Bound to Love©

     As I meander through the trails of the story I’ve lived under, something is changing. It’s amazing what grace can do when given the opportunity.  Things are softening in me amidst a world of harsh responses and hurt feelings. I’m learning to process more truth about me, which in turn is allowing generosity towards others to show up.  It’s not that things don’t hit me but more that their ability to stick around and plague my mind with shame is lessening.

     As I’m learning to deconstruct the things I’ve believed about myself I’m seeing things differently, I’m seeing people differently.  I’m finding a detachment from their actions having an ability to give or take my value.

     What I’ve discovered is that the greatest hindrance to being loved, has been me allowing the world and the people in it to dictate negative beliefs to me.  People have had an influence they were never meant to have and I’ve allowed it. Most of the time, I would wager, they are oblivious to what their actions are saying to me, about me.

     We watch other people’s actions and reactions and we speculate and most of the time we are dead wrong.  We sift these things through a faulty filter and it builds into a minefield of broken identity and pain.

     Many of us weren’t given much in the ways of how deeply we are loved apart from what we do or don’t do.  We start out in this world innocently and quickly get sucked into programs and grading systems that show us where we are lacking and where we need to improve.  It’s easy to get misinformed.  

         Love becomes measured, calculated and conditional and I don’t know about you, but I bought  into it.

     Everywhere I looked I was told to try harder to be better.  There was always something wrong with me, somewhere. It has been the greatest deception of my world.  

     I watch as my newborn grandson lays quietly in his bassinet.  He’s oblivious to the world around him, except for when he’s hungry.  He’s loved and cared for above his wildest imaginations. He doesn’t do one thing to gain it.  He’s just loved because he is.

     The voices of this world have not gotten to him.  People have not hurt him with their choices or actions.  He hasn’t made regretful life choices that he would go back and do over, if he could.  He’s fresh into this world, perfectly formed, perfectly loved.  

     It’s the truest picture of what life really is.  The one that we miss. Because the truest truth is that we are loved beyond our wildest imaginations, just because we are.

     The first step in recovering my real story has been coming to terms with that.  It all begins with somehow, accepting this profound love that brought me here in the first place.  

    That, is my starting point.  It’s what allows me the chance to stop and sift through the voices in my head that come bounding in through the actions of others.  Because the truth is, until I know I am loved by God, I will look to others to prove something good about me, to me, and they will fail.  It’s inevitable.

     When I look to performance, mine or others to tell me whether I’m worth loving, things will get all mixed up inside.  It’s not the way things were meant to be. Your story does not dictate my story. I’m starting to get that. It’s what dismantles the whole mess of shame that can tie me up in knots.

     When I react in a negative way towards you because of the shame in me, it’s my stuff, not yours.  It’s a game changer for relationships.

      Shame is the negative thoughts in my head that tell me something is wrong with me.  I’m not loved, valued, important, wanted, you get the idea. It’s the identity that’s formed through misconceptions and misinformation.  I buy into something negative about myself and that becomes the story. You do something that touches it and I turn against you. Because your actions are telling me that my worst fear is true.

     It’s all messed up. 

    Shame is the way of the world.  It speaks insecurities and devaluing thoughts to us.  When I believe it’s story it changes the way I relate.  When I stop to consider what I know to be true of myself I can let it all go and walk away holding my head up high.

     When I can look at what you do and not make it about me, opportunity arises.  What I’m finding is the only way that can happen is when I get my identity from where it was meant to be gotten.  

    There is only One who knows my true value.  The One who made me.

     A sculptor knows the value of the piece he sculpts, as does the potter and the artist.  They know the time, love and thought that go into each piece. They and they alone assign the value.  

     So it is with me.

     The course of my life is changing as I step into this new way of seeing.  My reality has always been what is true of my grandson. I am loved beyond my wildest imaginations and I don’t do one thing to make that happen.  I just am. No one’s actions or words can change that.

     It all starts with love, love that changes the world.  Love that sacrifices life to rescue broken people. To live free of shame is to live bound to love.              

