Take Heart

The Lies That Bind Us by Amy J. Brown

• Amy J Brown, Carrie Holt and Sara Clime • Season 2 • Episode 75

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Lies bind us and cause us to live in bondage, but we do not always recognize the lies we believe. In this episode, Amy helps us to recognize the lies, reconnect to the truth, and relinquish our false narratives to God.

March 1, 2022; Ep. 75

Timestamps & Key Topics:

  • 0:00-    Intro
  • 1:21-    False Narratives
  • 3:03-    Scarcity Mindset
  • 6:15-    Prodigal Son
  • 9:14-    Recognize
  • 10:40-  Reconnect & Relinquish
  • 11:51-  Reflection
  • 13:01-  Outro

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Amy J. Brown  0:00  
Hi friends, and welcome to episode 75 of Take Heart. Don't forget to check out our website at takeheartspecialmoms.com for free resources and show notes. If you're enjoying this podcast, we would love it if you would leave a review. This helps other listeners to find us.

(1:21) Hello, this is Amy J. Brown, and this week we are talking about lies we believe. Now we all believed weird lies when we were kids such as: don't make that face or it'll stick that way, or you have to wait an hour after eating before you can swim, or this really weird lie that kind of terrified me as a kid. If you swallow a seed of an apple, an apple tree will grow in your stomach. That doesn't make sense, but boy did it scare me as a kid. When I was a kid, I believed some lies. My grandma told me that every time you see a ray of sunshine hitting the earth, someone has died and that little ray of sunshine was the ladder leading that person up to heaven. Although I don't believe that anymore. Every time I see the sun's rays on the horizon, I think of her. Okay, so this same grandma also told me that if I ate cottage cheese, it would grow hair on my chest. I am not sure why she told me and my sisters that, but not long after she told me that I saw a really hairy man at the pool. I have never eaten cottage cheese. I actually have never. I hate it. So I also have a friend that thought that creepy kid catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Some of you may not know that movie, but it was a kind of weird 70s Disney movie. He believes that the kid catcher lived in his grandma's closet, so he never went upstairs. I'm sure you have your own funny stories of lies you believed as kids, even though they seem silly, those lies affected how we lived our lives. Even as an adult, for example, I won't eat cottage cheese. Ridiculous lies still affect our own grown-up lives. We just don't recognize them. 

(3:03)  Lies bind and burden us they cause us to live our lives in bondage. Here is an example in my own life of the destruction a lie can cause. As you know, and I've mentioned before, we have a child with fetal alcohol syndrome and reactive attachment disorder. When we were learning about her diagnosis, I lived with so much guilt that what I was doing was all wrong. Her behavior was bewildering, and nothing ever got better. It seemed every day was a failure, and that failure was all mine. The false narrative put all the responsibility on me and none on the brain damage done by alcohol and the attachment issues that come with adoption and trauma. Once when I was trying to explain it all to a friend, she said this comment, "You know, she would have done so much better in a house with not so many kids. She would have gotten more attention." First of all, that's just a dumb comment, but there was no malice in it. But boy, did that one sentence pierced my heart. My friend loves me and did not realize that comment would worm its way into my heart and embed itself there in this form of a lie. It's your fault. You're not the right mom for this child, you are not enough. You are not enough is a lie of scarcity. Every lie I've ever believed in my life as a mom is rooted in scarcity. Scarcity is the belief that we will have an insufficient supply of what we need at the moment. It might be money or time or energy or knowledge. Scarcity makes me a prisoner of the urgent. Scarcity makes me think I have to control it all right now, instead of trusting God. Scarcity makes me think I need to run the show and force change all the while forgetting to pray. Instead of believing that lie that I was not enough, I wish someone would have told me this years ago, Amy, this is not your fault. You are a good mom doing the best you can in a hard situation. Do you believe that lie as a special needs mom that you're not enough? I want to say right here, if you are struggling with that thinking, please know, it's a lie. Are we perfect? No. We make mistakes as moms, and we do things that sometimes have negative effects on our kids, but we love them, and we are exactly the mom these kids need. Being a special needs parent is so far outside the realm of typical parenting. It can be very hard, and we mothers do not give ourselves enough grace. Struggles in parenting are normal. I think that in today's world with social media, all we see are the shiny, happy moments, but the struggle is a part of parenting typical kids, let alone a child with special needs. So please hear this, you are amazing, and you are doing the best you can with the life God has given you. So put down your idea of what a good mom is, and be the mom that you are. Okay, that's my public service announcement for today. Let's get back to recognizing the lies and how to replace them with the truth.

