Called in Love Blog
Heart Behind the Art #1
Hey all! It’s been a good while since I posted but I’m so excited to be back! I’ll be doing a series on some of my art pieces, as I feel led, called Heart Behind the Art. Each piece that I create has a story. Each piece is significant to me in my walk with God, and He uses them to encourage and communicate with me. So, the 1st piece I’ll be unpacking just a bit is this one:
This piece is my FAVORITE right now. It holds a very special place in my heart from the season it was birthed in.
The struggle to remember the truth of this quote, my identity in Christ, has not been, and sometimes still is not an easy one. I know God works with me in it, with all His love and mercy. I continue to work to remember, internalize, stand on, and live out this truth daily. It is necessary.
A Tough, Emotionally Vulnerable Season
Let’s set up the season, shall we? I was in college, and I wasn’t doing so well, internally. I was GREAT at hiding what was going on inside, and one of my unspoken “life rules” was in full effect: “Do not talk about your feelings or thoughts unless they are positive. If you’re not okay, then you’re not okay to be around people.” I wonder how many others have lived a life reflective of this lie?
I had been running from feeling the depth of hurt from lots of past painful experiences that derailed my sense of worth and value. I was so out of touch with myself, with who I truly was, and I felt that if I allowed myself to feel that pain, I would break.
As the pain became too unbearable to hold in and hide anymore, I began to leak small parts of it to my friends at school and a couple of family members. They encouraged me to seek counseling, and I’m so glad they did. Counseling has been a really great experience for me, and I recommend a good Christian counselor highly. Counselors do help equip you to better handle these emotions, however, a counselor is not able to be with you all the time.
BUT GOD.
I remember nights when I would just cry. I would cry and ask for God’s help, to help me see myself clearly the way that He saw me. One particular night, I was led by whom I now acknowledge as Holy Spirit to write out a list of the lies that were causing me such pain. “Never good enough, stupid, not beautiful enough, not funny enough, ugly, incapable of doing anything good, unloveable, no one would truly want to know me, I’m a screwup, I never do anything right” and so many more. The lies ran the gamut. He then led me to compile a list of the truths. “God loves me, He sent His Son to die for me so I AM valuable, I AM loveable, I AM fearfully and wonderfully made (we’ll talk about THAT piece later…), I AM already known, seen, and LOVED by God. To me He is El Roi just like He was to Haggar in the Bible, the God who sees me,” and so much more. Ya’ll, little by little I began to see the truth. The lies didn’t shake immediately, no. They took some digging with God still. In this season of digging, He started to uncover and urge this hand lettering piece in me, and I remember distinctly feeling intense anxiety over releasing it. It was a part of me, a part of my journey with God, and there was a battle of love during the creation stage of this piece as I fought the lies with God’s love. I called my best friend, and she prayed over me as I fell on the floor and breathed, and felt the anxiety leave.
Thank you for reading this post. I really pray that God uses it to touch your heart in some way, and to help you move closer to Him, and experience His amazing love. If you’d like your own print of this piece (and to make my day :-)), click the link below:
If you enjoyed this post, let me know please! I would absolutely love to hear from you. You can comment below, email me through this form: https://lysasletters.com/contact/, or simply connect with Lysa’s Letters on Facebook or Instagram.
(Over) 13 Reasons to Live
Following the second season of “13 Reasons Why,” I was left to think. What I thought about, was the not so awesome junk in this world, and why the awesome stuff makes it all worth living through. I thought about my own hope, and the reasons why I keep on living in this world. I firmly believe that I am here for a reason, even if sometimes I can’t see it clearly. There’s more than one way to churn the butter, ya’ll (that’s right, I’m Southern, get used to it, it is what it is honey ?). Everyone in life doesn’t follow a straight path. There are challenges, highs, and lows along the way. Running doesn’t change anything, and there is only so long you can run from yourself. So, before I start, I want to say I’m not a mental health professional, so this is me speaking from what I’ve learned, but I hope it helps you in even some small way to remember, or learn, that you’re worth EVERYTHING.
-A quick note: if you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or feeling self-destructive, talk to someone. Talk to your guardian, adults at your school, counselors, pastors, and/or call the national suicide hotline at 1-855-771-HELP (4357). You are worth talking to. Your healing is possible and worth pursuing.
Now we begin!?❤
-
If we process, express, and grieve our pain, IT CAN TURN INTO STRENGTH.
Yep. You read me right. That intense pain, that feels like your entire world is crashing down and you can’t stop it, it can turn into strength if you take the time to process it with someone who can help you talk through it, and understand it, grieve what happened, and move on. You CAN move on. Being brave enough to feel that pain, to stop running from it, and to honor it with HEALING, means you are STRONG.
