"I'll Show You" Reflections

This poem has a lot of word play, particularly, and ironically so, with the issue of words.  At its center the speaker of the poem is hit with “harsh words.”  Yet, he/she doesn’t just take it.  The speaker combats the harsh words with “my word.”  What is that?  I love this line: “My God is stronger than your words.”  While earlier it says, “You push and shove,” now it says “You push me down / But he catches my fall.” 

This is one of the coolest parts though.  The speaker has been aggressively pushed and shoved, but responds that “I’ll push and shove through all harsh words.”  Yet it doesn’t end there.  This fighter goes on to say “and show you all my God-given worth.”

When I was growing up, I developed the belief that my worth was based on how well I performed (in school, at keeping others happy, being the smiley one in our family, etc.).  I didn’t feel loved unless I

had done well.  Because of this, I learned to be a very nervous, worrisome kid. 

I began to see this about myself in college.  Before that, I just assumed that was how relationships worked.  A number of years ago I went on a retreat called Making Peace with Your Past.  During one exercise, I was brought in the middle of a room with about 15 other people on the retreat surrounding me.  They were told to tell me all those things that I believed about myself.  

They said things like,

“You don’t work hard enough.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“You always screw up.”

“If people really knew you, they’d leave.”

“You’re not really loved.”

Then the woman leading the conference, a counselor that I had gotten to know, told me that I needed to fight the old way of thinking.  I needed something to replace it with.  Just like David used to do in the Psalms when he said, “Why so downcast, O my soul? (old way of thinking) Put your hope in God (new way of thinking).”  So we did the exercise again, but this time I responded back.

“You don’t work hard enough.”

That’s a lie.

“That’s not good enough.”

It doesn’t matter.  I am holy and dearly loved.

“You always screw up.”

That’s a lie.

“If people really knew you, they’d leave.”

That’s a lie.  But even if they did, I am holy and dearly loved.

“You’re not really loved.”

I am holy and dearly loved.

The phrase is from Colossians 3:12.  I wrote it all over my stuff and I memorized it.  There was and is an incredible power, the most incredible in the world, in fully falling into the arms of truth: that you are holy, accepted, pure to your Savior, and that you are not just ‘loved’ in a generic sense, but “dearly” loved.  I knew I had to fight the aggressiveness of harsh words spoken to me in my past, harsh words spoken by my own mind, harsh words spoken by Satan, and harsh words spoken by people in my present life.  With true words, though, now I was ready to reprogram my mind. 

So, join me.  Let’s “push and shove” against the lies that want to tear us down.  We have, not just ‘worth,’ but “God-given worth.”  This is a relief to the heart and a weapon to the untruths that try to pierce it.