Chapter 7: The Ongoing Battle in My Mind

Ever since I began my relationship with God, there has been an ongoing battle in my mind.  

Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend say in their book Boundaries, “When you are around  a critical person, the kind who finds fault with everything, you can set limits on your exposure to this person’s constant criticism.  You can change subjects, rooms, houses, or continents.  You can leave.  But what if this critical person is in your own head?  What if you have met the enemy, and he is you?” (Boundaries pg. 222).  In the past I have come off as a critical person in various situations.  However, as much I can be critical of other people I am ten times more critical of myself. 

I have very high expectations for myself and can be quite hard on myself.  It partly comes from internal voices of people who were critical of me while I was growing up. 

For example, my step mom had several rules around the house for how clean it needed to be.  She wanted everything immaculate all the time.  I am now grown up, I no longer see her, but I still hold to all the rules that she had. 

I constantly have to remind myself to be gracious with myself. 

My being critical of myself also comes from feelings of guilt and shame over everything in my past.  It is like part of me wants to make up for all of it.  If I do enough good things or accomplish enough I will feel better about myself, but I know I just need to let it go. 

I used to have a recurring nightmare about once a week that I was running from someone trying to chase me.  I have read that it could represent me running from myself.  It is my “inner child” running from the adult part of me. 

I once took a personality test and scored high on two very opposite personalities.  The test said that my level of stress would be very high as a result.  I have within me both an otter and a lion personality.  Half of me just wants to have fun and the other half, the lion, is critical of the otter and her playful ways.  The lion says, “get serious!”  “This is no time to play.”  “You are an adult now so be responsible.” 

Another enemy of mine who I cannot seem to run from is Satan.

I believe women especially are susceptible to Satan’s deceptions, because we tend to be very gullible.  It was Eve that was deceived by the serpent, not Adam. 

I remember seeing Sleeping Beauty as a child.  I love the scene where the prince rushes to the castle at the end of the movie.  Briar Rose is asleep in the tallest tower and the prince has to defeat the fierce dragon to get to her. 

That is a very accurate illustration of what every man has to go through to win over a woman.  I believe Satan has every woman behind walls in a fortress.  I believe he attacks the woman most because we are able to create life and inspire the next generation. 

I have also heard many times, “behind every great man is a great woman.”  If Satan can take the women out, he can destroy the family.  There is also the phrase, “if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.”  That is a funny phrase and we can all resonate with it.  It is true that the mood of the mother in a family greatly affects everyone else.  I once heard this is because women have an incredible power of influence for good or bad.  We do not realize how much we can affect our husbands and children, and we are not very good at hiding it when we are in a bad mood. 

We have the choice as women ultimately to listen to God or Satan. Scripture states, “life and death are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21).  If women are positive and encouraging we have the potential to make our husbands feel like they could be the president of the United States.  However, if we are condescending and critical we can make them feel like they could be nothing better then a janitor.

Linda Dillow says in her book What’s it Like to be Married to Me, “When we point our finger at our husband’s shortcomings, three fingers are pointing back at us” (pg. 49).  I was guilty of tying to be my late husbands holy spirit.  I was guilty of being quick to judge him.  I think the reason was so that as long as I was preoccupied with critiquing his behavior or sin I could ignore my own sin.  Now I try to stop myself before saying or thinking about anything negative. 

Paul says, “we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).  What does it mean to “take every thought captive?” 

I know that on a daily basis it is like little enemies enter my mind and try to tell me things.  They try to make me feel worthless.  They try to make me feel angry.  Daily Satan tempts to me to start wars with my spouse, or to think I lead a miserable life. 

It is so easy to go along with the thoughts he sends my way, and to start to believe that they are my own thoughts.

Paul says to take these thoughts “captive” meaning we are to capture them and imprison them.  We are to stop them when they first begin. 

I start to think the lies he tells me are the truth.  Satan tries to altar my perception of the things around me.  My late husband has to talk to women when he works and I automatically thought he must be flirting with them.  My mom does not call me for days and I think she stopped caring about me for awhile.  A boss or co-worker criticizes my work and I think they don’t like me as a person.

I start to believe these lies thinking, “yeah that’s right I should think or feel this way.  These feelings are legitimate and accurate.”  But such thinking only spins my mind into a black hole.   

Due to what happened with my dad, Satan convinced me of the lie, “you’re only good for your body and your physical looks.”  I have believed him for a long time. 

