The Lies We Believe

“Sometimes, our thoughts are backed 

by so much insecurity, 

that they create lies we believe”. 

I love this thought. It has been so true in my life. I really am working to make it better. A really good example of this is how we remember things when we are young. Several years ago, I went back to the neighborhood where I grew up. I walked to the school that I attended for elementary school, I looked at the apartment that I lived it. I drove the alley where we used to play cowboys and Indians and shoot each other with cap guns.

In my mind, the walk to school is so much longer than it really is, the apartment was so much bigger, and the alley was not a dusty track of gravel filled with trash and empty bottles. In my mind, I see the things that happened, but they are all bigger and somehow more, than reality. There are no more fields filled with tumble weeds waiting for us to build forts, there are no more canals to swim in.

My adult eyes see the area as not such a grand place.

My adult eyes see things that the child never did.

My adult eyes miss the wonder that the child once believed it.

My life has been filled with insecurity. I have large blanks in my memories. I don’t remember really being happy. There are few times that I remember laughing and having good family times. I know we did, at least once in a while, but I honestly don’t remember much of the good that had to be there. That must have existed in the world I knew.  I know it was, because my brother and sister remember good times. Sometimes, they even remind me and then I remember. They reminded me of going to pick an ice cream cone on Friday nights when my mom got paid. We all got to pick our favorite colors and flavors. My mom always got daiquiri ice. My sister always got bubble gum. I still can’t remember what I would get, but knowing me, it was probably some form of chocolate.

I tend to remember the bad times that I have been through. They live forever in my head and color my view of what reality was. I remember falling on my bike and needing stitches. I remember passing out when I got a penicillin shot. I remember heartache and not having friends.  I remember too much grief and pain and too little love and appreciation.

If it was not good, I remember those things.

My point is that both sides are a form of the truth. There were good times in my childhood, but there were also really bad ones. I had so much insecurity in my life, that the world became a scary place to live. I didn’t want to remember it and so, I have conveniently, forgotten everything that might be important.

My heart sometimes wishes that I could remember the good things that my brother and sister do, but my head creates another life for me, another form of reality. Things are like that to a point for all of us. We all remember things just a little bit differently. We remember heartaches differently as well as kindnesses. We hurt differently, we endure differently, we grieve differently. We all feel our pasts. We all remember our insecurities. We all create our own versions of truth and lies.  Interestingly, we even start to believe "if you don't remember it my way, you are lying".

So maybe, just maybe, we all ought to be just a little kinder to each other and try to understand just a little more. We need to open our hearts to the love that surrounds us. We need to let go of those things in the past that we are holding onto and that are holding on to us. We need to believe that He can Heal every single part of us. 

He knows us, He knows our insecurities and our thoughts and every single one of our lies. 

And yet, He loves us in spite of our worst selves. 

He loves us for the truths that we will come to know. 

He loves us for the hearts that are overcome with goodness. 

He loves us in our doubting.  

He loves us in all our imperfections.  

He simply loves us.