Acceptance

Acceptance:  Recognition, approval, agreement, tolerance, acknowledgement, favorable reception, acquiescence, concurrence.  The opposite of rejection.



I grew up on the Southend of Bridgeport, CT.  For about a year when I was in elementary school you either went to school in the morning or the afternoon, the Smith kids went in the afternoon.  I use to always shake my head when the old folks would tell us about how they walked to school…blah blah blah. Well now I am one of those older (lol) folks and yes we would walk to school from Broad Street to Park Avenue every day, rain, snow, 25 degree weather blah, blah, blah (lol). 

Because of the way our school day was set up we got the chance to play outside from about eight until ten thirty every morning.  Every single day we would play some kind of game where you had to choose sides, the pie game, pops, baseball, etc. I WAS NOT ATHLETIC AT ALL, I did not look athletic , I was fat and I knew I was fat, but, being a kid I wanted to have fun and the only way for me to have fun between eight and ten thirty in the morning on the south-end was to play those horrible choose side games.   I would have preferred to be at the library but it was closed at that time of the morning. I loved going to the library, sitting in those big wing backed chairs with a good book (I am writing this from the library but I am sitting in a hard doctors office type chair lol). 

How many of us can remember something like this growing up…everyone is standing in a circle, you choose captains (somehow it always ended up being the popular kids or the bullies who were chosen, mmmmm.) and it starts...
(you can fill in your own names, I just used initials to protect the innocent..LOL)

I pick E____                           I pick B_____

I pick K_____                   I pick B______

I pick J_____                     I pick L______

I pick R______                 I pick D______

Now if you know anything about these games you know that the teams needed to be even soooooo,
in my  little mind I know that  I am going to get picked, because today it just so happens that there are only two of us left standing in the middle of the two sides (they were not called teams, we called them sides).  R_______  was probably feeling just like I was “ what’s wrong with me"?

I piiiiiiiiiiiicck R______

Dog, I guess I have to pick Jo ….

Now, I’m thinking in my mind “hot dog I am going to play today” then I hear her say   “Oh there’s A_____, hey A______ you wanna play!!!!!”

The other captain is now yelling how unfair it is to pick A_____ when Joycie is left.  “You picked A______ because you don’t want Joycie cause you know she can’t run or hit” snicker, snicker….ha ha ha….whispers in the crowd, “ that’s because she fat, then someone else commented “and ugly” (uh, thinking about this conversation today, what did being ugly have to do with me being unable to hit the ball or run).   Every day for countless days I put myself in this situation hoping that it would eventually change.  I must be fair to my childhood friends, I was picked a few times out of necessity, but for the most part NOT.

Remember, I told you last week that the devil doesn’t care one way or the other about you or your feelings; it doesn’t make a difference if you are eight or eighty his job is to keep you away from the Healer. Satan wants you weak, unsure of who you are and where you are going. He comes to steal (your worth) kill (your dream) and destroy (your future). A WCSE….

Today as I write this and I look back on that particular part of my life, I clearly see that the reasons I wasn’t picked were valid ones, I couldn’t run fast and for the most part hitting was definitely out of the question.  I walked around for years with this scene stuck in the back of my heart, mad with the captain for sticking me out like that, mad with the girl who called me ugly, (yes I remember her name) blaming everyone else for something that was clearly my fault.  I went out to that circle day after day, doing the same thing but hoping for different results. It hurt, but not enough to keep me from going right back the next day and standing  in that same circle waiting for them to call my name.  CraZY.     I could play school and be the teacher, I could play house and be the mommy, I could design and hand sew doll clothes and I could make a mean grill cheese with an iron and some aluminum foil.  I knew how to negotiate with the bill collectors when my mom wasn’t home, I knew the meaning of different words and how to spell them.  Those were the things I knew how to do.

                 Why did I push so hard to be accepted in to the other crowd?

 Why is it so hard to be you?  Why do we try so hard to be like someone else?   We try to make ourselves square when we are obviously round. We were created to be individuals.
 

Jeremiah 1:4 tells us that before we were formed in our mother’s womb He knew us. 

 Tall, short, fat (mmmm is that politically correct), skinny, nappy hair, straight hair, long hair, short hair, big feet, little feet. You may have all of your teeth or like me be missing quite a few (my children know exactly how many I have, why/how?) Maybe you have a degree with a whole lot of letters behind your name or perhaps yours only has three, GED. Single, Married, Divorced, Widowed, Young, Old, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian or a mixture of a few.  Accept who you are.
Enjoy you.  God and His people need YOU to be You. 

You see the devil tries to keep us unaware of the uniqueness God has placed in us. Once I realized that I was fearfully and wonderfully made, I began to walk differently, speak differently,  I dressed differently (I wore mostly black for almost four years straight, I felt like I was in mourning), I laughed from within, I cried outwardly ( I had no tears for about two years).   It has been a long time coming but I am finally getting re-acquainted with Joyce E. (Smith) Murray.  

