It feels so good to finally be able to write this post. I feel like I have had to wait quite a while to finally get all my thoughts together and for God to tie together what I have learned into life application.

I just want to share some of what I have learned from my program in week Three.

1). We cannot hate ourselves into becoming a certain way so we don’t get judged or rejected again. We cannot hate ourselves out of sinning or doing something wrong. Love is the thing that frees from from the bondage we can sometimes hold ourselves in. Let God’s love come in and free you. Love yourself so much that you no longer feel like you need that sin or need whatever you are holding onto.

The GOAL of self hatred: To get the “conditions” right The LIE of self hatred: The “conditions” will never be right

2). People will validate what you tend to dislike or hate about yourself because without even knowing it, you may be leaking out your judgement against yourself onto others. I realized I was doing this when I would introduce myself as “Hi, I’m Jess, I look like I am 12, but I am actually 24.” because this was one thing I’ve always disliked about myself.

3). The difference between shame and conviction: SHAME: An identity statement of who you are, “I’m a sinner, I’m bad” CONVICTION: A statement about what happened, “I did something wrong, I sinned”

I recently got a taste of shame and conviction. I made a dumb choice, and I felt physically sick about it. I felt so much shame come over me. But as soon as I obeyed and talked to some people (God had nudged me to reach out in that moment), the shame dropped. The next day and for a couple of days following, I felt convicted…hard. I still had to deal with the consequences of the dumb choice, but I then got to receive freedom and forgiveness as a result.

4). The woman caught in the act of adultery: John 8: 3-11. The pharisees brought in a woman caught in the act of adultery. They made her to stand in front of Jesus expecting Him to judge her and punish her by stoning her. Jesus reply’s by saying, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” One by one they all left. Jesus then asks, ” Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replys back, “No one, sir.” Jesus then tells her, “Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The incredible part of this story is that Jesus didn’t shame her out of sinning, He loved her first, empowered her to not sin anymore. This did not come before she encountered that unconditional love in the moment she was broken. He didn’t call her out, did not stone her. Go and sin no more was the moment she realized she didn’t need that sin anymore.

5). I can’t end on four since I dislike that number but here is the last mind blowing inspiration: Sustained Freedom Comes from Unconditional Love!

The Homework for week Three was a little tough to finish, it definitely made you dig deep and have some intimate moments with God. There was two parts to the homework:

1. When the “conditions” aren’t right, what would a statement of yourself be? For me, I had to think about conditions that would impact how I thought about myself and I came up with about 5 different scenarios that would deeply impact me and actually imagine them, put myself in that vulnerable place and ask myself, what would I think about myself? Would I be judging toward myself? If I have no judgement against anyone who would ever come to me about a similar situation, why would I have so much judgement and hated towards myself?
   1. What if I completely failed out of school, and my last shot at getting a degree at UB for OT was gone?
   2. What if I got drunk and did all kinds of drugs every night?
   3. What if I had sex with a different person every day for the next month?
   4. What if I could never have children? What if I lost a child?
   5. What if I never found complete freedom from temptations?

2. What are the 4 versions of yourself that you’ve hated the most?

One of the best things I have heard and learned recently is that certain parts of my story aren’t for everyone to know, there is a place for some parts to be a platform that I speak of and others are just for certain times in my life to share. So thank you to one of my really good friends who spoke that into my life. So for this part of my homework, I’m just going to share one, the one I have more recently come face to face with, and that I am ready to begin loving again.

1. “Angry” Jess: Out of control, throwing shoes against walls, constantly in a battle with herself, who felt like she couldn’t control her anger and she would explode at anytime she around safety , who was constantly in trouble at school. When her anger boiled over, she would destroy with her strength (broken doors) and her words. Recently, I have come head to head with the revelation that from the age of 8 to 14, I functioned out of anger, but then anxiety and sadness took over, and now that I have found happiness and joy and breakthroughs, I have never forgiven that part of me. I have pushed down angry Jess so far down that I never wanted to see her again and since age 20, have created the Jess you see now: strong, alive, victorious, patient, and forgiving. But You can’t hate the versions of yourself so much that they will never rear their ugly head.
   1. I had a major revelation during one of my Krav Maga training sessions, I realized that the reason I cannot physically be aggressive in the trainings is because I am terrified that I will unleash and not be able to control it. So right now, right here, I want to give permission for that little girl to heal and that I forgive her, and that I understand, she was only doing the best she knew how. January 30th, 2020, I give permission for myself to begin opening up and permission to even fail until I find that healthy balance. What perfect timing this is because next week my coach is putting on the full body suit as we do overlapping attacks and drills (basically he is going to randomly attack me in any of the areas that we have practiced/ that I have learned in the last year and more recently) . May my anger turn to aggressive defending of myself and extend to others around me.

Alright, you should know by now, that I love to end on a random thought or fact or story. So I have a lot of strange quirks and things about me. Life is all about embracing the awkward and weirdness that it brings. So here is your random fact about me AS A CHILD. I do not still do the second quirk.

I used to come home to my dads house after school when I was in middle school. My after school snack request would be a bowl of homemade mashed potatoes. I would then request Sunkist (orange pop) to be in a tall glass with three ice cubes and a spoon on the side. Okay, okay, now what in the world does a spoon have to do with Sunkist, well I’ll tell you…I preferred to “drink” my Sunkist by drinking it from a spoon. Okay, I know I was super strange, and I have no idea why or how that ever started!