Yesterday, I had a major meltdown.
It happened in a matter of minutes and came out of nowhere.
I had just finished eating lunch with my family, and I was in a great mood. I had had a great workout that morning, and I felt energized from how productive my week had been. It was beautiful outside, and I was looking forward to another enjoyable Saturday ahead.
Just before going outside to do some yard work, my mom said, “Oh, I meant to tell you…”. I stopped in my tracks, interested to hear what she was going to say. She then shared with me the news that someone I was close to and loved dearly was benefiting from several big and amazing blessings in her life. I already greatly respected and admired this woman, and in my mind, she had the “perfect life”. She is beautiful, put together, has a loving, attractive, athletic, intelligent husband who adores her, a beautiful family, a gorgeous home, and one of the most incredible personal relationships with Jesus of anyone I’ve ever seen. She has never had to work, and she has been free to do what she is passionate about and gifted to do, as she feels led. Further, she doesn’t seem to have any major struggles, and she and her husband travel all over on luxurious vacations for weeks at a time throughout the year. What more could you want, right?
As much as I admire and love her, I really struggle internally with how she got so blessed and why life seems so easy for her, when it was one struggle after another for me for so many years. In my mind, she is getting to enjoy the life I had always dreamed of and wanted so badly for myself. Now, Mom was sharing with me how she was becoming super successful and popular in her industry, too – when she doesn’t even have to work or make a living since her husband makes so much money. My mom was excited for her, and of course, thought it was wonderful what was happening for her.
And I should have been, too – why wouldn’t I be? I absolutely love seeing people step into their passion and purpose and live a life they love. That’s what I was created to help people do!
But, at that moment, despite how much I love her and want everything good that God has for her, I didn’t feel happy for her at all. Instead, I felt sadness, anger, and jealously inside. Something had snapped inside of me. Despite how hard I tried to fight feeling that way, all I could hear in that moment was that someone else who “already had it all” was now also getting to enjoy what I had dreamed of, prayed for, and worked so hard to get to do, have, and be in my same industry. The picture I had wanted so badly for myself for all my life was happening for her, and it messed with me in a bad way.
I felt very ashamed for feeling that way, and I wished so much that I could stop myself from feeling it, but the sadness, anger, and envy were overwhelming. What I had just heard hit a very painful spot inside my heart, and it triggered some deep and ugly emotions. My stomach felt sick, and tears welled up in me. My mom could see it all over me before I could say a word, and she was obviously taken aback that I was reacting in that way. But when she saw my tears, she softened, and said in a loving way, “Honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you. I understand. I know it’s hard for you, and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened for you the way you want.”
I cut her off right away. I knew where she was going and what was coming next. She was going to say something like, “God has blessed you so much, and you should be happy for her, and He has a plan for you, etc. etc.” But right then, I didn’t want to hear any of that. Instead, in my anger, I lashed out at her, “You have no idea how it feels, and how badly I want that, and how much I’ve been through, and how hard I’ve worked, and you can’t begin to understand the pain I feel.” Then, I abruptly left the room, ran upstairs, shut my bedroom door behind me, and crashed head-first on the bed in belly aching tears. I felt so sad inside, deeply alone, righteous in my anger, and completely overcome with envy and self-pity. In that moment, I had fallen into the enemy’s evil trap, sunk to the bottom of that dark pit, and felt like I would never come back out.
It’s incredibly embarrassing to admit that I felt that way, and that I let it happen, but it’s the truth. Over the next few minutes, which felt like an eternity, I cried out to God and shared honestly and vulnerably all the ugly that was in my heart. I shared with Him how I had worked so hard, and I had tried to be so good. I had spent time with Him and honored His calling in my heart. I reminded Him that I had been through so much already, and I was a good person – dang, why does it have to hurt so bad and be so hard? Why couldn’t He just love me and bless me like her?
I yelled and cried despairing tears, until the poison was out of me. In a few seconds of hopelessness, I even thought about running away, and then thought how relieving it would be if I could just fall asleep and not wake up (that only lasted a second, and then I thought – “no way, I like my life too much for that. What am I thinking?!”) It’s amazing where our minds go though, when our hearts ache. When I had no more tears left, the stillness of the room and the softness of my bed calmed me. Then, I just lay there for what seemed like hours, but was really only several more minutes.
Finally, at the end of myself, I begged God, “Lord, you have to help me. I can’t change this for myself. I can’t stop wanting my picture. I don’t know how to surrender my dreams. I don’t know what else to do with this yearning inside of me. If you didn’t put this dream in my heart, then take the desire from me. Wipe it away. And I don’t know how to stop comparing my life to her blessing and how not to feel envious. Please change me because these feelings and thoughts are not of you, but I can’t change it myself.”