Take time this week to get to know you.  Have a conversation with your FATHER, if you are ready to let go of  feeling like you have to be someone other than who he created you to be, tell Him then ask for His help.  Maybe start out like this -  Father I am tired of being a phony, I want to be who you created me to be, but I need your help ...

Encourage yourself!  Re-acquaint yourself with yourself!  Find out what your name means.  Get you a journal  (Barnes and Noble has really nice ones for about five bucks) and start writing.  Write down the things that mean the most to you, write down some of the things you desire to do, write down your dreams, goals and wishes, then challenge yourself to do at least one of them ASAP.. Create a positive atmosphere for yourself.  Determine to  accept that it is okay to be YOU!            FREEDOM IS SO REFRESHING.  


Joycie

Feel free to leave your comments or questions below.

A Well Calculated Snowball Effect

Shame is one powerful emotion, the dictionary describes it as

a. A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shame.

The dictionary uses the word or, I am going to use and, because from experience I know that the enemy combines them to make a deadly concoction, one that he has used over and over again simply because he knows that when used cunningly these four emotions can be used to wipe out even the strongest Christian.

In my life it started with a drawing on a piece of wood.

I was about nine or maybe a little younger the first time I remember experiencing Shame.

I was forced to see what people thought should be our shame. As children we do not notice the physical flaws of our parents, all we know is daddy or in my case mommy, we learn their voice, their laugh, their cough, their footsteps, even what they smell like. I knew that my mom loved me, took care of me and would do anything to protect me. She went to work every day, came home did some things around the house, made sure our school work was done, laughed with and at us, went to bed, got up the next day and did it all over again. I had never even noticed that she looked different than everyone I knew. I will never forget the day that all changed. On this particular day I came home and opened the right side of the two green doors that led to the foyer of the apartment building we lived in. I had opened this door, who knows how many times, but this day was different, as I opened the door I looked smack into a picture of a monkey with a very defined cleft lip and the words cutlip written in big black letters on the wood that had replaced a broken window. You see my mother was born with no upper lip, you know how you see pictures of the little kids in the magazine who have distorted lips and the sponsor is asking you to donate money to help them, well hers was like that. As the story was told to me, the doctors "fixed" it the best they could when she was young. So now she had one but it was still distorted.

I have never shared this with any of my siblings or anyone else for that matter until now. Oh I am sure my mom knew that I felt this way, because she knew me almost as well as I knew myself if not better. Still she loved me unconditionally, never once did she treat me any differently. As a matter of fact, I think I was her favorite (don't tell my siblings that I said that). I can still remember the shameI felt as a young adult when I realized that I had allowed my brothers friends (I found out later that they were the ones who drew the picture) to cause me to be embarrassed by how my mother looked, then I became ashamed of her being a maid, then I was ashamed that she was not married, then ashamed that she didn't know how to drive, ashamed that we wore clothes given to us from the people she worked for (not realizing that they were better than the ones we could afford to buy) it was the beginning of A Well Calculated Snowball Effect (WCSE) orchestrated by the enemy of my soul.

Today as I think back, I wonder what my mom felt like when she walked through those doors. Knowing my mother like I do, she was probably more concerned with knowing that her children had to see this and how would she protect us from the shame and embarrassment that she most likely endured every day of her life. Because as we all know the enemy doesn't care about us at all, he could care less about our emotions or how young we are when they are infected. We must always be mindful that he just wants to make sure he can keep us as far away from the Healer as possible. But we must press. (remember the woman with the issue of blood in the bible)

Often we walk around carrying the emotional baggage (shame, embarrassment, guilt and disgrace) of things that we allowed others to impose on us yesterday or yesteryear. We have also been known at times to not only carry our own baggage (as if that is not heavy enough) but sometimes unknowingly and sometimes knowingly (more the latter) we carry that of others (children, spouses, siblings, parents, even friends) also. As it is said hindsight is always 20/20. I know better now, BUT, this is where the WCSEcomes in.

Let us take a look at the WCSE used on me.

I walked around for ten or more years embarrassedabout something that I had no reason to be embarrassed about, then somewhere in those ten years I became a born again believer, and I realize that I had no reason to feel this way, but, I never fully allowed the unconditional love of God to heal that wound caused by the WCSE which started to be used on me as a child, now I feltguilty for feeling that way, so now I have to deal with unmerited guilt, then that guilt lead to me feeling unworthy of being loved by my mother, God or anyone else for that matter, which in the long run lead to self-doubt, self-neglect, low self-esteem , depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide just to name a few, then I felt like I was a disgrace to my family, before and even after marriage, (even though until they read this they never even knew I felt this way). I purposely did not use periods as punctuation, I wanted it to run-on and on because that is how the WCSE worked, one thing on top of the other, until I was so overwhelmed, I was an emotional mess for over thirty years. All of this from a drawing on a piece of wood.

