Dismantling

photo by Anni Jones Photography

Have you ever thought of your behavior as a structure that  has developed to cover up something you don't understand?   That's what's been knocking on my door over the past week or so-----as I continue to stay with this discipline,  new light shines on an old familiar cage, and I am able to ask some questions that have been a little too uncomfortable for me in the past.   Like, "why am I in here?"  and "I wonder if there's any way to open that door?"   Even if you are not an overeater, my educated guess is that you have some kind of coping mechanism to deal with pain, and chances are it's just as cagelike as this one is for me. 

When it comes to self-worth, some of us missed the memo the first time around, when we were kids.  Actually, I think it's rare to get the kind of solid nurturing that builds proper self-respect.   There's just an awful lot of sin to go around, and a million ways to fall into the ditch.  At 57, I can describe many artistic and complicated ways to miss the mark.  Ha!  One great thing about making so many mistakes, though, is that you develop a certain authority about what is truly a mistake.  Doubt loses its grip.  God's saving grace continues and prevails. Even in the structure that I built for myself as a protection, rickety though it may have been, something holy was developing.   And maybe that holiness is the very thing I don't understand.  Holiness is counterintuitive to human thinking, yes?   So, paradoxically, my sinfulness that built a network of habits to compensate for pain and discomfort was used to shelter something planted by God.  And at this stage, it has grown enough for me to take notice, for me to say-----"Maybe I need to nurture this and let the old cage dissolve".    Maybe I am about ready to accept the worth that God has assigned.  Ya think?

I think the opening chapter of Ephesians says it all   "For he chose us in him (Christ, that is--) before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ....."   Really, go read that first chapter.  No, go ahead and read the whole book----it's mind-blowing, what God's intention is for us!  It's so wonderful, it takes some of us until we're 57 to adjust:-)