Breaking Free

It started when I was a little girl. Probably somewhere around the first time I lined up for recess and was the last one picked for a team. It was a baby then but a monster none the less and it whispered, "you're not good enough."

As I grew it did too. As I looked at the model on the cover it said, "you'll never be pretty." Day after day, moment after moment it fed off my need and soaked my brain with whispered lies. 

Unwanted. Rejected. Unlovable. Ugly. Worthless. Messed Up.

I thought I'd escaped from the monster the day I found my husband. Suddenly I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. I'd been chosen! I'd been good enough! I was pretty! Little did I know that my monster was still there. He had just gotten smarter and was disguising himself in a twisted mirror. He snickered at me as I fell further and further into his clutches. Knowing that human beings are faulty and I had found an "identity" in someone who loved me but was broken like me. It was just a matter of time. 

And then it happened. In the heat of one broken, human moment two people's sinful selves collided and the mirror shattered. There I sat, covered in the shards of my own broken identity with my very soul sliced open. Now my monster no longer whispered but rather screamed at me.

BROKEN. REPLACEABLE. FAILURE. SHAMEFUL. PURPOSELESS. VALUELESS.

For the first time I realized the slave I had become. I laid curled up with my chains unsure of what to do, how to move forward or how to break free. I cried out to God with all of my baggage, my chains, my addiction to the opinion of others. "I need help! If I have to live the rest of my life feeling like a piece of trash I'd rather not live! WHO AM I?"

He answered. "My grace is sufficient for you. If you lack wisdom ask of Me Who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to you." Like a flood of light streaming into a dark place I realized I was asking the wrong question. The question to understanding my identity was not, "Who am I," but rather, "Who is I AM?"

So I asked Him to give me an understanding of His Identity and He answered:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will..." (Ephesians 1)

In his love He allowed me to see my true identity that had been there all along. Not the one that I had created for myself through the eyes of others, but the one that He had given me and desired for me to live in. 

~ Priceless. Chosen. Holy. Blameless. Purposeful. Forgiven. Blessed. Pursued. ~

Again He answered: 

"But to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." (John 1)

~ Desired. His Child. Loved. ~

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." (Jeremiah 31)

~ Lovable. Faithfully Remembered. Loved Eternally. ~

I think the monster will follow me for the rest of my earthly life. He will stand in the shadows trying to cast his vote. But I see now that the chains were never locked. Years ago, when I became a child of God, He unlocked the chains that held me enslaved to the monster of my own sinful flesh. With that freedom He also gave me a new identity. I haven't learned all the qualities of who I am, but the more I look into the mirror of His Word and see Who He is, the more I will understand my own identity and the person He sees. 

~ Priceless by King and Country ~