Sometimes it takes something like that. A journal, an old note to myself, an old blog post or prayer list, for me to realize that, indeed, things have changed. God has changed things. God has done things, moved things around, shifted things up a bit. God is not static, and sometimes it takes a reminder like those to realize that.
However, the story shifts here.
Then I got to this one page.
The page of affirmations. Ironically, it brought both the biggest smiles and it brought out some deeply hidden hurts. Views and thoughts and beliefs I really did think were true about people, that were eventually just shattered to pieces. All lies. A page filled with lies I held as truths. I wanted to rip it out because I know it will somehow burn me every time I go back in that book. A book of goodness, that had but one page of lies. I wanted to scream. But ironically, the only person I really wanted to scream at was myself.
This page was rough.
I struggled reading it because more then anything else, I know that I used to set myself up to get hurt by others. In many ways, I set myself up to get hurt by 'me' too. In months since that realization, things have changed in my heart and in my life leaps and bounds. But then, I was filled with lies. Satan's playground was my head and my perspective on myself. I wasn't enough. The best version of me wasn't good enough, and reading that page was a reminder that while somebody else viewed me that way, I viewed myself that way too. I don't know which felt worse.
I didn't guard and protect my heart or my feelings, at all. Not in this friendship. Not in past friendships or relationships. Not really, ever. I didn't know how to. My mindset was so skewed and so confused that I didn't even see it as 'off' or wrong, at all. To me, my heart and my feelings weren't worthy of much at all.
You see, I used to put myself in a box. A box that kept me hidden from who I could be. I was this girl that never believed I was 'good' at much of anything. The box disguised my inner-most thoughts and perceptions about myself. It was a box filled with lots of clothes and makeup and hair dye and nail polish, but the box still kept me in. Unable to change, unable to grow, unable to realize how truly wrong I was. In my head, I wasn't good enough, and no ones affirmations could change that. My thoughts stuck in my head like superglue, others thoughts faded quickly. I didn't view myself as deserving of strong friendships, as worthy of a relationship in which I was actually good enough for someone. To put it simply, no matter who I pinned myself up against to compare the best version of me to, they always won. No matter who they were, I was inferior. Always.
Who knew that a note that was so short, a hearts ramblings that were so easy to write and speak, could have a backlash this great and depth this far down.
While I wanted to rip this page out from my journal and forget it ever existed, it makes even more sense for me to leave it.
I am good enough.
My perception of myself changed
once my heart found comfort
in my lack of ability and power
and God's overabundance of it.
I may not be worthy
of the gracious gifts God grants me,
but I am worthy of good things.
I am a daughter of the King.
Take that, you page in my journal.
