I finished this week’s part of my inventory this morning!!! Such an enormous praise! When I restarted it, I did not look at everything I had written down yesterday. It helped me not be so overwhelmed by what I saw on the paper. I did not write down any of the good things I did in my inventory, so technically it is incomplete. I recorded them here yesterday. Why be redundant?
The most interesting thing about filling out the second part of the inventory (the people I had hurt and how) was I began to see a pattern. Out of the twenty names I wrote down, all but three of them had the exact same root action causing me to hurt the other person. Writing things down certainly helped me see where my biggest gap in my integrity is.
Contrary to what some may think because of my last year at CR, I am not very good at being open, honest and transparent. I am not good at all at inviting people to walk my journey of faith with me. Historically, I entirely suck in these categories.
Even without the faith question, honesty honestly was my one consistently reoccurring issue. Before this morning, I thought I was honest. Now I realize I am becoming honest. I have done a whole lot of lying directly and by omission in my life. Half the time, I lied and left people think I was something I was not because I knew they would not like who I was. It was just easier. Eventually the relationship fractured.
There are a lot of relationships in my life today without resolution because I spent a whole lot of time making sure the other person did not get to know the real me and see who I really was. I protected myself from people’s opinion of me by simply trying to pretend I was like them. Never told them the truth about who I was or who God was.
It is not that all the relationships I have hurt looked like they were hurt because of my lying and lack of transparency. A variety of different events occurred to end or injure each relationship, but underlying every one of these events was my dishonesty.
Except for a period of about 45 minutes today, I felt beautiful and feminine. It is nice to feel like a girl and view myself that way. I am so incredibly grateful for the journey God has invited me on.
If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. – Mark 8:38
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