Day Sixty-Three

FACE YOUR PAIN

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

—PSALM 23:4 ESV

It’s been many a year that I have wrestled and worked through how to deal with the lies in my head about how God made me and who I am and how I look. It’s always been a big deal to me.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t still struggle. I’m an Enneagram Type Seven—I want to run from my pain. It’s my natural tendency. Fight or flight, and I will spread my wings.

The lies still come. Sometimes they are a whisper when I am walking onto a stage, sometimes they are a quick cut when I see a picture of myself, and other times, they scream. They scream in a way I cannot describe—they are constant and vulgar and violently unkind.

And when the lies get loud like that in my head—the ones that say I am painfully ugly, ruined, unsalvageable, disappointing, and so forth—the first step, I have learned, is to invite truth in. So I stand there, or sit there, or lie there, and I say the true things.

God made me on purpose.

God loves me unconditionally.

God doesn’t make ugly.

Bible verses long memorized about who I am, how I was made perfectly, and how God treasures me.

And repeat, repeat, repeat.

When someone else knows, it’s better.

I told my counselor this week—I spoke the lies to her, the ones that have screamed at me recently. I told her where I heard them and who was there and what I was wearing and way more detail than she could ever want. When someone else knows, it’s better.

It’s better because when you say the thing out loud, you’re facing it. And that’s brave. Telling someone about your pain—whether it’s lies the enemy plants in your head or a devastating circumstance you’re wading through—is brave.

When you face the pain—look at it and call it what it is—you will begin to experience healing. Pushing the pain down or trying to ignore it? That’s not brave. That’s not healthy. And hiding it doesn’t lead to healing.

Face your pain. Bring it to God. Bring it to your counselor. Bring it to another person and find healing there.

BE BRAVE: Friend, are you hurting? Don’t run from it anymore.