This month as we enter the Lenten season, I am sharing an excerpt from my book, Dear Heart, Come Home. I wrote this book at a time of much spiritual growth. I hope the following excerpts will contain hope and encouragement for you in the coming weeks.
“Transformation is a process of death and rebirth. Change is a prerequisite for growth. It involves a “dying” of some sort if new life is going to burst forth. Sometimes I’ve felt this changing as a radical, painful stripping away, and at other times I’ve welcomed it like a silent snake slipping out of an old skin that no longer fits. Either way, it has demanded some dying to who I have been and some letting go of what I have known. I now realize that my transformation is an ongoing process. Always there is more skin shedding to do…
So many skins have fallen off of me… My “skins” have included old messages and assumptions about life that developed in my childhood, behaviors that bound me to unhealthy ways of approaching life, religious beliefs that kept my spiritual world too small, and boxed-in views of my self-identity. Skin-shedding has been a time of discovering what keeps me from growing. … Whenever I have shed any of these skins of mine, I have found freedom and truth. These discoveries have made the transformation process worth the risk and the struggle. …
In my early thirties, I was overcome with what I considered to be my sinfulness. A big part of this was due to the emphasis in the Roman Catholic church and in religious life on perfectionism. While I needed to learn and accept the part of myself that was capable of sin, I also needed to acknowledge that much of what I thought to be sin was not so at all. This “sin” was actually the pieces of myself that I wanted to spurn or reject, those unmanageable things that were a part of being human—unwanted emotions and personality traits. I wanted to be “perfect” but I had to come to terms and be at peace with my clay feet instead.
….
When I acknowledged and accepted pieces of myself that I had rejected (tenacious, strong-willed, determined) I saw that these very things were also some of my treasures. They had helped me have courage and to survive some difficult life situations. They had also helped me to be steadfast in my love and care. They blessed me with a much needed resiliency.
…
Some writers use the terms “transformation” and “conversion” interchangeably, both describing the process of growth. I view conversion as a piece of transformation, a process that leads to greater transformation. It has to do with changing my heart, befriending what will always be a part of me—my personal limitations and weaknesses—and casting aside what is avoidable: unhealthy attitudes and behaviors, choices and decisions for non-good.
…
I am growing into the wisdom of accepting myself as I am, both goodness and weakness… I can be at home with who I am. I can be more gentle with others because I have become more gentle with myself.”
May this Lent be a time of skin-shedding for you, my readers, a time when you discern what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. As you become more gentle with yourself, may you become more gentle with others.
Abundant peace,
Joyce Rupp