-
Empathy is a powerful skilled learned through pain endured, or pain shared.
Empathy, which according to our resident expert online dictionary (it’s really just Merriam Webster ya’ll, but she can be cool sometimes, I think?) it’s “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” The world needs so much more of that. Empathetic people love with big hearts, and if we persist in empathy and healing we can also learn:
3. Resilience
This is PRICELESS. Resilience is real. This world ain’t easy. I will never tell you that it is. Sometimes it takes everything you have to get up in the morning, but you keep going. You bounce back. If you claim the strength and courage to be what the world says you’re NOT, that speaks volumes (in the context of good stuff, like actually be cool, strive to be a good person, and know that if you don’t hit the mark all the time, nobody does. Having the courage and resilience to keep trying though, that’s an awesome skill.)
-
What they are saying about you doesn’t change who you are.
It’s helpful for me to remember that the people saying things about me, hurting me, did not “knit me together in my mother’s womb” Psalm 139:13. I love my mama so much ya’ll, but even SHE did not knit me together in her own womb. That’s not how it works. I believe that God created us, and that he loves us more than life itself. Over the years I have learned that there was literally NOTHING I could do to change that love, to break it, to stop it from pursuing me, and changing me from the inside out. God knew I needed the change, but he also loved me where I was. I learned that God always saw who I really was, because he made me, and that even when I couldn’t put a name to my pain, He still knew. It gave me peace that I was understood. I’m told in the Bible I’m supposed to fix my eyes on Jesus, and that helps me. When I’m looking at Him, Him that died for me before I ever even thought of Him, before I was ever even born, Him that loved me like crazy before I ever even gave Him a chance, Him that has seen me in my good and in my bad and still loves me so much, I think, “wow, I don’t feel I deserve this”, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still have it. I used to get hung up on the former.
-
Your healing is coming.
Healing isn’t easy. I know that, you know that, everybody knows that or everyone would be healed. However, if you haven’t heard the words of Roosevelt, let me school you:
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
It made my day when I saw that. Healing is so worth it. Yes it’s going to take uncomfortable conversations sometimes, yes some days are better than others, yes it’s tough, but does that mean it isn’t worth pursuing?
Ladies and gentlemen, I think Mr. Roosevelt’s face just gave us our answer. OF COURSE it’s worth it.
YOU’RE WORTH IT. You are worth it just because you are here, simply because you are on this earth. You are created in the image of an AMAZING God. You are worth it because God gave his whole son for you, not a half, but a whole. He actually loved his son, a bunch, so that’s a tough sacrifice to make for us, who didn’t even know him, or refused to know him, or even hurt him. He loved us (and still does) just that much.
-
“You are worthy and deserving of respect and love because you breathe.” – Alexis Jones
When she said this, I was shook, in the best way. I saw her, truly saw her heart, she spoke some life into me. I used think that there had to be another reason. I used to think I had to earn my right to have those things, but those should be basic human expectations. Just, let that quote sink in. “You are worthy and deserving of respect and love because you breathe.” I was so thankful she said that. It’s true ya’ll. You are so loved. Even when you don’t see it and don’t feel it, you are so loved. When I heard that quote, I was so happy, and I realized too that I am breathing BECAUSE I am loved. If I weren’t loved by God, I would not be here at all. I am here and able to have the chance to love him back and to love others from the abundance of love and grace he gives me, because he loved me enough to breathe life into me, and to set me free.
-
You’ve got lots of gifts.
The thing about gifts, is that sometimes we put them on a shelf and never use them. When we don’t know the value of ourselves, we devalue the gifts we were given too. We devalue the good things we can do, the positive influence we can have, the love that we can give. I am 21, and I am still learning the gifts I have been given. I know people over 50 who are still discovering new gifts that God gave them to share with the world, and it’s never too late. There are things that only you can do on this earth, things that you were created to do. I am reminded of the way one of my professors described it: “God thought of you, decided you were a great idea, and created you.” When I am down, I often try to remind myself, God thought I was a great idea. That’s amazing! He still thinks that about us. His love never diminishes no matter how far we are from him.
-
You matter.
YES YOU DO. I know some of you may have read that and thought “no I don’t” so I just wanted to go ahead and start our argument that I can go forever at (spoiler, I ain’t never backing down).
