I spilled my coffee at 5:30 this morning. I knew it would happen, in fact I had a vision of it happening in the kitchen while making my husband's lunch. It didn't change the fact that it super ticked me off. Super ticked is definitely an adjective for this situation. Anyhow, even though I "had a feeling" that coffee would be spilled it didn't quite play out like the vision.
While pouring carefully into my favorite mug, I imagined the cup slipping out of my hands and hitting the kitchen floor spraying flecks of sugary creamy coffee up the wall, all over the fridge, and shattering said cup. I thought "Man, I'm glad that didn't happen." It would have been sad to lose that cup and a huge pain to clean up such a mess. Rather pleased with myself for not dropping the cup I walked down the hall and set it down too fast, sloshing the yummy goodness down the side of my bookcase and all over a picture. Then came a choice word that escaped my mouth, and that was indeed unfortunate. The whole scenario reminded me that i'm a failure. (Don't worry, this isn't a self bashing pity party. I'm going somewhere with this.) Just as I began to clean up the mess and settle down for some quiet time, the yelling started.
Most of my neighbors are either on their way to work at 5am or sleeping. However today my next door neighbor began sharing the story of his morning in a song of expletives. Not that it was in anyway shocking. In fact it's pretty common. I was very surprised by how early he was awake and also saddened that his day began with such intense anger. Whenever i'm inadvertently invited into someone's life I can't help but wonder about them. I wonder things like: What in the world is he so angry about? Why does he feel like he has to scream and swear all the time? Why does he feel so powerless, or sometimes so powerfully opposed to his own family? Who showed him this behavior, What happened to him? Why is this normal for them?
It's also not uncommon for me to complain about living next door to them. If you know me personally I don't doubt that you've heard me gripe at least once about these neighbors. One thing I don't always share is that I don't like it because it reminds me of parts of my childhood. I won't go into a ton of details, but suffice it to say that I grew up in an unstable environment. Drug and alcohol abuse was a daily event in my home. Many times I would witness rants similar to the one that happened this morning, but in my own living room. I know now why it happened with some of my family members. They lived through a hellish assortment of nightmares in their own childhood and used drugs and alcohol to avoid feeling and dealing with the pain of life. The message that was reinforced to them was that they were always doing terrible things and becoming terrible people. Guess what happened? They grew up to become unstable adults with extremely difficult lives and a trail of destruction that followed each of them, because of terrible things they had done.
So when I hear my neighbor screaming my heart breaks for him because I can only imagine what he was told about himself. Who made him feel worthless and weak? Who taught him that to be heard in life you have to scream at the top of your lungs? I'm sure that some part of himself took over after those negative beliefs were reinforced enough times.
We've all done that in life to some extent. Someone told us what or who we were or weren't from the beginning. Some of us choose to spend the rest of our lives living out the negative things that were spoken over us to our own detriment. My own message was one of shame, false guilt, worthlessness, and rejection. I remember thinking, "I want out of this way of life." Because of the example of some of my family, I knew drugs and alcohol were not the ultimate answer. However, I couldn't overcome all the negative lies about myself on my own. I know because I tried everything, and it never lasted.
It wasn't until I met a man who gave me hope that the opposite was true. He told me that the God who created everything created me on purpose. That if I asked God to forgive me for the destructive way that I had treated HIS child (me) and asked God's Son Jesus to come live in my heart, I would instantly be forgiven for ALL of it. Not part of it. Not a fraction of it. ALL OF IT! It was so amazing. It's probably not as amazing to you because, well, you're not me and you didn't, don't and can't know everything I've ever done because you're not God. Trust me, it was bad.
I was not instantly healed of the the lies that I had believed for so long though. It also didn't wipe away the memories of the destructive things I had done. What it did do was lead me to pursue everything about God that I could. This even included some godly counseling after my mother died; and over time (about 15 years) my internal message has changed. It has gone from the self fulfilling prophecy, which was destructive, to the God fulfilled prophecy that who I am is His PRECIOUS CHILD, even WHEN I fail. What I am IS WORTHY of His love, and to be heard I only need to pray. Sure, parts of my old self remain (like the word that escaped me this morning). However, with God's help I'm working on it one day at a time.
I wish that people like my neighbor would begin to have their negative messages changed by the truth of who they are in Christ's eyes too. They are beloved, precious and valuable to Him. Jesus wants to give them the gift of having a changed life; a life of worth and value. Jesus offers this precious cup to everyone, and all too often just like my vision this morning, they let it slip through their hands and shatter on the ground. Sometimes it's even thrown. Other times we accept the cup and still manage to make a mess, like I did this morning. Thankfully Christ is right there to clean up what we believe about who we are when we fail. There's so much more to it than this, but there is already a book on that. (see: The Bible)
In short, we are who we believe we are. Whether it's believing the criticisms of the world, the opinions of others, or the opinion of God, we ARE living out and acting like who we believe we are. The more we chose to believe who God says we are, the better off we will be, because the truth is that He loves us and says we're precious to Him.
I fail first thing in the morning. I fail throughout the day, and at this point in my life, I'm so grateful to have a Savior that loves me through my failures, and calls me His precious daughter. That's who I want to be.
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