“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
– Psalm 139:13-16
Sometimes when you are bullied, abandoned, or abused as a child, you develop a sense of shame that causes you to hide the parts of yourself that you perceive are bad. Often, your life experience teaches you that when you have applause, wealth, and achievement, you get more attention. Maybe you feel like people will love you or be kind to you if you act a certain way or do a certain thing, and you’re afraid that if you stop, you will lose relationship. When this happens, you begin to lead a double life and you develop an ego or a veneer that’s like the best version of you. But there’s a part of you that stays hidden and locked away; a part you are afraid would cause others to reject you if it was exposed. Friend, I want you to know that God sees your hidden parts and despite all your flaws, He loves you. He’s never given up on you. He’s on your side. He knows all your days and He has a good plan for you. Before you were born, you were meaningful to Him and there’s nothing that can separate you from His love. That’s the Good News of the Gospel! |
Prayer
God, give me the courage to bring my hidden parts into the light of your love.
Reflection
Do you have parts of you that you keep hidden or locked away? If so, how can you allow God’s love to set you free?
4 Responses
That’s so true there is probably so many of us with hidden parts of us. Lord God set us free! That is so true. I’m one of them but I think I just got tired of hiding within and now I just don’t deal with others as friends. Good friends . I just have my family. It seems I want a close friend I can be my self with but no one takes me up on my offers at church. Offered to go have coffe to jog with them, pray with them just get together. Nothing. So I just pray and stick to my family. God bless you,
Maribeth
Thank you for this bullying insight. I work in schools and believe that bullying is the foundation of the rampant shootings our country is experiencing.
Bobby, I read and appreciate your email messages daily, just as I did when you father and grandfather were sending them. They’re always useful and have a slightly different approach to many of the devotionals I’ve read from various sources. Thank you for them.
A minor technological complaint: Sunday through Friday, the email message arrives, I click on a link and can read the entire devotional: scripture passage, message, prayer and question. However, the Saturday email is always different. When I click on the link, I see the first part of the message (no scripture, no prayer, no question, but then to get “the rest” of the message I have to click another link which takes me to the website which includes the entire message including scripture, prayer and question. Then, after reading the scripture, I have to scan through the message to find where I left off earlier, then resume. This is annoying and I don’t understand the point of this format.
God Bless You and Hannah I watch your program Saturday night on TBN. You are a Blessing. Yes I am facing something I have a Beautiful daughter. She has distance herself from me. She told me she don’t talk on the phone she only texts. So I try she doesn’t respond. I don’t understand.