I had epiphany today. I like days like that, they make me feel smart. Using big words like epiphany make me feel smart too.
I’ve been struggling for a few months, strike that, my whole life with my thought life, I’ve just become more aware of it in the past few months. I’ve always heard ‘we’re our own worst critic’, so I just assumed it was a natural part of life to think I suck at many things, and didn’t put much more thought into it.
Until recently.
You see this morning I read a friends blog, that encouraged me again that I’m not the only one that has renegade thoughts. She likened her’s to a roach infestation in her head, where it became a fight figuring out which roach she was gonna chase after and squash because there were so many to choose from. However, she’s gaining ground in her fight, and has said the infestation has been downgraded to a pesky mouse that pokes his head out from time to time.
I’ve been hearing it from many sides recently about the importance of taking our thoughts captive (2 Corinth 10:5). My argument has always been: “How in the heck am I supposed to do that when my THOUGHTS are taking ME captive?!?”
An example.
I let Kevin sleep in this morning. 99% of the time he let’s me sleep in, one of the top 5 reasons I will love this man with all my heart until the day I die! As we both sat down to work (on our bed, because that is also our desk as our children and Stephanie hang out), this conversation occurred.
“Aren’t ya’ glad you got to sleep in?” (We’ve already covered the fact I’m a pride mongrel scouring the world over for people to tell me I’m wonderful, so let’s not get stuck on this point here)
“Yeah it was great thanks Babe” (he feeds my addiction well, also in the top 5)
“Its a good thing your a morning person, I’m exhausted” (boys up at 5:00a, I fell asleep at 1a, went to bed at 11p, but me and sleep only seem to get along at inopportune times.)
“I’m not a morning person”
“Yes, you tell everyone all the time, that you couldn’t sleep past 6 if you tried”.
“I only tell people that, so you don’t look so bad”
Ouch…. and queue the roaches.
From that one comment I managed to believe that Kevin actually hates me, and thinks I’m the most selfish person in the world, whom through some ugly twist of fate he is tied to for the rest of his life. Mind you during this entire roach infestation Kevin had gone downstairs to grab himself breakfast, and returned to a sullen wife, that in true 5 year old fashion made the comment “I’m sorry you hate me”. When I explained to my perplexed husband what had occurred in the five minutes since he’d been gone, he laughed (as he usually does when my breaks from reality occur), and assured me he didn’t actually mean that, he truly doesn’t mind getting up in the morning, and then we had to have a discussion on how many mornings a week that actually means. (Because I’m still concerned I’m coming off as a total wretch here, we’re mostly talking about Tues/Thur/Sat that I get to sleep in till 7:30-8, because all other days I’m up for him to leave for work early or church on Sunday).
This example can happen multiple times throughout a day, with almost anybody I come in contact with, and most times I don’t even need to be interacting with anyone else… Quite often the roaches just release themselves and take my brain captive!
So my epiphany was this, as I read over my friends blog and commented on her post this morning. More often than not, my thoughts do still take ME captive, and I’ve determined they are holding me for ransom. The ransom: encouraging, uplifting, positive thoughts, and the ones most effective for immediate extermination of all roaches, are words directly from God’s Word. You see, my epiphany helped me realize, therein lies my problem. When I go to make a withdrawal from the positive/life giving word bank, I tend to get the response “Insufficient Funds”. I, like many, often times find the bible rather confusing. I also get quite discouraged when every other page has a lineage, or location, or whatever that I can’t pronounce. Being confused and feeling dumb do not help the roach issue.
I’m hopeful though, cause this semester is gonna be a breakthrough semester! I’m leading “Breaking Free” at our church, which is a bible study centered around gaining freedom from the captivity of our own thoughts. Don’t worry, I have friends on STAFF at the church, that read this, and I’ve already tried convincing them that their faith in my leading is horribly miss-placed. I’m thankful for them, however, that they are good at the positive/life giving words, because their deposits in my word bank have filled a ransom note or two in the past, and slowly but surely are helping me get to a point of making deposits of my own.
So that’s my epiphany, work on making my OWN deposits, so I can stand on my own two feet, and not depend on the deposits of others to bail me out, cause I HATE the “Insufficient Funds” notice! And maybe try to use epiphany 4 or 5 more times a day, just to up the smart quotient for the day… or I could just keep saying quotient 🙂
Glad to be in good company 🙂
Love your honesty, Julie. In reality, people don’t want a leader who has everything mastered, they want an authentic and passionate person to facilitate their growth process and that is YOU! Your church staff is smart for choosing you.