After several more minutes of lying there and surrendering it all to Him, clarity slowly started to come. Then, truth convicted me. I realized that I was still making my picture, my dream – into my idol, and that the problem was that I wanted my picture, my dream, and His blessing – all of which I believed that I deserved – much more than I wanted God Himself. I had also been glorifying the circumstances and blessings of someone else’s life, and coveting what they had, believing that if I had that, got to be that, and could enjoy that, that all of my longing and pain would go away, and that I would be blissfully and perfectly happy – because I would finally have everything I wanted.
Yet, I know so much better than that. I know that the truth is that real happiness and true joy come only from being in God’s Presence, in connected relationship with Him, and in alignment with His Spirit in my heart and the story He is writing for my life. I also know that my dream, my picture will continue to own me and steal peace and joy from me until I fully surrender them to Him instead of grasping onto them so tightly and trying to create them for myself in His name. Further, I know that God is the only one who can fully heal and redeem the pain and grief in my heart from disappointments and losses I have experienced, and unless I surrender them fully to Him, even if I got all of the blessings that I thought I wanted, until He is enough, then none of them would ever be enough either.
I also realized that the deep ache and pain I felt in my heart really had little to do with whether or not I was as wealthy, as perfect, as successful, or as blessed as her, or anyone else for that matter. Actually, as I thought about it more, if I had a choice to have her life or mine, I would choose mine, and if I really had a choice between being her or me, I would choose to be me.
Further, what had really caused me to feel such painful, negative emotions, when my mom told me the news after lunch, was not the reality of the facts, but the script I was feeding my mind. It was clear now that I was glorifying her story, and most of what I had constructed was probably not even true. Also, I was judging myself and my own circumstances fairly harshly, too.
As soon as I heard how great things were going for her, I told myself, “See, you did it all wrong. You missed it. You made bad decisions. If you hadn’t done that, and you had done this instead, then you’d be in a completely different place.” I was telling myself that I was a failure compared to her, and because I didn’t have her picture, her level of wealth and success, and because a man like her husband wasn’t attracted to me, that I was less than her – less of a woman than her – that I was not enough.
As soon as I heard myself think it, I recognized that lie. “I’m less of a woman than she is. I’m not enough.” Here we go again – old familiar and old faithful. How many times had that lie devastated me over the years? How many more times was I going to be caught in its snare?
This time, though, instead of going down into my shame hole over it, I decided to do something different. I said to God, “Lord, I thank you for revealing truth to me, and I thank you that the power of your Holy Spirit is strong enough to tear down this stronghold in me. I renounce the lie that I will be happy when…, that I will be successful enough when…, and that I am less than her or anyone else. I renounce the lie that I am not enough. I then replaced the lies with truthful declarations that God’s word says about me.
I continued praying to God, “I don’t know how to change myself, but I trust that you do. Perform heart surgery on the pain, envy, comparison, and performance in my heart that are stealing peace, joy, and life from me. I thank you for freedom, and I thank you that the story you’re writing in my life is so much greater, more enjoyable, and more fulfilling than any story I could even begin to fathom for myself, and that you are faithful in your promises. Lord, I take my eyes off my idols, and I gaze into your eyes instead. I trust your goodness and your unfailing love for me.”
A couple of seconds later, I heard Him speak quietly and lovingly in my spirit. He said, “You’re mine, baby girl, and I hold you in the palm of my hand. You can trust me with all the details of your story and the desires of your heart.” Overcome with peace, hope, and warmth, I let His truth soak in.
Then, He reminded me how during that same week, I had sat with several of my clients who had struggled with similar feelings, and with those all too familiar judgments and lies that had stolen hope, peace, and joy from them, too. I remembered a conversation I had just had the day before with one lady who is in her fifties, who was feeling down over not having her picture either. She was judging herself harshly over decisions she had made, feeling resentment towards her husband for how he had failed her and their family, and feeling sadness over where she was in her life compared to the others that she measured herself against. I saw it so clearly for her how the lies she believed and the judgments she made drained and depressed her, and I watched as God renewed hope in her heart as she began to recognize the snare of her own judgments, and as she, too, surrendered her picture to Him.
Gratitude then welled up in my heart that God called me to do this incredible transforming heart work with so many of His children. I heard Him speak again into my Spirit, “Con, I know you want more, and I do have more for you. But if I give you want you want before you know your worth, you won’t be able to step into it.” Truth resonated in me. Then, I heard Him say, “So often the world doesn’t recognize as important, what is most treasured to me. Like this heart work. But it never goes unnoticed by me.” I smiled as I thought about just how much He really does love His children, and I thanked Him that He loves us so much that He will do anything to free us from the bondage of our own idols and the lies of the evil one. He wants to clear up our value question once and for all rather than watching us continue to strive and struggle to try to achieve our worthiness for ourselves. His greatest desire is for us to know and understand who we are and whose we are so that He can fully enjoy all that He created us to be, and we can be free to receive all the beautiful blessings He is writing in each of our stories.
And as many times as necessary until we get it, He will lovingly lead us back to this truth. Even when we are so convinced that we want our picture so much more than we want Him, there is no counterfeit that can ever satisfy our longing like the real treasure itself.
Our hearts are made for His.
-Connie