We live in a world where we experience so much pressure on all levels of our lives. Because of this, it’s not even strange to me that most of us live without really knowing who we truly are.
One evening I was sitting on my couch, and thought to myself, what is it that makes a woman a “woman”, and I don’t just mean an ordinary woman. I mean a fierce, strong, independent, walking gracefully in grace, God fearing type of woman?
The words I want to describe myself with as a daughter of Christ are: God’s image, fierce, bold, strong, graceful, elegant, proud, strong in my vulnerability, unashamed, heard, beautiful, confident, honourable, peaceful, loving and caring. I am sure this list can go on forever and that there may be many more words that you would add to your own list. (I want to encourage you to go write down your own list as well). Of course, this list looked a lot different before I met Christ. In fact, it looked more like this: Beautiful (better face, body, hair, makeup etc.), famous among people, wealthy, idolised, better than others, and every day I added about 10 new things to this list.
I met Jesus when I was 20 years old and since then I have learned a lot about what it means to be a Godly, God fearing woman but for some reason I kept on comparing myself to the BC (before Christ) version of who I wanted to be. You see, the thing is as women of God we all want to live a life as described by the daughter of Christ version of characteristics I’ve listed. We try so hard to become that but deep inside and sometimes even right on the surface there is a voice that tells us that that list is not good enough, that no one cares about that unless you look exactly like the characteristics of the BC version. This is a battle we as women fight every single day.
So, let’s get back to where I was sitting on the couch thinking. It was as if the Holy Spirit just whispered in my ear, “A woman is the definition of beauty and grace, how she is formed, every curve to perfection, hearts that can love even the worst of people, always wanting to fix the broken hearted, as strong and graceful as a lioness, protective over what she loves and she does all of this with so much elegance as if it didn’t even take any effort. When she speaks things change in the heart of the one listening, she is clothed in righteousness and strength that just comes naturally, she has the ability to change the world without even knowing it.”
From the beginning of time the devil knew this. He knew what God had placed in us and he did everything in his ability to keep us from realising what God had placed in us and if we look at our stories, many of us might say that it looks like he achieved exactly that. From a young age we have been marked with lies by the enemy. Lies like; “you are too fat, no one will ever love you”, “you are too soft, people will walk all over you because you are weak!”, “you are too damaged”, “you are ugly”. There are so many, if I had to write them all down, I would have to change the heading of this blog to “50 shades of lies”.
What God created as perfection is now being perceived as weakness. But read that sentence again slowly… what God created as perfection, is now being perceived as weakness. Do you get it yet? Let me give you a hint. When God creates something as perfection it will always be perfect. No opinion, no critique, no connotation, no stereotype, nothing can make that which God had made perfect, imperfect. Do you not see? No matter what words the world has written on you, your perfection is indestructible.
The problem is we think of ourselves as damaged goods. We live with what I would like to call a “comic book collection mentality”: The less damage on the surface (that which is visible to the eye) determines the worth of the collection. As soon as a page has as little as a fold in it the value decreases. This is exactly how the world works as well. We see all of these people perfect on the outside, never a hair out of place, perfect face, perfect body, “perfect life”. These people are being perceived as valuable but, on the inside, everything might be broken. Inside their hearts is an ocean of pain, pressure, fears and anxiety, because the moment the image that can be seen by the eye gets damaged their value drops and they are left with nothing.
What I want you to realise is that just like that book loses value in the world, it was also created by this world, a world that is destructible, vulnerable and weak! You, my dear, are created by an everlasting, indestructible, omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign God! As soon as you realise this, you will see that those marks that the enemy left on you was nothing but an illusion written with a demi-permanent marker, and when something with substance wipes over it, the marks disappear because the ink itself carries no substance. In our lives this "something" with substance is called the Word of God! When the word of God comes in contact with these lies, they melt away as if they never existed. Invite God into your life.
I want to encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal all the hidden marks the enemy has left on you, even the ones you have tried your whole life to forget about. Ask him to bring everything onto the surface so that His Word can expose the lies and release you from the captivity you have found yourself in for so long.
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