A Well Calculated Snowball Effect.

Do you see how the enemy can take something as stupid as a drawing by some teenager all those years ago to hold me captive in a "cell" for years?

The devil is cunning, he works all day and all night to keep you in his grips. He knows he is doomed and lost forever, so, even before we become Christians he is working on a master plan, a WCSEto keep from experiencing the love of God. Because he knows once we really experience it, he will not be able to keep up under his control. The scripture warns us that he is out looking for us.

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

Have you ever been bullied by someone? What do you do? Man, you keep an eye out for them, you don’t go where you know or even think they may be. You strategize every time you go out of the house on how not to be caught by them. Then one day you decide that you are sick and tired of this, because you realize that it is taking more to avoid or hide from the bully then it does to face him. YOU decide that I am not going to take it anymore, I have got to deal with this once and for all. You still strategize but now you are working on how to deal with this person when you meet face to face.

I had to deal with the deep depression that the WCSE of the enemy had put me in. But, because I choose to live a life of freedom, I have had to work (pray, fast, study the word, speak to myself) not to fall back into a deep depression (may I add while sitting in church, that is for another time).

We all have seen those westerns where the prisoner happens to have a friend who brings them a chisel or something that can be used to free them, and they work diligently at chiseling away at their way of escape. Consider me that friend, I am here to bring you a chisel, the unconditional love of a Father. I can not promise you instant gratification, but I can promise you lasting results if you trust God. Like me you may not even be aware of or want to admit how bad off you are. Remember in the movies sometimes total freedom came quickly, they sawed a couple of times at the bar and boom cell opens immediately. Other times they had to continue to chisel and chisel before even getting a chink in the bar, at least two commercials worth of chiseling (lol), but they got out.

It took me years to deal with the pains of my past. I remember as a kid my mom telling me “I am telling you this so you don’t have to go through what I did”. Use me as your proof. It is not worth years of your life. Someone once told me that time will heal your broken heart. Take it from someone who knows from experience, the best healer of a broken heart is JESUS. Why waste all those precious moments, hours, days, weeks, months and years waiting on time to heal. Go visit Jehovah Rapha,TD (THE Doctor), its much quicker and not only does He heal, but He also forgives and forgets. He said for I am the Lord that healeth thee (you) Exodus 15:26."

Imagine yourself free, it does not have to take you as long as it did me. God is a God of His Word. He tells us to cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us. (I Peter 5:7) I know God can help you just as He did me; the issue is never with Him, but with us. So with that said. If you are ready to make a change, ready to stop the Well Calculated Snowball Effect. Why not start with this simple prayer?

"Father, I know that you made me and that you care about my well being. I am asking you right now in the name of your son Jesus, to help me; I am tired of carrying these burdens, I am tired of hiding, I am tired of feeling unworthy, I need your help today, I do not want to be locked up in the enemies cell any longer. I want a fresh start, I need a fresh start. Forgive me for all that I have done wrong , forgive me for not allowing you to carry these burdens for me and help me to forgive those who have hurt me. I know that You sent your Son and He died so that I may be free. I surrender my heart to you and ask that you take full control of my life now. Thank you for taking away my shame and giving me a new beginning."

I am not one of those Christians that's going to tell you now that you prayed you are now off limits to the devil, that he will no longer work on a plan to trip you up or to get you right back where you were or even in a worst condition. Let me tell you one thing that I know for sure, in order to stay free you have to work at it. Just like in the natural when a person is released from jail there are rules that they have to abide by in order to live free.You have to work daily on keeping yourself out of that “jail cell”.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Read your bible everyday at first it may be hard and even boring, but trust me it gets better.

2. Take time everyday to pray, have a real conversation with God, don't try to fool or impress Him, you can't. At first you may want do all the talking, but can I suggest you practice now how to be quiet and listen for His voice, remember conversation consist of both talking and listening.

3. Stay away from the things that you know are going to suck you in, people who will constantly remind you of what you use to be, how you use to think or how so and so did this to you. They will keep you living in the past. You want to go forward. If they don’t want to support your new mindset, pray for them , but you may have to love em and leave em.

4. Speak over yourself, encourage yourself daily. Email me at bryceliz57@gmail.com, I will send you a list that I wrote for myself. Plaster it everywhere if need be.

5. Get involved in a church that is going to teach you how to understand the Word of God. DO NOT LET THE DEVIL TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN DO IT ON YOUR OWN, YOU CAN NOT, DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIE.

Thanks for reading my blog, share it with others. It will not always be so heavy. I had been "away" (lol) for so long I had just about forgot how to laugh. Laughter is good for the soul. Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength. (NLT)