A few things before we get started
I wrote this as a post-script but needed this to be a pre-script in case you didn’t make it to the end. ha!
I know I use “God” and center the Bible, but please know that I care about and love er’body, regardless of religion or relationship with who you know God to be. So as you read this, please replace “God” with whatever feels and is good for me. Because that’s not my business.
What is my business is the truth of who we are:
we are spiritual beings having a physical experience and the solution to our physical problems are spiritual when we fall short in or are limited by our humanity. So if you don’t believe in the Bible, regardless of the reason, skip them or read them as you would a fictional text– reading for understanding, to take the meat, and spit out the bones. Some would say that’s sacrilegious, but that’s not their business or mine.
Whether you’re Muslim or Buddhist or atheist or Taoist or.. or… or…, please know that the words offered here in this post are an outpouring of my heart and you are warmly welcomed here. So if you feel excluded because I missed the mark, please leave me a comment below or send me an email so I can make any necessary changes to make you feel as included as you are loved by God of your understanding. I hope and trust you come to know truth more intimately and that this blog post helps you find it, and liberates you with it. 🙏🏾❤️✨🫶🏾
Now let’s get this porty started, shall we?
“Criticism in my household was an outward demonstration of love. I had to work HARD to love me as my God my Father loves me.” I jotted this note down while laying in my bed on this deliciously slow Sunday afternoon listening to someone share from the depths of their heart about how she internalized other’s critical voices.
Critical voices in my childhood– in our childhoods. Though not only in our childhoods– in our young adulthoods, and even our adulthoods, too, are like mustard seeds. Tiny as they are, brief or fleeting as the critical comment is, they can grow to become our (hyper) critical inner voice.
Sometimes, like a mustard seed, one seed is enough. The one criticism we heard grows to become a full harvest and bear fruit. And like a seed, the harvest doesn’t grow overnight. Also like seeds, criticism has a life cycle:
- It germinates and is fertilized with the repetition of those harsh, critical words.
- It is rooted and stems grow by the related and tangential words or actions of contempt or resentment that follow. From the same host or echoed and repeated by others.
- Soon leaves begin to unfold as others echo the same false truths to you about you.
- Flowers follow as more seeds are generated.
- Pollination ensues with more criticism as seeds and now fruit, too, are produced.
How hurt people love
Too young to question the harsh, critical words of others, you (a collective “you”, of course, because really I mean we) believed it. You believe those who are supposed to take care of and protect you are right and true. You believe that their words ring true because why else would they say that? You believe it because you know that if it weren’t true that they would apologize for hurting you.
But hurt people who hurt people don’t apologize for hurting people. And even when they do, they don’t often know or truly care to understand the deep cuts and pains the sword that is there words caused. Because they’re too hurt hurt liking their own wounds.
I know this now at 40 but I didn’t know this at 4 or 14. By 24, thankfully, I began to see the light. By 24, I began to feel mustard seeds of criticisms ripple in my life like the trembling of the aftershock of a 10.0 earthquake. Big emphasis on began. I began to feel and see and know the mustard seeds of criticism grew.
By 34, I began to more deeply know that what they said was truly a reflection of who they are and that has absolutely nothing to do with me.
Also now at 40, I desperately seek the Truth because it liberates. At 40, I don’t even give mustard seeds of criticism or negativity or doubts or fears a place to rest.
This, my body, is fertile soil and I am mature enough to refuse to let anything other than God’s Truth fertilize me.
At 40, I am mature and committed to continuing to uproot the criticisms and er’thing else that has no home here. No fear. No guilt. No shame. No doubt. No hatred. Where there was fear, I gently and lovingly til the soil with faith. Where there was guilt, shame, and condemnation I lovingly forgive myself. Where there was anxiety (too future focused) and depression (hoping the past could change), I stay present. Where there was self hatred or contempt, I offer grace and kindness and love.
In my household, criticism was an outward demonstration of love. But what kind of love hurts? What kind of love stings? What kind of love burns like the tight rope like you’re playing tug-of-war with your heart? What kind of “love” is this??
Loving me like God loves me
I learned to love myself like God loved me when I began to reach for the Bible like I reached for the warm embrace of a fireplace on a cold winter night, arms outstretched to get as close as I possibly could. The Bible describes love so differently. The Bible describes love… Well, I can show you better than I can tell you:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV
Not every seed.
