This post is inspired by my teen friends and followers. Thanks for making me curious.
I’ll keep my stories a little generic for my kids’ sake, but recently, one of my daughters and I talked about how one of her friends had stalked me online. I follow her friend. Her friend follows me. I asked my son and daughter, “Hey, why do teenagers like to follow me?” I say “like” because my kids will tell me that their friends mentioned that I had posted on social media that day. I am curious about why they would care.
My kids could not provide me with answers, but I suspect maybe their friends follow me because of my kids and because, in an unhealthy moment of motherhood, I followed all of my kids’ friends on their socials. I have since corrected my actions. It was not a proud moment for me, and I will spare you the details, but I didn’t know then what I know now.
Anyway, both kids mentioned that their friends went way back in my social media feed to find old pictures of them. I asked them if they wanted me to archive or delete the old photos and posts I had made about them when they were little. “No, Mom, it’s okay. It’s kinda funny, and not only do my friends have old photos of me when I was little, I have pics of them when they were little.” I asked them if they were sure, and they said they were.
Quietly, my daughter said, “Mom, no offense, but I think you overshare. You were just so sad.” My response was that yes, I had, in the past. I contemplated whether I currently overshare, and probably, sometimes, I do. But I know that currently, I have appropriate boundaries on what I share.
In the days I overshared, I didn’t know much about social media, boundaries, spiritual formation, emotional health, and how to be whole. I was still living out my childhood narratives. I probably lived like a victim, and the most significant thing about me was that I wanted to move the dial from how I was to how I thought a Christian should be. But really, I didn’t see how change was possible.
Change did not seem likely because I’d never seen anyone live a changed life. Everyone seemed to stay the same. No one lived like it seemed a Christian should live, and I assumed that everyone in my life had the same starting position as me, that we all lived secret lives of pretending it all worked when it really didn’t.
I shared sad stories because I am an enneagram 4, and we are comfortable being sad. I shared sad stories because I thought I would find community in being vulnerable (I often didn’t - I only felt sadder, and it reinforced my inability to change). I shared sad stories because I didn’t have a safe place to share myself anywhere else.
My life began to change in 2017 when I asked God a question. How can I stop living a defeated life and be what your word says, “more than a conqueror”? That year was significant in 3 ways: 1) I went to LIT, a conference Beth Moore hosted for women in their 20s and 30s; 2) I chose “pursue” as my word of the year; and 3) I found what I now know was a type of formational Bible material that a biblical counseling organization had written.
Each of those three things was a form of The Good Shepherd running to meet me at the edge of the field to find me and bring me home, braise the fattened calf, offer me his robe, and heal me. I weep when I think how good God has been to me from that moment to now. He always was, but until then, I didn’t have eyes to see. In 2010, he removed some scales, but in 2017, he began a new thing.
That year, those three things led me to write Spirit-filled Victory: a Romans 8 Bible study. It’s not genius, but the work God did through me in that continues to bear fruit today. The single-handed lesson I learned was that CHANGE IS POSSIBLE. I can be free, and God wants me to be free.
That Bible study led me to read my first Dallas Willard book - Renovation of the Heart. Renovation teaches personal anthropology - what does it mean to be a person? What are the elements of a person in a holistic way? How do these things fit together to make a whole person?
About half of the book went over my head, but the parts I understood significantly changed my life. More than the anthropology of personhood, Renovation teaches that we must cooperate with God to change. We are unable to change on our own. We need God’s help, but change is not dependent on God alone. This is confusing in the church because we spend much time learning about God and the proper theology. We think knowledge alone changes someone, but knowledge does nothing without action.
Repentance is changing the mind. Why does discipleship start with changing the mind? Because the brain determines everything we do. The more we believe something, the deeper the brain writes upon itself that this is the belief and the way to do something. The remarkable thing about the brain is that it can be rewired and rewritten. Repentance is simply God giving you the freedom to rewrite your brain.
“Repentance,” as we traditionally think of it, often does the opposite of what it is intended to do. It makes us feel like we are bad. We are bad, and we will always be bad. We think we must say we are bad and believe we are bad forever and ever, and that tells the brain the bad news instead of the good news. The way churches teach repentance and even the gospel reinforces the bad news rather than the wondrous works of God, the good news.
Repentance means who you are is not who you will always be. YOU CAN CHANGE! But to change, you need to know what God says and who he is. You have to take old narratives and transform them into new ones. This is why spiritual formation is so incredible.
So, I’m not ashamed that I overshared and that my past self still lives on the internet in various forms. What I perhaps like the least about it is people believing I am still that version of me. Or persons who still want me to be that same me for their sake.
I’ll use Beth Moore’s motto - living proof. I am living proof that change is possible. I am not who I once was, yet that girl lives in me. Although I used to want to hide or expose her to get people to love me, now I honor her. She didn’t know any better. She wasn’t as mature as the woman I am now. Without her and the lessons she wanted to teach me and still teaches me, I wouldn’t be me now. It’s okay that I was a less mature version of myself. Perhaps, one day, I’ll look back at the version of me now and say the same thing.
There is hope. You can change, and you don’t have to stay stuck. Along with Jesus, it’s the best good news there is.
P.S. This is written with my daughter’s permission and feedback. My daughter says I need more jokes, so since I am funny, I’ll try to add more jokes next time. I hope that sentence alone makes you laugh. It’s good for the soul!
Love this, Jamie!!!! ❤️