Meet the old ME… last week… and for the past many many years of my life…
The Chihuahua
Yes, that’s right… the chihuahua. The attire just adds to the photo and show the pitiful puppy bound up even more. Kind of an amazing picture though! That hat is perfect.
Last Thursday was one of those days that changes your entire outlook on life. I’ve alluded to the Lord surfacing some junk in my heart with how He took me through some serious “Exposure Therapy“, and I’ll be explaining it some more in my upcoming posts.
The evening when I wrote about my anxiety, I desperately cried out to the Lord in my time of need. For the first time ever, I recognized and took my anxiety issue before the Lord and asked Him to help me, show me what it was, why I had it, etc. I fell asleep there shortly during my raw prayer and plea because I was so exhausted.
The next morning I awoke to almost instantaneous tears. The Lord began to answer my prayer, and the prayers of you precious people who were interceding for me as well, that next day. Although, things didn’t really start to make sense till later on in the day.
My dear sister had known that something was up and as soon as she was awake and saw me, she inquired, as did my dear mother…
When I began to share my feelings, I couldn’t contain my tears. I was so sensitive but could not longer try to be “strong” and hide it.
I then asked my sister something along the lines of… ‘Why am I so nervous and anxiety ridden all the time? Why do I freak out and tremble?’
To make light of the situation or maybe just because it popped into her head, she said ‘ya know, Britt, you’re like a chihuahua’. I laughed and was struck by how incredible realistic that symbolism was… I literally have felt like a chihuahua for so long. I identified with the dog that you see above.
Chihuahua’s shake and are nervous little awkward dogs. Mostly their cuteness comes with the fact that they’re slightly pitiful. You feel a bit sorry for them. When they’re puppies, they also seem to be almost entirely made up of “head”. Look at a shaking puppy chihuahua and you get a big idea of how I’ve felt about myself and how I perceived others view me as well. But it hadn’t registered or made sense until that Thursday morning when the chihuahua reference came into play…
I now had the best imagery to identify my issue. Having this imagery helped me tremendously, and here’s how:
- I saw how gripping this “nervousness” had become in my heart
- I saw how I had allowed this issue to define me instead of finding my security and definition in the Cross and Christ
- I saw why I viewed myself this way versus who I really am
- I saw how wildly false and untrue this “identity” was
- I saw where I needed to let go and allow the Lord to change this image
- I saw my need… my need for Jesus to come rescue me from myself…
The Lord used my sister to help me identify an issue through the imagery of a chihuahua… and where I’d wrapped up my identity in something that was untrue to who I really am.
I’m not sure if any of that actually connects or makes sense to others, but somehow the Lord used it to really connect something in me that morning… but oh, He wasn’t done with me yet – it got even more intense as the day went on.
Unfortunately, as raw and sensitive as I was that Thursday morning, I had a volunteer obligation to attend that I’d already committed to the week before so there was no way out. My heart wasn’t entirely at my volunteer event because I was still trying to deal with whatever it was the Lord was surfacing in my heart. But I did my duty and enjoyed what I was doing for a couple of hours that morning (only later I’ve realized that the Lord still very much used that volunteer time to move in my heart and stir things up)… when I was finished with my time there, I drove away and started crying again but still didn’t know what the heck was wrong. There will be more to that story in the rest of the upcoming parts I said I’d write about though, it’s just slightly unrelated to this particular post… it should all come together soon though, just wait and see…
Watch this brief 2 minute video to get a little perspective and prepare you for my next post… it’ll likely be titled “Revelation”.