bam

Here I am again, awake with all sorts of thoughts buzzing in my head at a most inconvenient time. Oh to sleep all night! Well here are my musings dear one... Why do we believe lies so easily? Not only do we believe lies, we repeat them to ourselves until they become our truths. Oh the enemy of our souls is so clever. He manages to get us to do his dirty work for him. I have bought into his lies and have lived my life accordingly for years. An example; I am a people pleaser. It is part of my nature. It is not bad, but somewhere along the way I began to believe I needed others to approve of me, I continually sought their approval and considered myself a success or failure upon their whims. I learned to work hard for this approval. Their opinions became mine. If I did something to displease them I offered apologies quickly in an attempt to regain this approval that I needed so desperately. Added to all that is the continual search for a new "fix", someone to tell me I was ok. This is a lot of power to give away. It does not work out well when my source of validation is a critical person who lives life according to their own lies they tell themselves. Sometimes while caught in this trap I got angry when I didn't receive their acceptance, and why not, it is exhausting to always be working so hard for approval, and by golly if I'm working my tush off the least they can do is come thru for me.
Another lie that seemed to go well with me was the old tried and true  "my value as a person is directly related to my ability to succeed."  Works well when I do things that are easy for me, things that I am gifted in. Sucks when I am trying to learn something new or am working outside of my giftedness. Also sucks when someone helpfully comes along and tells me I am a failure. Believe me, I was already doing that particular job just fine all by myself, I really didn't need someone else to validate this lie. Trying to measure up to a standard that is constantly changing and feeling either estatic or desperate all in a single day = soul sucking.
These are the two that seemed to rule my life. They are a cruel combo.
For every lie there is Gods truth just waiting to be discovered. Here are some truths I have discovered. Get ready! God Doesn't Care. Really, He doesn't. He isn't concerned about my popularity. He loves me in spite of my social standings. He doesn't care how well I do stuff. He is only concerned if I work with the attitude of doing it for Him. The truth is I am totally accepted by God, I am complete in Jesus, there is nothing missing from me, even if I don't do everything perfectly.  I am complete, I am totally accepted, I am fully forgiven, I don't have to get my value as a person from elsewhere, I just need to remember who God says I am and what my standing is with Him. Could it get any better?  Did ya hear that? That was me  dropping some knowledge on you. Bam:)