I started to type, “When I was a child,” but when I typed it, Lion King came to mind. Wow this is so good. I will attempt to put thoughts to paper on this. Per usual, my blog may be a flow of incoherent thoughts. You have been forewarned.
Warthog, biblically, can sometimes mean someone lacking spiritual discernment…and as I typed it, the LION KING came to mind. Get it??? Right..okay.
Today, I started in prayer around 4 am. I don’t say this to brag. My heart was heavy. I was stuck in self-loathing…self-hatred…I was in heartache. I went to my Abba. (Little girls go to their dad when their young and it establishes their ability to accept outside information when they’re older. I learned that today. Random sidebar. ) I asked God to help me through this. I told Him that I was tired of being unfair to myself. I was tired of holding myself to standards just to please others. I was done paying the price for their perceived judgments.
Fast forward to this evening…I text a friend of mine this message:
While I was finishing one of my assignments, I was having a hypothetical conversation with my professor in my mind…and I was like..take it easy on me professor, Im 36 and I haven’t been in school officially in 20 years. And it was like a light bulb went off..like hmmm maybe I should be like that with myself. And then I started to think about other things and say…take it easy on me, I (fill in the blank). Jennifer…it instantly felt like a weight was taken off. I realize that’s something I have to constantly do, but wow, so grateful for that moment!
This moment changed my life. I knew it. I knew it was a big deal, but I didn’t know how big until a few minutes later. I was showing my kids photos on my phone. One of those photos was of me in Preschool, riding a pony/horse. As I was walking away, my son asks me if that was me as a child. I said, “Yes, that was me as a child.” I then added, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child…when I became a man, I put childish things behind me.” All of a sudden, it hit me. My childish reasonings…I had put them away. By the GRACE OF GOD, my old childish way of thinking about myself HAD BEEN PUT AWAY. It was actually crazy to me because I had never thought of that verse this way. It had always been more of a physical thing. Like a worldly view of what it means to be a man..or even just negative things. The way we tell people stop being immature. Sure, it can apply to those things as well, but it feels so much gentler now….ESPECIALLY in proper context.
1 Corinthians Ch 13 NIV
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Whaaaat??? 🤯🤯🤯🤯
When I would read this chapter, I felt more of a heaviness. I felt more of a scolding, but today I wonder, how??? How could I have ever read this passage and not’ve seen the beauty?!
In all of this I’m saying…part of this beauty is stepping into love…self love…self grace. Giving MYSELF this 1 Corinthians 13 LOVE. It is something I had never been able to do, but by the GRACE OF GOD..He has opened my eyes. I was blind, but now I see. I am favored..loved..and blessed.
Amen
Let me know whatcha think!