“Insidious is blind inception, what’s reality with all these questions? Feels like I missed my alarm and slept in. Broken legs, but I chase perfection. These walls are my black expression. My mind is a home I’m trapped in and it’s lonely inside this mansion.” NF
My heart sank at the first hearing of these lyrics, and my first thought was, “Who is this artist?” Then I found myself asking, “Why are these lyrics resonating with me so deeply?” As I started peeling back the layers of my wounds, doubts, and perceptions, I discovered the reason for this heaviness. I also uncovered the reason these lyrics felt so familiar. What I was feeling was a sense of unworthiness. This feeling of “not being enough” was crippling. I have been hurt by it and I have hurt others as well.
One evening I was in the book of Isaiah, one of my favorite books. I found myself reflecting on Isaiah 43:19, “Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth: Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
What a bold statement to claim and what a beautiful promise. I read it over and over again, repeating every word as if to convince myself this message was also for me.
I quickly realized this was a message of hope to the Judaeans. God is telling them to bring him their hardships, to bring their burdens and sinful lives. God would make a new thing. He is proclaiming that he is the author of our lives. Even more specifically, God is claiming that God will do something that has NEVER been seen. This was GOOD NEWS for me and this is good news for the world.
We do not have to allow our shortcomings to tie us down in fear and shame. God wants each of us to have our own testimony. And to share with others the amazing, life-changing word of God. God wants to transform us from the inside out.
Yes, it is easier said than done. You’ll have to step out of your comfort zone.
So what did it take for me to believe in something that felt so foreign? It took faith, courage, and a relationship with God.
In Christ, I have gone from “chasing perfection” to a true identity in Him, the one who says, “I will do a new thing for YOU.”
Glory to God.
Rosie Phillips is a proud mother to Jovanni, a freshman in high school.