Whose Eyes do You Use?

There are so many things we grieve without realizing we are grieving. Maybe that is why my grief went undetected for so long. The next cavern the Lord brought to light took me by surprise, yet it really was at the core of so much self-perception. It was time to flush out the stale grieving of my self-worth.

Truth be told, this has taken me months to work through and the Lord and I just recently finished this “therapy session.”

As with all good co-dependents, self-worth is intrinsically knitted to how others see and treat us. It is connected to how we feel honored/dishonored or valued/devalued by others. True to my own humanity, I superimposed these things onto how I thought God saw me.

No wonder I was so messed up!

Humans make conscious decisions every day to honor or dishonor through word or action and when we superimpose other’s actions onto our very loving Heavenly Father, it grieves His heart. In reality, all of us start as broken pieces trying to find where we fit. Broken pieces cannot give complete, accurate composites of anything! Even in the light of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, my myopic view of my self-worth was just as fractured and broken as the people whose eyes I was looking through.

This was not going to heal until I got my eyes off man and my eyes focused on HIS view of me. During all the years I’ve spent in prayer and worship, I always pictured myself leaning on Jesus’ chest for a hug or crawling onto my Abba’s lap. I never, NEVER looked into the eyes of my Jesus within my heart-imagination. 

Perhaps I was afraid because I thought I would see my mother’s perfectionism, or my dad’s alcohol-laden stare. Yet, how could I know how Jesus sees me…really SEES me, unless I look into His eyes and see His love for me reflected there. It took courage, why, I still am not sure. Perhaps it is because you truly share heart-intimacy when you look upon your love’s countenance when they gaze into your eyes.

But I chose that day to look upon His face. And it changed my life forever.

From Enable to Able

One of the hardest titles for me to shed is enabler. It is ingrained into my personality like a strand of DNA. Being raised with an alcoholic, enabling in one way or another became a survival technique.

Where was Al Anon when I was 13!

“At the heart of every enabler is someone with a low sense of self-worth,” according to Angelyn Miller, MA (The Enabler, 1988).

The impostor in me rises in indignation! Me have a low sense of self-worth? Confident, outgoing, loves the spotlight…me?

Yes. Me.

What a surprise revelation that my need to enable someone else’s dysfunctional pattern or addiction points right back at me. It seems rewarding to help people with their problems, so fulfilling to pick up someone else’s burden or dysfunction and help (i.e. enable) them to continue in their self-imposed pattern of implosion.

No wonder I get so tired! This is one title I long to shed like itchy, scaly skin. I wish it were so easy.

What would happen if my friends exercised for me? Lifted weights for me? Or better yet, what if they did my push ups and crunches? The sugar I so love to eat would find a final resting place on my thighs, my friends would grow stronger, and I would grow weak and ill.

This flaking, crusty title must be shed one wise decision at a time. It is so much easier to remain an enabler than reflect the Able one. It is a long, sometimes painful process to shape our character to the one we strive to reflect. But oh how I long to resemble my First Love. The Able One.

I am my Beloved’s

I want to really understand this. That is the cry of my heart these days; along with healing, strength, wisdom and a plethora of other requests. But this one trumps them all. I am my Beloved’s.

I was raised with an alcoholic father who used his “liberties” as the authority figure in my life to tell me I was the sick one for setting boundaries. Then, as an adult,  my ex-husband used the spiritual liberties granted him by man’s version of submission. Oh I don’t blame my ex-husband and father. I take full ownership of my crown called co-dependency and my scepter known as enabling. They are mine…temporarily that is until I figure out how to get rid of these pesky things.

But I really, REALLY want to grasp, grapple, press in, and absorb the concept of being His Beloved. I want to understand this as the foundation of my personal worth - not the opinions of man. I am probably my own worst enemy in this mistaken identity. I love what John Eagan said in his journal “We judge ourselves unworthy servants, and that judgment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We deem ourselves too inconsiderable to be used by a God capable of miracles with no more than mud and spit. And thus our false humility shackles an otherwise omnipotent God.”2

I am more than mud and spit. I am in His image (I wonder if he has a dimple on his left cheek). Recently, I started defining myself to myself as one radically beloved by God and you know what? I have sensed a “falling in love” with my Jesus. I have truly felt a sense of intimacy with Him that I don’t remember feeling for a real long time.

Some in the church would believe me to be in rebellion; clearly not capable of such a close and intimate walk. That is something reserved only for the submitted and obedient (i.e. not divorced for non-Biblical reasons…whatever that means). I used to be one of those judgmental people. I am definitely reaping what I’ve sown. Ouch.

