Measuring Up

All my children are coming home this weekend. Brooke, Brittany and Brent will all be under the same roof for the first time in a long time, along with my three granddaughters. I am so excited that the happy tears just won’t stop! I love my kids. They have been my world for so many years that I have to admit it is hard to live in this house without them. (Pardon me while I go dry my eyes and wipe my nose.)

Since they are all coming, there was some cleaning that need done in the bedrooms. I had made a storage room out of Brent’s room. So recently I had to go through all the items I had stuffed in there. Going through all the clutter I wondered why I felt I had to hold on to certain things. I think it is good every once in a while to take inventory of the things we hold on to and why.

After many hours of organizing, throwing away, and cleaning, the room is ready for him. But what that started was going to the next room because I had put things in that room and it began a domino effect! So I have some really clean rooms right now!

This morning I got up really early to do my devotion and have not quit crying! I am excited to see my kids today, but the Lord brought up some issues for me to look at. Eph 5:2 says, “Imitate God as dearly loved children.” Do you know that you are a dearly loved child? This question sent me for a loop! My answer was no.

Stay with me here as I explain this. I am not looking for sympathy, I just want to be transparent. I am going through Beth Moore’s book “So Long Insecurity.” Everyone needs to read it! A question was asked, “How much is our unforgivness due to insecurity? If we would be SECURE women – things that have or do offend us would roll off of our backs – BUT BECAUSE IT HIT US IN THE PLACE OF OUR DEEPEST NEED FOR SECURITY – we are insecure and harbor unforgivness. Whew! That is a mouthful!

As the tears started pouring down my cheeks, I hit the floor to my knees. Of course my best (black furred) friends hit the floor with me licking the tears, and rolling onto their backs for a rub. Now if that is not love I don’t know what is! Unconditional!

What got to me the most this morning was, we are insecure because we don’t feel down to our bones that we ourselves are forgiven. Our past keeps coming back. Nothing holds us in our insecurity more than we have not been forgiven ourselves.

I pushed rewind in my life and had to bring them before the Lord. Why have I always dealt with feeling like I have never measured up? I did not feel that I was loved and valued so security was never there for me.

Insecurity set in when:
1.I was left alone too much
2.School kids made fun of me.
3.Didn’t get picked on a team.
4.A boyfriend breaks up with me to go out with my best friend.
5.My parents fought.
6.Never got invited to the prom.
7.Moved constantly.
8.Always drove the “old” car.
9.Didn’t have $ to buy “cool” clothes.
10.Got married and was a disappointment to him.
11.I disappointed my kids.

This list was an eye opener for me. I did not realize the issues lying just below the surface that still held me captive. No wonder hurt resides just right there and at any given moment with the right amount of fuel will explode.

Just as I cleaned the bedroom out of things I have held onto, I need to clean out my insecurity issues. We can never go back and change the past, but according to Revelation 1:8, God who is, and was, and is to come, can go back and redeem the hurt. Healing can begin and the hurt let go of.

I cannot go back and change anything, but the Lord can change the effect it has on me now. He can change my perspective. When I look at the list, can I change being left alone too much? No, but God can go back fill those empty places. Can I go back and change not being picked on a team? No, but when that persons face comes to the forefront of my mind (isn’t it amazing that we can go back to second grade and know that Dino Moreno was the captain and didn’t choose me?) I can choose to forgive him. And suddenly one day I see this list and there is no pain involved because through the process of forgiveness I have been healed!

Friends, we have to know that we are loved and accepted. We have to know that we are forgiven. If we do not accept and know this, then everything Jesus did on the cross was for nothing. He died so I would be accepted. He died so I was forgiven, therefore I need to forgive others. If I don’t, my mind is cluttered with feelings, my feelings are loaded with excess hurt, my mouth spews cutting words and the cycle begins all over again.

I remember the theme song to a very old movie. I do not remember the movie at all but I remember the words. “Gotta get off, gonna get, have to get off from this ride… When did I get, where did I, how was I caught in this game?……When did I stop feeling sure, feeling safe….. gotta get off this merry go round….”

I am getting off this merry go round of insecurity. Some things are so ingrained or ingraved in me it may be painful. But I have to get free from the stuff that keeps me so in bondage that I don’t live a life free in Christ.

Life is hard enough as it is, but when we live it continually pushing away the love of the Lord, we only compound our problems.