The opening sentence in my journal this morning: “OK Lord, let’s engage in life today! Not with apathy, grief, and regret, but with joy, peace and bliss.”
How many times do you wake up feeling one way and really wanting it to be another?
What are the triggers that can pull you down into shame and regret and what are the triggers that can lift you up? And most importantly, how do we focus on the ones that lift us up?
This morning, for me, it was the bathroom scale – yep, just a little old scale that gave me information about my weight that was a bit disappointing. Something so minor in the course of life and yet I let it pull me down into discouragement, the frustration of failure and thinking that I’ll never be good enough to truly win! All in a matter of minutes, after having just lost 15 pounds in about 6 weeks!
How quickly I went from celebrating success to wallowing in set-back and disappointment!
For me, the pick-me-up is the encouragement that comes from my quiet time and the writing that comes out of that time. Journaling and quiet thinking time is foundational to me moving forward instead of backward.
Let me share the rest of my journal entry from this morning.
The underlaying story reference for this comes from the amazing movie, I Can Only Imagine: the story of Bart Millard, his band Mercy Me, and his all-time best selling Christian song, I Can Only Imagine.
“So easy to let the scale pull me down this morning vs. being lifted up by the great choices I’ve been making, by the small wins that those choices have been creating, and by the encouragements of others!
What voice pulls you down and what voice lifts you up? What do I listen to? How do I filter out the voice that doesn’t serve me?
Is it the voice that comes from the place of peace and joy or the voice that comes from shame, from hopelessness, from despair, from not being good enough?
The good news is that there is always a voice in me, and in all of us, that is speaking peace, joy and purpose.
My coach often reminds me of John 14:20: ‘So when the day comes, you will know that I am living in the Father and that you are one with me, for I will be living in you.’
When we go to a movie like I Can Only Image, we know the ending and so we spend the entire movie rooting for Bart to overcome the demons of his childhood and to forgive his father so that he can write the amazing song that’s going to come out of that victory.
Even thought we know the ending, we become passionately and emotionally engaged in the process of him fighting the battle of which voice he’s going to listen too!
BUT . . . will we root for ourselves? For the song that’s in us just waiting to come out? The song that Jesus is quietly singing to us everyday, that He’s rooting for us to sing? Or will we listen to the voice of our abuser – the one who wrote the shame song, the pain song, the I’m not good enough song?
I know what God as said for and about me – it’s filled up pages of my journals over the last several years (I started journaling about 3 years ago and it’s been a transformational process for me). Yes, I actually use a red pen when I’m feeling Him ready to talk. Those words have been powerful, wonderful and amazing, and yet still so easy to doubt and not listen to!
Just like Bart, I all too often end up listening to the voice that says, ‘Why am I even trying, what’s the use, I’m out of here!”
But God keeps coming back, with more ‘red ink’ and never stops rooting for me . . . I guess he most know the end of my story and the song that He wants me to write and sing!
Unlike Bart, no I don’t have a manager who wants to get me a ‘recording contract’ because of my amazing singing voice, but I do have a coach, family and friends who continue to encourage me. Who tell me what they see in me. Who are always encouraging me to connect with the authentic voice and person that they see in me!
It’s really no different than the story that fully and emotionally engaged me, along with millions of others, at the movie theater for 2 hours: The story of the best selling Christian Single of all time and the man who overcame the voices of ‘not good enough’ to let his authentic song be heard so that it could touch millions of lives!”
My song matters and so does yours. We each have one because Jesus is in us and he already knows what it is . . . from before you were in the womb it was planned for you . . . from before the traumas of life came to destroy and silence it. (Jeremiah 1:5)
The journey is not easy or free. Bart paid a price with his abusive childhood, he paid a price as they drove around the country in their beat up bus, playing wherever they could, for whatever they could get paid so they could keep going. He was told by the best in the industry that he wasn’t good enough – a recurring voice that started with his father when he was a little boy. But God had a different plan!
Are you ready to believe in you? To fight for you? To be peaceful and quiet for a short time every day so that you can hear your song and give it the space and breath to be sung and heard?
Are you ready to find a coach, a community, a friend that will stand for you in the midst of your fears and doubts?
Cheryl and I so appreciate you being part of our community.
We appreciate hearing your stories and your successes and being part of many of those success journeys.
We’re blessed to be able to support you on your journey to a life of better health, purpose and destiny fulfilled!