More Than Survivors

"With Christ, you are not a survivor.  You are an overcomer and have the victory." -Pastor Sharon Cornelius

I often have heard that when you struggle and came through it, then you are a survivor.  You beat whatever it was in life that was trying to beat you.  However, after I heard my pastor say this, I looked up the definition of "survivor."  It describes someone who continues to function (or prosper) in spite of opposition, setbacks or hardships. 

I survived a stroke before I was born.  I have been able to figure out how to accomplish tasks so that I can do the things I aim.  I function.  If that wasn't enough, life threw more curveballs smothered in spit; words tied to my identity that I yearned to acclaim, but were never enough.  I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered where my worth was.  It seems to be a constant cycle.  Get hit with something, and then try to find out the truth about yourself.  Own it...At least for a while.  Then you're back to square one.  Again. 

Honestly, can't I be done with it already?

The problem with seeing myself merely as a survivor is that I am just functioning in the midst of the lies that the devil weighs on me.  I am reminded how I "should" see myself, rather than fully know how God, my Creator Daddy, actually sees me.  You can tell me I'm beautiful all you like, but there is that thought that remembers how as a little girl, someone told me that to be fat equals ugliness.  Sheesh.  No wonder I didn't eat cheese in high school, and would grab whatever flab I had in disgust.  I knew I had good things in me, but I was unfortunately also very well aware of the abilities and talents of others, so I often shied away from using my own to bless others, and for God's glory.  Always yearning to be wanted for who she was, I aimed to be the perfect daughter, friend, teacher.  And if I faltered in some manner, then I believed I deserved to reprimand myself. 

Yeah, I survived.  I functioned. 

I wasn't just meant to function.  To see myself in that piece of reflective glass, breathe in some sigh of strength to just get through the day.  Life is hard sometimes.  Hellish at some points.  But this mentality of functioning leaves me in a state of inward restlessness while hiding underneath a rock, because I don't know if I can truly trust myself to be who Christ meant for me to be in front of everyone.  

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  - Romans 8:37-39

 Christ had died, resurrected, and redeemed everything sin I committed and overcame all the lies of the enemy.  I am not who people said I was.  I am not who the devil tries to convince me who I am.  Though things may get me down, and life may press me in all sorts of different directions where I feel like I am lost, I AM NOT CRUSHED (2 Corinthians 4:8).  I am a conqueror.  To conquer means "to win, to vanquish (to defeat completely)."  As a conqueror in Christ, it is a dead and done deal.  I can cry out, "NO MORE!!!" and that be the end of it.  Period.  

I am a new creation, therefore I do not have to have the things that held me back continue to chain me down.  This is easier said than done, sometimes, though.  I still have to remind myself who I am and who I am because of and in Jesus.  But I am remembering more often.  More often is good.  I am learning to not believe that the girl I once was is the woman I always will have to be.  I am continuing to press on, and be who God made me to be.  When the devil comes to "chat it up", I do not fight these lies on my own.  Jesus already gained the victory,  and therefore, I have already won it in Him.