Everybody falls down!

   

“A man’s spirit is free, but his pride binds him with chains of suffocation in a prison of his own insecurities”
― Jeremy Aldana

     My oldest daughter, my middle child, is unique.  The other two are a lot like me, but she has her own sense of humor, her own way of processing thoughts and her own personality.  She is just as funny, just as intelligent, and just as fun to be with, but she's not cut from the same mold.  She showed me how to see things from a different perspective once I stopped trying to make her change to be more like the rest of us.  I realized there were things about her that I admire and in some ways want to be more like her.  One incident that really changed the way I see her, happened when she was a preteen, babysitting her little sisters for her dad and his wife and called me very upset. 
     "Mom, you're never going to believe this.  They are tearing up the sidewalks and I was walking to the store with the girls and I tripped and fell.  I scraped my hands and my knees."
     Trying to humor her out of her distress, I asked, "Did you jump up and look around to see who saw you fall?"
     There was a pause, a long pause, then she said in a confused tone, "No.  Why would I do that?  Everybody falls down."
     I was embarrassed by my own insecurity and/ or pride that would have had me looking around before I even got to my feet.

     Are we suppose to change our behavior according to who is watching us?  I don't think so.  Joyce Meyer talks about the rage she felt because of her abuse.  I identified with her whenever she talked about the anger that consumed her at times.  During one of those times, she told God she couldn't help the way she was acting out.  She said God asked her simply, "Could you change your behavior if your pastor knocked on the door?"

     For most of my life, I have been whoever I needed to be to fit in.  I was a chameleon, able to sit with a group of elderly church ladies and within minutes, drop cuss words and drink beer with a rough bunch.  I hated the phrase, "Just be yourself", because I didn't have a clue who that was.  I hadn't met her yet.  When asked a simple question of "Do you want...whatever?"  "Do you like...whatever?"  It depended on the day, on my mood, on who was asking.  I had no idea what I liked or what I wanted.  I knew some of the things I didn't like and didn't want, but not enough to build a whole person.  I believe this was part of the reason I have always felt invisible.  If I can't describe myself, do I even exist?

     There was always one thing I knew, one thing I believed and no one could change my mind.  I believed in in God, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit.  I didn't want to talk about it beyond that, because I wasn't sure how I believed about the details.  I never stood for or against anything.  Not even a sports team.  I called it being wishy washy.  I would like whatever you liked, not necessarily so you would like me, but so you wouldn't hate me enough to hurt me.  I played it safe.  Never questioned my real feelings, beliefs or convictions.  Was it insecurity? 

     God put Dave in my life to accept me for who I am.  I have spewed out all the "crappage" that's been suffocating me for over forty years.  He helped me sift through it.  He supported me as I identified it, categorized it, threw a bunch of it away, and changed a lot of it.  In the process I have discovered a little of who I am.  There is one thing I do stand for and in some way always have.  I stand for hurting people and I stand for hurting people who hurt other people.  Whether you are a "good kid" raised in church who has lived a simple life with only a few hurts or you are an abuser who has done unspeakable things to others.  I stand for the insecure who are crippled by fear, for the person who is so full of pride he can't see himself clearly, and for the person who doesn't even know who they are.  I stand for the victim and the bully.  I stand for the abused and the abuser, the cheated and the cheater.  I stand for turning the hurting into the healed. 

     I'm asked all the time how I can talk so freely about being a victim of childhood sexual abuse.  Why wouldn't I?  I have nothing to be ashamed of.  The more I fill my heart with the truth, the less room I have for lies.  The more I fill my heart with love, the less room I have for hate.  The more I fill my heart with security in who I am in Him, the less room I have for prejudice.

 I like the saying, "He puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us."  It makes us all equal. 

Security is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God, no matter what the danger. - Anonymous