©copyrighted: Julie H Todd 2019

Love Conquers All ©

     When I read the sentence in Brene’ Brown’s book “Rising Strong” I didn’t like it.  “What if everyone is doing the best they can?” The whole chapter is her struggle to come to terms with that statement.  It bothered her so much that she did what she’s known to do, she researched it, asking people along the way. “Do you think people are doing the best they can?”  Her research showed that, for the most part, many believe that people are. She quotes Maya Angelou “When you know better, you do better.”

     It’s a hard question to answer, honestly. It’s especially hard when you’ve been hurt, or treated in ways that knock you down. As I sit with this topic today I am reminded of something that happened a few years ago.  

     I was working in a toxic environment.  The administrative staff was not just, or fair.  Things were often blown out of proportion and good people were let go without so much as a write up.  A shock would go through the company as we watched great people pack up their things to be walked out the back gate.  Many of those remaining wondered if their turn would come next. I never really expected it to happen to me but I surely didn’t think I would face what I did.  

     A friend, who I hired as my employee, took liberties, built factions about me and went to the administration.  Others of my staff were extremely upset for what was being said about me. They knew the truth and stepped up to tell it.  Unfortunately my “friend” was believed. To say I was shocked was an understatement. I could not get over what was happening to me, but I was so utterly hurt by someone I trusted.  All I could do was state the truth. When the administration sided with the lies I determined it was time to turn in my resignation. I limped my way out feeling the deep betrayal of someone I considered to be an ally.  She had stabbed me in the back. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what would lead her to do that. Was she really doing the best she could?

     As I look back, now several years later, with that question in mind, I can see things a bit more realistically.   Sadly, yes, I do believe she was doing the best she could. Maybe the only way she could find a place to be accepted, was to somehow get me out of the way so others could see her.  It’s sad to consider what story she must believe about herself to put her in a position to go to such great extremes.  

    As I reflect today I wish no ill will towards her.  Jesus said it best, “forgive them they don’t know what they are doing.”  I don’t think she really has any idea what she did. She acted out of her own broken places.  As always, God turned it into something good.

    Broken people fill this world.  Broken people react in broken ways.  They hurt the very people they were meant to love and they don’t even see it.  

    I can look back on my own life and see so many things I did out of my brokenness, things that hurt my husband, my children, the people I walked through life with.  I did stupid things, things I would do differently if I could go back. Maya Angelou is right, when you know better, you do better.

     What if people really are doing the best they can?  What if their own broken stories of shame hold them in dark places where they are oblivious to it all?  Yes, maybe they should, but what if they can’t? What if their actions really aren’t about you or how they feel about you?  What if they are so hidden in a plethora of lies that bury them alive? What if all they can see is a tainted perspective because of the garbage of insecurity and shame that fill them?  

      That doesn’t mean we have to put ourselves in positions to be ransacked by their actions,    At the same time, we don’t have to allow their actions to bind us up in our own story of shame. Boundaries are necessary when dealing with toxic attitudes. 

     I can only speak for myself.  I was captured in my own story that held me in a vortex of reactions towards those I dearly loved.  I had no idea what I was really doing. I’ve discovered that it’s easy to be brainwashed and completely oblivious that you are.  Most of us don’t really have a clue what we are doing to those around us until love shakes us up. At least I didn’t.

    I couldn’t find my way out until I found my way into the place of being loved, accepted, adored by the One who knows me best.

    The world wasn’t meant to be this way.  God created it with perfect love filling it. There was no brokenness.  There was no shame. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of the serpent inviting them to turn away from God it all changed.  From that point on every person born into this world was born into brokenness. It’s why Jesus came.

     He was the answer for the wrong choice made all those years ago.  He was the restorer that would invite us back into that beautiful love that was always meant to fill this place.  He didn’t just come to rescue us, He came to invite us to love. It starts first with me receiving what He gives with no strings attached.  

    It spills out towards those around us.

    Love changes everything.   We are loved, totally, completely, without doing a thing, just because we are.  To embrace this is to know better. Knowing better will make a better life.

    Are people really doing the best they can?  It makes my world a better place when I can believe that they are. We live out of what we know. Jesus came to heal the broken, to tell them how deeply they are loved.  Until that is known, people are stuck right where they are. 

    Love conquers all.

