by Jill Dasher | Jan 3, 2020 | Life Advice, Motherhood |
When Zach and I were dating and riding around in his 1982 yellow Grand Marquis, we dreamed about our upcoming marriage. Once married, our dreams and conversations consisted of what our kids were going to be like. And then, just like that, they were here. We talked about how cute they were and how little sleep we got, but obviously, they were going to be geniuses, so it was worth it.
Now that we are in the throes of shepherding children through middle school and high school, our conversations shifted a bit. Zach described it perfectly as we drove off to the airport a couple of days ago for a work trip. Neither of us wanted to go because, well, we are in the “all-hands-on-deck” phase of parenting that nobody prepares you for. Zach describes it as the “Whac-A-Mole” stage. Do you remember that game? Yes. I realize that I just aged myself. It was a Chuck E. Cheese favorite; the head of a mole popped up through a tiny hole, and you “whack” him with a “Thor-like” mallet, and then do it all over again as they continue to pop up through holes randomly. That is what I feel like sometimes navigating a child through adolescence while attempting to remain connected to their heart. Just when you think you have conquered one “molehill,” another emerges through the surface. Holler if you hear me!
Remaining connected to their heart transcends past the boundaries of obedience into a place where they genuinely trust that you have their best interest in mind. This is where it gets a little dicey because, while it is easy for me to assess the actions of my children, their hearts are not visibly measurable. In fact, it is quite possible for them to behave perfectly within the framework we designed, and yet, their hearts can be so far away from us. This is one of my greatest fears as a parent; yes, I confess I am quite fearful that I am going to mess up my children completely. Can I just begin by confessing that? Are there any other parents out there who live with this fear?
Fear is something that has overwhelmed me at different stages of life, probably the most debilitating destroyer that lurks beneath my seemingly confident front. However, it is not just any type of fear that claims anxiety over my life; it is misplaced fear that keeps me from moving. Fear that is dependent on my performance or ability. Fear that is characterized by “what if” statements and comparisons. Fear of how others will perceive me, my children, or our home. This type of fear is really a self-absorbed fear that only graces the surface of my life and has no power to produce fruitful living. It also has no ability to produce Godly offspring but instead has a paralyzing effect over my family and my parenting.
This is the type of fear that I am daily, sometimes hourly, having to submit over to my Father. A fear based on the thoughts and viewpoints of men. One that finds faux contentment as long as all appears to be right but refuses to seek out the heart. You see, the love that I so desire from my children is many times not mirrored in my own relationship with my heavenly Father. I came to realize that, in many days of my own life, I am choosing to live for my King but refusing to give Him my heart, all the while pleading for the heart of my own children.
I cannot tell you how many times I say to my children, “You do not have to tell me what you think I want to hear” and then turn around and tell Jesus precisely what I think He wants to hear. Why do I do this? Probably the same reason my children do. Yes, my children are flawed; gasp.
Could it be that we struggle, believing that God can truly love us just the way we are? Can he really love the broken parts of us; the unkind part of us; the part of us that struggles with jealousy and discontentment; the part of us that so often seeks our own glory and praise?
God, can you really love the not so lovable parts of me? Wait, don’t answer that. I’m afraid. And since I am not confident that you can, I should probably just keep those hidden, right?
But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord’s love is with those who fear him and his righteousness with their children’s children. (Psalm 103:17)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Prov 9:10)
Fear is not our enemy; misplaced fear is our enemy.
Misplaced fear is a fear that is driven by our desire to please men. This fear leads us to a life of hiding. This fear keeps us from trying new things and pursuing dreams because, well, what if the world will not approve? This fear causes us to turn inside ourselves and keep everyone at an arm’s distance because we are almost sure that we will be rejected in some form or fashion.
Misplaced fear leads to death. The fear of the Lord leads to life. Abundant life.
But what does it mean to fear the Lord, and how is that different from the fear that results from my desire to please men?
Scripture defines it for us in Proverbs when it says: The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride and arrogance, and the evil way, and the perverse mouth, I hate (8:13.)
First, the fear of the Lord is to hate what he hates. He hates evil, more particularly pride, arrogance, the evil way, and a perverse mouth. When our fear is misplaced, we inevitably place ourselves in the position of manager. Yep, in our arrogance, we actually think we can manage our sin better than God. Why not just fold to the apparent fact that He is God and probably knows better? Pride. As managers, we are too prideful to take that trust fall. “It’s too humiliating,” we tell ourselves. So, we manage, we hide, and therefore, we are miserable. This leads to the evil way of hating the good around us because it reminds us of our misery. So, we gossip, slander, and hide behind sarcasm and cynicism. Sounds horrible, right?
