Hello, friends. I’m glad my shower epiphany didn’t scare you off.

As a woman well past mid-life, unless I live to 103, it’s a tad embarrassing to admit I still uncover childish thoughts. But, it’s not the most scandalous thing you’ll hear from me, I guarantee.

Last time we looked at childhood mindsets that dictated the cooking and shampooing habits of two grown women. Yes, old thought patterns die hard. We all hold onto habits and opinions because people we trusted told us or showed us, so we believed them. No questions asked.

We listen to those we trust. And for good reason. It’s important to stay out of the road and let streetlights remind us to head home before dark. But there’s a time to question beyond childhood lessons. Especially when culture, family, and life events hand us unhealthy beliefs about God.

We’re grown-ups. It’s time to ask some big kid questions.

Do we really know Him?

Has our faith grown beyond head knowledge and found a home in our hearts? Perhaps we see God as a Santa Claus, a spoilsport, or a lightning-toting tyrant who keeps mortals running between fear and guilt.

Has our faith molded around past teaching or past experiences? Is it modeled after how it was lived out or not lived out in our family?  Maybe it’s what we weren’t taught that leaves us empty and our minds full of wrong thinking.

If so, your God is too small.

As we strip unhealthy mindsets, we’ll know the One who gave us our individuality, our uniqueness and personality. On our journey to grow into our divine design, we need to know the truth about our Designer.

After all, we are made in His image, to reflect His nature .¹

As a child, I thought God was distant and unreachable, waiting to zap me if I did something bad. Sin’s definition was a bit fuzzy to me so I remembered the Big Ten checklist and recited the Act of Contrition before bed just in case one snuck past me.

My small, immature faith was enough for me then and for decades later when I decided to seek God – not as lightning insurance – but as a savior to change me and guide my life. On the outside life was good, but on the inside,

 I was dying for peace and purpose.

I opened my mind and heart to my pastor’s messages and started living out Jesus’ teaching in the Bible. Forgiveness gave me peace, trust taught me hope, and healing revealed my purpose. Soon, I understood the sin, the love, and the grace that my childhood bedtime prayer talked about.

Maybe, like me, you’re thankful for the faith you knew as a child. But if we want to reach our full, liberated potential, we can’t stay there. Our spiritual growth is consistent with the size of our God. Small God, small us.

And we weren’t born to be small, my friends.

Many of us, even Christ followers, live with inner dissatisfaction and incompleteness, sensing that we’re living below our potential. We feel inadequate because our God is either non-existent or way too small.

 “If it is true that there is Someone in charge of the whole mystery of life and death, we can hardly expect to escape a sense of futility and frustration until we begin to see what He is like and what His purposes are.” ²

Unhealthy mindsets block us from seeing God’s true character.

Next time, we’ll look at a little Jiminy Cricket theology and uncover some lies. In the meantime, read one of the Gospels, like John. Get to know God’s nature by getting to know Jesus.

I need a bigger God today than when my biggest worry was waking up first for Saturday morning cartoons. I’m done fearing lightning bolts and ready to live the abundant life Jesus promises in John 10:10. How about you?

Peace, my friends.

 

1. Genesis 1:26-27
2. J.B. Philips, Your God is too small, p. 9

 

© Robin Melvin 2015

Do you have great conversations in the shower? Please, tell me I’m not alone here. I don’t know if it’s the warm water loosening my brain, but the best convos with myself happen there.

My epiphany transpired in the middle of lather, rinse, repeat. While considering my dry, dull hair and calling on the hormone fairy to swoop in, balance my estrogen and return my shiny locks, I was enlightened. The thought trickled in as though it was there all along, waiting to get my attention.

           “You don’t need to lather twice.”

Deep, theological stuff, right? But it’s those “Oh duh” moments that often reveal the power of our minds.

Our brains are full of conditioned mindsets. Good and bad. Countless habits, attitudes, and perspectives live there and dictate our behaviors. Good and bad. Many are there since childhood, often handed down from family members.

Like the one that tells a young woman to cut the ends off a pot roast. She did it because her momma did it. Her momma did it because her momma did it. So, they ask gramma. The secret to the perfect pot roast? “My pan was too small. I cut the ends off the roast so it would fit.

But what about those mindsets that aren’t as harmless as shampoo and pot roast?

What about the ones that tell us we’re stupid, ugly, we’ll never measure up? Or those that say we are better, smarter, more valuable than others? They slither in and lie about who God is and who we are created to be, our true self. We have an enemy, my friend. Evil wants to rob us of our God-given identity.

Our minds really are battlefields where we live or die, spiritually and emotionally. That’s why Paul tells us in Romans to be transformed by changing or renewing our minds. And in 2 Corinthians, he reminds us to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

We compare our thoughts and attitudes to the truth of who God is and who He says we are. Knowing Him and ourselves,

We are free to resist the lies and grow into our divine design.

For 43 years, I lathered twice. That’s the way my mom taught me. It was the right way to wash an eight-year-old tomboy’s long hair. For three generations, women cut the ends off their pot roasts because “mom did it.” Until one day, we all stopped and asked why.

Yes, unhealthy mindsets die hard. But they do die. The next few weeks, we’ll look at lies about God and ourselves. We’ll step further into living abundant life in our God-given identity. Please join me on the journey.

