says we are. We are loved. We are redeemed. We are a friend of Jesus. We will not be condemned by God. We are accepted. We are a new creation. We have been set free. We are his masterpiece. He loves and has chosen us.
When I look at that list it makes my list of failings seem shallow. I’m not seeing the whole picture of myself. If I were to pan out and view the entire picture, I would see a woman desperate to follow God. Desperate to be a good wife and mother. Someone who is trying her hardest every single day, and is relying on God for every moment that she fails.
When I am living my life believing the things that God says about me, I am better able to influence those around me. I may not have it all together, but I am believing the best of myself and trusting that God will take care of the rest. People see that. They see the shift in my demeanor.
Philippians 4:8 (NLT) “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worth of praise.”
Have you ever considered that the way you view yourself is contagious? Have you ever thought about the way you treat other people when you think unhealthy things about yourself? Lets try to remember to view ourselves through our God filter so that everyone will know Who’s we are.