Pursuing real truth requires taking a journey to find belief.  Belief in God, yourself, and others. Belief that you are worthy of discovering good things; good and positive things, because, after all, we don’t just wake up one day and believe, right?

My life experience includes 52 years of hardships, beginning at age eight with my father’s suicide, childhood sexual abuse, parental neglect, suicide attempt, drug and alcohol abuse, and marriage all before the age of 17. My resume of adversity continues with a tumultuous divorce, remarriage, blended family, troubled teenager, my brother’s suicide, job loss, housing market crash, move to another state, loss of my mom, betrayal, loss of my first born son, Robert, to yet a third suicide; and a litany of other hurts and pains. Some were self-inflicted, many other heartaches were outside of my control. 

Lies have been spoken over me from a very early age, and I believed them. Believing in the wrong things without pursuit of truth is the very definition of brokenness, and I lived that broken life for 25 years. The problem isn’t that I believed the lies, it’s that I didn’t pursue truth!

“I am what THEY say I am and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Someone’s property, bitter, and broken! No dreams for my life, no choices, no purpose, no voice. Alone and Unloved. No belief in God, in myself, or in others. I didn’t even believe in tomorrow. All I could do was just survive the day.

And because I believed the lies, I lived a life of lies. I made bad choices. I hurt people. I ran away. I masked my pain with drugs and alcohol. I pushed everyone away. I was on my own. No one was ever going to take care of me, so I had to learn to take care of myself. I had no childhood. I had to grow up and become an adult as an 8-year-old little girl. And as I sat broken on my mat with the LIES on my heart, I was unable to climb the ladder leading to truth. I’ve seen it in YOUR eyes, too.

The ladder is an analogy representing our journey to pursue truth. There are many different ladders, different sizes and shapes. Each ladder has numerous rungs representing a lie we have chosen to believe; keeping us stuck on our mat. As we replace lies with truth, we get off our mat to climb the ladder, bringing us to the next rung. Pursuing truth leads to strength, wisdom, power, and growth; which takes time. A lifetime to be exact. So let’s examine two major lies we believe about ourselves. 

Lie: You have no value or worth

Truth:  YOU DO MATTER. 

You matter to God. And you matter to me.

I was 13 when I first realized I had value. I had gotten into some trouble at home, and was sent from Florida to go live with my Mamaw in this little Knoxville, Tennessee town. Coming home from school one day, I got into a yelling match with two girls on the bus. After screaming obscenities in their faces, I jumped off the bus, ran home, climbed into the only place I felt safe: in bed under the covers. My aunt came and talked to me. She asked, “What’s going on, Julia? Why are you so angry?” To which I responded, “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” She told me I was wrong, that I do matter, and that I was deeply loved. But more than words, she helped me believe I mattered, because she was willing to meet me right where I was. She listened, without judgement. After our conversation, the heaviness went away and I lifted my head for the first time in my life. Something shifted in my heart at that moment, and I began to see things a little differently. And people saw me differently. Even though everything was the same, nothing was the same. 

Once you see your value and your worth, you are able to remove the lie and move up towards truth. 

“I am NOT who you say I am, and more importantly I am NOT what I think I am.”

The greater truth then comes from the question, “If I’m not those things, then who am I?” 

I AM WHO GOD SAYS I AM

With that one single truth, renewed power is gained as you start to believe in yourself. Lifting your head high, opening your eyes wide, you’re able to plant your feet on that firm foundation of truth to build a new life. Once you find something of value in one truth, you can believe in the next truth [rung] and then the next [rung], and the next. 

Lie: God doesn’t care about you.

The greatest truth:  EL ROI KNOWS YOUR NAME!

El Roi is one of God’s names, which means “God who sees you.” Because you matter, what you do matters and what you say matters, you have what it takes because EL ROI SEES YOU.

When I was 37 years old, my teenage son, Robert, introduced me to Jesus. Robert was a complicated person, going through a difficult time. One day after a minor physical altercation, he and I fell to the ground in a snotty heap. He kept repeating “Make the pain go away. Make it stop.” I went to bed that night, crying out to God, “If you’re real, I need help. No band-aid is big enough to fix this and I can’t do it on my own. Please send help.” The next morning, Robert went to school early. He told me he needed to talk to a teacher. I called the school to make sure his teacher took the time to talk to him. His teacher told me Robert was coming to talk to him about God. In that moment, I knew El Roi saw me! I knew God heard my cries the night before, and He sent help through a teacher in the public school system. Robert and I went to church that Sunday and gave our lives to Jesus, and I have never looked back.

A word of caution: On our journey, we will experience broken rungs. Be prepared for the fact that armed with power and with purpose you have become a target. There is an enemy of our souls, and he is crafty. He will try anything; use anybody, any lie, any betrayal to keep us from finding truth. If you doubt that, look around. Look at the fentanyl pouring out into the streets, look at the wars raging around the world; look at the Minnesota shooting in the Catholic church last week. All of that chaos is for one reason… to prevent you from knowing truth. It’s our duty to defeat the enemy so that God’s dream for us and the people around us prevail. 

My belief has developed through my journey pursuing not only Truth, but the Greater Truth and the Greatest Truth by what I have experienced and seen. It’s with the power given to me through “the greatest belief” that I go forward. For those things I cannot see or cannot know, I rely on faith as I continue my journey.

Talk to you next time.

For deeper examination of more lies we believe about ourselves, click here.