Fortunately for us, there is a way out. It’s simple. Place our fear, not on the approval of men but the Glory of God. We fear God and respect his ways. In other words, we resign as the manager. We walk humbly with our good, good Father. We trust him, and we live.
Yes, I realize this post began about parenting, but once again, it turns out that the Lord is still working on me. He is still whacking away at my own “molehills.” Perhaps the greatest lesson that I can teach my children lies within the admittance of my failures to a God that I trust is good and has my best interest at heart.
Perhaps it is in this understanding that we can begin to move past behavior modification parenting to a Spirit-filled child who does not need to perform to seek my approval but instead realizes that they indeed are safe to be a work in progress still.
Jill Dasher is a blogger and speaker who is passionate about sharing the message of being known through authentic community with God and each other. She resides in Asheville, NC with her husband Zach and four children. In between sunset hikes and camping weekends she works alongside her husband running a media company.
Follow Jill on Instagram @jilldasher
by Jill Dasher | Jul 17, 2019 | Featured, Life Advice
I remember vividly the excitement I felt in my stomach the last couple weeks of school. Summer was quickly approaching, and I could hardly keep my feet still underneath the metal frame desk that cut into my knees with every move. My mind swirled with ideas of how I would spend my time and with whom I would spend my time; the sheer anticipation of it all was invigorating.
Just as quickly as the excitement set in, so would the letdown as I began to realize summer was almost over, and I most assuredly did not accomplish all I set out to do. The anticipation of it all seemed almost greater than the actual experience. The very idea of all the memories that I would make was more lasting than the memories themselves. How could this be? Perhaps the vacations never lived up to their grandeur, or maybe I created this arrival place in my mind that I never quite seemed to obtain. Nonetheless, as the school year began, I resolved that definitely “next summer, I will…”
Do you know what’s funny? I still find myself doing the same thing. Even now, I catch myself in a state of dissatisfaction as if somehow, there is a life out there I am missing out on. A destination I have not yet reached, an arrival place of sorts only the prestigious, the righteous, and the ones who read their Bible every day and pray for hours on end, without fail, manage to conquer. In my mind, there is a grandiose mountain somewhere out there where “The Arrived” all gather together in explicit delight, and the vagrants such as myself will never be good enough to join them.
“Their” marriages are perfect. “Their” children are flawless. “Their” homes stay clean. “They” never lose their temper. “They” get up at 5 am, and by 6:30, “they” have studied, prayed, and hit the gym. “They” are disciplined and never late. “They” always have the right thing to say, and “their” friendships are closer than family and last a lifetime. “Their” knowledge of God far supersedes my meager attempt to know Him more as I fill out my prayer journal once again, asking for forgiveness as I resolve to do better, to be better, and to love better. Defeated and dissatisfied, I come to realize that I will never be one of them. Just like the ending of summer, I am once again left with the realization that I have so far to go. So very far to go.
But who exactly are “they?”
“They” are a figment of our imaginations — a dilution fed to us by the evil one to keep us in a constant state of searching for all the wrong things. “They” are sent to divide families, to destroy marriages, and to lie to our children. “They” are an addiction that promises satisfaction but inevitably leaves you empty and unfulfilled, thus continuing the cycle of your search to be like “them.” We spend so much time trying to be like “them,” but the truth is “THEY” do not exist. “THEY” are not real people. Like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz who was pulling all the strings and invoking fear into Dorothy and her friends, “they” may surprise you. “They” is actually “US.” We are the authors of our own dissatisfaction.
What?
My friends, why should a picture of a happy family make us sad? Or why do we see a snapshot of two lovebirds sharing a date night and become convinced that our own relationship is pathetic? Could it be that we are living for the arrival point? Could it be that we carefully crafted what the perfect Christian, marriage, relationship, job, etc. should look like based on our perception of the world, and until we arrive at that place, wherever it may be, we are riddled with depression and anxiety? All the while, we are beating our fists at the air because our expectations are not based on reality.
We stare at mere images on a screen, moments that were captured, perfect moments, in fact, that were meant to show but a glimpse of an ideal day. In the futility of our minds, we take those images, and then we assign a personhood to them that is highly unattainable. This is what a perfect marriage looks like, or that is what it means to be beautiful, and as we compare it to ourselves, we are reminded all the more that we have not arrived. In truth, we are not depressed because we do not measure up, but instead, we are depressed because we spend our lifetime trying to measure up, so much so that we miss the beauty of this life that God gave us — the beauty of a life that is not perfect. It is so imperfect, we can spend every day for the rest of our lives watching God shape and form us.