 ©copyrighted: Julie H Todd 2019

       

          

The Good of Being You©

     I can’t remember where I heard this quote the other day but it struck something in me, so much so that I stopped to write it down.  “When you decide who someone is you take away their chance to be who they are.” 

     The person I was as a child or a teenager or even a young mom is not the person I am today.  I’ve matured and grown and learned more about who I was made to be.

     When I was in the flux of my teenage years I was influenced by everything around  me. I honestly didn’t have a real clue who I was. I saw what was presented as acceptable and I moved towards it, wanting so desperately to belong.  It’s what I came into this world looking for, not realizing that I already did.

     As a young believer I found my way into a group of people who would disciple me to be who I needed to be.  It was all about behavior and nothing about identity. It set me on a wrong path, one that would take me years to get away from.

     I carried this into my role as a mother.  I wanted to give my children what I had been given, never realizing what I was doing until they were mostly grown and gone.  I was captured with a need to perform to be acceptable, therefore it was the way I lived in every way.

     I’ll never forget the moment when it all began to fall apart.   My children were gone to VBS with a friend who picked them up and brought them home every day.  I had chosen not to participate as I was in a very desperate place. I sat down in my comfy chair and turned on the cassette tape I’d been given titled, “Spiritual Ambition and Aggressive Striving.”  I knew as I listened that he was describing my life. As he talked of the Prodigal Son story I was moved by the way He described the love and acceptance of the Father that was not based on performing.  I’m not sure I’d ever really heard anyone talk about it that way. I knew something was hitting me down deep as tears coursing down my face turned into sobs. I was glad my children weren’t in the house because they certainly would have thought something terrible was wrong with me as the guttural sounds made their way out.

     The truth of the matter is that I was undone in ways that would change me forever.  Since that day, back in 2002 I’ve been maturing into who I am.

      I write a lot about shame these days because I’ve found it to be something that has kept me broken and bound.  Shame is that perspective of who I am based on what I believe are others’ opinions of me. It’s what I believe about myself through the actions and words of people around me.  Shame is the judgement I’ve cast on myself when not performing as expected. It tells me there is something indelibly wrong with me. It formed a mask which I wore for many years.

     I allowed shame to shape me, mold me and push me into a life of performance and striving to be found acceptable and worthy of love.  I’ve lived under its interpretations and been captured by its insecurities. For years I allowed the actions of others to tell me things that were far from true. It’s the part of me that is slowly falling off as I learn to see myself through the eyes of the One who is love.  In that I’m finding a freedom I never knew. So I write…

     I’m different in so many ways and my desire is that those who have known me for some time won’t decide who I am today based on how I was then. It’s the hardest part of my trail from the past.  I want to scream out “I’m not that girl anymore”. I could easily give way to shame because of the way I lived. 

      Everyone deserves a chance to be who they are today, not who they were yesterday.  It matters.  People change, people mature.

      Maturity is an interesting phenomenon.  I can see it most easily in my plants as they hide away in the winter ground and re-emerge when spring arrives.  Every year you see a little more of their beauty as their time of rest rejuvenates them. They come out in all their splendor to be what they were made to be.  They mature in their beauty and size as they repose.

     For many years I believed that maturity was me growing in my ability to overcome.  I see now that it’s quite the opposite. Maturity isn’t found in growing stronger to overcome adversity but it is discovered in the dependence of enjoying a deeper connection with Christ as my life.  It’s not work, it’s rest. The more I understand how deeply He sees and loves me, just as I am, because of who I am, the more I mature. 

     I’m not the mother I was, nor the wife.  I’ve changed. I’ve matured into this whole new way of thinking that is described throughout scripture.  The more Christ becomes my life the more I find the beauty of who I was made to be. As I lay down my own efforts and embrace His, grace flows.  As a result, love and acceptance begin to emanate from me. I no longer focus on what you may or may not be doing because it doesn’t matter anymore.  I am maturing into the truest thing about me.  

     I am loved, totally, completely without one thing said or done.  I am loved because it’s what God does. He loves, just as we are, until we know what He knows.  

