It’s been a minute…
Today I had time to realize how much time I’ve taken away from You’re Not Finished to recoup from moving to a new place & starting a new position at work.
Getting adjusted to a new workflow in a position that requires more of your mental and emotional energy than normal and getting adjusted to a new home is a lot, but I thank God for getting me through these experiences. It’s brought up some old stuff from my past.
I think growth may naturally do that.
It may force you to face some hard things that you didn’t have the capacity to do before. When you’re comfortable and complacent there isn’t anything that moves you to change, but when you get to the point where you can accept the call to go move forward or when you become tired of your surroundings or outgrow them, you can more clearly see what was holding you back in the first place.
For me, it was unbelief. I think that is the root of most of my problems. I did not believe in myself at all – thinking I’m not worthy of moving forward or having anything better in any capacity kept me stagnant for a long time as well as taking up too much time and space in environments that affirm my unbelief. And there are still some things I need to work on such as implementing better boundaries and cultivating better habits that reflect where I’m heading and not who or where I’ve been, but I have more hope than ever and am learning along the way.
I’m just glad the growth is slow because I wouldn’t be able to handle it otherwise.
The more I embrace growth, the more aware I become of the unbelief or the lie that believed about myself that prevented that growth, and the more I distance myself from that unbelief, which leads to a greater confidence in myself or rather who God created me to be. It makes it so much harder to engage with the things, people, or content that may cause me to forget who I am. Part of me feels like the majority of people struggle with unbelief in various ways, because they wouldn’t need to be in control all the time, wouldn’t need to manipulate, wouldn’t need unhealthy amounts of validation, or wouldn’t settle for less just to give examples.
To whoever is reading this, I’m challenging you to take a look at yourself and face the things, actions, or people, in safe settings of course, that perpetuate unbelief or a lie that you believe about yourself. What is that lie?
An example I can give for myself, just so I’m not hypocritical is that the root of my past promiscuous behavior and draw to pornography is the lie that sexual intimacy is the only real intimacy that I would ever experience. I believed that I’m the girl that you sleep with, not the girl you marry.
Heavy, right?
But it’s something I needed to face and acknowledge otherwise I would have never even had the chance to overcome addiction in the first place. I needed to realize that those lies I believed & the unbelief that I was worthy of true love and intimacy stemmed from sexual assault & a broken family dynamic. Then after facing all of that, I needed to develop the habit of focusing on what is true, good, noble, and praiseworthy just like Paul says in Philippians. Instead of being consistent with promiscuity and pornography, I started to become more and more consistent with purpose. & I see my past from a further distance than before.
So yeah, take inventory of roots of unbelief or lies you might be believing and then begin to combat those lies with what is true, praiseworthy, and all of the things.
I have that as a journal prompt in my ‘You’re Not Finished’ devotional, and to find out what chapter or Biblical character that prompt is linked to, you should get it. You can either get it for free, $1.99, or $8, depending on if you want the ebook or the print & where you get it from.
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If you want to share your experience or tell your story or journey as someone with a diagnosed mental health or mood disorder in order to connect with & encourage others, & you’re OK with that being shared on the YNF website, shoot an email to stories@yourenotfinished.com or contact me through the site.
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