What is so amazing to me about the God we serve and a lesson He has been teaching me for some time is that He has so much more in store for me. To this girl who has so far to go, I relish in the words of Paul in Philippians 1:6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Like the little girl who was overwhelmed with excitement at what the summer might hold, I am beyond thankful that, for the rest of my life, I can live experiencing God’s work upon my life while simultaneously anticipating what He is going to do next. The understanding that there is no arrival place on earth frees me to live in the moment aware of the current struggle that may plague me. It frees me to allow God into a place to do some of His most powerful work because I realize my own inability to arrive anywhere apart from Him.
This understanding, mind you, is no arrival place either. I am no more righteous and no more perfect than I was before, but I am growing in Him, and He is doing things within me that I could never do. He is also changing the way I see you because I realize we are all operating within a fallen world together, and in the same way that I have so far to go, so do you. We are living in a world with death and brokenness, heartache and disappointment. In reality, Christians are being persecuted, children are being killed in the womb, family members are dying, and there is no Christian, no marriage, no friend, or parent that has arrived. We are all suffering from the effects of a broken world.
For this reason, we should be thrilled to see a glimpse of happiness and joy on the faces of our brothers and sisters. It should excite us to cheer them on in their victories and mourn with them through their trials. We should celebrate marriages which are thriving and children who are doing big things for the Lord. We should not be so quick to judge the motives of others but even quicker to offer Grace because we know how desperately we need it ourselves.
You and I have not arrived, but in the short amount of time it took me to write this blog, God was doing something inside me, and I pray He was doing something inside you.
Jill Dasher is a blogger and speaker who is passionate about sharing the message of being known through authentic community with God and each other. She resides in Asheville, NC with her husband Zach and four children. In between sunset hikes and camping weekends she works alongside her husband running a media company.
Follow Jill on Instagram @jilldasher
by Jill Dasher | Mar 18, 2019 | Featured, Testimonies |
It was literally the checking off of a box on a list of accomplishments that I had deemed worthy of fulfilling in order to keep up the image I felt the need to portray.
WOW. So, you should probably read that sentence again, because, pretty sure, I could drop the mic right here and be like, JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL, because the Holy Spirit straight up read my mail as this thought crept into my mind.
Even twenty years later I can recall this particular night in an instant. Like one of those moments in time when you knew something or someone was about to change. I remember the smell of my car and tossing my homecoming crown in the back seat as if the very weight of it on my head felt overwhelming. This thought kept clamoring for my attention and I just couldn’t let myself go there. The Holy Spirit was attempting to speak truth into my heart, a truth that could have set me free, but at the young age of eighteen I was not ready to hear it. I was not ready to change my priorities and it would be nine years, one husband, and three kids later before I would let myself take a small glimpse into the idol that had held my heart captive.
THE IDOL OF MY OWN IMAGE
THE IDOL OF NEEDING TO BE THE BEST
THE IDOL OF HAVING TO BE THE ONE WHO HAD IT ALL TOGETHER
THE DEVASTATING IDOL OF PERFECTION
When perfection becomes your idol, you will then train yourself to live a life in hiding. The need to cover every flaw and mask every imperfection will become a top priority. You will get used to filtering every single image of your life. You will live in bondage to the idea that as long as you can hold it all together, you will feel worthy. Then, you will feel good enough.
But the truth is you just feel exhausted and lonely.
Exhausted because there is always something on your body or in your life that begins to sag. There is always someone else’s life displayed through square images on a screen that represents more perfectly the perfection you long for. In a rush to maintain, you will spend hours nipping, tucking, smoothing, and purchasing your way to satisfaction, except it never quite seems to satisfy.
Lonely because you have no one in your life that knows you. No one who knows your fears or understands your struggles. Lonely because letting someone in would mean to admit that you are messed up and that scares you to death!
This was me. The me that lived to please others, to please myself, and to maintain an image that somewhere along the way I had come to believe was actually real. But, in reality, it was the greatest lie of all. Like Eve, I was hiding behind fig leaves and had become numb to how truly uncomfortable they were.
What changed?
Pain Invited versus Pain Avoided
The pain I once avoided, I was now inviting in.
Pain that is avoided has the power to paralyze. It has the power to hold you captive to a life that is authorized and controlled by Satan himself.
But, oh, my goodness, pain that is invited in is so different.
Pain that is invited in has the power to produce something in you that will reflect something out of you that you never knew was there.
Pain invited in has the power to free you.
What does that look like?
