As I mentioned in the first post, Wednesday night we had an impromptu pumpkin-smashing event.
Someone mentioned that it works better with watermelons, because they are so much easier to break, but, well, this country gal thought that would be a colossal waste of watermelon.
But, in October, pumpkins are easier to find anyway.
So, there we all were in Rita's driveway, standing around the tarps, each of us with a small pie pumpkin.
The first couple of folks did not say what the lies were that they were consciously breaking, but once someone mentioned it then the rest followed suit.
I was working hard to remember the three lies I had posted about back when I was working through the early bits of Rita's Finding Eve study, before she had to pull it since the publisher apparently decided to do one (I meant to ask her what the status on that was, but I never thought about it at the opportune moment).
So I wasn't quick to jump in...I wanted to remember them correctly.
We had some pauses and some time to think in between. It was kind of a pensive thing, interspersed with moments of violent release.
I could remember two of them... 'You are Flawed' and 'You're a Jinx', but the third one...I could remember what it was, but not the word I used for it. So I pondered that as two or three others broke their pumpkins.
And I was surprised by something...how nice the pumpkin felt in my hands. It was a comfortable size for me...not too heavy, but large enough to be substantial.
I began to be reluctant to throw it on the ground.
My mind began spinning with the spiritual implications of that. Of course the lies are comfortable...we wouldn't hang on to them otherwise. Of course they're tailored just for us...the enemy makes sure we feel an identification with them. It becomes part of who we are.
One of the ladies commented as she approached the tarp with her pumpkin. 'This is serious. Once I break this, I've got to be done with it.'
Yes.
As I held my nice little pumpkin, something in me got mad...not just at the reluctance to break the pumpkin/break the lies, but at the perfectionist insistence that I get that third lie just right. So I quit trying to get the specific word and just looked for a word that worked to describe it.
The word I came up with was 'Inadequate' (The actual lie was 'You are Disappointing' -- close enough).
Once I had that third lie labeled, it was time.
The first slam into the ground split it; I picked it up by the stem and hurled it again, breaking it open.
I will NOT believe that I am flawed, that I'm a jinx, that I am disappointing/inadequate. I am created in His image, to do the works that He ordained for me from the beginning.
And I got an application for that before I came home.
We are doing a book study at church...on Wednesday nights and in small groups. My Sweet Babboo and I are doing the study in a small group that meets on Sunday mornings, in between 1st and 2nd service worship, so there is no need for me to go to the Wednesday night service.
Except to hang out in the youth group. Which I had been doing, to kind of facilitate the girls who had been in my class to move into the group. I'd actually been asked to do that. But, the last couple of Wednesdays I'd been in there, the girls were moving with the others. They didn't need me...and I had neither a real purpose nor a place in the adult leadership. It was getting increasingly awkward.
So I prayed, 'God, what do you want me to do on Wednesdays?'
And I actually heard the answer, 'I'm not requiring you to go.'
I was surprised. We are ALWAYS at church. It's...expected...
'No. You can stay home. Work on your decluttering. Do some laundry. Sew something.'
So, kind of as a statement that I have broken that 'other people's opinion' thing, for the next 4 Wednesdays, while they're doing the study, I'll be home.
Doing some laundry. Working on the decluttering. Maybe even sewing something...
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