The Blah Part II: Combatting the Terrible Awful Jostler

I would like to share a bit more about my own personal Terrible Awful Jostler.  He likes to rampage through my thoughts smashing my green crayons and knocking me down.  He tries to imprison me in a dark dungeon built of fears.  He replays films in high definition in my head.  There are the old classic films of myself playing lonely and alone on the playground because I wasn't good at the games the other kids played.  There are the films of myself as a young wife and mother and my husband telling me that I was not attractive enough/ not good enough at relationships/ not good enough for him period.  There are more recent films that show me the mirror and point out new wrinkles.  Sometimes it shows me my pathetic efforts and tells me I am too old and not talented enough to succeed at learning something new.  I have had to learn to how to cut the power supply when the Terrible Awful Jostler starts playing movies in my head. 

I look him straight in the eye and I say "I have a movie for you.  It is a love story.  Sit down, shut up, and watch."  My movie is a romance, a lover whispers his love in the ear of his beloved.  He says "no matter how great a flood you go through, you will never drown because I will be with you.  When you walk through fire you will not be burned.  You know why?  Because I will be with you.  Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you." (From Isaiah 43:2-4)  The lover in my movie is not just a character created in my fertile imagination.  He is real and the girl he is winning over is me.  This silences the Terrible Awful Jostler for a time.

Bernard de Clairvaux said "There are two things you should know: first, what you are; second that you are not what you are by your own power."

No matter what lies you have been told, or who has told them to you, I want to tell you the truth.  You are precious and beautiful and honored and very very loved.  If you are not convinced of that, I urge you to start there.  Find out what you are, who you really are.  Then, silence the lies in your own head by remembering the Lover who made you what you are.