Where we are and what we think

Lies……

We’ve all told them and heard them.  To and from those we barely know and those we dearly love.  What causes us to lie.  Sin, broken humanity, pride, you name it I am sure there is a reason for why sometimes we choose to say something that isn’t true to someone.

The problem is with some of them, they grow in our hearts.  Becoming rooted in a place that they do not belong.  When there is already a wounded place in your heart the lie seems to grow even bigger, bury even deeper to the point where it seems impossible that it would ever become unrooted.

Enter my life.  We all have dysfunction in our families yes, mine was extreme.  Abuse of all kinds, neglect, abandonment and rejection.  I didn’t really realize it though.  I mean I did to a point but I think I was so used to just getting hit from every corner that I detached and just rolled with it.  The words, the lies, the hurt and anger just penetrated deeper and deeper into my heart and I was defenseless.  My identity shattered.  I believed that I was worthless, my body was all I had, I would never go anywhere in life because I couldn’t clean a bathroom mirror properly.  I acted out, did poorly in school, experimented with drugs and alcohol.  I was medicated and sent to therapy because “no one knew what to do with me”  No one ever considered the environment around me and the effect that trauma has on a child, their identity and how that will cause them to react.

Fast forward 16 (ish) years……..

I move back to Colorado (where I was born and raised) in with my parents.  I now have a three month old little girl, I have been clean for just about six months and have been a Christian the exact same amount of time.  Moving back into the environment where I wasn’t shown any of the things I needed as a child wasn’t the best move looking back.  However at the time I had no other choice.  My daughters father left because he didn’t want to grow up and I couldn’t afford to stay in Florida as a single mom.  I started going to a pretty conservative Christian church because I wanted to stay rooted in my faith. I started out in a discipleship relationship with the pastors daughter in law.  I went every Sunday, every Wednesday.  I did my “quiet time” every day.  I did everything I was “supposed” to do.  I listened to all the purity messages when I got into my first relationship (that’s another post) I followed the rules, stayed within the lines, and never spoke up.  After almost five years I realized things had only not changed they had gotten worse.  I was an angry, screaming, co-dependant, wounded, working to get God’s love, on the inside.  On the outside I was your ministry girl, living the life that I believed I was supposed to be living because that’s just what you do.  People had always told me that “I had such a BIG or COLORFUL story that God was totally going to do something major with it” And I believed them.  That I had to live the cookie cutter Christian life because that was what God saved me for.  Ministry.  A platform.  Like Beth Moore, in a amphitheatre selling out tickets.  So my two worlds blended and I was a mess.

Therapy was not a new idea to me.  Over the course of my almost 32 years I have probably sat in over 20 therapists’ office.  But never like this one.  It really was God that led me to her.  Over the course of two years between me, her, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit we have worked out some tough shit.  And it really has been tough.  But there are two things that have changed.

Lies….

Identity….

I no longer believe that “their” truth has to be my truth.  When it’s poisonous and toxic and has nothing to do with what God says about my heart.  When I am aching and broken and just want to go back to trying hard.  God tells me that “that girl” hurt way worse than I do, and I have walked a long road to get to freedom.  Even in the church when people try to speak their truth over my life or tell me how I “need” to be living or what I “need” to be doing.  The only thing I need to be doing is continue believing that My God, My Jesus made me the woman I am, is continuing His formation of me and cares more about my identity than anyone else.  

When I heard about Overcomethelie I couldn’t help but jump at the chance to be a part of their blog tour and share whatever part of my heart may even help someone in the slightest.  Because we are all fighting the same battle here.  Whoever spoke the lie and wherever it goes in our hearts it all came from the same place.  Satan.  Who lies to tear us down, to tear us apart from ourselves, from God and from each other.  Overcome the lie is working to fight that battle and needs and wants YOU to join them.  Won’t you??

As Always,

Bethany

Oh and btw here’s my super cool graphic