“All of us have been humiliated and traumatized by somebody else’s perception of us, and for some of us it stayed with us a long time. Well, the only thing that really breaks that is God’s perception of you, and you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family, to your friends, you owe it to Jesus to understand the perception that God has of you. When you see it and get it, it breaks everything, it changes everything, and it causes you to grow up massively on the inside because you’re free of negative perception.” -Graham Cooke
From the moment we are born, we are learning…..about life….about ourselves…..about others. Sometimes what we learn is true. Sometimes it’s a lie. Sometimes it’s actually spoken to us in words. Sometimes it’s communicated in other ways. Sometimes it’s simply perceived. When we are young, we lack the ability to discern truth from lie and all is believed as truth. As we mature, we learn to recognize certain lies and say we no longer believe them. Sometimes we do replace those lies with truth. Sometimes the truth simply sits in our minds, unable to reach our heart where the lies reside. Realize it or not, we live from our gut….some lies have become so imbedded in our souls that we respond to life, situations and people through them.
I had several lies I believed about myself that were like a vise grip on my soul. The first lie started from observations made by a few adults when my sister and I were young. “It’s easy to see who the brains and beauty is in those two.” I suppose they meant well. An off-hand “compliment”: I was smart and she was pretty. But, what we heard was that I was ugly and she was dumb. I can’t count the number of times I was told that I was ugly. School was a nightmare in this area. It was not uncommon for someone to come up to me and ask, “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Do you realize how ugly you are?”
My favorite story as a child was The Ugly Duckling. I kept hoping that some day I would become a beautiful swan and all those who made fun of me would be put to shame. As I left my teenage years, I realized that beauty is subjective and no one has the right to define it for another. No one had the right to determine if I was beautiful or ugly. But, the lie was still entrenched. So, now while I realized no one could tell me I was ugly, they didn’t have to. I told myself.
Two of the most damaging lies were communicated non-verbally, for the most part. Perhaps, they were mostly perceived. I got married in a community that had certain expectations for women. Expectations that I could not meet no matter how hard I tried.
The first was my role as a homemaker. I am severely domestically challenged. My house was almost always a mess. My laundry was usually in piles. By the time it got folded and put away(if it ever did), it was quite wrinkly. My garden grew more weeds than vegetables. I couldn’t seem to get my daughters’ hair braided every day. But, these were expected. Someone asked my husband when I was pregnant with my 6th child, “Why are you having more kids? Your wife can’t take care of the ones she has.”
A couple years ago, after a particularly difficult day, I told Butch, “I love being married and I love you more than anything. What I am about to say is no reflection whatsoever of my love for you or my feelings about our marriage. But, if someone had told me the day you asked me to marry you that if I said yes I would wake up every single day to a job I would fail at, I don’t know what I would have said.” Everywhere I looked I saw concrete evidence of the fact that I was a complete failure.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t do anything. I could. I was good at lots of stuff…..just none of which was considered a woman’s role. I had little outlet for that which I was good at….and was drowning in everything I was horrible at. Or, if I could pursue it, it was important that as a wife, I see to my home first. Basically, that means I had to learn to succeed at my failures before I could get into the things I succeeded at. So, not only was I ugly. I was also a failure.
Another expectation was that women are to be quiet, subdued, gentle, a soft personality. I was none of those things. I have a strong personality, enjoy arguing, opinionated and very willing to share those opinions. That’s fine for a man, but not for a woman. I am quite articulate in a discussion and some find that intimidating. Women are not supposed to be intimidating. I am a very passionate person. “People are put off by your passion, even in the good things you share.”
I tried hard to become the woman I thought was expected. I tried to conform. I simply couldn’t. I could for a time, but it wouldn’t last. I could not fit into the box that was labeled, “Godly Woman”. Ultimately, I felt like I was inside a large Whack-A-Mole game. Every time some aspect of my personality popped out, I got whacked. Whack….tone one yourself down! Whack…don’t be so passionate! Whack….you talk too much in church! Whack….you push the envelope! Whack! Whack! Whack! My personality was completely wrong, unscriptural in fact. I believed that God had made His first mistake making me female. My abilities lined up more with biblical manhood. Abilities that “all women should have” I lacked. My personality was more masculine than feminine.
Ugly. Failure. Completely unfit personality. These lies were suffocating the life out of me. I could function. I could go days without confronting any of these “realities”. But, they were always on the surface of my soul, reminding me….taunting me…..condemning me.
But, then one day after a long journey through a wilderness, Papa broke through and spoke directly to these lies. I spent several months wrapped in His embrace. I went to bed in His arms. I woke to His voice singing over me. I was enveloped in His pleasure and delight in me. And, He told me exactly how He saw me.
“You are beautiful….a treasure. I take so much delight in You. I love the way you worship Me. You are not a failure….you are more than an overcomer. Your personality….oh how I love that!” And on and on and on and on. I knew….I knew….oh, I really knew for the first time….that He loved me. God. Loved. Me. Just the way I was. With my wild, frizzy hair….laundry piles on the couch…..dirty bathtub…..quirky personality. He loved every single bit of it. There’s something that happens when He speaks truth to you that rarely happens when people say the same thing. Like a bubble that touches a blade of grass, the lies begin to pop and disappear.
And you know what? There isn’t a single person on the planet that could convince me that I’m ugly…..because of what Papa has told me.
You could try your hardest to tell me I’m a failure, and there’s lots of evidence, but you’d be wasting your time….because of what Papa has told me.
You might not like my personality. I don’t really care. It’s ok…..because of what Papa has told me.
For the first time in forever…..I. Like. Me.
Because of what Papa has told me. He likes me. And that’s enough.