You’ve heard it before from me but this time I want to go into a little bit deeper, because honestly, it’s a real thing and lately I’ve talked with so many who struggle with the same thing. Including myself.
Comparison.
Faced with it again. As if it were shackles around my ankles stopping me from running from it and cuffs around my wrists that locked me from releasing myself.I didn’t know that my soul was armed with a tool of destruction. I only intended to have my soul armed with righteousness, grace, glory, praise, joy. But it was. That tool had made it’s way to me.
There I sat. Analyzing every detail of myself from top to bottom in the just posted picture. I ran my fingers across my glass screen and criticized myself like I was an editor on a first draft book.
“They’re going to notice that you messed your eye-liner up today.”
“Wow. I should’ve added a different filter to that. They’re going to think that I’m too “fake”. “
“Maybe my caption was too long.?”.
“I could loose a couple of pounds”.
“Mac* was right. I wouldn’t want to be around me either.”.
“Look at my smile. Ugh.”
I had just spent the day in glory of who God was as a Father and how perfect he makes it all. Yet, here I was not even eight hours later dreading the very creation that He created.
Upon realization, I felt like I was covered in shame. The shame ran so deep, so sharp.
How could I do that to myself?
I know my worth is not found in the approval or comparison of myself to others, but rather the Truth that my life is rooted on.
Jefferson Bethke put it like this, “Shame has a slimy feeling, like it’s starting to cover you, and you can’t help it”.
And I couldn’t help it. Shame, regret, disapproval, and anger arose inside my heart.
In Matthew 26, there’s the story of when Peter disowns Jesus. A little girl comes up to Peter and says, “You were with Jesus!”
He denies it.
Another group, approached Peter and he denied it again.
“I swear, I never have laid eyes on the man.” (vs 72).
By this point, Peter was nervous and anxious because he didn’t want to be recognized. Yet here came another person by saying something like this…
“C’mon man. I mean your accent gives you away. You’ve got to be one of them!”
He swore and yelled “I don’t know the man!”.
It was in that moment of a rooster crow that Peter remembered what Jesus said: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” He went outside and wept bitterly. (vs 72-75)
I really love this passage because it’s so relatable. I’m sure that if this were a play on stage, I would’ve been one in the crowd yelling “Peter! Don’t do it! Don’t deny Jesus! You know better!!!”
Yet…here I stand.
But denying something so alike Jesus.
Denying his creation…denying myself.
Peter, I gotcha man. I would’ve wept in your case too. Just like I’m sure you understand the way my heart was feeling.
I was covered in shame and regret because I am nothing less than Peter.
I think it’s so wonderful how this world was existing after His hands created it. The world was already in motion before I was even born. But Jesus literally thought, “This world is great. But it needs someone like Cassie.” And He planned my very existence. He planned your very existence.
Shame runs deep. “Shame cuts us off from intimacy, vulnerability, and transparency. There’s something in us that tells us we were created to this life thing alone, but such dependence leads to exhaustion”**.
I’m exhausted.
Exhausted of running from the shame.
Exhausted of denying His very creation.
From this moment on, I choose to embrace the “flaws” that I have. I choose to ask God for the key to release my shackles on my ankles and wrists. I choose to live in freedom. And that choice…it sounds like a good choice to me.
If you’re struggling with the shame, or comparison, or anything else that can relate you to how Peter felt in that moment. Would you ask God to be released too? I’m telling you it’s a good feeling and He’s a good, good Father.
“Every good and perfect gift comes from above”
James 1:17
*Mac is a name that I used to replace the identity of real people in my life.
**I’m telling you guys. Jefferson Bethke’s new book has got it going on.
