My wife, Melinda, has been through much in her own life and journey of renewing her mind.
The following is what she felt led to share to help you along in your journey:
There is a Japanese tradition known as Kintsugi, or “golden repair,” that uses a unique restoration technique for the repair of broken ceramics. The process begins by taking a cracked portion of pottery and mending it with a concoction of powder and precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum. To facilitate the repair of a broken vessel, the master craftsman recognizes there is beauty hidden in the broken places. He realizes that even the imperfections tell a story that enhances the worth of the vessel, even before the process has begun. The vessel’s worth is not necessarily due to the vessel’s appearance, but in the object itself. Instead of trying to conceal the brokenness, the artisan brings it to the forefront!
So that piece of pottery was me. I was broken, worthless, useless, and ugly—or so I was told and ultimately began to believe. Let me explain. I have always been an “I can make it” kind of girl. I get that attitude both from my mom and my dad. My mom taught me to sew and to use even the scraps others might throw away to create something useful, to meet a need. My dad taught me to cook without a recipe and to try almost any kind of food. He taught me how to sell anything, how to work a room, and how to entertain others. He was gregarious and outgoing, as am I. Due in part to my genetics, but due in part to my need for my father’s affirmation, I tend to be the same way. I used to perform to be accepted. The difference now is that I perform because I am accepted.
My father, as most fathers might attest to, was not a perfect father. My dilemma, even as I write these words, is to honor my father in all I say or do…but I also have the need to tell my story as a means of helping someone else who finds themselves thinking as I did. What tore me down in my past, Father God has used to build me up along the way! My experiences with my dad drove me to the place of trying to hide my hurt and to the ability to sneak behind his back so as to avoid the response to my perceived shortcomings that tended to result in the slap of his hand across my face as he lost his temper. Nothing I ever did was ever right or ever seemed good enough to please him. In such moments, I began to think terrible thoughts about myself: that women are not worth much and need to be beaten into submission…deserving only to be pushed around…verbally put down. My thoughts were that others were not as important as him. This was my example—and my first guide—to who I thought I was. His opinion was beaten into my mind—mostly by his words. If he saw me as ugly, I saw myself as ugly. If he thought I was fat, I saw myself in a similar fashion. My conclusion? I was not worth much to him; therefore, I was worthless.
The verbal abuse hurt the most, because it seemed constant, daily reminding me who my father communicated to me I was—whether intentional or not. No matter what I tried to placate him, I could not “fix” it. The gulf between my need for love and acceptance and my desire to please my father left me feeling desperate, insecure, lost, and alone. This desperation led me right down the path to overcompensation—in everything—just to find even a small glimpse of affirmation, love, gentleness, and acceptance from my dad.
As children most often do, I began to identify myself in the image my father spoke and demonstrated to me. Whenever I messed up, I tried to fix it by performing up to his unreachable standards. I was desperate, insecure, and lost. I felt so alone. I overcompensated in everything just to find even a glimpse of affirmation, love, gentleness, and acceptance from my dad. Over time, I began to cover up those cracks with my performance thinking that could fill the void. I had to be the best, the first, the loudest—to be seen and known. Wanting so badly to have acceptance and the affirmation from my father, but not always being treated with the gentleness and comfort that I so desired and deserved, resulted in my poor choices, my sin. I was performing my way through life, the good church girl, smart student, wearing a mask to hide the disgust and shame I felt. I sought out relationships with men thinking the sexual attention I received would build me up and give me confidence when in reality it just left me feeling frightened and used—alone.
Even though my dad said he loved me, he did not always speak to me or respond to me in tones or actions that expressed that love. As is often the case, hurt people hurt people. The way I thought my father perceived me, along with the lies I had believed about myself, coupled with my sin, brought with it a cycle of self-pity. Every time I had an idea or made a mistake, I put myself down instantly. The image that I had for myself was that “I wasn’t good enough!” Whenever conflict came and I felt attacked, I would run away or burst into tears. My longing was that someone would see me as worth defending—worth fighting for. Because of the lies I had believed, I did not have the sword of God’s Truth to protect myself, nor did I understand that my faith in Christ could be a shield for use in protecting myself. I didn’t have the right tools. I had so many wounds that I didn’t think that anything or anyone could fix them. I had tried and tried. My conclusion? If my dad didn’t think I was worth fighting for, if perfection and performance didn’t work, and sex couldn’t give me what I truly needed, was there even hope?
This way of thinking was of course self-focused and deeply wounding. If my dad could only have seen how much I needed his affirmation—not his condemnation. This was my burden as a girl, and this was my burden through high school and college. Even after Dennis and I met and dated off and on through college, I graduated more confused than ever. My relationship with him had seemed so promising, yet even he had let me down. This loss of hope left me absolutely desperate. Diving right into graduate school, the pressure soon got to me and the Lord began to reveal Himself to me in a very tangible way. In His loving way, He kindly led me to realize I had been placing my hope in the wrong things. My hope is not in what my earthly father thinks of me. My hope is not in my performance. My hope is not in people or possessions. When everything was stripped away from me, I came to realize my hope was in God and in God alone. Just as Dennis was experiencing in his own life, God was working in me the very same things. Through the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we were reunited and married soon after.
