Hello, Gracie

Psalm 41.7, "All my enemies whisper together against me; they imagine the worst for me."

This particular verse from Psalm 41 spoke to me this morning. Often times, we think our worst enemies come from outside us; but there are many whose worst enemy comes from within.

I am reminded of this because of my own ongoing struggles of not being good enough in the eyes of Christ. The truth is, I still wrestle with this sometimes. When I am busy crucifying on my own cross, I listen to the tapes in my head from my past. The troubling part is, though I replay these tapes/scripts in my head of not being good enough, I choose to bolster my own negative self-image, thus limiting what I can learn, but I also limit how much use I can be to the Holy Spirit.

Without going into much detail, there were incidents that I partook in my early to mid-teen years that caused me to learn to see myself as dirty, even, or especially, in the eyes of God.

These internal, self produced scripts unfortunately short changed my learning and effectiveness during my chaplain residency just a few years ago, sometimes in some dramatic ways.

Thankfully, I know God loves me; I have undergone therapy, and have a wonderful spiritual director. These folks have been resilient, and stood between me, myself and I when I have tried to either sabatoge or flog myself. I have developed tools and practices to know what to do when Satan tries to nurture seeds of doubt in myself. I have learned to accept and practice the grace of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, many of my sisters and brothers with mental illness don't have the tools and medicine to fight even more pernicious internal enemies. For some, issues of self-doubt are wrapped tightly up with a mental health diagnisis, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or clinical depression. For them, my job is to touch my own pain, and speak to them the grace and love of Jesus Christ. To practice God's grace with others, one first has to practice it with oneself. Through grace, comes patience, and patience is what one needs in walking with and ministering to others.