A Note and "Locked In"

Friends, I had taken a hiatus from writing because I was struggling. And then I fasted, giving every perception and misconception up to my Abba, begging Him for wisdom and strength and light and joy. He showed me many things, and I will be sharing these most intimate conversations and revelations in the next few weeks. Thank you for being patient with me, and for reading your sister's thoughts.

In His Love,

Cherie

Photo retrieved from: ohbeloved.blogspot.com

If you ask me, there's only one thing worse in regards to personal relationships than being ostracized or locked out - it's being locked in. In your own mind. Wrapped in the deathly talons of your own accusing thoughts. Desiring the sweet vapor of being outside of yourself, when you're actually choking on the blood that is ever-rising within you. And you're trapped here.

For well over a decade, this is what I went through every time I looked in the mirror. I choked daily on my own blood, blood drawn by my own hands. The thoughts, the thoughts, the thoughts. Those deadly villains whispered to me the most heinous descriptions of myself. And I believed them, even when everyone on the outside told me differently. Those people didn't really know. They couldn't possibly.

My tumultuous relationship with my body began so early that it precedes even my earliest memories. Marry that body relationship with an anxiety problem, a need for structure, and a desire for perfection, and you have the perfect cocktail for an eating disorder and a complete distrust in self. 

Self was to be feared and obeyed. Self was the ugly monster that manifested itself in every fold of my flesh, threatening my eyes with its imperfections when I wasn't a "good girl."

And my culture wouldn't tell me anything differently about accepting my temple-body. No. I need only turn on the television or glance at the magazines at the check-out to know that "self" yelled at me so incessantly in order to protect me from the cultural repercussions of getting too comfortable/eating what you want/loving your body despite its flaws.

Lies. Lies from hell. Literally from hell. Because this girl I had called "self" for so long wasn't really me. I was made in God's image, and His perfect love casts out all fear.

And I wouldn't see clearly until I continually gave self up to Jesus, carrying my heavy cross named fear-of-imperfection, also named self-loathing, and just-eat, and dare-to-love-even-yourself. He said to take up my cross daily. My cross had many names; it was weighed down by many sins-we-don't-call-sins.

This is where Satan wants God's Daughters - stuck in themselves, loathing the temples of their own bodies, too ashamed to get out there and do what we were made to do: love and care for and help others. If we hate ourselves, we cannot effectively love our husbands and children and friends and strangers-who-need-Jesus. So, if Satan can paralyze us in fear, in the rejection of ourselves, in the immersion of lies-seeming-true, he wins.

She who has ears let her hear! You are royalty. You are made from the wonder of THE King. You are a sister to every woman in the world. You are God's very definition of beauty. Yes, you. Just as you are.

Let us join hands and worship Him who made us, growing us from seeds in the perfect garden of His will. Let us reject the lies of Satan and our culture, and hug the curves or straight lines of our beloved sisters everywhere. Tell each that she is God's Daughter, royalty more dazzling than the stars.