A Gentle Reminder
If you never have heard me talk about it before I need you to know that my dream life is wild. I do go through patches where I don’t dream much or I have nightmares, but often my dreams are revelatory dreams from the Holy Spirit. I find out things about myself and others that no one else could have revealed. It’s fun having a night life with the Holy Spirit!
Last night was no exception. Dream after dream. Some parts I am still processing, they were weird. Other parts seemed to be just “filler” and not mean much, but one part in particular really stood out to me. It stood out so much that as soon as I woke up I called to my husband in the bathroom to tell him I just had figured something out!
In part of my dream I had run into two classmates from elementary school and as I was relaying an incident from school to them I exclaimed “Wow! That was the first time I felt inadequate”.
That’s all there was to that dream, but it was enough to make me recall that incident in my mind. It was in 4th grade, Mr. Bennett's class. A few days prior we had had the dreaded lice checks where the school nurse would come into our classroom and one by one look through the student’s hair to check for nits. I wasn’t an exceptionally gross kid so I never thought in a million years that I would be the one the nurse leaned down to and whispered in their ear: “Go get your things. Meet me in the nurse’s office, I’ll call your mom”. I had it. I had lice. How embarrassing for a kid to be called out in front of your whole class because you had bugs in your hair. That really wasn’t the incident though. My mom came and got me and I stayed home for a few days while we got rid of the lice. It was what happened when I got back to school that changed me.
I dreaded the return to school because I was sure that there would be endless teasing about my bug infested hair. However, I was pleasantly surprised to arrive back to open arms and no one mentioning the incident. I settled back into the school day like normal, until recess came.
At recess I was playing with my group of friends and some boys in our class. I remember we were sitting in a circle near the whiteboard. We probably were playing connect four, because that was the big game in 4th grade. It was then that I learned in my lice infested absence my crush had begun “dating” one of my friends. My heart dropped. It’s kind of funny now because I remember my mom and other adults always saying “where are they going on a date? To the playground? The cafeteria?” I am officially an adult now because I would say the exact same thing in the exact same sarcastic tone.
At the time I was heartbroken, my love was with another woman. However, it was what one of them said after I discovered the terrible news that changed my life and set off a lifetime of believing a lie. I do not remember which one actually said it, but someone in the group said “If you were prettier he would have picked you”.
It was at that moment that a lie entered my life. The enemy whispered to me:
“You are inadequate”
“You aren’t worthy of affection”
“You are not as pretty as other girls”
“Your looks determine your worth”
I believed every single one of those lies. Those lies shaped my life. The words of a fellow fourth grader were enough to let the enemy start speaking to my 10 year old self.
I grew and grew, successful in many ways, but often feeling a failure. No boys ever liked me. Other girls constantly dissected my looks and told me what was wrong with me. I read magazines that told me how to become prettier. I was in constant pursuit of what I thought I needed to feel worthy. I wanted to feel loved, and my looks were what would get me that love.
For 19 more years the sting of inadequacy would plague me. It would constantly be a nagging voice in the back of my mind. A reminder to find my worth in my performance and how well I looked.
I wouldn’t have known or remembered any of this, but Holy Spirit brought that memory back up. I had to ask him in the car this morning what those lies were that entered my mind that day. After I dropped my daughter off at school I took my time driving home and one by one repeating those lies out loud and asking repentance for believing each one and then breaking off their hold on my life. I commanded each lie to go back to the pit of hell.
I then asked Holy Spirit, what do I put in place of those lies? He answered: “You are worthy. You are adequate. You are not comparable to any other person”.
I got home and sat down to write this before I forgot. On the outside my transformation today was probably not very visible. I didn’t sob and lay before the altar at a healing service. I didn’t go through months of therapy to uncover this baggage and painfully force myself to change my thinking.
Holy Spirit can work in those ways, too, but he can also work as a gentle reminder. We just need the initiative to ask the right questions, however hard they are. “Why did that make me feel inadequate?” “How do I get rid of it?”
In the hour and 30 minutes since I woke up today my life has changed. I repented of garbage that I didn’t know I had and I received some magnificent things in its place. The enemy may try to bring this up again, but I now know I am free of it and know how to fire back. Next time I am looking at a photo of myself and inwardly lamenting over the shape of my body I can fire back at the enemy because I now know, and believe, that I am worthy.
