dysfunction

Driven By Fear

List making As of 9am September 21, 2018, we had been residents of Cape Coral Florida for all of 19 hours.

I was hurrying us along. I had a list a mile long,

  • Get Driver’s License
  • Get Vehicles tagged
  • Get Permit
  • Get post office box
  • Go to bank x2
  • Go to Lowes
  • Go to Costco
  • Go to Bookstore
  • Go to Sprint
  • Go to Thrift store
  • Get Lunch

Well not really a mile long, but you get the picture.

As you can see it was a hefty list. My excuse is that I am a Type A person. I was ready to hit the list and get it done.

All of a sudden my husband looked at me and made a statement that stopped me in my tracks.

“Your step-father is not going to tell you; you can’t do something on your list.”

This statement has haunted me all day long.

I realized there is a fine line between getting things accomplished in a timely manner, and working yourself though a list because of FEAR.

When I was growing up I learned a pattern of living that said, you can have all the goals, lists, etc in the world; you may be walking out the door and have all the permissions in the world to leave to accomplish your list, and without warning or reason, be told you can’t go anywhere. Just because.

That simple statement has had me in a thought all day.

This was just another aha moment for me.

“What are my motives?”

If you would ask people, they would say I was driven. Today I realized I have been driven, but the underlying factor was fear of being told I could not do it.  So I would hurry up and finish it so “he” could not take it away.

Today I choose to be driven, because I want to be the best of who God called me to be and not in fear that God will change His mind and tell me I can’t do it, just because.

 

 

 

 

photo from Unsplash. inbossmode.com

Who’s the fairest of them all?

She walked into the room, tears streaming, she had promised herself she would never end back up in this situation, but here she was….hurt…mad….angry….disgusted….

The words he spewed in his fit of rage were still ringing in her ears and now were haunting her very soul.

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She walked past the mirror hoping to hear “you’re the fairest of all”, but unlike a fairytale all she heard was his voice “you’re ugly”, “you’re fat”, “you need to get over yourself, I never loved you”.

How does one pick up the pieces from this?

How am I to go on?

May tomorrow never come.

 

We have all had relationships that ended badly. Some though have been worse than others. And usually once we can step back with a new perspective we can actually start to see that the warning signs had been there for many days, months or years, but we ourselves were in a state of self denial “it’s not that bad” or worse yet we were stuck on a self- fulfilling prophecy that said “well I guess this is all life has to offer me”.

How can this change for me?

How badly do I want to change?

Do I feel I am worthy?

First thing we need to do is realize we all get stuck on this cycle of letting life happen, it’s just how quickly we can get off and stay off is the bigger question.

We get in a rut. We are used to hearing words with a negative connotation and start to believe that is how we are to become.

For example: you are told from a very early age that you will never be as good as so and so, or worse yet you are told you will end up just like so and so….and you see that so and so has a really rough life and is living life just getting by or worse yet gets themselves into relationships that are dysfunctional (not working as they were intended) and codependent (putting everyone else’s needs above yourself even to the point of allowing abuse: verbal, emotional, physical, and or sexual) at their very core.

Because these words were spoken over you, usually by an adult or authority figure, you start to believe these words especially when they are coupled with actions or lack of actions that would otherwise prove those words false.

So you grow up believing this is all you are worth and to make matters worse you start allowing all aspects of your life and relationships to grow based upon this self defeating expectation that this is all you are worth.

How does one change especially if this is the only way you know how to “do life”?

Ask yourself this question:

What do I want my tomorrow to look like?

What new expectations do you want for yourself in light of who God says you are? Not man, not the world, but who God says you are?

God says you are WORTHY to be created by Him to do great things.

Ephesians 2:10 says: For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

So my question to you is if this is who God says we are and were created to do, then why do we stay in relationships that God truly is not a part of?

Why do we only see ourselves worthy of being a door mat?

Decide today to start seeing yourself with the same WORTH as God sees in you, and start using Gods standards before you allow yourself to get into another relationship or I can promise you one thing….you will end back up in a codependent, dysfunctional relationship.