Stupid

Along with my self worth issues, or should I say contributing to my self worth issues was how I viewed my intelligence. My whole life, or most of it, I considered myself stupid.
In third grade it became apparent that I had some math issues. I was put in a remedial math class with a teacher named Miss Maxwell. She had short dark hair and I did not like her. We were studying multiplication and she gave us instructions for an assignment. As she was speaking I began daydreaming, staring off into space, thinking about anything but math. Nothing interested me less than math. She finished speaking and I continued staring off into nothingness. The next thing I knew she grabbed me up and was marching me to the office. I didn't know what I had done, but as she pulled me down the hall, she informed that I was being punished for "daydreaming". I was wearing a very short green corduroy dress with a wide seventies white collar and I became very afraid as she pulled out a big wooden board and began paddling my bottom. The dress did little to pad the blows. Neither did my thin cotton panties. I never forgot her, the math class, or the dress. Or how stupid I felt.
Fast forward two years. Different teacher, different school. Same feeling of stupid. I was in my second year of violin class and I had a secret which I carefully guarded for fear of shame that anyone would find out. I couldn't read the music. For two years I had "winged" it, listening carefully to the sound of the song as played by others and according to how I knew the tune went and duplicating that on my violin.
One day though, she finally caught on to me. Unfortunately it was in the middle of class. When she realized that I didn't know the music for the upcoming spring concert she just kind of stood back and regarded me through those big glasses of hers and then at last she spoke. "You can't be in the program" she said. I looked down at my violin as the tears came. So much shame. Stupid closed in on me and made me feel so worthless. I think in the end she did let me perform with the class for the program but after the year was over a few weeks later I never picked up the violin again, and music to me was a closed world.
Fast forward again, about twelve years. Stupid has followed me all the way through high school and intimidated me into not going to college. Instead I take a job at Jack in the Box. After a year of working there on the graveyard shift I am offered the position of shift leader. I have to go to "shift leader school" and take some classes and tests. It is while I am there that the shackles of stupid begin to loosen and I finally realize that things might not be as I supposed all these years. I take a test and hand it in to the teacher. I am the first one done. The test was easy. I had been ready for it for a week. After I hand it in he takes a minute to grade it and then says to me "I have never had someone turn this in so fast and get them all right". He has no idea the cataclysmic bomb this sets off in my mind. Simple words, but all of a sudden I realize that maybe I'm not as stupid as I think. In my mind I see a bird fly out of a rusty cage. I feel free. Little do I know that there is more freedom to be had.
One day my aunt, who has inherited my grandfather's 1949 Flat top "Texan" Epiphone guitar, asks me if I would like to have it. I jump at the offer. I have always loved guitar, have always wanted to learn how to play it, but as I mentioned earlier, it was just a shut off world to me.
The guitar sat in my house for a few months until one day I picked it up and began to pluck the strings aimlessly. I realize that it is a useless gift unless I learn how to play it. I go to the store and buy "Guitar for Dummies" and check out some stuff from the library. At first I don't get it. I sound terrible and I'm slow. Can't make it sound like music. But I keep trying. After about a month I have learned three or four chords. I open the book and try a song. It sounds awful. I try another song, this one is Yankee Doodle Dandy. I pluck the strings, and all of a sudden I realize I am playing a recognizable tune! I am absolutely elated. Can't believe it! The doors of the music world, if not thrown wide open are at least open a crack. Stupid begins to lose its hold on me at last. But there is more to come.
Ten years later I begin to attend a church function. It's actually a weekly prayer meeting. I love the ladies. I love to pray with them. On this particular day, however, I make a joke that really isn't funny. It's...stupid. The joke falls flat. One of the ladies criticizes sharply and I begin to cry. I can't stop myself. I become hysterical and I don't know why. Two hours later I am still crying. I am at home. Still crying. Doing laundry I think to myself "I haven't felt this stupid since...since...violin class in the fifth grade..." All of a sudden it becomes clear to me. Stupid is from Satan. It is not just a word it is a tangible thing. And it's not who God says I am. God has never called me stupid, he calls me friend! The tears immediately stop. I am instantly OK again. Putting down the laundry I run upstairs and get on the computer. I look up the word and am amazed at what I read.

From Webster's dictionary. Stupid: Slow of mind. OBTUSE.

I wonder about the all caps word Obtuse. I look it up. Not pointed or acute. BLUNT.

But its what it says about the origin of the word that takes my breath away. This is what really got me.

Middle English, from Latin obtusus blunt, dull, from past participle of obtundere to beat against, blunt, from ob- against + tundere to beat

The words "to beat against" bring tears to my eyes because that sums it up exactly. All these years every single time I did something wrong, made a mistake, said the wrong thing I could hear the word STUPID STUPID STUPID pounding in my head. Beating me into dullness. Intimidating me into being less than I could be for fear of failure and being found stupid.

