Breaking up is hard to do

Hmmm... breakups. Those aren't fun.

I’ve had my share of self-inflicted heartache, but I think one of the most challenging breakups I’ve experienced is the one with myself. That sounds silly, yeah? But the truth is, I’m STILL breaking up with myself.. everyday, every hour, every minute.

I look at my life NOW and look at my life a couple years back. I don’t know that girl anymore. That person is dead to me. When I accepted Christ as my Savior, I broke up with that person. Christ entered in, and the rest is history.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

Ever so often though, I feel like I receive the phone call from that past relationship. And rather than ignoring the call, I choose to pick up and listen. I listen to the lies that tell me I am unworthy, and that I will never be good enough.

Sometimes my “ex” taunts me. How could you possibly impact other people with your past? lies. I don't know, I do research with isotopes. I'm just some nerd who occasionally throws some baking into the mix. What in the heck does that have to do with the Kingdom of God, yeah? More lies! And I can choose to sit and listen and entertain these lies OR I can hand them over the Jesus. I choose the second option!

I say all this to say that I don’t think that breaking up to yourself is necessarily a bad thing! Painful? Hard? Absolutely! But, in fact, I think breaking up to yourself is quite the contrary of bad. I think it is an AMAZINGLY, wonderful, extraordinary, awesome thing. Call it what you will – breaking up to self, dying to self. Sometimes I read my old journal entries just to see where God had me over the past few months. It makes me laugh.. in a good way! Breaking up to self is an everyday process. We must die to our former “me’s” daily. I read these:

5/3/2012: “Lead me where you want. Use me as You will. Let me nail my anxieties, fears, doubts, body image issues, jealousy, and pride to the Cross. Renew me God.

5/15/2012: “Lord, this verse is perfect for me today. I must deny myself.. Let me lay down this sin, idol, and struggle that I am having with myself..”

6/7/2012: “Jesus, break all my chains – Show me my sin and what needs stripped away.”

9/14/2012: "I know I am being called to surrender... something I've never been good at. I love control... Lord, take control and direct my life"

Pretty much every day’s entries have some sort of cry out along those lines. But the point I'm getting at here is WHAT IF something we see as truly heartbreaking and tough is actually super awesome and what we are called to do? And it is!

I truly must break up with me everyday! And it’s hard. Breakups are painful and uncomfortable and just complicated, and there's just a whole lot of things attached! Heck, I've been "dating" me for 23 years! But OH the beauty that comes with dying to that self. I read a lot of things on this whole “dying to self” thing because it is a concept that really intrigues me. I think it is because it is so supernatural. When I think about my past and the Spenser I used to know, there is no DOUBT in my mind that it is only by the Power of Christ that I am the person I am today. I so often hear of people that want proof for Jesus and the Bible, and while those are all great concepts to explore, I don't need that physical proof to see. I know by the change that Christ did in me how real it is.

One of my favorite quotes from another blog I’ve read on dying to self is written beaytifully and it says this:

“It’s been with some amount of surprise, then, that I’ve begun to see that the process of dying to self is a process of stripping away layers of sin encrusted with selfishness, and that glowing underneath all those layers is the true, complete version of who I was designed to be — the real me.”

How TRUE is that though? And how scary is that? I think that’s why I so often struggle with this breakup process. I see the person I am now, and I think ... "WAIT, this isn’t the person that I’ve tried to be for 23 years." (Notice my key word there… TRIED). With my new self, I don’t have to TRY. I just AM. I don’t have to be somebody. I am Spenser, new creation in Christ! And the exciting thing? The new ME is constantly, every moment just continuing to be refined to be more like Christ! Every moment I am awake, I am being transformed to be more like Jesus.

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son..” Romans 8:29

But, I have to remind myself that I have to keep breaking up with myself. I have to crucify all my old wants, desires, lusts, sins, and plans and hand them over to Jesus. He is the perfecter and He will continue to do a work! 

I am free… and so are you!

