We go through life often thinking there’s something wrong with us. There’s a voice inside our heads that mummers some part of us is flawed, broken, in need of repair. That voice wreaks havoc on our psyche, telling us we need to make ourselves “right.”
Fixing ourselves becomes our life’s project.
That nagging voice comes from an untruth we learned as we grew up. Like a dandelion root, it grows slowly beneath the surface of our personalities. Sometimes it’s nurtured by faith traditions that overemphasize sin instead of God’s unconditional love. Other times it comes from family members through mocking, cruel words, or manipulation. Over time, the untruth blooms in our psyche like a dandelion weed scattering seeds of discontent within us, choking us off from sowing the good seed of love toward ourselves and others.
It’s time we grab a shovel and dig the dandelion root out. Time to go to the source of our learned untruth, and replace it with the real truth.
The other day while driving I was stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of Ball and Plymouth streets. As I waited for the light to turn green, a gentle whisper rose up in my gut saying,
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
What? I pondered.
“There’s nothing to fix,” the words echoed in my heart.
In that moment, sixty years of self-doubt unearthed as the words exposed the root of untruth I had fostered all those years. It was if an angel had come and lifted a heavy weight off my shoulders.
Later that week, I shared my experience with my spiritual director. He helped me realize that that moment at the intersection of Ball and Plymouth was a moment of divine grace; a time when the thin veil between God and ourselves parts, and the Creator touches our souls.
Sure, we all have parts of ourselves that need to mature. But when we stop beating ourselves up with falsehoods and self-doubt, we’re able to name our shadow side, embrace it with love, bring it into the light, so God help us evolve into the best version of ourselves.
There is nothing wrong with us. That’s the truth God revealed in that moment of grace.
The world needs each of us to let go of the false tales we’ve told ourselves, so we can dig deep into the truth: we are the expression of God’s love in the world. Before we were conceived, God decided he needed each one of us to complete the universe, to receive and sow God’s divine love in and through us and out into Creation. As God breathed his first breath into our lungs at our birth, God proclaimed, “You are good.”
What’s the false tale you’ve told yourself over the years? Where might God be nudging you to pick up your shovel and unearth the weeds of falsehood that choke our souls?
Can you open your heart and allow grace to help you embrace the truth, “You are good. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
—brian j plachta
brianplachta.net
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