The Big Lie. It crept up on me this week. You know the Big Lie. It’s the curse you hear over and over in your head. It’s the curse you hear confirmed through other people’s words. The Big Lie is confirmed by hard life experiences like when you say, “Well, of course she said that about me! It’s because I am __________________________.” You might hear, “Of course, I lost my job/my home/my marriage. It’s because ______________________.”
Fill in that blank and that is your Big Lie. One of my Big Lie’s is that I am not wanted. This began early in my life and I heard it confirmed through people’s words and through life experiences. I believed this curse allowing the lens through which I see the world to be tinted by the lie.
Not this week. This week, I had a conversation that I walked away from feeling very much “not wanted.” I came home to have my pity party cry in the shower. You know that cry. Feels great as the tears mix in with the cleansing water. Like a double cleanse….inside and out!
As I stepped into the shower, I felt the water run down my face and immediately I knew I walked right into the lie. Instead of crying, I felt my warrior spirit rise up. I began repeating, “I am wanted. My people are waiting for me. I am wanted. My people are waiting for me.”
I spoke truth to the lie bringing the brokenness under the umbrella of blessing. Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved says, “And so the great task becomes that of allowing the blessing to touch us in our brokenness. Then our brokenness will gradually come to be seen as an opening toward the full acceptance of ourselves as the Beloved.”
Nouwen calls our hurts, pain, and sorrow, “the gateway to joy.” We just have to turn and face them with the truth.
Let’s speak truth, my friends. Speak your truth.
Amber Mattingly 