The Secret to Living Powerfully
Updated: Feb 8, 2022
I just woke up from a terrible nightmare where someone was about to hurt me. In my dream, I screamed for help but no one came. I woke up startled with my heart pounding and a sinking feeling in my chest. I realized that even in my sleep, I had created meaning out of the fact that no one had come to help me. The sinking feeling in my chest was the feeling of being unimportant like I didn't matter enough for someone to rescue me from danger. Thankfully, this was nothing more than a dream and I was able to shake it off but things happen in life just as they did in my very realistic and painful dream. But, we have the power to create meaning beyond what actually happened.
Let me explain what I mean. A good friend of mine, who is also a blogger, recently wrote a beautiful and moving post about forgiving herself for not being the "perfect" mom. In this post, she talks about how she was playing with her two children inside the house when her kids collided and her daughter got hurt. That's what happened but she began to create meaning beyond that. She began to blame herself for what had happened feeling like it was her fault for playing with them in the house and feeling like a bad mom for not predicting what was going to happen.
We are not promised a life without suffering, without hard times, without worry or stress. In fact, Jesus warns us that we will have trouble in this world (John 16:33).
But, the suffering we create lasts much longer than the suffering of what happened. In my friend's case, for example, the suffering of the moment was seeing her daughter hurt and the fear of not knowing what to do or what was going to happen. But once that was over, the real suffering began; the suffering of guilt, of feeling like a bad mom, of feeling like a failure. The latter suffering lasted much longer.
Why do we do this to ourselves? When we create meaning beyond what happened, we create our own prisons of suffering. Sadly, we may never show ourselves the grace of unlocking the door and letting ourselves out. I'm so thankful that my friend, Ana, let herself out and for sharing her struggle because her story is all of ours. Just as we have the power to create meaning beyond what's happened, we also have the power to choose to let it go. This knowledge gives us the keys to unlock the doors of every prison we're living in and every future prison we create. I don't know about you, but I find this newfound power exciting!
Here's what I find even more exciting. Did you know that in the same way we put ourselves in prisons of suffering, we put others in boxes? That's not the exciting part yet! The exciting part is that we can choose to let them out too. What I mean by putting people in boxes is that we often say they are who they are, these are their characteristics and we don't expect them to behave any differently. If you were to say that you believe your spouse is stubborn, for example, you've put them in a box. For this reason, if they were adamant about something important to them, it could be easily dismissed because your view is that they're just stubborn. How amazing is it that armed with this new knowledge and the ability to discern what is from the meaning we've given, we can free ourselves and others?
We get so hurt over the things that people do but their actions don't inherently mean anything; we're the ones who give their actions meaning. My dad hasn't been around for most of my life and I always carried the feeling of being unimportant. In my mind, I decided that he didn't care about me because I didn't matter. I realized, recently, that his actions weren't a reflection of who I am but of who he was. I decided I needed to forgive him and let go of all the hurt I'd been carrying.
After nearly 10 years of not speaking to my dad, I reached out to let him know that I forgave him and was ready for a relationship with him. He was overjoyed to hear from me. All these years, I've felt like he didn't care but little did I know he had been carrying around guilt for not being my "Dad" all along. We all make mistakes in life and his mistakes happened to have hurt me but it wasn't because he didn't care about me. Forgiving my dad for not being around was freeing. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my chest. So, I invite you to give forgiveness a chance. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you've made. Forgive those who've hurt you in the past.
I know that forgiveness is difficult. Forgiving my dad, the absent parent, was easier than forgiving my stepdad, the present parent who hurt me. My stepdad and I have always had, what you could call, a turbulent relationship. He wasn't the easiest parent; he was demanding and controlling. Looking back as an adult, I also wasn't the easiest child. I was stubborn and didn't like to be told what to do. It was a terrible combination from the get-go. But, he was the only father-figure I had and the pain of our difficult relationship was hard to get over.
My stepdad had a stroke a few months ago and he's been in a nursing home. When I went to visit him, it was the first time I had seen him in about 9 years. I thought I had forgiven him long ago. I thought that being able to see him after so long meant that I had let go. I thought that being able to have compassion for him and understand that he did the best he could with what he had was enough.
As I was writing this post, I realized that I still hadn't truly forgiven my stepdad. A wonderful friend encouraged and supported me to have a long-needed conversation with him. I told him that I forgave him, that I was sorry for not being an easy kid and thanked him for all he'd done for me growing up. I was so nervous before I went into his room but he made the conversation easy. He said there was nothing to apologize for, I was just a kid and it was all water under the bridge. He told me that I'm his daughter. He didn't say it but I know that he loves me. I could never have imagined this conversation happening but it did. Fear so often holds us back from taking action but if we can muster up the courage, it can have a profound impact on our lives and in the lives of those around us.
The Bible tells us to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). This means that we have a responsibility, as Christians, to dispel Satan's attacks on our mind and claim the truth instead. Satan wants nothing more than to keep you down because if he can do that, you won't be the powerful person that God created you to be. God says, "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy" (Luke 10:19).
God has given us tremendous power. We have the power to live in prisons of our own creations and the power to set ourselves free. We have the power to keep others in boxes and the power to see people anew every day. We have the power to choose. What are we going to do with this power?
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