Cycles may be repeated or they may be broken. Not every seed that is planted reaps a harvest. Not every seed that is planted bears fruit. The seed may germinate, but it can also be uprooted by the gardener. May you always remember that you can uproot a mustard seed. May you always remember to question and challenge the truth of the criticisms that are hurled your way– heavy and dangerous like a shot put at full speed. But how do we uproot the criticisms? How do we uproot a mustard seed?
By the time you find it– that is to say, by the time you notice the hurt that the criticism caused, it’s no longer a mustard seed. What once was a mustard seed grew. It is now rooted. And you begin to see and notice and above all, feel, the manifestations of the mustard seed. It’s embedded in your patterned behaviors. It’s the very thing you– I mean I!– didn’t even like about myself. But where are these voices coming from? Do I really even believe that about myself?!, I finally asked:
- Am I really “hard to love”? No, I’m actually pretty dope and I love me some me!
- Am I really “ugly”? Do I only “have a pretty face”?! I was made to feel as if the rest of my body was unworthy and ugly. But do I relaly believe that?? No! Regardless of my size– whether 265 lbs or 165 lbs– the sun shines and light escapes from deep within me, reflecting and pouring out of me like a flawless mirror left in the Sahara Desert.
- Do I really “laugh too loudly”? NO! I smile brightly and laugh heartily, often until my cheeks hurt and my eyes squeeze shut. Until my soul aches with joy. Isn’t this the way to love? Isn’t this— am I not the embodiment of the “A happy heart is good medicine and a joyful mind causes healing, But a broken spirit dries up the bones.”?! (Proverbs 17:22 AMP)
- Do I really”take up too much space”? Isn’t this the way to simply be?! I am that I am. I am what I say I am. And everything that follows “I am” is undoubtedly who I am so I’m careful about who I say I am and who you say I am. *Deep breaths*
- And I say I am beautiful. I remind myself. I used to stare at my full(er!) cheeks in the mirror and rebuild myself by reading the words written on each mirror in my home and even some of the windows with a white board marker. Rebuilding myself. Uprooting criticisms. Doubting at first, but having nothing more to offer. Trusting and believing that God’s words would invade me like he promises they would. Reminding myself about the Truth of who I am by who God says I am.
Can you believe that I was once scared to look at myself in the mirror?! Believing that the reflection that returned to me wasn’t who God said I was. I slowly began to actually enjoy looking at myself. At first these verses– the opposite of who I believed myself to be, who the critical voices said I was– were simply what I said. But with repetition and practice and time, the words transformed into who I am. Into how I live.
God is, after all, Love
Love yourself in Truth. Love yourself like the God who is Love and who created you to love loves you. Love yourself more than hurt people would have you love yourself. More than they loved you. Perhaps even more than they loved themselves. (That last one? That’s irrelevant. That’s extra. That’s speculation. I could’ve deleted it but guess what? This is my blog so it stays! Forgive me, Father, for I know what I do but sometimes, can a sis just say what’s on her heart?!) May you learn to love yourself deeply, widely, and unendingly as God loves you:
3 The Lord appeared to us in the past [Or Lord has appeared to us from afar], saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful…7 This is what the Lord says: I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble”
Jeremiah 31:3 NIV
The Message translation of the Bible is my fav, and since it was really hard for me to create an excerpt from the full passage, I basically didn’t, but I did bold the most salient parts for moi (which as you can tell I didn’t do a terribly great job at either lol Alas!)
This is the way God put it:
Excerpts from Jeremiah 31:3-14 MSG
“They found grace out in the desert,
these people who survived the killing.
Israel, out looking for a place to rest,
met God out looking for them!”
God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.
Expect love, love, and more love!
And so now I’ll start over with you and build you up again,
dear virgin Israel.
You’ll resume your singing,
grabbing tambourines and joining the dance...
8 “Watch what comes next…
9 “Watch them come! They’ll come weeping for joy
as I take their hands and lead them,
Lead them to fresh flowing brooks,
lead them along smooth, uncluttered paths...
I, God, will pay a stiff ransom price for Jacob;
I’ll free him from the grip of the Babylonian bully.
The people will climb up Zion’s slopes shouting with joy,
their faces beaming because of God’s bounty…
Their lives will be like a well-watered garden,
never again left to dry up.
Young women will dance and be happy,
young men and old men will join in.
I’ll convert their weeping into laughter,
lavishing comfort, invading their grief with joy.
I’ll make sure that… my people have more than enough.’” God’s Decree.
PS- Because words mean things and people have feelings that can get hurt and hurting my family by sharing my words isn’t my intention, let me be clear: this is no way is an indictment on my family. This post isn’t about them, this is about me.