It does not help that our society places such an emphasis on outward beauty.  Every time we go to the grocery store we see it on the magazines.  I always look at their flawless faces and wonder how I could do my make-up to look like.  I wonder how much time it took them to make their hair like that. 

Every time I walked into a room where a girl was prettier, especially if my late husband was with me, I would just want to run and hide in the bathroom.  I immediately got bombarded with thoughts like “I’m ugly,” “I’m not as pretty as her,” “my husband would want her more than he wants me.”  I know in my mind that none of these are the truth, but my emotions are still broken. 

When I was in the honors program in college I was constantly defeated with thoughts like “you are not as smart as these people,” “what makes you think they would accept you due to your past.”  I felt so incredibly alone at the Christian college.  I felt like everyone was judging me.  In some ways it was a very cold atmosphere.  Everyone was just worried about their own success and getting their degree.  It was every student for themselves.  But a lot of it was I let Satan defeat me in my mind. 

I also used to feel that I did not deserve a good Christian guy.  I felt like none of them would understand me and what I had gone through.  I felt like they would judge me for what I had done in my relationships in the past.

I used to think I did not deserve a good job.  I thought I belonged in minimum wage jobs.  I did not realize my potential or how intelligent God had made me. 

In John Eldridge’s book Waking the Dead he says, “I once read a quote that suggested we fear the glory God created in us.  No that’s not true, I thought.  We don’t fear our glory.  We fear we are not glorious at all.  We fear that at bottom, we are going to be revealed for what we are….disappointments.  But as I thought about it more I realized, we do fear our glory” (WTD pg. 87).  He goes on to say we fear our own potential for glory because it seems prideful to think we are glorious. 

He also says, “It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his” (WTD pg. 87).  Paul says, “And all of us reflect the Lord’s glory with faces that are not covered with veils, we are being changed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18).  I would therefore amend what Eldridge says.  We ourselves are not glorious, but Christ in us is why we radiate.  I grew up listening to the Newsboys song “Shine.”  Why are we as Christian afraid to shine? 

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others” (Mt. 5:14-16). 

I grew up singing the song “This Little Light of Mine.”  I believe I do not shine because I am afraid to stand out to the darkness around me.  I am afraid to be different.  But I know the world so desperately needs my light!  I imagine if I was in a room where it was pitch black.  If someone could even light a match I would be incredibly grateful to that person.  So why do I withhold my light? 

I heard in a sermon once that people can have two reactions to the light; they are either drawn to it or they try to put it out.  Paul says, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that bring life” (2 Cor. 2:14-15). 

I withhold my light because there are some who do not want to see it.  Perhaps I wonder, they crucified our savior Christ, what will they do to me? 

People love to stay in their darkness.  Scripture says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (Jn. 3:19).  That is why they killed Jesus.  He was quite outspoken about what was good and what was evil.  He directly told the Pharisees on many occasions that they were evil.  But people do not want to hear the truth.  Jesus said of them, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart are far from me” (Mt. 15:8).  Jesus shone light on their hypocrisy and they crucified him for it. 

Peter and those in the early church were heavily persecuted because of their light.  The world was not ready for the good news.  In some ways it still is not. 

In the Matrix there is a scene where the enemy, the machine as a computer program, is analyzing the sickness of humanity.  He said when they first invented the Matrix they tried to invent a perfect world where there was no pain.  He said “many crops were lost.”  People rejected the program and were unable to believe in a perfect world.

Many people still do that today.  It is like we are in a swamp full of oil and puss and slime.  Someone comes to pull us out and we say, “No thanks, I’m fine.”  The person says, “What is wrong with you?  You’re laying in a pool of filth and disgusting slime!”  We say, “No I’m not, besides, I like being in here!” 

We watch our football and eat our gourmet food and pretend the world is not absolute chaos.  We are happy to be miserable. 

This ultimately comes from a fear of the unknown.  What will happen if I step into the light?  What will God say to me?  Will he accept me?  What will he see?  It is a fear of being naked before God. 

Ultimately I have learned it is much better to be in the light then in the darkness.  If I was in darkness I would be a “slaves to sin.”  I would much rather be free and walk in the light with Jesus, my Savior.  That does mean that he can see everything about me, but so does my husband and he still loves me. 

God loves me because he made me.  It does not matter what I do he will always love me.  Like a parent who still loves his child when the child disobeys, so God still love us when we disobey.  His love is unfailing. 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).