I’ve always had this sense of disappointing the Lord. Always afraid of what He really thought of me and my many hours of whiling away in an imaginary world. Then I remembered standing unobserved at the door of my children’s room watching them entertain Big Bird or Barney in some great plot or adventure. I would smile, turn, and leave them to their play, perfectly content with the fact that if they needed me or wanted to spend time with me, they would search me out. At which time, I would open my arms wide, envelope them completely, and savor the scent of blessed innocence in my beloved.


Is that how He sees me?

2Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning, NavPress, 2002.

The Imposter

I am an imposter. I freely admit it.

How embarrassing.

All these years I’ve thought I was something I was not. I hear your collective gasps. I know, I know. How can this be?

I didn’t realize it until I read the description of an imposter in the book, Abba’s Child.1

An Imposter:
• Is rooted in fear of human disapproval.
• Is afraid of abandonment, losing support, and not able to cope on their own.
• Is preoccupied with acceptance and approval.
• Needs to please others.
• Is often incapable of direct speech, hedging, waffling, and remains silent out of fear of rejection.
• Demands to be noticed and craves compliments. (I don’t care about compliments so much…just hand me a stage and a spotlight).
• Draw their identity from achievements and interpersonal relationships.
• Operates out of a fear-based center.

It explains a lot actually. Manning goes on to say, “The false self was born when as children we were not loved well or were rejected or abandoned.” My imposter was born that fateful day at poolside when demanded to unclothe.

Most of the time, my imposter covered itself/herself by means of chronic day dreaming. Now I’m really confessing my youthful sin. You see, this was my coping device. Like an alcoholic uses alcohol or a drug addict their drug, mine was getting lost in a world no one could see. No one could hurt me there. I created a wonderful place that I was in complete control.

I’m a big girl now (with a little girl still hiding in me) and I still haunt my old hidden world. Only now I try to use it for the good of the writer in me in the form of fiction. So, in a way, I took what the enemy used to keep me bound and I brought it into the light for the Lord to use for His purpose.

I guess you’d say I redeemed it.

Manning also states, “When we accept the truth of what we really are and surrender it to Jesus Christ, we are enveloped in peace, whether or not we feel ourselves to be at peace.” I covet this new world of peace. For decades I’d rebuked myself time and again for running to my trusted vice as if it was an evil sin. But now, I believe it was a gift from the Lord. I actually had a therapist tell me, after hearing my life chronicled in a painful diatribe, that my coping instrument probably kept me out of the looney bin (that is a medical term).

I must embrace this imposter as a part of myself and accept her for the place she held all these years. I think we should make friends with these imposters as they are a part of ourselves. To continually rebuke them is a form of self-hatred. Perhaps titles and imposters do have a place for a season…until we find our true self that is.

1Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning, NavPress, 2002.

Come Out, Come Out Wherever I am!!

This journey to shed oneself is painful.

I don’t like it.

But it is necessary if I want to really KNOW not only who I am, but who my new Husband and Abba is. Where did that little girl go? I remember her as being a bit of a tomboy, very verbose (my parents would say CONSTANTLY chatty), very strong-minded (my parents would say stubborn), and quite unconcerned with what others thought of my favorite tennis shoes with holes in them, the fact that I hated to comb my hair, or my muddy lizards named Cinderella (I named them all Cinderella…I don’t know why).

Where did she go? (Me not Cinderella) I think she went in to hiding the first time my father asked me to skinny dip in front of him. I vividly remember arguing with him, telling him “That’s sick! I will NOT do that. It is wrong!” I will never forget how I felt when he yelled back at me, “Well if you think it is wrong, then YOU are the sick one.”

I didn’t want to be the sick one. I wanted to be like every other tween/teen. I argued with dad some more, but the little girl retreated behind a wall and only peaked out to quietly proclaim her right to keep her clothes on. More words, more retreating…until finally the little girl was gone.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties and my dad committed suicide that the impact of what he did really reached my soul and burned a hole right through it. For the majority of my life I didn’t want to be the “sick one”, so I gave in to just about every dysfunctional relationship that surrounded me. Financial and emotional abuse in my marriage, spiritual abuse in the church, and that never-ending fear of what people thought of me.

I think I’ve spent many of these dysfunctional years either wondering where God was or projecting on to God’s personality that of my abusers. I have seen Him in my minds-eye as a strict, harsh, disciplinarian who only gives us wonderful things when we do everything right or when we don’t sin “too much”. I’ve never really understood grace the way Christ intended it to be.

I want to.

