False Comfort

“When believing a lie creates a false sense of comfort, that comfort can become chains!”

In the Beginning

My false sense of comfort was formed early on in my childhood. I learned what I would come to know as comfort from observing and interacting with my mom. She had her own struggles with acceptance and so developed ways to find comfort, some of which are what I have identified as false comfort.

My own false sense of comfort began forming in me at around eight years old which happened to be the age that I accepted Jesus as my savior.

My Story

By the age of 8 I had developed a sweet tooth which brought along with it, weight gain. In my 3rd grade class I was the second largest girl in the class, which did wonders for my self esteem as you can imagine. Couple that with the harsh words of kids with no filter that are also hurting at that age, and them telling me to “go away, no one wants to play with you”. You have a real recipe for serious self esteem issues. I so desperately wanted to be seen and heard.

From Unseen to In Your Face

Admittedly when I did feel accepted I had the tendency to become bossy. I was (and my husband would say still am), extremely talkative. My older sister says that I was born talking, and I don’t know that I can disagree because I was not a straight A student in my early years. I was a straight U student. Unsatisfactory, because I could not work without talking to others. For those of you who may not know what I am talking about, in those days you were not only graded on your academic performance, you were also graded on your behavior.

Patterns

My mom found a sense of comfort in food, and that carried over into my thinking as I developed as a child. My earliest memories of this comforting behavior go back to 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, and went something like this. I would come home from school hurt after being bullied or teased during the day. PE was a nightmare, I was always the last one chosen.

Academically I was challenged, especially in the area of reading. I attended special education huddles in the back of the room to improve my reading. That changed in 5th grade when the special education classes moved to a resource trailer on campus.

All of this really didn’t change until 7th grade and I had developed a defeated victim attitude and it showed.

The Fixer

My mother was a great woman, but as I said earlier she had her own hurts and behaviors to deal with. There were times when she saw my pain, that she came in like a wrecking ball to address those who hurt me. On most occasions she could not handle my hurts and so she taught me to deal with my pain as she had done. Many of those conversations after school went something like this. Here’s a Mrs. Baird’s fried cherry pie, get happy and go play. That is not the whole of the conversation, but it was the jest of it.

Understand that I love my mom, and she did the best she could with what she had. What I am trying to convey is how learned behaviors can lead to either true comfort and piece or false comfort and bondage. The cycle of false comfort I learned and developed led to an inferiority complex that has taken God years to help me work through, even to this day.

The God of all Comfort

What God has shown me and I hope you too through my words is this. I am not a “U” (Unsatisfactory Human), and neither are you. We are created in the image of God, Genesis 1:26. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, Psalm 139:14. We are loved, (John 3:16).

My Challenge to You

Recognize who you are in Christ. Accept what God’s word says about you. Repent, which literally means to change your mind or attitude. Turn to God your creator and understand what true comfort is. How to obtain it, and where it comes from.

Remember “All of life is ministry”!

Tina