Hello, my friends. I'm sorry it's been awhile. I'm going to preface my post, this once, with something of a disclaimer:
I'm a Christian. Deal with it. I will write about what I feel is relevant to my life. You don't have to be a Christian to be my friend, but don't take offense when I use my blog to express opinions about things I believe in.
That being said, here we go.
I don't make New Year's resolutions. I've always felt that, in doing so, I was setting myself up for failure. An interesting thing that I found out recently is that, statistically, most people stop making New Year's resolutions by the time they're 50. I guess I'm ahead of the curve.
The reasoning behind this drop-off in resolutions usually is the result of repeated failures. So people begin to believe "
This is just the way I am." I guess if you fail at something often enough, you just start to believe it to be a true aspect of who you are. It seems insurmountable and all attempts at overcoming it begin to feel futile.You live in shame and dread the idea of someone seeing the real you because you believe that "
What you've done defines who you are."
What a
LIE.
Life has a way of defining us by our greatest failures. Alcoholic. Pervert. Addict. We are quite often labeled by those things. But our failures have a way of exposing our deeper needs. Most of these things we do are medicating a wound and/or trying to fulfill a need.
And why do we continue on with these things if we know that they are harming ourselves and others?
Shame. We're so worried about what others might think if they knew about our "problem" that we hide it from everyone, including God. (Or, we try.) Well, shame is the easiest way to steal a person's identity. In our shame, we begin to see our failings as being the only things that define us. We lose sight of everything else that makes us who we are.
If I could stop being so worried about hiding my failures from God, I would be so much more free. I think it's so funny that we try to hide things from an omniscient being. You know what confession is? It's telling God what He already knows about us. So what's the point in hiding?
In that spirit, allow me to be a little vulnerable with you for a moment. Many of you may or may not be aware that I battle depression. Last month, I was battling it quite seriously. What most of you probably don't know, is that I have often struggled with the desire to do harm to myself. It is very difficult to explain the motivation behind it to someone who has never dealt with it. And I don't pretend to know everyone's reasons. But perhaps I can help you to understand it a little better.
I knew a girl who, very obviously, dealt with it to a much greater extent. Her arms were severely scarred from cuts and burns. This was not something she wanted to give in to again, which she told her mentor (an older woman). So, she was told to go to this woman the next time she felt the need to hurt herself. One day, she slipped up and did it again. This time, she went to her mentor, thinking she would be able to deal with and overcome it better with the support that she had been promised. What did this mentor tell her? "Just stop." My friend was dejected and broken. This is not something that you can simply stop at will. When she came to me with what had happened, I was grieved for her and angry on her behalf. Cutting is
not the problem, it is the
symptom behind the problem. You can knock all of the apples off of an apple tree and be pleased with yourself for getting rid of the apples, but, next year, you will still have apples. You have to uproot the tree, or cut it down, if you want them to stop. It's the same way with treating the symptoms instead of the root problem.
When I want to hurt myself, what voices do you suppose I hear? Let me clue you in, it's not a voice telling me to "
just cut yourself". It's a voice telling me, over and over, all of the things that I despise about myself, all of my failures that I cannot seem to overcome, all of my addictions, all of the people whom I have hurt and how I deserve to be punished for what I have done.
I guess, if you hear something often enough, you start to believe it to be true. Shame tries to take you and, ultimately, kill you. I know it did me.
So, if you or someone you know is stuck in an identity that has been brought on be shame, don't give in to the lie that "
This is just who you are." Failure doesn't make you into that failure, it means that you are human and you need more than your own strength to get past your shame in order to address that deeper need.
Well, let me tell you something, shame has met its match in God's grace.
Today's blog brought to you by God's grace in my life and by Liquid Church's current series:
Identity Theft http://www.liquidchurch.com/
Comments (8)
Wow,
Thank you so very much for this, I really felt that I got to know you much more with this. Thank you for opening up... and if you ever need a friend, I am here.Â
"Failure doesn't make you into that failure, it means that you are human and you need more than your own strength to get past your shame in order to address that deeper need."
That you have learned this difficult lesson at such a young age is both impressive and very sad. You know I love you and I'm glad to see you blogging again. You haven't really been gone that long, but it felt long to me.
Thanks for sharing
it's difficult for those of us who don't have that temptation to understand it at times. Yes, many of our blogs truly do come from God's grace.
May God grant you incredible grace!
daggone ... that's very good. I started reading and realized I thought pretty much the same about New Years resolutions, and I was all set to say "Good post - my thoughts exactly."
But this was so much better, and much more significant than that. You can't "just stop," but at the same time, there will be a point when dealing with the underlying issues causes you never to do it again.
Thank you for posting this.
@Brandon_thewriter - Thank you very much. I think that most humans have an intense desire or need to be known and seen by others, and I am no exception. I'm glad that this was beneficial, in whatever aspect.
@saintvi - I've missed you too. I actually haven't been feeling well since I got back from Nebraska. I'm tired all of the time (although, I think I may be improving, slowly) and I have been having trouble keeping up with the things I usually enjoy, such as blogging and exercising.
Please keep me in your prayers. I'm doing my best to recover from whatever this might be.
You know what's funny? I have been often told that I seem very young and yet that I'm an "old soul". I guess my personality's just full of contradictions, eh?
@GreekPhysique - That is precisely why I wrote it. I, for example, have never had a problem with eating disorders, but one of my sisters has. I can never hope to understand it in the way that she does. In the same respect, she knows that she cannot hope to understand someone who deals with cutting the way that I can. Either way, I think that most of the things that people deal with are really just symptoms of underlying needs and/or wounds.
@jimpurcell - Though I don't deserve it, I feel that He continues to bless me in increasing ways. It is amazing, even when it's in the small things.
@icicle84 - Thank you. That is exactly right and what I was hoping to convey. As you address the underlying issues, the outer symptoms will become easier and easier to deal with. I know they have and are for me.
And thank you for the recommend. I intend to write more along the same lines, if I have enough source material (i.e. inspiration + experience + personal opinion) to go off of. I've not been feeling well since I got back to New Jersey just after New Year's, so it's been a little difficult to keep up like I would like to.
It's ................ so very hard to try to "help" someone that you know has a habit like that. Dang-near impossible, in some cases.
Being there, occasionally, will help (though that's not a guaranteed thing).
Prayer, too.
"shame has met its match in God's grace"....no truer words have ever been written.<3