Ironically, for me, pain invited started with a diagnosis of an immune disorder called vitiligo. For a girl who was obsessed with her image, this was devastating news. Vitiligo would alter the image I so desperately sought to protect.
As everything that I had held dear began to transform beyond my control, Satan wreaked havoc in my mind.
You’re ugly…
Your husband is not going to be attracted to you…
You have nothing left to offer…
I began to pray like crazy. How shallow, right? Shallow because my prayer was to take away a physical flaw. Shallow that a flaw in my “image” would bring me to my knees like never before. I prayed over and over that the Lord would take it away. The more I prayed the more God revealed to me that I was more in love with my image than I was in love with Him. I was more in love with the idea of what I wanted my life to look like than I was in living a life that reflected Him.
As the Lord began to show me the depths of my shallowness, for the first time I did not hide my face. I invited in the pain of having to see things about myself that I felt were disgusting. But, friends, there is no sweeter voice to unveil the darkness of your heart than that of the Holy Spirit. The most amazing thing about a revelation from your Father is that He always has much more to give you than you realize you need. As He began to reveal the shallowness of my heart, He also began to expose other idols that I had placed before Him. He showed me that for far too long I had placed the entire burden of my happiness on the shoulders of my husband–that my level of fulfillment was based solely on the ability of my husband to be exactly who I wanted him to be.
Sadly, I had placed my husband in a role that he was never made to fill. I have now come to know that misplaced roles will only lead to resentment. Placing any human being as the sole provider of your fulfillment will always be disastrous. Whether it’s a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or friend, people do not possess the power to keep you happy. It is an impossible task.
Satan matched the sins of my husband and me perfectly to assure that we both remained in hiding. The grip on my life was the need to look perfect and the grip on my husband’s was to be the perfect husband. The end result was two people who were living a life that was simply performance based.
You see, when perfection becomes your idol, two things happen: You remain a stranger to everyone around you and they are not given permission to be who they really are. While clinging to my idol, I was holding my husband, Zach, back from being real too.
Confession and vulnerability are thrown out the window. Everyone is playing a role to keep the image up. The end result is a miserable life. Miserable, because everyone craves something that is real.
We crave a love that extends beyond the boundary of our own abilities. We crave a love that has seen us at our very worst and doesn’t turn its face in disgust. We desire a love that embraces and covers the most shameful places of our souls.
That love can only be found within our Creator. I had always viewed God’s love as transactional. He loved me when I was good and hated me when I was bad. During the years when I struggled through the idol of perfection I believed I had to hide it from God in order for Him to love me.
I took this same mentality into my marriage. I felt like I had to hide things from Zach that might cause him to not like me. But as I began to remove my fig leaves and allow the Lord to speak into all the wounds of a life lived in hiding, something began to change in me. God began to change me. I know there will always be the temptation to hide, but I had tasted, for the first time, how good it felt to be truly known by my Father.
I was beginning to see that this is the type of love that my marriage was supposed to reflect. A true two becoming one, not merely in flesh, but in soul. I wanted Zach to know me, not the “me” I thought I was supposed to be, but the “me” that I was.
Zach sat on the couch with a look of fear because in years past these conversations had almost always been about what he was doing wrong. Yet what proceeded from my mouth could have only been from God. It was an unveiling of my soul; a confession of where I had placed my worth.
The idols of My Image, My Body, MY Marriage. I expressed the desire to no longer run from my insecurities and to develop a heart that loves Zach through his.
Zach you no longer have to carry the weight of my happiness.
Success is not the measure of your worthiness.
Your fears and struggles are welcome.
You’re safe to be imperfect with me.
Can we just learn to live as two messed up people who are loved by a Gracious God?
Tears began to pour from his eyes and an evening of confession unfolded between the two of us that we had never encountered before. Joy was found in the midst of our brokenness, because we were being set free from the darkness of hiding. Hiding, the true killer of joy, has no place in God’s kingdom.
To know and be known, even in the shallowest of places, was better than any high I might have experienced pretending. Even now when my hand is attempted to reach for the fig leaf, I hear God whispering, you’re safe to be imperfect with me.
Jill Dasher is a blogger and speaker who is passionate about sharing the message of being known through authentic community with God and each other. She resides in Asheville, NC with her husband Zach and four children. In between sunset hikes and camping weekends she works alongside her husband running a media company.
Follow Jill on Instagram @jilldasher
by Jill Dasher | Sep 18, 2017 | Testimonies |
guest blog.