    I am learning the value of dependence on Christ as my life.  I am maturing. I won’t be who I was yesterday, or the day before.  I am who I am today. It’s the most beautiful thing about this life.

    Every day starts with a new dawn, it’s a representation of life.  New mercy awaits us as we wake up to face each day.  

©copyrighted 2019 Julie H Todd

 

          

Living My Best Life©

     The question was put before me.  “How has not having to perform changed things for you?”  I sat and contemplated what that really meant for me.  It didn’t take me long to find the answer.   In my religious days I was caught up in climbing the ladder of spirituality.  The problem with that is that with each rung I surpassed, there was always another one waiting.  No matter how much I did, there was always more to do. I fought hard to get there, in the process, I lost a part of me.  

     In my day to day life I tried to be who people would want me to be.  If I was efficient and hard working, people would want me, and they did.  Performing became the means to find acceptance. The problem is that it never got me what I longed for.  Yes, I found success in my job because everyone loved an overachiever, but inside it just created a never ending demand.  

     When I began my journey to leave it all behind, I realized I didn’t have to perform to be loved.  In the process I discovered that I could be my truest me.

     What does that really mean, I was asked?  What does it mean to be the truest me?   It means learning to see the good of what God meant when He formed me in my mother’s womb to be who I am, before the world and it’s grading systems took over.

    I’ve heard it said before that true belonging is when we belong to ourselves.  It begins with looking at that negative belief and turning it into a positive perspective.

     I remember several years ago hearing a message challenging me to ask God what He really thought about me.  I took my pen, paper and headed out to the back porch to just sit with no distractions. I decided to list some things that I had believed about myself to be negative. One by one I asked Him about them.

     “Why do I ask so many questions?”  It’s something about me that seemed to be a problem.   I wished I could just stop it because the last thing I wanted to do was annoy people.  You can call me crazy, if you want, but I’m confident His voice spoke to the inner parts of me.  So much so, it has stayed with me all these years later. 

     “I made you to question.  I love that about you.” “You are inquisitive, you love to learn.”

      In that moment something penetrated and changed inside me.  For the first time I saw that it was good to be a questioner.  I felt a new place open up within allowing me to belong just a little more to myself.  

     These negative thoughts have come and gone through the years, one by one allowing me to find the good, true story of belonging.

     As I’ve said before, I have come to believe that there are two stories written on my life, one is the story the world has told me.  I call that my shame story. Being the truest me is coming out of that shame story and embracing how uniquely I am put together, knowing that all of me is loved by all of Him.

     There is something about a newborn baby that touches me.  I welcomed my 8th grandchild recently. He is beautiful, innocent, deeply held and loved.  His place is etched, profoundly, into his parents’ hearts. They could not love him more.  

     He was formed in his mother with no expectations or grading systems in place.  It’s the best life, the one we were all made for without the world’s demands that hand us a pass or a fail.  It’s the way life was meant to be without the systems that cover us and write stories of shame across our lives.

     It’s possible to get back there, to that innocence of new life.  I know because I’m finding my way back.

     Shame did a number on me.  It quieted who I was, keeping much of me hidden.  I had no choice but to perform in hopes that somehow, someway I would be found good enough to be accepted.  Achieving and striving became 2nd nature to me. No matter how much I did, it left more to be done.

     What changed for me, I was asked?  I became comfortable in my own skin when I let it all go.  I found the love I had always wanted. It had been there all along.  I just couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

     Leaving performance behind means coming back home to the original place of just being me and knowing I am the best me there is.  It’s taking the negative shame stories formed in my head and one by one parting ways with them, allowing the truth of who I am to wash over me.

     My sweet grandson, Gabriel, rests in arms that hold him tight.  He doesn’t do one thing to be lovable. He just is. It’s the innocence of love that is our truest reality, every single day.

     The world demands, God gives.  As I part ways with what the world has told me I find the love that God gives.  Just like Gabriel, I am loved for who I am, not what I do.  

    What has leaving performance behind done for me?  It’s allowed me to find a love that invites me to just be me.  After all, I am the best me there is.  

     “Oh yes, you “ shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit.”  Psalm 139 (The Message)

©copyrighted: 2019 Julie H Todd

 

  

      .