It gets so tough sometimes, but I remind myself (or God does) that my value isn’t in the stuff I can see. I can see my clothes, my hair, my job, my face, my friends, my family, my etc., but those things are not what make me matter. I matter because I am here. We matter because we are here, created for such a time as this, by an awesome God. We are loved by God, and that love has no conditions. He literally paid the price for us to be free. Ya’ll Jesus paid my bail, and he picked me up and carried me out of my metaphorical jail cell that I didn’t have the strength to walk out of on my own, even after he opened it and gave me the keys. He didn’t ask me to love him first and then he would love me, that just wasn’t how it worked. He didn’t ask me to fix myself before I came to him, because He and I both know that if I could I would’ve fixed me a long time ago. I learned that I was loved, and I was then given the choice of how to respond to that love. I made the decision to accept it, and to love him back.
-
God sees you.
It always a huge comfort to me just to know that my pain is seen and heard. In the Bible, Haggar, calls God “El Roi”: the God who sees me. God is not blind, nor is he unfeeling. If was unfeeling, we wouldn’t be here, because we have all fallen short of his standard. None of us is Jesus. However, God didn’t send Jesus to condemn us all, he sent him to save us from ourselves by his grace, free us from the grip that sin had on us, and to give us new hearts, new spirits, new choices, new thoughts, new hopes, and new chances, new mercies every morning.
-
Jesus feels your pain.
There are other people in the world who feel it, too. We are never really alone. We can kick, and scream, cry, and paint ourselves into a corner, alienate everyone we love, and we are still not alone. Jesus doesn’t run away from our pain. He got on the cross to provide a way for us to walk in love and live in freedom, actual freedom, not that fake kind where we make all the bad decisions we want and feel like we’re free just because we had the power to make them. Real freedom exists where we allow him to heal our hearts (whether that be through talking, reading the Bible, people, or whatever He chooses) and change our minds so we don’t even think in the self-destructive ways we used to so that we can live without the heavy burden of everything on our hearts.
-
You’ve always got someone to “cast your cares” onto.
I know that because of Jesus, I’ve always got a way to get some of my emotion out. He’s strong enough to take all of the hurt in me and more. The Bible says to be “casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you” 1 Peter 5:7. This helps me so much, because at the end of my day, or anytime during it, I can just unload all of my pain, my hurt, my frustrations, and my sadness onto Jesus, and he can actually bear that load. With Him You are always loved, always seen, always fully known, and always heard.
-
What you do really does affect others.
I know you don’t think it does, but you have no idea what your future is. That could be scary, or it could be HOPEFUL.
You get to change, with help. You get to become who and what God dreamed you up to be. You get the freedom to reach for those big dreams you’ve got (or are ready to receive Him laying on your heart.). You also get the freedom to help someone else do the same. I believe we are all on the earth not just for us, but for those around us. If I could do anything to help someone else, I would want to. If me not being around would hurt someone else, or even the absence of me (even in the lives of those I haven’t met yet) could leave a space, then I don’t want to jeopardize that. It is one thing to fight against my own healing, and it is another to deny my presence and support for that of another person’s healing, when I am called to be there.
-
There is still joy to be had.
A teacher I had in high school told us one day that he had joy. He said that joy and happiness were two different things.
Happiness is easily gained and lost. It is to me exciting, beautiful, and sometimes elusive. However, he told me that joy, well that’s unshakeable. Once you’ve got joy in your soul, even in your darkest moments there will be something you can’t explain saying to you that you have still got so much to be here for. When I gave my life to Christ, he gave me so much joy, so much unexplainable joy. I had joy, even when I didn’t know how my life was going to go, how I was going to change (spoiler alert, I didn’t change by myself, and God’s love has changed me so much just by taking one day at a time with me.) That joy the God gave me really is my strength because I cannot do it all on my own.
14. (Through infinity) ALL THE PEOPLE, THINGS, AND PLACES YOU LOVE, even those you haven’t discovered yet.
God did not put you here by accident, no matter what anyone says or thinks. There is so much that you don’t even know yet, so many cool places you haven’t been, so many wonderful friends you haven’t made, and so many amazing things you could do, but haven’t yet done. Life is not easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. You never know where you could be a few days, weeks, months, or years from now. Life can get better, it can change for the better in a second, hour, month, day, or more. Hope is always there. There is ALWAYS a way to heal what’s hurting inside of you. That way, however, is NEVER to hurt yourself or to go and hurt others, because that only keeps the problem going. I had to stop fighting against my own healing long enough to ask myself why, and then be brave enough to ask for help. It’s possible.
“…with God, all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26
Here’s a song for you: He Has Time
If you would like me to keep you in my prayers, send me an email at [email protected]
If you like posts like this, subscribe below for email updates, and follow Lysa’s Letters on FB or IG
Much love,
Lysa