Shaken to the core
Our crumbling foundations
Words of hope rebuild
Shaken to the core
Our crumbling foundations
Words of hope rebuild
Accusing darts fired relentlessly
A hailstorm of fiery arrows
A flurry of lies that pierce to the heart
A flurry of lies that cut to the bone
Are we resisting this onslaught?
Or are we standing by passively?
Accepting this barrage of baseless guilt
Letting it define our identity
Wake up!
The punishment has already been taken
Our guilt has been transferred
Jesus takes all of our blame
So lift up your shield of faith
And bat every lie away
Never forget what Christ has done
Never let guilt from the past define you
I am not worthless
I am not an outcast
I am not hopeless
I am not hated
Depart from me empty lies
No longer will I tolerate you
You try to degrade me, to bring me to my knees in shame
But I will not yield
I will stand strong in what Christ has done for me
My God will tear down the strongholds you have made
His Love will heal the scars you left
What you convinced me to hide, He will call back to the light
In His acceptance will I find peace
And I will revel in the truth about myself
I am holy
I am righteous
I am redeemed
I am restored
I saw no worth in me
Yet You gave up all You had for me
Hurtful words stuck to my forehead like labels
You spun Your loving words into a crown for me
You rebuilt the ruins of my self esteem
Into a castle, secure and steadfast
Though my heart was locked away
Guarded by tangles of barbed wire
You walked in and healed my deep hurts
You told me I was more
Than the mistakes I had made
You told me I was Yours and nothing could change that
The lies that bound me fell away
And I found my worth in You
Like a bludgeon
Condemnation aims low
Trying to cripple us
Trying to keep us on the ground
It tells us that we are not worthy
That our guilt is still on us
It urges us to wallow in our failure
That we don’t deserve to finish our race
With every blow we allow
We lose hope
Our self-esteem becomes distorted
The resolute faith on which we stood
Doesn’t seem as sure
But just because you fell
It doesn’t mean it is the end of the race
You only lose
If you choose not to get up
Don’t stay on the ground
You can and will finish your race
Block the savage blows with the shield of faith
Jesus has taken our guilt
He has paid the price
“For there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
A throw away remark said without thought
Clings to you like glue
Slowly becoming a part of you
And somewhere along the line
We let the dunce hat be put on our head
Every time we walk into a room
We think everyone is looking at us
We hear our name in every murmur and whisper
Every quiet chuckle echoes in our head
After every mistake those words come back
With horror we start thinking they’re true
We sit in the corner
Pull back from the world, afraid of risk
Then we cry as we become alone
But come to Him
And instead of carrying painful memories
Of hateful words and careless remarks
He will give you a Book full of promises
That tells you how much He loves you
Instead of being driven to isolation
By your fear of how people think of you
He will give you a family who will accept you
Who have had the same battles
And got through the other side
He will take your shame
Your disgrace
Your damaged self esteem
Your dunce hat
And He will give you a crown
“Instead of their shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance.” Isaiah 61:7
Who told you that you couldn’t?
Whose laugh shattered your world?
People will put a limit on your dreams
“No one’s done that.”
“I don’t think you can do both of those things.”
They will say it with such certainty
As if they’ve meet every person whose tried
So should we stop thinking for ourselves?
Give up having any ambition in life?
Is dreaming like a child’s toy
That us grown-ups are too mature to play with?
We already have people showing initiative
Should I dare to think that I too have something to contribute?
Maybe I should just slip back into mediocrity
And let life pass me by
Careless opinions
Thrown around without thought
Can snap the wings of a fledging dream
Don’t let negativity stop you
Have a go
Take a risk
Who knows
You might succeed
When we experience failure in our lives, there is a voice that comes to tell us that we’ve ruined God’s plan for our lives and that we are worthless. It lures us in, urging us to mourn ourselves.
But self-pity is like a fish hook that traps us in our past; draining our motivation and strangling our hope. As Christians our guilt has been taken away. We don’t have to wade the depths of despair. We can ignore that voice, repent and push into the future God has for us.
Throw off the cloth of self pity
Remove its coarse texture from your skin
It leaves you wallowing in the mud
When you should be climbing mountains
It makes you focus on the dark clouds
When you can soar above them
Its sorrowful cry is strangely pleasant
When you choose to mope in its arms
But its continuing screeching seems stupid
When you realise that Christ died to make you a victor
It comes as a friend on the path of your life, offering comfort
But it is a thief who will do anything to delay you
It will make you sit down on the side of the road while the race passes by
It will make you look inward when there is a dying world around you
Ignore its caring exterior and see its true treachery
Pick yourself up, dust yourself down
And wear the crown of victory Christ has given you
You carry the fragmented disc all day
The demeaning words burned onto them
The cruel comments of a so-called friend
Glued to the inside of your palm
You hide it behind your back
As you joke about your day with Mum
You head up to your room, the mask dropped
You close the door tightly and sit down
You put the CD on to play
A screeching sound plays, piercing your soul like a knife
Then the vocal starts
The hateful lyrics shock you like a slap to your face
Like a finger jabbing into your stomach
The clanging tones repeat in an endless cycle
There you sit, tears in your eyes
As the words hit again and again
Until they are imprinted in your mind
And still crying, you sing along
No matter what the world says about you, no matter how you feel. God values you and He is thinking of you.
“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Psalm 139:17 (NIV)
We all have words spoken over us that cut deep. They can define us, shape our very image of ourselves. But in Jesus we have a new identity and we no longer need to live under those lies
Words have been spoken
Like daggers they have pierced my soul
They wormed their way into my heart
So deep I didn’t know they were there
Apart from the silent twinge inside
That kept me up at night
And brought tears to my eyes
But now I know and now I see
The lies that my enemy has put in me
The words that would never leave me alone
They were never my own
They were not my ideas
And now I reject them from my mind
No more will I suffer in silence
With wounds that others inflicted
No more will I be defined by them
Today I know the truth
I am cleansed and holy
There are no stains on me