Hidden Arrows

It took a lot of strength to write this post. I had to battle procrastination, fatigue, frustration, and fear. And then I asked myself why. Why was I so afraid to write this post?? The answer was, I had to address a stronghold in order to begin. A stronghold stood as an obstacle between myself and my laptop and rather than face this stronghold I decided to engage in distractions. A stronghold is a mindset, value system, or thought process that hinders your growth. Strongholds embed accusations firmly in our minds and Satan uses these accusations to implant lies, falsehoods, and misconceptions ESPECIALLY regarding the character and nature of God (David Wilkerson).

The thing about battling and vanquishing strongholds is you have to KNOW THEIR NAMES. Once you can really call a thing a thing, you can properly address and in this case destroy that thing. Strongholds are evil spirits that latch onto and torture God's people. Strongholds can be traced as far back as childhood and through different generations. I'm not going to going into depth about strongholds in this particular post but I will say that as a Christian and a mental health professional, I believe that strongholds are the cause of many mental disorders and illnesses. At the end of the day, I believe that everyone to different degrees are engaging in a battle within their mind.

So...what is the name of the stronghold that stood in my way? REJECTION. To be completely transparent, when I really took the time to think about it, I've felt rejected since I was a little girl. My parents were in an unhealthy and abusive marriage and so being raised in such an environment didn't allow very many opportunities for me to receive love, validation, and affirmation from my parents. As an adult, I know that my parents love me and just didn't always know how to show it. However as a child it was too complex for me to understand the message of love through my parents contradicting behaviors. As a result of my parents behavior, I was left feeling extremely confused, hurt, angry, and rejected. I began comparing myself and my family to my friends families...wondering what it would be like if I was someone else's daughter. I didn't know that at that point rejection had latched onto me and began planting seeds of low self-esteem, worthlessness, doubt, suicide, depression, and desperation in my mind. Those seeds buried deep in my mind as a child gradually took root and the lies and fears attached to rejection only became worse throughout my adolescence. As a teen, I found myself wanting to be liked by kids who I thought lived better lives than me. Yes, I know that developmentally teens are enduring the struggle of figuring out their own identities and they desire to be accepted by their peers BUT my desire for acceptance was beyond what was developmentally expected. Things only got worse when I became a young adult. At 21, I still found myself trying to be accepted and liked by not just my peers but specifically by men. I had no identity at this time in my life...had absolutely NO IDEA who I was so I just copied the actions of the people around me. I dressed, cursed, hung out, and acted like the people who I thought were my friends hoping that it would fill the void of love and happiness that I never experienced as a child (of course I wasn't consciously aware of this at the time). Things continued to get worse the next few years. I forced myself into relationships with men that were extremely toxic, draining, and unhealthy and this only exacerbated my feelings of worthlessness. I've grown up in the church, but I decided to give my life to Jesus FOR REAL when I was about 23 years old. I had become tired with how things were going in my life and I wanted a change for the better.

So fast forward to now. I'm 33 years old. I love Jesus and do what I can to live a life that's pleasing to him. However a few months ago, I decided to leave my church after about two years due to feeling unimportant and unappreciated. I left another church prior to the most recent one for the same reason. Now, in both of these churches I personally experienced devastating and traumatic situations that caused me to be deeply hurt which is why I decided to leave (I'll address "church hurt" in a future post). So these hurtful church situations on top of my own long standing issues with rejection only added insult to injury. In church I've always felt invisible, like I didn't matter at all. No matter what I did to receive the attention, acceptance, and approval of my pastors and the church I felt like I was always on the outside looking in. This is the stronghold of rejection at work!!!! But the actions of the church didn't make the lies in my head hard to believe either unfortunately. Let me give you an example:

While sitting in church one day, the pastor wanted certain people to stand in front of the congregation and share testimonies about miraculous things that God had done in their lives. The pastor mentioned that he wanted a female member to talk about her journey in getting her doctorate. Now, in this church there were only two female members pursuing doctorates, myself and another woman. I was excited at the opportunity to share my testimony because I wanted to encourage someone else and just share how amazing God is. The pastor called the other woman to speak. I had no issue with this because her testimony was truly inspiring. After she shared, the pastor moved on to another subject and didn't call me to speak. Immediately I felt...you guessed it...REJECTED. I had already shared my testimony with the pastor in the past so I couldn't understand why he didn't call on me. The woman asked me, "Aren't you getting your doctorate too??" I replied, "Yeah." She said, "I don't know why pastor didn't call you." I told her that I didn't know either but it was ok. She looked embarrassed...not for herself but for the situation in general. I felt embarrassed because other members of this small church knew that I was pursuing my PhD and to see that I got "looked over" like that in front of everyone made me feel that my accomplishment was not important at all.

Feeling invisible in church was nothing new...I was just getting tired of it because I already felt invisible in the world and I thought the church would be different.

Being a Christian single woman also makes me feel invisible because it seems like the only men who "see me" are jerks. This intensifies feelings of rejection in my mind because it makes me feel that I'm not good enough sometimes. I know that I was never made to fit in because I'm different, but me being different makes me feel left out sometimes. When I link all of my experiences over my lifetime I see that the same rejection that I'm feeling at 33 is the same rejection that I felt at 9, at 16, at 21, and at 25. Through hurtful and traumatic experiences I've learned to associate rejection with being invisible which overall makes me feel worthless and unimportant sometimes. The other day God placed this scripture in my mind...yup at the center of the place where I hear the lies the loudest:

And He has made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. Isaiah 49:2

This scripture made everything so clear. This stronghold of rejection was telling me that I was invisible and unimportant to the world and that made me feel worthless. This is a HUGE lie. God's truth is I'm not invisible rather I'm hidden...not because I'm worthless but because I'm a weapon. I was created in God's image to make an impact on this world. One of my gifts is public speaking and communication. "He has made my mouth like a sharpened sword..." My words have power, I know that now. All weapons are kept in safe places because their use at the wrong time in the wrong hands can cause death. God hides me so that he can sharpen me and as he continues to work on me he places me in his quiver (a quiver is a case that holds arrows). God knows the right time and place to use me to make the greatest impact. I have to trust his timing and not doubt myself or my power in the meantime.

Jekalyn Carr has a song called "Bigger" and in that song she says:

Anytime, because I know the devil I know he's an opposer, so he's not gonna tell me the truth So anytime the devil tells me I'm not something I always say "I am that"

So, when rejection tells me that I'm not worth anything, I'll say that I AM WORTH EVERYTHING! When rejection tells me that I'm invisible, I'll say that I AM HIDDEN AND WHEN GOD IS READY TO REVEAL ME TO THE WORLD MY IMPACT WILL BE UNDENIABLE! We have to remember that the devil is an accuser (Revelation 12:10), a liar (John 8:44), and a deceiver (2 Corinthians 11:3). We cannot give him the satisfaction of believing his lies even if they appear and feel real. This is why the devil is the father of lies....he knows how to make them seem like they are truth!!

I'm continuing to work through this with God. This stronghold has been trying to take me down for years but it WILL NOT win. I hope this post encourages you to continue your fight. Call out your strongholds by name...GET THEIR ATTENTION AND LET THEM KNOW THAT YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE AND IT'S TIME FOR THEM TO LEAVE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ONCE AND FOR ALL!

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5