Looking in a mirror is not my favorite activity. I often find myself rerouting my path when a mirror lies ahead. Often times, in the world of “selfies” I think I am alone. But actually, we are all like that - just maybe the mirror we commonly avoid is not the physical mirror, but the mirror of self-reflection.
I read a book once and the part of the book I never forgot was when the author was talking about how she was self-reflecting and realized that she wasn’t the most intelligent person in the room, she wasn’t the funniest person in the room, she wasn’t the prettiest person in the room, she wasn’t the most talented person in the room; But she could always be the most competent person in the room and she could always be counted on to take care of everything and I really got that. That resonated with me. I pride myself on competence. Sometimes, I think I worry about coming to the end of things and have others think, “Tiffany was stupid. Literally, she was a fool again.” I just don’t want to be incompetent.
I was sharing this thought recently with a friend and she promptly stopped me. She said she didn’t think it was good for me to ruminate or relate to the thoughts from this book. She said, "You are not any one thing. I do not want you to think you are any one thing. You are not only competent - you are all the things. You are exactly who and what you need to be. You are everything through God. Literally, you are everything you need to be."
I will not ever forget that. What I was talking to my friend about was not about any actual deep-rooted or conceived insecurity. Yet, she recognized how damaging my ruminating on this thought from this book was. And, she put on her gardening gloves and pulled out my problem by it’s root.
You know you can remove weeds out of other peoples hearts and minds with your own words and your own hands? Everybody needs to hear that they are valued and loved and important and accepted. Everybody needs somebody to call out the greatness in them. Everybody needs to be reminded who they are and how you feel about them. Everybody has their own darkness. Everybody has their own thing that they struggle with. Sometimes the voice of the enemy tries to speak words of self-hate and defeat into our minds. But “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Sometimes God’s voice is hard to hear above the noise of the busyness of life, our own inner voice and the voice of the enemy. Sometimes the voice of Jesus sounds like the voice of “your people”. The voice of a friend saying, “Let’s put a pin in this negative thought.” The voice of your people speaking life and reminding you of how great and unique God made you.
It’s
a beautiful life we have been given. A beautiful Church we belong to. Full of
beautiful people we get to encounter whose hearts we get to touch. Be present.
Handle with care. Remind them who they are. Remember who you are. Let’s keep
being sensitive to His spirit. Let’s keep moving in the direction that He has
called us. Let’s hold up our shields of faith in defending our church family.
And thank you to each one of you at Refuge Church - Your voices so often sound
a lot like the voice of Jesus.