You Hit the Nail on the Head, Liz!

One thing I like about this book, Me, Myself, and Lies, is the added interview at the end of each chapter.  Jennifer, the author, takes a "Sneak Peak into the Thought Closet of..." someone we know, love, whose books we have read, or whom we have heard speak.  At the end of Chapter 5, "Tune In: Awake, My Soul," she interviews Liz Curtis Higgs.  Now, if you know me at all, immediately you thought, "AHA!  Liz and Beth - BFFs for sure."  I have heard Liz speak several times, met her at the women's event at Wooster Grace one year, and I have 'messaged' her several times. 

Rhonda, who is part of my private FB OBS group, posted this passage this morning from Jennifer's interview with Liz:

"So when someone or something is bent on hurting me - stirring up feelings of jealousy or envy, inadequacy or inferiority, hopelessness or uselessness - I recognize the destructive power behind those feelings. They are never of God. They are always of the enemy."  (p. 91)

Now, I am telling you....this is SO true.  Not just in the situation with my mom, which seems to be more of my focus lately, but with anything that happens in life.

For instance, one student from ENGL 111 last fall was constantly grumbling, complaining, not attending class, expecting A's for average work, and was overall NOT happy with me at all since it was my fault that I didn't recognize her superior writing ability and reward her with the highest marks in the class.  In fact she stood in my office door and sneered at me, muttering negative comments about my teaching ability and my treatment of my students.  After I called her back (one of the few times I raised my voice to a college student), and after she left my office on MY terms, not hers, I was reviewing her comments in my mind, wondering if there were any truth in them that I needed to address.  Was there?  No.  What she was doing was attacking me because she didn't want to accept that her work, her lack of focus on her writing, what she had missed when she didn't attend class, her skipping of steps of the writing process all led to the lower grades she received.  She needed someone to blame---and I was the target.  She tried to make me feel like I was inadequate, and if I had wanted to focus on those words spoken in anger from a disgruntled student as truth, my day, my week, would have been ruined.  But I didn't.  I chalked them up to just what they were---words from a student trying to shift blame from herself to someone else.  And I moved on.  I heard her telling other students how terrible I was, but they just nodded slightly and continued to work hard to improve their writing--and they did!  In fact I just saw one of them working at a Logansport restaurant and she thanked me for all I had done to help her become a better writer and told me how much she enjoyed my classes!  I couldn't have been all bad, could I?

The point is that the enemy will try to de-value us, to make us feel inferior, to rob us of happiness and peace---but only if we let him will he succeed.  Destructive powers come from the enemy.  Take them out of the Thought Closet and pitch them in the discard pile! 

Thanks, Rhonda, for sharing this nugget. Thanks, Liz, for hitting the nail on the head!