What do you choose to wear?

Illustration by Rebecca Jo Heaston.

Life can brutalize us. And we bring the consequences of that brutality into our present NOW. What we might not realize is both our power to impact those consequences and what happens within us when we do.

My father was a sexual addict. He looked at women as objects. What are the consequences of his brutality? What did I stagger into adulthood with?

If I am fat, I am worthless. If my hair isn’t long and blonde,
I am worthless. If I wear glasses, I am worthless. If I am all three, I am utterly repulsive.

Now, add those consequences to those we find in the public square — thin is the ideal; sensuality dictates worth — and we have a recipe for some real hardship, and this hardship had me so confused and down, I was suicidal.

Bit by bit, however, over the years, I realized just how God managed to have me stumble over what is true. And God managed to motivate me to pick up various pieces of that truth and use it as truth is meant to be used, as a powerful “reboot,” if you will, of my psyche.

God’s grace is hanging in the air! What we must do is pick it up and put it to use! Yes, I walked into adulthood with this baggage. Yes, I walk in our public square where much of that baggage is carried by all of us. But now, I get to exercise the power I have as an adult and remove what is not true.

I am a unique, gifted, wonderful human being who can choose to use God’s grace every moment to bring into reality all that is true and disempower all that is not.

We are free to see as God sees, and the joy and peace and strength that comes from making that choice day in and day out? Well, that takes the brutality of this world and just lets it drop with a very loud thud.

Reflection

What consequences of the world’s brutality hang on you? How is God inviting you to see truth? How aware are you of the joy and peace that comes with the deliberate choice to see as God sees and work to bring that reality into your NOW?

Prayer

Thank you, God, for whispering to me through the years. I knew the brutality was not true, but I had to wear it to an extent then, as a child. I do not have to wear any brutality now. i have the freedom to live what is true. I want to know more and more the joy, the peace, the strength that comes from every deliberate choice to use your grace to bring truth to light! That’s what I choose to wear! Amen.