I realized that I had a spiritual problem. It began the day the teacher told me I couldn't be in the program. She laid a mantle of stupid on me even though she never uttered the word and I wore it all my life. For a long time I was angry with her for her lack of sensitivity. What kind of a teacher chastises a student in front of the other kids? But then I realized I bear a portion of the blame. I was a child when she spoke those words. But I grew up. And I still wore the label. I allowed myself to believe the lie. Bought into it without ever questioning it, never realizing that God had never spoken that over me.

I spoke to that spirit of Stupid. I told it to go away in the name of Jesus. I asked God's forgiveness for my belief in it. And I was free.

A few weeks later I saw a lady on TV who captured my attention. Completely. It was Intervention and she needed help. Oh how she needed help. She was shown on the previews hitting herself. Beating herself up with her hairbrush, her fists, whatever she could find to punish herself. As she beat herself she repeated the mantra "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Goosebumps prickled my skin. I had empathy for that woman like I had never felt for anyone before. I began to pray for her. I know, I know, its TV, but another secret of mine is that I sometimes pray for the people I see on TV. My heart went out to her. If only she could know how much God loves her. If only we could ALL know how much God loves us. It would change our perspectives about ourselves completely and totally forever.

Self Worth

I have a little secret. I have been struggling with self worth. To tell you the truth I have been struggling with self worth since the day I emerged from my mother's womb and let out that first scream that said "Look here! Eyes on me! Tell me my life is going to mean something!" I struggled with it as a child, growing up in a broken home and as a teenager who sat on the sidelines at school and church and watched everybody else. I hated that I was so different. I didn't play by the same rules as everybody else seemed to. I didn't care about popularity at school, I was creative and artistic and I talked a lot. Way too much, I thought. I hated the way I looked. I had curly hair that would never stay in place. I craved control over every single part of my life and my curly hair defied me right down to the last little wiry strand. So as my teen age years slid by my self loathing hit an all time low. I wanted to die. Just check out. No point in this worthless life anymore, if this was how it was going to be. Suicide wasn't an option for me mostly because I didn't have the nerve (thank God!) but I thought about it a lot.
If I thought that I was going to find my worth in my twenties I was mistaken. I had some high years, I got married and had kids. For a while the kids held the feelings I had about myself at bay, but as they grew up and needed me less, the worthlessness returned with a vengeance. I was a stay at home mom, no job, no career, husband gone a lot of the time. I had lots of time to think. And I didn't like my thoughts. Who was I? I had to be more than just Mom to the kids and Wife to the husband. I needed to justify my breathing space on Earth and I wasn't living up to my own expectations. Or anybody elses, it seemed. Losing weight hadn't given me the self worth I needed. I felt better about myself but with every ounce that I gained back I felt a deepening depression that I wasn't even capable of doing that right. Didn't feel like I could do ANYTHING right. I had been a Christian for a long time. Well I called myself that anyway. One day all of my spinning plates(marriage, kids, finances, house) came crashing down around me and buried me under the debris of my own life. I sat out in my back yard and cried. And cried. And cried some more. I again felt worthless. I decided I wanted to go to California and open up a boutique on the beach and get as far away from here as possible, which was ridiculous, because aside from the fact that I would never leave my kids, I knew zilch about boutiques, or running a business, or even how I would get to California with zero money. As I sat out there under those trees I had a revelation. I was not a Christian. Maybe at one time I had been, but I wasn't living as if I believed in a Living God anymore. I did what I wanted when I wanted and God really didn't cross my mind very much. I realized that I had been trying to give myself worth through all kinds of things; my dieting, my art, my writing, my photography, my kids, my marriage, and my old house. And none of it was working. These things were all part of me, but I was trying to make them define me. I realized that these things are only temporal. What happens when I'm fat, when my writing, art, and photography are gone? When the kids grow up? If my marriage fails? If I lose my house? Am I still worth something? The answer is a whispered "Yes" in my heart. I hear God tell me that I am worthy of my space on Earth for no other reason than that He created me. And loved me enough to exchange his Son's life for mine. I don't have to do anything, prove anything, look a certain way, act a certain way, just be His; completely His. Some days I still struggle. I have had words thrown at me that wounded me deeply, made me question my worth, made me feel like I've lost it. But then I find myself driving down the road, CD blaring, singing "How Great Thou Art" at the top of my lungs and suddenly I know I've found my worth again. He thinks I am worth loving, He thinks I am worth caring for, He loves all my quirky ways, curly hair and freckles included. He knows I talk too much, and sometimes say the wrong thing, but He loves me anyway. Who am I to argue?
If your self worth has taken a beating lately, know this. You are valuable. No matter the circumstance you find yourself in, your worth is inestimable. You are not just a lump of matter, you have been formed by the hand of God. YOU matter.

God help me remember that my
self worth comes not from
my weight, my photographs
my writing, or how much
money I have in the bank.

Help me not to limit myself to these
Earthly things
but to look to Heaven
to properly see
my worth.