Did you know that the moment that we make the choice to put our life in Jesus’ hands, we are free forever? We are free from our sins – we no longer live as prisoners to the things of this world.

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)

I think so often we forget such a simple concept and try to complicate things. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation and You are free. Bottom line. The moment you decide to trust Jesus, He sets you free – free from past decisions, present mistakes, and even future ones too. I am free from the things of this world. I no longer live prisoner to all the things that I did before Christ chose to save me.

I struggled a lot with whether or not to write about this because who really wants to confess all the “junk” about themselves, but I think that so many people just need to hear it! I am hoping that I can remind you of the Truth that the Lord has so reminded me of, especially the past few days.

The Word tells us we are free, and if we BELIEVE that, I just want to know... WHY do we still live like prisoners so often? It’s like we just build a tent and camp out there, tied up to _______. Fill in the blank! For me that blank contained words like this: money, sex, power, success, image, alcohol, vanity, and the list just goes on. For you, it may look a little differently. Whatever fills that blank, it is sin. Sin that we do NOT have to gratify.

So here it is. I lived a life that chased and chased THINGS and yet could never find fulfillment. I was a slave to things like 600-dollar shoes, dreams of range rovers, long nights out, image...really anything that I could to suit me for that particular moment. No longer do I live in shame of these things, but I talk about them openly and victoriously! Why? Because I am FREE from them. They no longer hold me in captivity.

While extravagant clothes and crazy nights out seem to be very specific examples, it wasn’t really them that were the issue. It was just the things that the sin of my heart manifested itself through. My whole life was my image, my longing for fulfillment because I wasn’t depending on the Father to be satisfied with myself. As the Lord started to strip these particular things away, my strive for the perfect image just manifested it in something else in my life. That is the funny thing, isn’t it? Satan will lie to you in WHATEVER way or time of your life seems fit, even if the lies are completely contradictory to one another. In college, the lies sounded a whole lot like this:

“You are worth SO much. You deserve all this stuff – fancy cars, fancy clothes, fancy life….”

As those things began to fall away, the lies went from THAT to THIS:

“You aren’t worth enough! You need to do better. ”

And so that’s what I tried to do - be worthy. Same heart issue, different sin. And so began my struggle with body image, something that had never once been an issue in my life. You can imagine my confusion, but again, a matter of the heart. I think that it is so important to talk about because I see the struggle and strive to be thin and to be beautiful everywhere I go, especially in young women. Before I knew what was even happening to me, I realized that I was serving an idol in my life that came in the form of an eating disorder. A slave to counting calories, the scale, and a distorted view in the mirror of what beauty looked like. I felt defeated. I would cry out to the Lord: “Will I live my whole life constantly chasing a number on the scale?” (spoiler alert: The answer is NO!) Months and months I was a slave to numbers, restriction, excessive exercise, among other things in an attempt to find glory in WHAT I THOUGHT to be external beauty. But, then it hit me. Maybe I should rephrase that…… 

In my anguish I cried to the LORD, and He answered by setting me free. (Psalm 118:5)

That is when I heard the Lord LOUD and clear: “Spenser, you ARE free. You do not live in captivity to this any longer. I died for this. Stop building your tent here and living in it”. And that was it - I was free... and I was all along. And I am free today, always and forever. The Lord is so patient with me, and He has completely rewired me and taken my distorted view and replaced it with truth, from God's word of what beauty TRULY is. And while it is so absolutely wonderful to be healthy and to exercise (cough, Crossfit) , I know that true beauty is dependent on the woman that I am in Christ!

And so there you have it. I am free!

And SO ARE YOU if you trust in Jesus! And if you don't, well .. He is looking to free you too!  Don’t build your tent there in the struggle and camp out! Hand it over to the Lord, and remind yourself that anything you feel like you can’t escape from is exactly what Jesus died for! HE is capable! And HE has freed you.  And for that , we can forever be thankful! Happy day!

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave. (Psalm 86:12-13)