You're Believing a Lie

"You're believing a lie."

My close friends know that statement.  It's one I use often.  I use it on them because sweet hubs uses it on me. You're all welcome.

It's simple and cuts to the heart.  It's not meant to undermine or discount.  It's meant to redirect, and we all need to hear it.

When my girlfriend tells me she is feeling like she's the worst mother in the world.  When another tells me that she can't get away from her past mistakes.  And when yet another tells me that life just isn't worth living.  Those are lies.  They're real feelings, but they're lies.

When I tell my husband that I'm a fatty mcfat fat.  When we lie down at night after a hard day, and I say to him that I've ruined our kids forever.  And when I say that our children will probably leave home and never visit us, ever. 
Those are lies. 

"You're believing a lie, Dana," he says.  Plain, simple.  Lies.

I often try to rationalize the lies I believe.  He doesn't understand, I say to myself.  He makes everything seem so simple, I think. But ultimately, he's right. On a daily basis, I believe lies.

The lies often keep me in so much bondage I'm unable get a real grasp on the truth.  They wrap their sneaky selves around me like a boa constrictor and began to suck the life out of me.  And when I can't get enough truth-air, they become debilitating.  The lies purge me of actuality. 

But more than that, they extinguish my hope.

My personal lies range in seriousness and content and are listed in no particular order, but they all play a part of the gripping notion that ultimately I'm failing.  That's what lies do  - they make us think we're failing, those hope-mongers.  It's part of the grip.  I thought it might be helpful to share some of them. Let's get those bad boys out.  Let's expose them for what they really are.

I'll get us started...

1. "I'm not enough."
Pretty enough. Smart enough. Organized enough. Creative enough. Skinny enough. Fun enough. Whatever enough. Just not enough.
Almost every woman thinks along this line in some context every day. Every single day. We place the burden of get-everything-done-and-do-it-perfectly on our shoulders.  It's an impossible standard to live up to, and when we fail, and we will, we claim our profound ineptness. And for good measure, we throw on the added weight of comparison thinking.  It sure seems as though Sally Jo next door is getting everything done perfectly. She's enough.
The Truth - We are enough, but we aren't perfect.  We are made in God's image, but we aren't perfect like Him.  We can rest in our imperfections.  There will always be someone prettier, smarter, whatever-er. But that doesn't mean we aren't enough just like we exist.  Let's spur one another on to be better humans, yes.  Let's encourage one another to take better care of ourselves, yes.  But let's relax, friends.  Let's rest in being who we are created to be, and let that be enough.

2.  "I need to be in control."
Yeah, it's a lie.  You're not in control.  We naively think we're in control of our spouses, our children, our homes, and our lives.  And we like it that way.  What makes us think we've got it so together that our control makes things all the better? Didn't we just discuss number 1? Control gives us false-power, honestly. We believe that lie, and we deceive ourselves by thinking power enables us to control the outcomes of situations around us.  It's a lie.
The Truth - Wanting to be in control diminishes the value of God and others.  Last time I checked, I wasn't in charge of the universe.  I'm pretty sure with that amount of control, I could single-handedly do some serious damage to the human population.  God is the ultimate authority with ultimate control. Whew. Let's all breathe a little easier.
Our spouses and children and friends all have minds and wills of their own.  I can manipulate and coerce and browbeat others, but I can't control them, nor should I want to. Control shows my own need for power, as if I have everything figured out.  The constant need for control is selfish and shows my own lack of trust.  This is a hard one, ya'll.  I'm still working on it. 

3.  "My children don't love me."
Just keeping this thing real, folks.  I wonder if there's a mom out there that hasn't thought this.  I've got two teenagers and a pre-teen in my house right now, and this thought flashes across the big screen of my heart like it's the new hit series.  I know it's a lie, but I think it frequently anyway. 
The Truth - Children are self-centered.  I know this because I am one.  Children take their parents for granted.  I know this because I do it often.  Show me a teenager that thinks of others, especially parents, before himself and I'll show you a rare commodity.  They lose their brain during adolescence.  I hear they slowly get it back, and I can honestly see that happening little by little with my oldest, but it feels like a lifetime without affirmation from them.  They win the prize for thinking money grows on trees in the backyard and not appreciating all the work we do for them.  It's their nature.  It doesn't mean they will land in jail or be a menace to society.  It simply means we press on, keeping disciplining their mistakes, and cover them with mountains of grace and mercy.  They love us big, they just don't always show it yet.

