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.