Soon after Dennis and I were married, the scars had begun to heal, but the cycle of self-pity still reared up its ugly head every time we argued or I perceived he was not pleased with me or I did not measure up or do something “perfectly.” Those childhood memories stayed with me and haunted my every thought and view I had for and of myself. Some of my cracks were still there, needing repair. I remember the exact day when I had my “lightbulb” moment, my Jehovah Tsidkenu, “He is my Righteousness” enlightenment. We had amazing banners at the church we led worship at. During a time of worship, I was standing under the one that said, “I Am—Jehovah Tsidkenu—I Am Your Righteousness.” The Lord was using this special time of pouring my heart out to Him and declaration of who I am while singing Dennis’s song, “You Are My King”:
You are my King
You are my Righteousness
You are my King
You are my Holiness
You are my King
You are my Sanctity
You are my Lord
You are the God of me
You are my reason for being
You are my King
And in that moment, I got it. I really got it! I am all of these things! In Christ, I am holy because He is Holy! I am Righteous because He is righteous! I am all of who He is because I am in Him. I remember how the room felt, how it smelled, all of my senses responding as if being renewed and awakened and heightened in every way; one of those times when there was no doubt the Lord, by His Spirit, was doing a work in me. But that was only the beginning of my renewal process.
The revelation was there, but now I needed tools to help me fight against the lies and negative thought patterns.One area that I started with was recognizing the lies I was believing about myself. I began to lay out how words that had been spoken to me wounded me; how they had shaped the way I thought, and how I treated and responded to others, good or bad. Being a planner, I use lists to help me visualize my plan for action, so I began to make my own list or Truths to help me visualize and recognize the lies for what they were and to replace them with the Truth of God’s Word. No longer was I without tools of restoration and repair, but I had weapons for the spiritual battle being waged for my mind.
Confession is the first step to being free. Honest confession is me presenting my raw and unrefined heart to Him, trusting Him to make me into who He says I am. In that moment, who I am is like a raw gem—like a diamond in the rough. A diamond requires many cuts to create the prisms or facets that create its brilliance. Even after the cutting away of the rough edges, polishing ensues.
Unseen by the naked eye, there are still flaws. Most cannot be seen without some sort of magnification—but the jeweler, the Maker, knows they are there—so, He keeps refining and crushing and polishing and honing until He reaches the desired design. I can trust my Maker because He is the Master Jeweler. He knows my heart and my intentions, the misunderstood. He gets me when even my own family doesn’t. He loves me even when I am lonely—or I think I am.
Do you filter your thoughts, words, or speech? Do you cover up and share just the good parts or do you really get to the root? Your answer to these questions could be the difference between victory and defeat.
So after cutting off the lies and polishing my heart, what is the Truth? Here is my list:
1. Recognize the lie, put it off, and replace it with the Truth.
2. I cannot control everything.
3. Woundings can be a good thing.
4. I don’t quit.
Sin sees to it that we will be wounded in this life. What we choose to do with those woundings is the difference between life and death. Choose to speak life to your own mind. We are people of choice. Growth—living—is a process of constant restoration. Working through this restoration process won’t be easy and will take time. That is okay. The intimacy and work of the Lord can leave us raw, like right after a tattoo (or what I imagine getting a tattoo might by like), and needs time to heal before the beautiful work is finished and revealed. Like the tradition of Kintsugi used to repair the broken ceramic jar, your process will be a journey of healing and the restoration of beauty. It may not look pretty in the beginning, but using the right materials and tools to bring your soul back to life will require a vulnerability that can only be handled by the Maker, the Heavenly Father—the Master Craftsman and True Artisan of your identity. And don’t expect your heart to look like the original piece. Your heart will shift to make room for new life and additions made through this process. Like the once-broken vessel, you will be restored and made new. You won’t look like you did when the process started, but you will be refined in all of the right places. Your imperfections will be covered by God’s grace, instead of shame Your cracks will be filled with the Truth you speak to yourself every day. I am marked eternally by the Word and the work on my heart and spirit. No one can ever take that away. It is permanent. Now, believe that for yourself. Put on the Truth and be made new.
Melinda Jernigan
This is an excerpt from the Dennis Jernigan book, Renewing Your Mind: Identity and the Matter of Choice. It can be purchased at https://www.amazon.com/Renewing-Your-Mind-Identity-Matter/dp/1613143737/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GZNXS5ELN5VZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.AzdEHdBTMOTtUENfsWu4UA.iqW1r7w7iwlGizbjnBz1FgM45tDrmRp4AVQvUh0pUPk&dib_tag=se&keywords=renewing+your+mind+identity+and+the+matter+of+choice+dennis+jernigan&qid=1750857840&sprefix=renewing+your+mind+identity+and+the+matter+of+choice+dennis+jernigan%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1
Photo courtesy of https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2024/08/28/18/31/eye-9004866_1280.jpg