I am a liar

I promised to bring you up to speed on my life and then, well, life got in the way! I have many times written to you all in my head but somehow knew today was a day I needed to reach out and share with you all part of my journey… 

I always thought of myself as an honest person. I think most people would have said I was honest… I thought my only lie was “Be there at such and such a time” when everyone knew that me and the kids would be at least 10 minutes late.... but it turns out I was a habitual liar. 

On the outside you would see a confident outgoing leader who was able to envision all sorts of things for the studio, but on the inside I was a workaholic desperately trying to be good enough to keep my life from falling apart. I would speak lies to myself continually…

• You are not good enough,

• You are not valuable,

• You deserve this life of anger and abuse

• You will never be safe

• You are alone

• God will never forgive you fully for all your failures

• You are not loved…

The list was pretty extensive… Some of these lies drove me to success…. Well... they drove me to success in business at least. They worked to push me because I needed to prove to myself and others (others who never asked me to prove myself) that I could be better than the failure that I was inside my head. 

I think many of these lies were what kept me trapped in a marriage to someone who literally would tell me he didn’t love me. A man who showed this lack of love through anger and abuse of many kinds… I didn’t deserve better than that because my worth was dependent on my achievement. 

If you watch our recital this year you will hear this same story… I didn’t know recital was about me when the storyline came together… God knew though didn’t He? He knew that this was a story that I am healed from even though the scars are still evident…. He knew there would be another who needed to hear it and that I needed reminding. 

I didn't know it until today, well, maybe I knew, but I just hadn't processed it yet... I have a phrase that I say to myself when these lies try to bury me alive.... "I will do better"... For years this phrase shaped my life...Today though when those words crossed my lips I remembered that I am no longer that person... I am not that unloved woman who didn't have value... When I said that old familiar phrase I remembered the truth... The truth that that old me, the one striving for perfection, the one desperately yearning for a safe place, the one who would never live up to the standard I set for myself... I don't have to be her anymore. I no longer had to say I would try harder and try to be enough and try to be loved and try to be enough for others… In the past it would have stopped there… I would have tried out of my own effort, and when I was yelled at next, or messed up next, or something happened that I couldn’t control I would have failed once more. The difference this time was I could tell that these were lies… It doesn’t mean that the feeling that emerged didn’t still hurt, it didn’t mean that I suddenly forgot about the realness of my past - it meant that within an hour of lying to myself I could sit down on the floor with my dog praying and asking the Holy Spirit to speak the truth to me. I could choose to stop listening to the lies that were swirling in my head and choose instead to speak the truth… I am the daughter of the One true King. Royalty… I do deserve love, I do deserve safety, I do deserve respect, I am enough, I am chosen, I am held close by the love of my King. I don’t deserve and have these things because of my own actions. It’s because of who GOD is that I have these rights… I am royalty because of who my Father is, not because of myself. 

Dear reader…. What lies did you speak today? What did you tell yourself about your value? What did you tell yourself about your past? What did you tell yourself about your future?

I have women reach out to me often… Women needing someone to listen to them talk about their marriage or their pain without finding judgement in my eyes… Do you need that? If so I am here for you. I doubt there is anything you could say that would shock me at this point in my life, and I might not have all the answers but I do have resources to help with logistics and intercessory prayer to help with the rest. 

I was supposed to update you on my life… I know some of you meant my love life when you reminded me to post on the blog… THIS… This right here is what is allowing me to have a love life, because if I lived in the lies of yesterday I would sabotage any future I could possibly have. As it is the lies already creep up and try to steal my joy, but the difference now is I recognize the voice of my Father, so when the lies come I know it’s not Him talking and I can choose to turn and listen to the Truth instead.

I am praying over you all that you would read this and be blessed, blessed to have a reminder of how your Father God sees you today beautiful one.