By the way, did I mention that I’m enjoying life for a change? LOL! Yeah, I’m one of those who used to live life dreaming of what my life would be like if I were somewhere else doing something else, and sometimes if I were someone else, but never anyone I already knew mind you. I never desired to BE anyone else I knew even though there were a few people in my life, from time to time that I truly admired and desired to be like in some way i.e. musically for instance and having long elegant fingernails. :-) Finally, and it has taken me a minute, or two (some things take longer okay?), to learn to like me, and to like being me. It took me being removed from all I knew as my life, and the people around me, my everyday routines, my religious beliefs, church attendance every week, hourly trips to the refrigerator and my secret Snickers bar and M & M’s with peanuts chamber (I didn’t need to watch Harry Potter, I had my own secret chambers.); Day after day being alone in a foreign country, living with just. . . ME. Wow. I got to see me and nobody else, finally for 2.5 months. What made me happy, sad, laugh, cry without the aid of family, friends, television, or videos, no frequent flier telephone miles, no money, no shopping. Rien, nada, nothing. None of my crutches. I could check in with family and friends through email daily, but only for a couple of hours out of 24, nine of which I would sleep away. (Which also helped me become less than half the woman I was before, in size I mean, which we can talk about another time. Yes sleep. Look it up on the internet.)
And what a lesson that was for me because for many years I burned the candle at both ends. I would go to bed between midnight and two o’clock a.m. then awaken at four a.m. to go to work, clocking in at six a.m. Oh, yes some days I would sleep walk through my job from one end of the factory to the other. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open and my head up, yet when I arrived home I would pick up another book, cook with the book, watch television with the book, sing with the book (oh, any book for I loved reading and learning, and escaping to other lands and worlds. Move over Alice and Dorothy, there’s room for all of us.). Can you believe I actually tried to drive with a book one time? This was after I saw a woman driving her car on the highway while reading and when I tried it, I almost crashed, so I knew I had gone too far with the book. So you get the picture. I was kind of out of touch with me for I wanted to be someone else, somewhere else. So finally it happened, but in reverse order. I had to be somewhere else in order to become someone else and that someone else was the real me, hidden beneath the me everyone and everything else in my life had defined me to be. Voila!! Magic! LOL!
Last summer I was blessed to meet a new family of friends who are now a part of my family. They invited me to stay in their home in Langorn, France for three days, which turned into five days, and would have turned into seven or nine if I had not needed to return to my work schedule. They allowed me to retreat with them in their wonderful home and on their land which reminded me of Virginia. Oh, we ate, and read books, and watched the Olympics happening in China, we joked and laughed and rode bikes. Ah. . . well the kids rode bikes, I went for long walks down the country road, and yes I slept. Peacefully in the country, far from city life (love those Green Acres! Achew!). I have finally learned to appreciate the benefits of sleeping well and respecting my body when she says “I’m tired”. That’s a topic for another blog. Anyhoooo. One evening after supper when the kids were gone to bed, we stayed up talking, soaking in each other’s company for we knew our time together would be short, and I don’t remember how we got on the topic of the House of Mirrors, but it left an impact upon us.
I made the comment that the fun part of the House of Mirrors is the distortion – looking fatter, taller, skinnier (YES!!!), shorter, uglier (ugh), cuter, than you are. LOL!! Yet in real life with each other, and in our spiritual lives – our relationship with God – distortion is no laughing matter. It is also called deception, delusion, and illusions, to name a few. Who and what we are inside is who and what we really are, and we and the world learn who we are by our words, actions, and inactions. The Bible tells us “whatsoever a person thinks in his/her heart, so is he/she”. Yes, the heart thinks. One thing I love about the complexity of the French language is also the simplicity. (oxymoron?) The same word for thoughts or “mind” is the same word for “spirit”. So if I say “mon esprit” I am saying “my mind” and I’m also saying “my spirit”. In English we differentiate between the spirit and the mind, and we refer to our heart when talking about our spirit, and we refer to our mind when speaking about our thoughts. Okay, just needed to go around Robin Hood’s barn and retrieve that so what I said makes sense to ya. (Thanks Mr. Ed. Oui mais, bien sur!)