4.  "Eating clean will make me skinny."
Ok, here's a little insight into my vain brain. Yep. A few years ago a friend introduced me to clean eating.  She had dropped quite a bit of weight and looked amazing.  It was about the time my metabolism hit the 40's and everything that once worked was failing me.  I was up for anything.  I googled, read, studied, and eventually grocery-shopped myself into this new concept.  Drumroll: I gained weight.  Yep. I ate clean and thought miracles would happen. Nope.
The Truth - a calorie is a calorie.  I was eating whole foods and my body was healthier, but I had compromised my intake.  I had traded my processed chips for a scoop of smooth and creamy almond butter.  Yuuuummmmm. I had believed the lie that better foods would drop the weight.  There's no quick fix, folks.  Sure, 250 calories from a (dry, oh so dry) chicken breast is better than 250 calories from highly processed tv dinner. Yes, an apple is healthier than a kit-kat. But all of it still contains calories.  With clean eating I felt better, I slept better, I experienced new foods that I will forever love (hello, avocados and kale chips), but I didn't drop 15 pounds from it.  Losing weight is hard and requires burning off more calories than you take in.  It's actually pretty simple.  So why I am still X pounds heavy?  Because I like food, duh.  Annnnnnnd, I often lack the will to say no.  Weight-control is not easy over 40 with those jacked up, pre-menopausal hormones.  There's some truth for ya.

5. My kids will approach dating with a courtship mindset, because that guarantees the best outcome.
We probably need to refer back to #2 for just a sec and take a breath. Or maybe that's just me.
Now that I have the aforementioned teenagers in the house, our levels of opposite sex noticement have obviously kicked in.  For years now, I had this well-envisioned, oogly dream of how my kids would meet their future spouses and we would all live happily-ever-after.  I mean they would live happily ever after, they.  In this fantasy, my kids would not date, they would court, and we wouldn't really have boyfriends and girlfriends. They would spend their time well-supervised and sitting around having conversations with us parents while we played board games and/or read good books together. Yeah, that's a lie. For may family, it just hasn't worked that way.
The Truth - my children will approach dating as it applies to their individual lives as God leads them.  Hear me out: I still appreciate the courtship process.  I still believe in supervision.  I still understand the value of time spent as a family. But there are no formulas to this. None. My oogly dream wasn't God's will for my oldest, now 16 and with a boyfriend. (It took me about six months just to say the word "boyfriend.")  I never expected this or thought I would allow it, but God is graciously writing this story and He surprisingly hasn't asked for my opinion.  I'm not in control, He is.  I did all the things I knew to do to ensure a different way.  We read plenty of courtship books, we homeschooled, and we weren't even fully participating in the youth group at church when Boyfriend came along.  But the truth is, they've learned much from each other, and I've learned a ton about myself (see #2). Our family has gotten to know a young man that I might not have otherwise, and for that I'm grateful.  God is in control, not me.  (I find it helpful to repeat this repeatedly.)

6. Being a good girl means God approves of me.
I grew up in a Christian  home with the typical Southern Baptist mindset: Don't drink, smoke, do drugs, or have sex.  That pretty much covers it.  Good Girls Don't - that was the mantra. And with my people-pleasing mindset, I sat out to be a good girl.  I wanted God's approval of me.  I still fight this mentality to this day.  One of the biggest lies I believe is this one.  And if I mess up - there's condemnation for days.  Who can relate?
The Truth - God's love for me never changes, ever. He never loves me less.
It's only through understanding the truth about God's grace that I'm coming out of the fog of this lie.  God knows me more than I know myself.  I still have trouble thinking there's nothing that I could do that could wipe away that love.  There is always redemption and reconciliation available with Him. Being heterosexual, white, non-drug using, compliant, rule-following, commandment-keeping....none of those things makes me better.  None. Of. Them.  His love for me isn't based on my do-gooding.  Rather, my obedience to His ways are simply a by-product of being loved by Him first.

7. Being a good Christian means taking a casserole when a member of the church is sick or has a baby.
I'm embarrassed to admit this one.  I don't even think I realized I thought it until I wrote the words on paper. Ok, there's nothing wrong with casseroles.  I've taken and received my fair share of them.  And this doesn't knock meal-ministry within churches - those are very needed and appreciated.  But the bottom line of this lie is this - there's more to being a Christian than doing the easy thing for other Christians.
The Truth - I will never be good enough. I'm just called to love.  Love comes in all forms and often gets messy.  It means loving the addict and going out of your way to help the homeless. It means feeding the hungry from your own pantry. It means taking the Gospel to foreign soil with the resources God has blessed you with.  It means showing grace to those who don't believe exactly like you do. It means dropping the pious judgment in order to hear someone's story.  It means more than I have room to write. Being a Christian doesn't look the same for everyone, and there's no way to put it in a box. Or a casserole dish.

Truth breathes hope into our beings. The real truth of God's character and our relationship to Him is the best starting point for hope, and for dispelling lies.  He is good and wise and holy.  He knows us and our inmost thoughts. We are loved and cherished in spite of our frailties.  He restores and redeems and refreshes.  He. Is. Our. Hope.  He is the Lie-Spoiler.  He is Truth.

There are plenty more lies where these come from, but for now, that's enough to start.  I would love to hear the lies you're believing so we can combat these together. Feel free to share.