It is always a little scary when God puts something on your heart to share, when you are not so sure you are ready. The prompting is there, but fear easily steps in when you begin to consider what others may think of you. This would be the current state of my own heart, and I am fighting through the strong desire to simply switch modes and write a lighthearted version of the story, one that is vague and not so personally attached to the walls of my own heart. Let’s just say I find myself pacing through the garden, much like Adam and Eve searching for a few fig leaves to hide behind.
Satan will want me to hide from baring my soul, and he will want you to hide from reading this. He relishes in keeping us focused only on things at the surface, but tries to hide the rest. It is a warping of the mind that keeps you so distracted and focused on the most shallow of issues, like the size of your thighs or your neighbor’s new car, that there is no energy left to see yourself naked. By naked I am referring to the raw and unedited version of you. The “you” that’s in a complete state of nakedness before your Creator. He sees you just as you are, and there is no need to hide.
Today, I want to give us all permission to look into the deep places, the not so pretty corners of our hearts that we so desperately attempt to cover and to refuse to remain in hiding.
To live in hiding produces anxiety, much like the feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you played hide-n-seek as a child. So, it is with our lives when we hide behind a false persona of who we think we are supposed to be, yet all the while having no real victory over the sin in our lives because we are too afraid to search the deep places of our souls. We build societies, communities, and kingdoms around a strict code of boundaries, in which we only allow others to see the “us” that we are comfortable presenting.
I know this, because that is the way I lived a significant portion of my life. I used to live behind my own veil of shallowness, so much so, that if you could have taken a magnifying glass to my soul, you would have cringed at the scene before you. It would seem that in this day and age it is quite socially acceptable to confess sins such as sexual immorality, drugs, or pornography, and confession is always good, but what about those not so obvious transgressions? You know, the ones that are much easier to hide, not only from others but most of all from ourselves. Those that may look or sound something like this:
She is prettier than I am, and far more talented, but it is much too difficult for me to allow myself to admit that I am jealous…so instead, I will just pick her apart in my mind, assigning impure motives behind everything she does. I’ll make fun of her posts, and laugh with my “friends” at her expense. This will surely make me feel better. (JEALOUSY)
I want to be noticed. I want to be successful. I am self-seeking. I am actually a promoter of myself, and place a large portion of my self-worth on the number of “likes” I will receive, but I will convince myself that it is all for God. (SELF-SEEKING)
Keep up your persona and win at all cost. For any issue that arises, I rush to place the blame on someone else. I have constructed my life in such a way that no one can hold me accountable, and to admit a flaw is to show weakness; I refuse to be weak. (PRIDEFUL)
My worth is in my beauty. As long as I am beautiful, I will be happy and relish the attention that I receive from both men and women. However, I will convince myself that my pursuit of physical perfection is merely for health benefits; I could never be that shallow. (SHALLOW)
You secretly desire the destruction of someone who has hurt you in some way, pretending to want the best for them, when in the depths of your heart you know that is not the case. You have built a wall so high around your heart, that you cannot allow yourself to admit that you desire to be the author of justice. (RESENTMENT)
Am I completely messed up beyond words, or can anyone else on the planet attest to struggling with any of these things? No one can read your thoughts. Be honest with yourself.
Why are we so afraid to see ourselves as we truly are? Because we fear that no one could possibly love the raw and unedited version of us. I get it. There is a fear in me, even as I am typing that you will reject the real me and prefer an edited version. But, there is also another part of me that is unbelievably relieved that I no longer desire to attempt to create that version. It is exhausting, and only draws people to ME – a meaningless attempt at fulfillment. I want to draw people to the feet of Jesus. I want to be a part of their story, and for them to be a part of mine as we see Jesus break down the walls of our hearts and experience true Grace.
A grace that grants us permission to see the ugliest places of our hearts. A grace that covers not only the things that we have done but that covers who we are: jealous, self-seeking, prideful, shallow, resentful, etc. It not only covers but loves us right in the midst of our darkest moments.
For years, I refused to allow myself to see the inner flaws of my heart, and it was the source of much anxiety in my life. I no longer want to live that way. I want you to see the raw and unedited version of me because it is the place where God has done the most beautiful work. I want to be so honest with my struggles, because I want you to know and believe that God can heal the ugly, broken-down places of your heart. I want to live a life of Paul where true confidence and strength were found within his weaknesses. I want to kill any desire to hide behind a false pretense of having everything figured out, but instead, I want to bare my soul, so my flaws simply point to the one who does. Are you ready to truly live original? Then run barefoot and naked with me straight to the foot of the cross, where therein lies all the covering we will ever need.
Live Original. Live Raw, Unedited, and Unafraid.
