Lyrics from For King and Country’s song ‘Love me like I am’.
<*I was tucked up in my bed, feeling all the emotions, but HE called me out of bed and told me to write…so I’ll obey, but I am feeling raw and I’m being asked to be vulnerable, this will be interesting…*> New year, new ambitions, new desires, but I am still me, and I still get in my own way. My flesh trips me up on old trauma that I experienced… it creeps up when I least expect it to… And if I am honest with myself, it is mostly me avoiding the fact that I still have some pretty deep unhealed scars that get easily triggered… Sigh… Truth is I am a mess…I am feeling unhinged…out of control if you will, and going with the theme of complete honesty here… I don’t like myself very much right now, and if I’m going to really ‘go there’, I don’t like myself very much at all….and alot of the anger I feel is mostly directed at myself… Self hatred is a thing, it’s brutal, it’s cruel, and the funny thing for me is that I know it is not okay. Therefore it sends me into an even deeper tail spin of feeling horrible about myself. I know who Christ says I am, I know He loves me for who I am, but it is extremely difficult, atleast recently to see myself any other way than this twisted self loathing I am experiencing. My brain understands it, my heart has checked out, and I am trying to climb out of this ‘trench’ but I think I am going about it all wrong… The other night I went out with my boys, we were checking out at a store and I almost rammed this woman with my cart, I of course expressed my apologies, and she looked at me smiled and said…” you are so beautiful…”
I was stunned, I smiled, said thank you, but inside I was immediately rejecting her words, a knee jerk reaction, complete dismissal of it… My best friend yesterday in her van was telling me how much she loved me for who I am, she was saying all this as I was beat red in the face, all swollen, boogery, sobbing because of how stressed out I was, how frustrated with myself I was… …but still in the midst of that she still loved me? accepted me? I felt it again there, the urge to reject it, brush it off…instead I cried more, and opened up to her more… I cried out to her about my difficulties, that I wish I could see myself the way she sees me, the way my boys see me, the way my husband sees me, and especially the way God sees me… Oh I did the ugly cry too…sigh… I mean I am trying to not be so hard on myself, and I am trying to seek out God when I feel this heaviness, but my flesh fights against me, and it seems lately it is winning… …but in prayer God showed me that yes it is winning some of the battles right now, but ultimately He will win the war. I need to stop focussing on these damn waves that are crashing violently around me, because I am sinking, and I have gotten so use to that feeling that my flesh rejects anything else… God has even been sending people to me, they speak to me with such genuine love, I see it Lord I do, that you love me so much your ‘sending in the troops’…little reminders that I am not the monster I think I am… Sometimes I think because ‘she’ was my mother that I am part monster, that I’ll never truly shake that off…I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I am being completely honest here… There is so much I am wrapping my brain around about my upbringing, about why I react the way I do, what it all stems from, it is insane! And all of this just fuels me to make sure I don’t mess up my boys. I make it my goal everyday to make sure that they know their worth, that they are wanted, that they are loved…everything I questioned my whole life. I wish there was an easy fix, that I could take a few decades of what I call promgramming from my upbringing and just be like ‘poof’ it’s all gone…but that’s not realistic, or rational… The work has to be put in, and the only one who can truly deliver me out of this crap is God, if I lean only on my own understanding, or build my foundation on sand if you will, well I will sink every time, I’ll fail, and that is not a luxury I can afford to keep cycling through, because if I do that, I won’t survive, I won’t find peace, and peace is something worth putting in the work for… It’s time to walk through this fire, to get over myself… …running on this hamster wheel is tiring… When I say I struggle with control, it is an understatement let me tell you! Just look at what I have been saying… If I just Let Go and Finally Let God…ugh… Why do I keep doing this to myself? I am my own worst enemy… Times like these I am thankful for God’s grace… I bring Him my ‘ugly’, my harsh honesty, my disgust for myself, my frustrations, my anger, my flesh freaking out in fear… He doesn’t hesitate, He just loves me, gives me grace that I know I don’t deserve, and He calms the storm around me, and walks through the fire with me. He just asks me to take that first step, to try, to trust, and He has got me from there… This too shall pass… His Grace is enough!