So I guess it’s important what we feed our minds (all those books I read, I’ve got a library inside of me!) for what goes in will come out. Also, not just through books, but the media, newspapers, videos and movies, television and internet, social clubs, church (oh yeah, be careful there too), conversations, and most of all the conversations we have with ourselves. What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror? “Mirror mirror on the wall, mirror mirror down the hall, can you hear me when I call, did you see me take that fall. . .” Okay, sounds like a new nursery rhyme coming through. (Ding dong the witch is dead!) Don’t touch it, it’s mine. LOL!! The things we tell ourselves are more important than what others tell us because at the end of the day, we are left alone with ourselves and our thoughts. Now, what others have spoken into our ears and manage to get into our minds/hearts about ourselves, becomes the dissertations we expound upon even in the night seasons, and if they’re not good, positive, and accurate, guess what? We wake up thinking “you’re ugly”, “you’re too fat”, “you will never meet a good man/woman looking like you do”, “God doesn’t love you, heck He doesn’t even like you”, “you’re a bad person, why else would you be having a hard time?”, etc. and blah blah ick! Stop!!! “In the name of love, before you break my heart. Think it o-o-ver.”
Now, if these thoughts become monuments inside our souls then guess what we will look like, act like, and sound like when we speak? (Walking Baffled Towers and Statues of Bondages.) We are what we eat, not only physically, but mentally as well, and what we think in our minds/hearts affects our emotions – how we feel at any given moment, and what we think about ourselves and others. We will assume that others see us and hear us the way we see, hear and feel about ourselves, and thus we will respond (or react) to them according to . . . you’ve got it – the glasses we’re wearing. I’ve been so blessed to have sisters and brothers in my life to refute the lies I’ve swallowed down through the years about me. Yes, they had to induce emotional, spiritual and mental vomiting to help me get free from negative things that were ruling me from inside of myself.
On the one hand I was professing to be a Christian, a disciple of God through Jesus Christ, yet on the other hand I was living a defeated life in the hidden parts, where no one could see except my close family and friends. Yet it was from those places my life decisions were being made, from a distorted view of me, and of God. I would sing, teach, preach, dance and sweat of His love for you and me, His salvation, His peace and joy etc. yet inside I failed to be convinced of His undying and unconditional love for me. Why? Because my life didn’t seem to reflect His love. I thought if He loved me He would give me the desires of my heart, ALL of them and when I wanted them (NOW), and how I wanted them (MY WAY, like Sinatra). Ahem. Sounds like I was LIVING in a house of mirrors.
You see, I grew up in a religious environment where we were taught, whether explicitly or implicitly that when you give your heart and life to the Lord, and you’re doing it right (whatever “it” is), and He’s happy and pleased with you etc. etc. then whatever you ask of Him He will give it to you. Heck, that sounded like a good bargain to me. Right up there with K-Mart’s blue light specials. (I ought to know, I used to work there.) So for many years I tried to be the best Christian I could be – saying “yes” whenever the church made a request, no matter how I felt or my resources, or lack thereof, forgiving and forgetting, trying to walk in love (mind you is a good thing, keeps you free inside), becoming everybody’s doormat. You get the picture. Yet these were not requirements from God for He didn’t see me as a “yes” man or “yes” woman (slavery is over), nor did He see me as a doormat. That was my distorted view of myself because of what I felt I lacked in life, and how others treated me in response to what I thought about me (how I allowed others to treat me), and how I treated myself. The thoughts we have about ourselves create an aura around us that gives off “energy” – positive or negative, and it either draws people or repels them, and all kinds of people are drawn to honey – bees, and the superfly too. :-) Several powerful scriptures are running through my mind at this time as I come to the end, which have helped me so much with this area of my life, and have changed ME forever. I hope they will touch you too. One is my absolute favorite: Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, SAYS THE LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Emphasis mine) Wow!! Because His head is bigger than ours it stands to reason that His thoughts about us are too, and much better and more positive. Yes I get excited about John 3:16 too, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever (you can call me “whosoever” too) believes in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life.” But Jeremiah 29:11 met me where I was – dealing with my distorted self. And now I find myself hanging out with the mind of God more and more. It’s a no-brainer!
So what are my thoughts these days? About me? How in love God is with me that He would give me a second thought, and a third. That He would make plans for me, my entire existence and my future, not in a controlling way, but because He knew what I was supposed to be and become when He created me, thus He knew I wouldn’t be happy being anything, or anyone else, but the real me. God has perfect vision and I’ve been told for humans, that’s 20-20. But God’s got us beat by an eternity! His view of us is multi-dimensional, all knowing (omniscient), everywhere at all times (omnipresent), and all powerful (omnipotent). Another scripture says “we are the temple – house, dwelling place – of the Lord, the Holy Spirit dwells – lives – within you”. When you have the Creator of the Universe living in your house, there’s no more room for distortion. He knows who you claim to be, who you want to be, who others see you to be, who you really be (gotta stick with the “be” family), and who He has created you to be. “Mirror mirror on the wall, mirror mirror down the hall, if before you I should stall, I’m just gazing at Him in me, big and tall”. *Poof*
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