Healing a Wounded Heart: the lie of less than

A week ago, God brought about an awesome healing in my heart. He brought up a wound that I have been sheltering for years - and brought me through the steps to finally forgive.

I've always been "a bigger kid." For those of you that don't know the code, that means overweight. I've pretty much always been overweight. The first time that someone called me "fat" was in first grade (two times, actually) - once by Todd Killion who said that "I needed to lose my baby fat," and once by Sarah Reidel, who was fat herself, so when she said, "You're fat, you know that?" I thought, "So are you - so, what's your point?" (I think I was more indignant than wounded - like what kind of logic is that?)

Unfortunately, I never did grow out of my baby fat. I guess it goes back to that prophecy I uttered to my aunt Barbara at the age of 3.5: "My mom doesn't make me eat broccoli. My mom lets me eat peanut butter."
(please read that with every ounce of dramatic emphasis you know 3-year-old - and yes, 38-year-old Jessica would have announced that decree. More emphasis on the My than the mom - like my mom is better than yours)

Anyway...fast forward to those ever-formative middle school years. Those years when we girls so desperately need words of Truth spoken over us...when we seek our identities more in what our peers think of us than the rest of the world...when "nobody knows anything" except our peers - who in reality don't know anything. :)

In middle school, there was one person in particular who made it his mission to let me know just how undesirable I was. ...and I believed him. I distinctly remember the first time he called me "Fat Ass." We were in line at the lunchroom, and I think we'd actually just the weekend before been at this county-wide dance and for the first time had a fun time together (the group of us)...so it's like that moment where you have this glimmer of hope that, like, things can be different now. We can be friends. ...and then, he looked at me, and said, "You're a real fat ass, you know that?"

Um....

No?
Yes?
No? I don't know. Am I? I mean, I'm afraid that I am and if you're saying that I am, then I guess so.
...and it continued. That wasn't the only time he called me that.

...and then there was the time that he made fun of my jeans being too short in 8th grade - but they were my only pair of black jeans and I knew when I put them on that they were really short, but I didn't have any other jeans to wear, so I had to wear them, and maybe no one would notice anyway.
...nope. not the case. of course the person who knows right where to sling those flaming arrows wasn't going to miss this opportunity for ridicule.

(and of course, I wore those jeans again. and of course, I got the arrow again)

And I've never liked that person since.


Until last Wednesday, I didn't really think this was an issue. I thought I'd "gotten over it." Over the years, I've really grown to be grounded in my worth in Christ, and in who I am. ...I thought.... :)


...but what I didn't realize was how much I ingested those words and took them to heart. I bought the lie that I was "less than." Less than desirable. Less than pretty. Less than popular. Less than him - and all the people in his circle.

And for 25 years that wound has been festering: This "less than" mindset causing me to feel a need to prove myself "better than" in those realms that I could control. If I can't be pretty, then I can be smart. If I can't be popular, then I can be involved. If I can't be in the circle, then I can create my own. If I was ever to be desirable, then a man would have to tell me - because I just wasn't - and I couldn't be...


...and until last Wednesday, I didn't even realize the full extent of the poison. I knew I struggled with my body image. I knew I struggled with loving myself - even when I did "lose all my weight" three years ago. I could never see myself differently, even 50 pounds lighter. I knew that I can a bit judge-y. I didn't know why; I just thought something was wrong with me.

Something was wrong with me. I was entangled by a lie. A lie that I was, and would forever be, "less than."

Wednesday morning, God just tapped me on my heart - asking, remember that time? That's where this started. Let's go back there.

I knelt down on my knees (which I never do at home), and God took me back to that time in the lunchroom hallway. I heard those words again, piercing my heart. ...and in that moment frozen in time, I said to God, "I don't know what to say here. I don't know how to make this better. I don't know what the Truth is. You have to tell me. I don't know it."

And I began to hear God describe me, my body - "you know, those are your Grandma Georgia's hips and thighs...your Grandma Ellen's short-waist.... I know you love your heritage; these I gave to you. If I gave these to you, who are you - who is anyone? - to say that they are not good. I gave them to you. ...and I have set my Spirit upon you; I have chosen this body as my temple. Your body, I have chosen as a temple. My temple. You are my temple. I chose you. I chose you. You are enough. You. are. enough."

I just let those words wash over me; my tears washing over that wounded heart.

...and as I allowed that wound to be bound up by the Spirit of God, the only Healer...I realized that wound kept me from being a true friend to some people...that I had felt "less than" a number of people from high school, and I needed to confess that spirit of insecurity that kept me in a battle of less than/better than comparison.

I also didn't realize how much I hated him. ...and I mean it; I hated him. The way he made me feel...I let that wound poison my heart and mind.
...and suddenly, I could forgive him. I don't hate him, anymore. I forgive him. I forgive him. I forgive him for all of the words he spoke and the way he made me feel. I don't want to be bound by those things anymore.



I just....I had no idea how much that incident had wounded me - and how much that wound tainted the way I viewed myself and others. ...that I was keeping this silent tally of "the pretty people" vs. me. ...that I had accepted somewhere deep down that one of my defining characteristics is being fat.

One of the things I feel freed from is that now I can actually choose to be healthy. I can actually choose to do what is best for my body. I think that somewhere, deep down, I felt bound to be destined to self-loathing forever...always keeping that tally sheet of "less than/better than" columns - hoping I come out ahead in the better than - finally proving my worth.

...and that's just it. "finally proving my worth" has been driving me for a long time. Won't it be interesting if I can allow myself to live in my God-given dignity and realize it's not about proving anything? What sort of freedom might I find myself in, then?

What if I can allow people to just be people - not "pretty people" or "my people"? Just people? Who have a God-given dignity - and that in his column there's no less than/better than columns? What sort of freedom might I find myself in, then?

I don't know - but I sure look forward to finding out!