i don’t hate myself anymore
If you lived down the block, we would go for a walk or meet at the coffee shop around the corner and I would tell you the story.
These words on your computer screen will have to do:
During the counseling sessions I began a couple of months ago, the fight I have been silently waging with God came to the surface. I disagreed with his making of me. This war affected my view of myself (obviously), my relationships and the direction of my life.
When my counselor told me about a short class offered through her church on the Meyer’s-Brigg’s personality, I thought it might aid me in ending the war and accepting myself.
In the second class we received our test results, with the class leader (my counselor) emphasizing that the results show our preference, the way in which we naturally tend to interact with the world.
When I read my description and saw my letters, my heart dropped. I don’t want to be an INFP.
During the next weeks, I realized that even though I did not want to be an INFP, I was one. The descriptions matched me, and although I tried to be organized and rooted in the world around me, I am more comfortable and spend most of my time in the abstract and possibilities. I tend to be forgetful of details and unaware of my surroundings.
In week three, Dianna, my counselor, mentioned that “when we finally stop fighting with God about who we are and accept how we are wired, we experience a deep level of peace at the center of our being.” Driving home in the dark, I felt the battle in my heart. The angry fist I raised at God. That week the battle stayed on the surface of my thoughts and emotions. I didn’t know how to stop the fighting, and I wasn’t ready to release my anger. By the end of the week I was able to articulate the reasons for my anger.
I was angry because:
1. I am a woman.
One of my gifts is leadership, and I didn’t want to fight for my place and right to lead in a conservative church (I currently attend a Southern Baptist church). I was mad that God made me a woman and then cursed me with the ability to lead. It also seemed to cut the % of men I could see myself dating because as a woman hoping to marry, wasn’t the man supposed to be my leader? Well, most of the men my age are anything but leaders. Will I ever find someone I can respect as a leader of God’s people? or as a leader of my future family?
2. I am deep.
All I want is some peace and quiet, but instead I have been gifted with a mind and heart that loves to swim in the deep waters of the human experience. Each day I search for the deeper meanings behind the facade of this life. I find patterns in behavior and life. Each week holds a new epiphany or experience and I cannot stop my brain from digesting it all. Sometimes it is a gift and a joy; at other times my mind haunts me - metal wheels grinding against each other with sharp thoughts I do not know how to soften.
3. I am abstract.
How can I be a leader when I think in pictures? How can I be understood when I see life as a painting, my life as a novel… I find more meaning in metaphors and similies than in a straightforward comment. It makes more sense to my heart coming in the form of a picture or story. My abstract mind along with the level on which it operates are things I have been wired with. I cannot turn it off.
By Saturday I had my life of complaints. My three thorns I wished God would take away. Take them!
Then something remarkable happened.
I went to THE CALL at Qualcomm Stadium. I went because I knew that God listens when His people cry out to Him and while I wasn’t sure about the radicalness of the people or whether I agreed with each word. I know that when we cry to Him, He comes and I wanted to be in the room when He arrived.
My friend from college, Eric, met me there and I was able to sit with him and his friends. After catching up on each other’s lives (on a surface level), we began to worship and guess what I found…
myself face to face with the battle in my heart…
i began to cry
“God, I don’t understand…
I gave Him my list
“These are the things I hate about myself…woman…deep…abstract.”
I struggled through the words.
“I am angry at you for making me this way.”
More tears.
Then my final statement,
“God. I am so tired, I’m so tired of fighting you and feeling so far away from you. I don’t want to hate myself, but I don’t know how to change. I don’t know how to stop fighting. I don’t know how to rejoin your side.”
In my mind:
Me. Standing on a cliff, arms waving angrily at God. He stood on a cliff, far far away with an unfathomable valley between us.
“God. How do I get to your side. I’m so tired. I don’t even know what to say.”
I sat in silence. Face wet with tears.
Less than a minute later, I heard the voice of Myles McPherson from the Rock church. He had taken the stage some time before, but now said, “I want you all to repeat this prayer after me.”
I thought it was weird that he was telling me to repeat his words right after I had told God I didn’t know what to say.
He prayed.
I repeated his words.
The prayer was less than 10 sentences. A simple prayer of confession and repentance and asking God to come and take ownership/heal us. It finished with thanking God for His grace and mercy.
I wept and as I repeated the words, something happened inside of me.
It was as if God reached down and put his finger inside my chest - touching the war torn land of my heart -
and healed it.
I still cry and can hardly believe His goodness when I think of it.
By the end of the prayer the war was over. Gone!
and I believe, fully deeply believe that God loves me! And that He made me exactly who I am for HIS purpose and out of love.
I was able, only fifteen minutes later, able to say,
God,
I believe that you made me a woman for a reason
that you gave me the gift of leadership for a reason
that you made me deep for a reason
that you made me abstract for a reason
I believe that you love me!
When I could not reach God or unwind the lies clenching my heart -
God did it for me.
Hope has been reborn and I believe.