.png)
Last time I wrote about chapter 12 and 13. Today, I'm sharing on chapter 14 and 15. Be sure to go check out other great posts linked up at Momma Day By Day.
Here are some quotes from these chapters. (I'm reading in the Kindle app for iPad so no page numbers.)
- My mind has not yet caught up with my reality.
- So how can I get my mind to line up with my reality? To act differently I must think differently. Until my beliefs change, my mask will stay on tight. My mind needs to be rewired.
- He wants us to have a biblical self-image.
- We have to decide with our wills to teach our minds about what is already true in Christ.
- Your default setting may not be shame. Yours may be anger, fear, worry, resentment, anxiety, or indifference. And when our default setting is activated, we reach for those masks to cover them up. I feel shame, so I grab a mask of productivity or strength and get to work. I completely bypass the Spirit within me. I live life on a soul and body level, basing everything I believe on what I can see, touch, taste, smell, and feel.
- there. It is only when the haven I thought my mask provided begins to crumble that I will be willing to consider the possibility that perhaps it isn't as safe as I once believed.
- Healing is messy and fluid and often unpredictable. I can't manufacture my own healing. It usually takes longer than I think, runs deeper than I wished, and involves more areas of my life than I ever imagined. But once I come through it on the other side, healing not only offers the closure I thought I wanted, it comes with a wholeness, wellness, and restoration that closure lacks.
- To enter into brokenness is not natural. To face the broken things and allow them to be broken doesn't even make the list of things I would choose. It didn't feel right to allow myself to grieve the loss of the friendship, the relationship, and mostly, the dream. It felt selfish, indulgent, and wrong.
- She has both held me back from facing weakness and shoved me forward to fake strong.
- But something I learned in the midst of that heartache is that Jesus is present when people are broken.
- I need a healer, someone to stand on my behalf against my past, against the pain and disappointments of broken relationships, against any fear of trusting in the future, against the sorrow and anger of death.
The Default
What's your default? I slip comfortably into shame with touches of fear and anxiety. When I get really overwhelmed, I fall into indifference. I hide behind those makes and put on my external good girl face. It's the fear of change and the unknown that often keeps me stuck. I don't want to lose control.
My husband knows when I'm stressed and overwhelmed. How? I rearrange furniture. I move things larger than I should on my own. Why? I think I do it to create change that I can control. I'm afraid of losing control so I create a situation that I can control.
Brokeness and Healing
Far too often, I've sought closure in a situation rather than healing. I try in my own strength to make things ok and close that chapter in my story when what I really need is healing from God.
I can't control healing. It comes from God. It comes in God's way and timing. What I can control is this: I can make the choice to believe God and I can let go of myself.
Missed a week of the discussion? You can start here for the whole series.
