I am stuck in a trap of self-loathing. This week has been a particular struggle. I am not sure why … except that now I am trying to discover my beauty/true self/glory/ new creation-ness … so why wouldn't the enemy try and hurl a bunch of old crap at me.
I think this goes beyond just knowing my identity in Christ … though I think that is a part of it for sure … I need to know those pieces of identity truth … but they need to be understood and revealed to the core of my true self to enliven what God has made in me that reveals His image. Or at least I think that's how it's supposed to work!
Anyway … the self loathing… I am discovering is real and evil and a pervasive disease. It feels like I am trapped in barbed wire, mean thoughts poking and scratching me minute by minute. But the evil doesn't stay in me -- it continually seeps out all over my family esp. my kids. It just wells up in me … the thoughts get me angry - livid even, and any irritation, annoyance, frustration, or unpleasant change, anything that doesn't go my way -- and an eruption of the disease comes out to spread far and wide. And then the self-loathing cycle repeats because now I realize I have done the very thing I hate doing.
How can so much ugliness reside inside of one person? Many days this week it was all I could see. My mind was flooded with it. I was waiting in the car for the kids on Friday as I wrote this out on scraps of paper - that Jesus would come and release me and focus my eyes on Him. Its exhausting to hate yourself this much -- everything is defeated before you begin. It feels like a trap. And I can't find the way out.
Where does it even come from? It dawned on me the other day that this is an awful lot like the screaming queen in my heart. She's the one who sits on the throne and guards the black hole of shame that was hidden for so long. This is exactly how she behaves. She screams to get her way. She screams when you don't give her what she wants. She screams until you shut her up… but really she is keeping you away from that horrible pit … because that level of shit in there is even worse than dealing with her. That pit is so scary in fact I apparently put the screaming queen there to keep MYSELF away. So I have always kept her fed with whatever would quiet her - aka my idols - food, TV, novels -- anything escapist works really well. Sin is so deep. And idolatry is really all the ways we run away from dealing with it. Without even knowing it I did some of that this week … I went shopping, I covered over my quiet moments with TV, I tried to stay away from my kids who cause the most irritation.
This is not the way I want to live.
Last year I had to walk in that dark pit. I wept for so many months swimming in the shame. BUT at the end of that time - even though the crying was done - I never felt healed. It just all seemed to fade into the background as I moved into the numb phase of this Dark Night. Now here I am again staring this crap all in the face again … yuck … and I am not sure what to do - what to know - what to pray except HELP. I just know that I want to be healed. I want to change. I don't want to hate myself anymore - it destroys too much … and who knew it could? I really didn't know it could hurt anyone else … that's really not what I want. So again I pray … HELP.
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