I want to embrace it with the tenacity of a pit bull in a fight to the death. I want to understand and KNOW the Love of God in such a way that I don’t…no…I can’t waver when some pious, religious, self-righteous or just plain mis-guided Christian tries to explain why my decision to end my marriage is sinful. I don’t want to hear the continual recorder going round and round in my head saying, “You are the sick one,” when someone doesn’t understand or see the complete brokenness and inability to stand up and take it in my marriage because a chronic deceiver said, “I’m sorry,” one more time.

When I consider the judgment I will get when news of the divorce gets out, it is the same fear that rises in me when I heard those fateful words as a young girl. I don’t know why I think of those words, but I do. This is why the little girl hides.

I love what Brennan Manning says in his book, Abba’s Child. “Christians who remain in hiding continue to live the lie. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others. We cling to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with the past when what we should do is let go.”

I have utterly and completely forgiven my dad for everything. How do I know this? Because, after I run to my Jesus, I want to run into the arms of my dad and tell him how much I love and missed him. Because when I think of him now, a sweet reminiscent smile graces my face.

You see, he was a frightened little boy retreating behind a wall only to peak out to quietly proclaim his right to not get beat in the garden shed by his dad. That is how I see him now. That is how Jesus saw him thirty five years ago.

Now…I’m off to find that little girl and bring her from behind the wall.

Come out, Come out, wherever you are!

Shedding Titles for a Testimony

I’ve come to believe all pastors and church leadership are suspect. Of what…well that depends. Pastor Tom was the only pastor in MY church history that truly deserved the title and role. His name is synonymous with integrity, grace, kindness, and a million other adjectives that really don’t do him justice. I describe him to people as “the Holy Spirit with skin on.”

He recently became my champion and my hero when, after months of being separated from my husband, I’d told Pastor of my decision to divorce. I remember sobbing in his office just a month ago saying, “I just can’t take it anymore, Pastor!” My husband, still holding out hope, told Pastor that he still loved me. I told him that wasn’t enough.

Pastor Tom, in his infinite – ok…finite, but great – wisdom looked at my husband and said, “What if one day you asked your wife to go jogging with you. While you were jogging you tripped her and broke her leg. You said, ‘I’m so sorry’ and she said, ‘I forgive you; however, my leg is broken and it needs time to mend. After it mended, you asked her to go jogging again and again tripped her and broke her leg. Again, you profusely apologized. She said, ‘I forgive you; however, it will take longer for my leg to heal. Then, when she was healed you asked her to go jogging a third time and again you tripped her and broke her leg. You, again, profusely apologize. She says, ‘I forgive you; however, my leg has been broken too many times and I can no longer jog with you.”

Then he looked at me and said, “What if we lived in a land that had a law stating you MUST jog every day? What if you went to the law-giver of this land and stated, ‘My leg has been broken too many times, I can no longer jog.’ The law says you must jog…but Grace says, ‘your leg has been broken too many times, of course you cannot jog.”

All the pain and heartache somehow had words that night. Words and a picture so vivid, it quieted my soul. It quieted my husband too! I think at that moment, he got it.

Yes, Pastor Tom had always been a great man, but that night he became my hero. In a later conversation when I told him of my fears of judgment from the Body of Christ, he said, “You will never hear judgment from me. I do not blame you for divorcing and if anyone speaks judgment to you send them to me.”

We buried my hero today. He died on May 20.

There is no earthly hero to champion me in the face of human judgment for what they call the great sin of “Divorce.”

At the funeral, a pastor gave a beautiful eulogy stating, “Tom was not about titles. He was about his life being a testimony.” That hit me between the eyes. I have lived my whole life seeking titles:  Dance Teacher, Wife, Mother, Pastor’s Wife, Teacher/Speaker, Writer, Author, recently a Zumba Fitness Instructor. Now I was adding one…Divorcee. Ok, if you want to be really technical it would be Co-dependent Divorcee. Sounds more…trendy.

I have been hiding behind one or more of these titles for the majority of my life and somewhere along the way forgot who I am. When I first thought about starting a blog about this journey I was considering some pithy titles like, “I’m wearin’ Big Girl Panties Now” or “Christian, Co-dependent Divorcee seeks Sanity.” Something catchy, innovative, provocative. You know…a title to describe where I was at in life.

A title.

The last thing I need right now is a title. It is time to shed titles and search out my testimony. There is definitely a whopper buried under six feet of child molestation, being the daughter of an alcoholic, surviving a father’s suicide, two public ministry scandals, and living with a deceiver for the last 24 years.

I just have to dig a while to find it…and me.