Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Scars

How do you stop believing a lie?
 You've been told all your life that you are too much or not  enough. You're too big, you're too small, you're not pretty enough. They're lies, and you know it. You know your value  rests in being a daughter of God and not in measuring up to  that standard.

Well, one side of your brain knows it.
The other side still believes the lies. In this life, we may never be 100% free of our feelings of inadequacy. We've been
brainwashed, and that's hard to reverse. We've been wounded. We have scars.

Back in 1969, when I was a toddler, I took a tumble and cut my face. The doctor put two stitches in my cheek, one inch under my left eye. In pictures from my childhood you can see a little H-shaped scar. I was proud of it. I told friends it was a brand because my last name was Herrmann. A few years ago I was planning to reunite with a childhood friend, and she asked if I still had the scar.

"I don't know, " I said. I hadn't thought about the scar in years. I looked in the mirror, and, sure enough, it was still there. But it had faded.

The same can be true of the emotional scars and attitudes we have about ourselves. On this side of heaven, we may never completely lose our insecurity. But we keep telling ourselves the truth.

And if you hear the truth enough, who knows? Maybe one day the feelings of inadequacy will fade. You'll believe the truth about how valuable you are. You'll peer into the mirror, and it will be hard to spot that scar.