Peace, my friend.

 

(c) Robin Melvin 2015

 

“So, tell me, if you woke up tomorrow and could do that one thing you’ve always wanted to do, what would it be?”

If I was in a comic strip instead of Diana’s counseling office, this is where you’d sketch a question mark over my head or pencil in chirping crickets. I sat there, unmoving. Unthinking really. Not one coherent thought. Beyond growing my faith and helping people, I couldn’t articulate one personal goal or dream. That’s the moment my lost identity was exposed, bare naked.

After thirty-one years of supporting my husband’s military and civilian careers and raising children and grandchildren, my youngest daughter graduated high school. I was an almost-empty-nester. For the first time in my adult life, freedom and a quiet home were mine. I’d heard this distresses some women but I was ecstatic. My time was my time.

Inundated with ideas and waiting to see the perfect one twinkling on the wall, framed with blinking arrows, I wasted time fretting about wasting time. Opportunities tangled my thoughts until my friend unraveled them with that one question. We peeked back into my childhood to uncover why my identity was wrapped tight in my roles and responsibilities, in what I did.

We found a little girl, voiceless and raised in an alcoholic home, still influencing me. After twenty-three years of experiencing God’s healing, I hadn’t completely stripped a victim mindset or my habit of gaining value by appearance and performance.

We peeled back people-pleasing, approval-seeking layers. False images, carbon copies, and chameleon skin hid my God-given identity. Lugging them into adolescence, marriage and mothering, I lost myself. I forgot to dream beyond changing roles and responsibilities. I didn’t plan past diapers and dinners, pony leagues and prom dresses. Life events and people defined me.

I walked out of Diana’s office smiling and thinking, Wow. I’m more messed up than I thought. Determined to see how unhealthy mindsets dictated my internal dialogue and life choices, I dug deeper. Not to blame, whine, or wallow in self-pity, but to understand my life’s self-defining moments. Those turning points when comments, events, or decisions layered junk on me. Ready to throw off behaviors rooted soul-deep, I thought a lot about image and identity.

Our identity is our individuality. It’s who we are and what makes us different from others. It’s our God-given design. Image is a physical likeness or a mental conception. It’s how we are viewed by others or ourselves. In knowing our true selves, who God created us to be, we find our unique personalities and freedom to express them.

As with all good things, our identity and image have twisted counterparts. They can be mistaken, stolen, or faked. For years, counterfeit images strait-jacketed me. Do you think parts of your true self are bound up and hidden away?

In the coming weeks, you’ll see my bare-it-all response to finding who I really am under fake layers and false identities. It’s connecting dots and untangling thoughts as I experienced them. Fleshed out, squeezed out, and written out. God’s still stripping me soul-deep, at the core of my fearful, selfish nature.

As I let you in on my deepest hurts, I hope you’ll uncover some unhealthy mindsets and see you truly are a new creation when you accept Christ and all He says about you.

Together, as we shed others’ opinions and society’s stereotypes, may you see yourself as God does. Holy, righteous, redeemed for a purpose. Free from guilt, right with God, and valuable beyond human measure.

Bare naked fear, pain, and pride are ugly. But I’m done hiding. How about you? Transparency is risky but it’s healing and freeing.

It’s been two years since Diana asked me a simple, soul-stirring question that sent me on this shameless baring-all journey to uncover my God-given identity. Are you ready to join me? It’s gonna be a wild ride. Peace, my friend.

 

(c) Robin Melvin 2015

Patience. I want it. Now. By the time you read this, my fourth grandbaby will be born. But, for the moment, my family’s mantra is, “Come on, Luna Sophia.” We breathe it out and trust she’ll get here in God’s time. That’s all we can do.

Even my daughter-in-law, whose swollen feet require sandals two sizes bigger than usual, can’t control the timing. She’s so done with all the put-you-into-labor tricks. Her limits for patience are stretched tighter than her belly. Pregnancy is in control. All she can do is surrender to the process and wait.

Yes, waiting. I’m not too keen on it. But, here’s a truth that helps me: Waiting time is not wasted time. The process of getting from A to Z is just as important as the outcome.

It’s the in-between time that grows us. Whether our challenge is minor like waiting at the dentist or major like waiting for a diagnosis, there’s always something to learn. When we’re tapping our foot or wringing our hands that’s a signal to ask God, “What do you want to teach me?”

I admit, I don’t always ask with the best attitude. Putting aside fear, pride, or my “rights” to be edgy and impatient isn’t easy.

                      But it sure beats wasting time by letting a difficult situation control me.

Knowing that waiting time isn’t wasted time,  encourages us to persevere — which builds our faith, our character, and our hope. We learn patient endurance, evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in us. Author Joyce Meyer teaches, “… over time we become less affected by the difficulties and challenges we face. It’s like exercise … we must go through the pain to get the gain.”

Perhaps like me, an exercise analogy gives you the heeby-jeebys and you prefer Helen Keller’s thoughts:

           “We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.”

Waiting is hard. But waiting is crucial.

Let’s trust that God wants to birth something good in us. When we’re patient in the waiting, we’ll grow in process. Grace and Peace, my friends.