As long as I can remember I’ve disliked being around fake
people. I don’t know if it’s because I grew
up in the generation that hated ‘plastic people’ or if I was around so many or
what. I just know that, given an option I’ll
take real every time.
Also as long as I can remember I’ve had a sense of God in my
life. It never occurred to me not to
believe. My heart has always known that
there was someone bigger than what I could see or feel or experience here and
now.
Content to be isolated from others that are – for lack of a
better word – unacceptable, because they are hiding behind a mask, I found
myself feeling alone, yet in deeper places knowing that I was not. This was my life for most of my 58 years. So those plastic people.. It occurs to me that underneath a lot of that
fake living is a lot of pain: its defensive actions meant to protect their
hearts. Someone recently told me that
they just go into their cave. And I pictured
a prison. Come out, come out, wherever
you are!
What we’ve all lost sight of is that we’ve been lied to from
the beginning. We think that if we hide
then we will not hurt. We believe that
pain is bad (and for the majority of relational pain, I almost agree). So I have use a myriad of ways to hide from
it. So, I believe, has every other heart
on planet earth. We live in a world full of shredded wounded pricked stabbed
hearts walking around without hope zombie like living hollow lives unconnected
because we’ve all succumb to the lies we’ve woven around our hearts for
protection. And most of us have never looked back. So many lies... So we make prisons, and the reason one is in
prison is because we believe the lie. The
lie is not what happened to make you want to go there, it’s the reason your
heart came up with in order to justify why it happened. i.e. I was abused because I was unworthy of
love or not good enough, I was molested because I’m only good for sex, I was
unloved because I’m unlovable…. Etc.
Children I believe are born with a natural connection to
God. They are selfish and self centered,
to be sure, but they have open hearts that trust and they love easily. A child who is nurtured and taught to love
thrives and sees the world as a good place.
They are close to God and see things as it should be. It is wonderful to see through the eyes of a
child. I think that this is what Jesus
meant when he said that we are to become like children, open and honest. Their minds have not been cluttered with
things to worry about, not yet anyway. But
children who are abused learn to hide. They
believe their experience instead of their hearts. It is one of the saddest things in
creation. To rob a child of their
innocence on any level is the cruelest of all things to do. These children learn quickly to hide in one
way or another. And their experience of
life is one of judgment. They believe
that they have been judged and found lacking.
They interpret everything through that filter and unless there is a
major intervention they live their entire lives under that assumption. The physical wounds of abuse go away if they
are lucky, but the heart wounds last forever.
I was one of these, and I know many others. I think that this is the war that was going
on within me, rebellion, reluctance to engage anyone else, anger, pain (monstrous
pain), grief, loneliness, and hatred. All
symptoms of the lie I believed. And I built
my life around all of these, but also I had my heart to contend with. I could not reconcile the pain and loneliness
of my life with the knowing I had about God. So rather than give up Him and who He is/was
to me, I hid. I hid in food, in
business, in depression, distraction, you name it. I’ve spent a lifetime battling myself and
trying to make myself into being loveable, yet rebelling because I know that I must
be true to who I really am. And guess
what? It never worked. Thankfully!
It never worked. hahaha. That stubborn enduring powerful deep core
within me who refused to give in, I was created to love, my heart would not concede
to being untrue. And it would not concede
to abandoning its longing for love. Yet
how much time and energy have I spent being a chameleon, changing to fit?
How then to live? How
to bring these two seemingly opposites together to be one joyful person? How does one’s heart become mended and whole? How does one overcome the fear of more and
more pain in order to reach for what could put it all right? How do we go from a core belief of judgment
to one of love?
One day not too long ago I found it: The answer to the puzzle. I’ve gone through life with this struggle
going to and fro between hatred and bliss (mostly on the hatred side but it was
directed towards myself. I believed that
I was the problem because that is what abused children believe). But that day my eyes were opened to truth and
indeed it set me free. Free from that
prison I had built for my own protection.
Free from the belief that I would never measure up. Free from the belief that I would never be
loved like my heart demanded. Free from
the struggle to be what I believed others wanted me to be. Free of the blindness of religious dogma and
legalist confines. Free from judgmental
attitudes towards others. Free to trust
my heart to lead me. Free to love. Free.
If you want out I’ll show you how. When you are finished with the insanity of
living in your prison you can choose to go.
How to get out of a self imposed cave/prison:
- Unlock the door.
- Step out.
Ok that’s extremely simplistic. But that’s the answer. If one is aware that they have imprisoned
themselves in a cave then one is aware of the reason. Unlocking the door involves looking at the
reason and seeing it for what it really is:
a lie. Stepping out involves
embracing the truth that you are indeed loved.
In my experience prisons have layers and these steps must be followed
each layer one encounters.
But don’t be
afraid. The monster that has held the
key to the door (the lie) is not nearly as scary and big as it was when we hid
there. And we are not alone. Jesus – who is Truth – is ready and willing
to stand with us, in front of us even and hold our hand as we do this. You see, Jesus came to set the captives free
and to heal the broken hearted. He said
so. This prison was our broken heart and he really does want to heal it.
When I saw the truth I began the journey to become healed
and free. I did not do or say anything
in particular that I recall. It’s not
like a formula. I simply began to see
the truth and then I began to believe it.
Along with believing came hope and faith and love. And when these occupy one’s heart there is
not really any room for lies or anger or hatred. There is still pain because pain is needful
for balance and to give weight to important things. It is needful to show us the way and keep us
safe. Pain is not the enemy, the lie
is. The father of lies is Satin who
wants nothing more than to keep you from being connected to Truth.
And the great news is that I am not alone. There are others who are making this journey as well. They have embraced the Truth and are being set free through Jesus love. He who made the earth and everything in it is so very interested in us. In our hearts. He wants nothing more than to shower us with His love and set us free. People we are needed. Other captives are suffering and living under the prison of lies they have believed. We must show them the way.
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