Can You Change What You Believe About Who You Are?

I’ve talked before about how I wasn’t a math person but became a math teacher after my husband left. When my back was against the wall and I needed to put food on the table to feed my kids, I found I could do things I never imagined possible. Math certification is just one of those things.

When my husband left, he shattered everything I believed was true about myself, our life, and what I thought was true. He shattered my sense of safety and identity and worth.

It was a horrible, devastating time.

There were times I literally didn’t think I’d survive and certainly didn’t want to.

But I also knew my life is not my own. Our Lord created me, and, for that, I owe Him something. I needed to push through and keep going no matter how hard life got or how dark things were.

If you’re in that spot right now, I am writing this specifically for you because I know how awful that place can be.

I write about math certification because obtaining it had clear parameters. I clearly thought I was not “enough” to learn math and could clearly see I was “good enough” to pass each class I took. I received that external validation. As each class finished, passing grades piled up, and I drew closer to the 60 required credits, I learned I was capable of things I did not know I could do.

Most of life gives doesn’t us those clear pass/fail delineations though. There are a lot of gray areas. We are asked to step forward without assurance of success.

That can be scary.

But here is something I realized about what I owe God. It’s not just that I owe Him my life. I owe Him trust with what I can do in that life.

That means, I trust Him to challenge me.

Sometimes those challenges come in big ways, through the disappearance of a man I loved so much, the collapse of the family I lived for, and the loss of what I believed was true about myself.

It feels like free falling with no end in sight. Breathing is difficult. There is nothing to grasp onto. You’re not sure where the bottom is or if you’ll survive the landing.

But you choose to trust in God

And He opens doors, removes obstacles, and introduces you to people you wouldn’t have known otherwise.

You start to realize you’re not alone in the struggle.

You start to see some people rise and others continue to fall, spiraling further and faster.

You look at the differences and wonder what makes some people rise and others fall. You realize that circumstances alone are not the sole predictor of our response to them.

It’s simply that some people look at their circumstances and realize something needs to change. They look at possible pathways and choose the challenging one.

This is true of the family in financial distress who chooses rice and beans over dining out.

It’s true of the addict who chooses accountability rather than pornography.

It’s true of the husband who chooses honesty and work in his Marriage rather than affirmation from an affair partner.

If it’s true of those situations, we have to ask if it is true of us to.

We have to look at our situations and ourselves and challenge the easy path.

That means challenging the beliefs we hold about ourselves, our worth and what we are capable of.

For me, it began with math certification, but it did not end there.

It’s a daily opening of the mind to things we believe about ourselves, others, and the world around us. It’s the silent thoughts that scream to us all day long:

• You’re not good enough.
• That will never work.
• He’s doing it again.
• You’re not smart/pretty/funny, like her.

The lies can seem endless.

The only way to counter them is to challenge them with truth.

When something tells you you’re not good enough and God tells you to step out in faith, you take the next step. You may fail on your first and second and thirtieth attempt, but if you have discerned that God is asking you to do it, trust that there is a reason. Either you will succeed or you will learn something good in the attempts.

This isn’t to say you do what God doesn’t tell you to do. Often people fail at things they were never meant to do.

If I jump out of a window because I want to prove I am “good enough” to fly, that is not trust in God; that is foolishness.

2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

That means we measure our beliefs, especially about ourselves, our loved ones, and our relationships, through the eyes of God.

We reject those that tell us to fly out windows, and we also reject those that tell us we not good enough, incapable, or unworthy.

We learn to see challenges as opportunities to rise rather than interpreting every difficulty as rejection or failure. We do what we don’t want to do because it is good. We escape our comfort zones to discover ideals we didn’t know existed.

We trust Our Lord with our outcomes by taking the next step when the path is unclear, and we learn the power of growth that doesn’t end with modern psychology’s concept of growth mindset.

It leads us beyond modern psychology’s concept of growth mindset to the ancient Catholic concept of metanoia, a turning of the mind and heart toward God and a life of ongoing conversion and transformation in Christ.

Romans 12:2 tells us:

“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect”

Our Lord always calls us deeper.

He calls us deeper than comfort, deeper than our beliefs, deeper than mindset.

He calls us to transformation and renewal. He calls us to discern what is good and pleasing and perfect.

He calls us to metanoia.

Math certification taught me I was capable of more than I thought I was.

Metanoia teaches me I am worth more than I think I am.

There are influencers who will tell you they found the path to what is good and pleasing and perfect. They found their own personal metanoias.

I’m not one of them.

I am a work in progress.

I try to challenge myself every day to do something I don’t want to do or that I don’t think I am capable of.

It may be a workout that pushes my limits or a phone call I don’t want to make or seeing the face of Jesus in that person I have such a hard time loving.

But that is where my growth comes. That is where I feel the muscles of transformation develop.

I look forward to the day my transformation is complete, when I my mind is fully renewed and I no longer live with fear or doubt. I suspect that will only come in Heaven with Jesus.

In the meantime, He is not asking me, or you, to sit around waiting for that day.

He is calling us to rise, to change our mindsets, to step out in faith, to choose the harder path when it is the good path, to believe.

He is asking us to trust in Him.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do have trust. I am ready to do the next hard thing and step up to challenges before me. I am ready to contest the thoughts that tell me I am not good enough, incapable, or unworthy. I am ready to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

And I am open to being transformed in Him.

What about you? What beliefs about yourself or others hold you back? What does Christ say about those beliefs? What is He asking you to do about them today?

I love to hear people’s stories, stories of overcoming and stories of struggle. Wherever you are in your journey, I’d love to hear from you.

God Bless…

Kerri

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