crippled by lies

The Secret Garden was one of my favorite books growing up. The other day I pulled the movie off the shelf and decided to let it play in the background while I did homework. My books ended up on the floor as I curled up with a blanket on the couch and focused on the movie instead.

One of the story lines that really breaks your heart is that of Colin, son of Lord Craven, who has been in bed his whole life. As a child, he was born prematurely and therefore sickly, so for the next ten years he was kept in bed, never learning to walk, and in darkness for fear that light and "spores" in the air and all sorts of other things would cause him to die. He was told that he was going to develop a humpback like his father, and that he wasn't going to live very long.

Then, his cousin Mary (also ten years old) comes to live at their house and, in disobeying the rules about exploring, discovers Colin. She doesn't put up with his temper tantrums, and tells him that it's ridiculous that he is going to die. The turning point of the movie comes at one point during one of his crying fits. Colin is yelling about lumps in his back, and Mary goes to where he is lying down, lifts up his shirt, and starts feeling around. After a minute, she tells him, "There are no lumps in your back. You're just bony because you're so skinny." Colin says something that really resonated with me: "Maybe I'm not going to die. Maybe I'm going to live."* It was as if the thought had never crossed his mind that people could be wrong. And from there, he gains a will to try this living thing, and he ventures outside the house, even learning to walk. His relationship with his father is repaired, and it's a really sweet story.

I began to realize how often I, too, live under the impression that various things I believe about myself could be false. How many times have I adopted a certain persona or defaulted to a certain attitude simply because that's the way I have always been? Or it's what people expect of me?

One of the causes, I think, is that we don't realize the freedom we have in Christ. We are not bound to an identity set upon us by man or to sin that continues to weigh us down. We are not called to live up to the expectations of others or to fit into the little "box" that they keep us in, of our intelligence or our personality or our attitude. Galatians 5:1 says, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

As you are being struck with lies about who you are, look to who God says you are. Learn to combat it with Scripture. Allow others to keep you accountable with your sin in order to help you to overcome it. One of Satan's strategies to disable Christians is to keep them from being effective - if you have lost the battle in your mind and given in to the idea that you cannot be a useful for the Lord (you don't know enough, you've messed up too much, you aren't loved by others, whatever it is), then those thoughts will cripple you and actually keep you from serving Him. There was nothing physically wrong with Colin, but in his mind he completely believed that he was too sick, and it disabled him physically.

May you learn to recognize lies concerning yourself, and may you find that not only is your identity in Christ, but so is your strength - He chooses to use us despite our shortcomings.



*paraphrased quotes