Originally published Friday, 07 October 2016.
Do you hate yourself when you yell - again?
Do you want to flick your wrist when you eat those brownies you should've dumped a week ago?
Do you call yourself an idiot for forgetting that appointment?
Do you believe you'll never get better, live better or act better?
Freedom can feel far.
Hope can feel lost.
Deliverance can taste like an extra-large pizza,
when you are one who berates yourself in your head.
Half my life, I've looked at my mistakes and asked, "Kelly, why are you so stupid?"
I say something dumb. "Kelly, why are you so stupid?"
I bump someone's bumper with my bumper, "Kelly, why are you so stupid?"
I miss an opportunity, "Kelly, why are you so stupid?"
No wonder, one of my big fears is of being stupid. I've been speaking that fear into my heart for a long, long time.
What have you been speaking into your heart? Does it look - and hit - hard, like a hammer to the head or does it look and feel soft - like grace?
If you're a heavy self-hitter, like me, listen up, because this is important: You no longer have to be hard on yourself, because the world was already hard on Jesus.
Let it really sink in. It hit him hard - and he took it.
Have you considered the weight of that? You don't have to beat yourself up because, Jesus, the bodyguard of all bodyguards, took all your hits. He got hit so hard his flesh broke wide open.
So, while you sit and stare at your injuries, thinking, "They'll never heal," God says, "If I conquered the cross, surely I can conquer what plagues your heart today."
Your brokenness is of no magnitude
that the maker of heaven and earth can't fix it.
When you whisper, "Please God, help me, help me, help me. God, I can't. God...God...God..."
God hears and nearly whispers, "Jesus".
Because if you see this man on the cross,
if you see the fullness of his gift,
if you see the King,
nearly riding to death on a donkey,
in this place of poverty and powerlessness,
if you just see him,
you'll see how he hung -
arms wide open,
for you,
the weak, wounded and restless one.
You'll see mercy,
care
and foreknowledge,
pour out.
You'll see his heart
to save -
both for today and yesterday.
When we see, Jesus, the man who won our freedom,
we really begin to trust his life can save us.
He didn't died for us yesterday,
only to give a half-hoot about us today.
When Jesus spread his arms on the cross, he welcomed our pain. He welcomed the addicts, the rapists, the depressives, the adulterers, the anxiety-prone, the controllers, the abusers, the abused and the proud. He basically says, "See me, I am reaching out to hug you, to embrace you - to receive the worst of you. Don't forget what I've done. Let yourself be saved from your plague."
With this idea friends, knowing his heart, I want to be saved afresh. There is an area so wounded in me, I keep on trying to layer dirt over it. I keep trying to wrestle it down in my own mind. I keep wanting to tell it to go hide out in Timbuktu. It never does. It tapes itself to me. It labels me.
Well, today friends, today...today, I say, Jesus, you are my only way. I am willing to travel through the hurt to find your help. I am willing to get honest with you, so I can get healed by you. I am willing to give it a shot, knowing that you surpass my slip ups.
"Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." (1 Pet. 2:16)
Hurt one, are you ready to live free? What's holding you back?
"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Ps. 147:3
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Other posts:
10 Reasons to Stop Being Hard on Yourself
When Forgiving Yourself is Hard (Linkup)
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