I started writing this piece last week. Strange and eery that it began just before a storm of much needed awareness erupted over mental health. Love to you all.)
Your mind can become your master.
It can freak you out, and fret your insides, and blow you up, and cause you to seethe.
It can imagine monsters that aren't real, and it can muster up all kinds of untruths, and it can whisper scares, and it can fall head long into every sort of doom and despair imaginable.
It can speak lies, and it can convince you of the worst.
And it can take you right over.
Because we women... the way we're woven - our minds are masterpieces!
They are beautifully laced and wreathed and interconnected. They are sharp and keen and uniquely agog with life.
Yes, a woman's mind is a masterpiece, indeed.
But we often times allow these masterpieces to actually master us....and this shouldn't be so, friends.
As moms, daughters, sisters, workers, aunts, allies,.....we women have got to get healthy in our heads - if we want to make any kind of a positive impact in this world. In our worlds. In our homes and churches and communities and families.
Because an ill mind can sicken the whole body.
And it can render us useless if we let it.
Uselessness. That's the intent, you know. If the enemy gains ground in a woman's noggin'....a fall is certain. If the adversary of our souls gets any kind of control over a females faculties - she's fruitless.
And this....it gets me fired up.
Do you have any idea how many times I have convinced myself that I have some crazy random illness?
Do you have any idea how many times I have compared myself to other women - leaving me feeling worthless?
Do you have any idea how many times I have supposed that someone has something against me, because for some reason or another I imagined that I was slighted or shoved in some way?
Do you have any idea how many times I have worried myself right into a weary-ridden pit?
Do you have any idea how many times I can replay in my mind the events of my life that make me mad, or sad, or less than?
You are more than certainly nodding yes.
Ah! I'm raging!
We shouldn't be content with this. We shouldn't just accept this as normal. Or hormonal.
Because it's hell.
Literally. I'm not being profane...I'm being prescriptive.
We have got to be able to discern what is Jesus and what isn't.....so
Enter Hebrews 5:14.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (ESV)
Yes! To be women....who are so trained and experienced with discernment - that we can know and recognize what is God and what isn't...this is HUGE.
And it's life-changing.
If we ladies could tell the difference between the whispers of God, the sneerings of Satan, and our own flailing flesh...
If we could recognize the voice of the Shepherd, against the ruthless howl of the wolf....
we would find liberty.
We'd sniff out the lies so fast...the enemy's fiery darts would be snuffed and dismissed immediately.
To be able to differentiate and divvy up our inklings and whims and thoughts..... this is maturity.
It's also freedom.
Getting our minds to mind, as I wrote last summer....is victory.
But this will look different for each of us.
Some of the ladies scanning this post - need professional counsel in this area.
Some might need medication.
Some might need a journal and a pen.
Some of us just need to take notice - that we are often times speaking utter trash to our very own selves.
Some might need to simply wake up and realize that there is another team on the playing field that is vying to dominate our minds, memories, and imaginations.
But ALL of us need to be asking. All of us need to pray, and petition the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and discernment when it comes to our thoughts.
ALL of us need to be ingesting scripture....because we know it's truth.
ALL of us need to be in more situations where we have to hear the voice of God....places where we have gone out on a limb for the Lord.... and we must know what's Him and what isn't. Maybe that's the training the verse is talking about.
ALL of us need to be the gatekeepers of what is allowed in, and what we grant ourselves to entertain.
Because we can't always control what comes to our minds.....but we can control what stays there....by the Lord's power...yes we can.
A woman's mind....her artistry, her insight, her originality, her ingenuity.....
is remarkable.
Let's start walking down a path that will allow us to also describe our minds as.....
redeemed.
Lord, let us be sheep with the sharpest and most discerning of ears. In Jesus' name. Yes and amen.