(6:15)  There's a parable that Jesus tells in the Bible about the prodigal son. It's a familiar parable, and you can find it in Luke 15:11-32. Jesus tells the story about the son who wants all his inheritance, and he wants to leave home and go live in the city. He takes his money, he goes far away and he wastes all the money, and the Bible says he lives a life of debauchery. He ends up eating with the pigs and decides he needs to come home. So, how does he relate to our lives today and the lies we believe? Well, the prodigal believed the lie that what he had at home wasn't enough and it was better out in the world. This belief caused him to leave the safe embrace of his father and travel to a far country. We may not be living a life of debauchery, but we all have lies that shape our lives. Lies that take us far from home and the embrace of our father. We are far from home every time we believe the lie of scarcity. Here are some lies that you may believe. I recently had a mom reach out to me, she has a daughter with reactive attachment disorder, and she said this. Every night I go to bed thinking I failed, that I'm not enough. Maybe you believe the lie, I need to know it all. It's all up to me. I'm not doing enough. God will not provide. Maybe you believe I can't rest, or I'm not allowed to feel angry, grief, sadness, fill in the blank. I need to fix this, or this is all my fault. For me, I believed the lie that I have to be ahead of the game. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I worry that whatever situation is on the horizon, there won't be enough for me. This lie never leads me to rest and trust. Lies tell us we have to earn love. But the truth is life-giving. We are His children. We walk towards God. We have a choice of what we pay attention to, the lies or the truth. We do not have to open the doors to the lies of guilt or perfection. Like the prodigal, we can choose to turn around and walk towards God and home. We can let his love and his truth guide us. We are attached to our lies, and we do not recognize them as lies. Most of the lies we believe are not obvious at first. They may be from your childhood or your family like it's not okay to cry, or maybe we're being pushed and pulled by lies that came out of expectations we have for ourselves, or that others have spoken over us. Maybe well-intentioned advice even from a friend like the comment my friend made and sometimes sadly from church. So what lies are you attached to and how can you be free? I have three R's for you: recognize, reconnect and relinquish. 

(9:14)  Number one recognize the lie sometimes that is not always evident. We obviously know eating an apple seed won't grow a tree in our stomach, but the lies that inform our choices and rule our lives can be subtle. We have to recognize these lies by paying attention. Anytime you come to a situation that leaves you anxious, filled with dread, you can't pray, or a situation that leads to busyness and worry, ask, "What belief do I have that is feeling this behavior?" Here's an example. All three of my youngest kids have had neuro-psych evaluations, and I look forward to the results because it helps me take care of my child, but I also dread them because it is filled with books and therapies, and techniques. It's really thick. I immediately when I received the report go into overdrive thinking I have to read it all, I have to do everything in this ten-page document. I get all stressed out and feel like a failure, the longer it sits on my desk unread, this is the lie. The lie is I need to do all the things and instantly be an expert on all the things. If I'm not, I'm a bad mom. What lies are you believing? Recognize the lie. Recognize the behavior and ask where's the lie in this situation? If you can't figure it out, ask God to show you what you cannot recognize. 

(10:40)  Number two, reconnect with the truth. Where's the truth? The truth in this situation, the neuro-psych evaluation, is I don't have to know at all. I can't know at all. You know what? There's even a bigger lie I believe sometimes that I will be judged if I don't know at all. There's absolutely no truth in that. Once again, give yourself the grace to learn what you need to know, and God will show you the rest. The third "R" is relinquish, relinquish it to God. Some lies are woven into our lives, and once we recognize them, it's not always easy to uproot them. This is a lifetime practice, friends, but one that puts our feet back on the road home to the Father. The truth sets us free. This is not easy work, but it is necessary work. In her book, Invitation to Retreat, author Ruth Haley Barton says this, "spiritual freedom would be the freedom to be what and who God is calling me to be, not who I am determined to be or what others expect me to be." What is God calling you to be? He's calling you to walk in truth. 

(11:51)  So let me say this as I close, you are loved by God. Nothing can change that. God's love is enough. He provides, and he is guiding you in truth. Here are some questions you can ask when you're trying to determine the truth. Is this true? How was this belief, forming me? How does this belief affect how I live my life? Is this making me more anxious and cramped, or does it bring life? Does it make me more open? Is this taking me closer to the Father and home? Is this making me more like Jesus? Two small prayers I often pray when I don't know what to think. One is mine, which is, God, what do you want me to know about this? One is from Ruth Haley Barton. "God, help me to see my life as you see it and myself in it as you see me."  

(13:01)  Thank you for joining us this week on Take Heart. Our prayer each week is for your heart to be encouraged. We are grateful you are walking on this journey with us. Thanks for listening and join us next week as Carrie will share about the lies we believe.