The Chair with the Three Black Buttons

The Chair with the Three Black Buttons

I sit here on my sofa, gazing across the living room, a friend had dropped by earlier and we talked about getting off the wheel, the cycle that so many of us find ourselves on.  With being OK with or without others in our lives, it has been a year of learning, of growth, but the real revelation came today.

“You are still on the wheel, she said, you wouldn’t be talking about it, you wouldn’t be reasoning with it if you weren’t.

 As I heard myself arguing with her I knew that I was.  She left, and the house was quite.  My mind was not, there seemed to be noise everywhere and none of it made any sense.  I sat down on my couch and closed my eyes and determinedly quieted my mind.  As I opened my eyes and my mind, and my heart, I saw the chair across the room, and noticed that it only had three black buttons.  There was a divot in the fabric with the fourth button was missing. Then I heard His voice… “You have let me into every area of your life, but that one.”  He used that missing black button to show me all that follows.

I asked Papa, where all of this was coming from, the fear, and anxiety I knew it was my ego. A few things came into view as I closed my eyes and prayed.  I asked God to show me “why do I feel so stuck?” Why does it feel like I can not get out of this perpetual cycle that I am in?  Picture after picture travelled through my mind, some in focus and some not. Pictures of mostly men that had come and gone from my life, because I was struggling with the most recent break up, which was two years ago.  And why is it so hard to let go.  God used that to show me the root of my pain.

God:  “it isn’t him, it is all men that you seek the approval of, because you feel like you never got the approval of your dad, that you so deeply desired, remember when you worked for him, the only words that you seem to remember are “how dumb can you get” I know that you worked through that, I know that you know that you are smart.”

So what was it that was still blocking my path to getting and staying off the wheel, out of the cycle that seemly had become my life.  I kept my mind and my heart completely open, and allowed the light to shine around the innermost part of me like a flashlight lighting the corners of my soul that seemed dark and broken.

2 affairs in the first 10 years of my marriage, divorced for 5 and now 21 years later, God wants to open my eyes and heal my heart.  And I am ready.  My dad had passed on about 17 years ago. But never forgave me.  It seemed to me that he still didn’t approve.  As he lay dying in the hospital I watched him choose my then husband over me, his daughter  and I so much wanted him to approve of me.

I drew a blank when I thought about why – If I could accept that God loved me, that He thought I was beautiful, that he forgave me, for all my sin,  why was it then that I couldn’t seem to give Him permission to approve of me? 

I sat there in a puddle of tears, and I forgave my earthly father,  my ex husband, but mostly myself for not allowing God to approve of me.

I closed my eyes and I saw all the ways that God approved of me,   the lie that I believed was that my dad didn’t approve, a lie that the enemy planted a long time ago.  Then I asked “what is the truth Jesus?”  And He replied “You are Whole”.  

 Now as I sit across from the chair with the three black buttons, it is a significant reminder to allow God permission to access the deepest part of who I am.   It tells a part of a story, my story.  

We all have spaces in our souls, our hearts, in which we don’t believe that we are worthy of Papa’s approval or for Him to be a part of that place in our lives.  But that is what He wants.  He is asking for permission to tell you that “You are Whole”