Yesterday, I found the first book I ever wrote. I made it out of thick construction paper, each page carefully illustrated with markers or crayons. On the cover, I glued a picture of myself. I was in second grade. I’m wearing a yellow shirt with the school’s mascot a koala on it. Back then, my hair was long, stark white, and I had large bangs my mom used to cut by placing a bowl on top of my head. She’d trim around its edges and voila! It was fashion.
As my only daughter danced around me while I read the book to her, my attention stayed on the memory of this little girl who was just trying to make her way in the world. I returned to the cover, gazing into my own eyes, realizing that all these beliefs I held were to protect her. I wanted to keep her safe. I wanted to tell her she was loved just as she was. I wanted somehow to fix a banner of truth permanently over her heart, pointing her to a life lived without fear.
I realized in that moment that she did the best she could.
Do you need to hear that? You did the best you could.
I took that photo and taped it to the back of my journal. I didn’t want to forget her. Now that little girl who needed to be held is held most tangibly. I bring her to the Lord time and time again, reminding her that despite everything, we’re not doing it alone. And all the beliefs that had long taken care of her, they can live at peace. Another has stepped in: Jesus. His protection is steady, faithful, and unconditional. I remind her of that, when it’s needed. I point her to this truth.
- We are safe.
If searching your inner world for these beliefs feels too difficult, it might help to think of a time when you felt the most rejected or abandoned. Do you have a photo that represents that time in your life?
When you look at this photo, what do you see?
What does this version of yourself need to tell you?
What is it that this version of you needs to be free?
Has this version of you been brought to Jesus?
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We can easily feel our wounds. But we can struggle to feel God working in our lives.
In Exodus 17, we see the Israelites fight against the Amalekites, who are intimidating foes. Moses stands atop a hill overlooking this battle with the staff of God in his hands. He acts as a signal to his men and, centuries later, for us too. As he lifts his hands, the men prevail, but when he lowers them, the Amalekites begin to win. Moses begins to grow tired, so Aaron and Hur flank his sides, helping him hold up his arms until the battle is won.
In honor of God and this victory, Moses builds an altar and names it “The Lord is my banner.”
Though Moses had the help of Aaron and Hur, he recognized that it was the presence of God that led them to overcome. God brought them through. In fact, it was by Aaron and Hur that the Lord worked. He gave Moses strength by sending others to stand by him.
We can do the same in our own lives. We can look across the battleweary territory in our hearts and build an altar.
God’s presence can become our banner too.
He sustains us. He carries us through. Like Moses, we might also admit and accept that, at times, we need someone to hold us when we grow tired, when the load becomes too much. We need people who can support us and share their strength with us. Sometimes we need someone who can carry our story and hold it close.
Who might be willing to help us? Who already has?
At times when I felt like I couldn’t rely on others, I fought to cling to the few people I could. I had my husband. I had a therapist. I had just a few friends I could trust. They could hold my story and me unflinchingly curse words and all.
I knew that without fail, they would point me to truth and to Christ. In them, I saw the presence of God.
Some days I would stand in the kitchen with my husband drinking a cup of coffee, once again reexamining the stories that still hurt. With my therapist, I would ask the questions I was too afraid to say out loud and share the worst of the worst. As for my friends, they’d patiently listen to my insecurities. I found comfort in their company.
Each of these places was safe a space where I could see and be seen.
Eventually, you begin to believe what the people around you have been telling you. Where you might see a problem to be solved, they see someone who can be loved just as they are.
It didn’t hit me until after a rather intense therapy session when my counselor asked me, “Tabitha, I wonder if you have always felt on the sidelines. Have you always felt like you didn’t belong? And on the other hand, can you think of any time when you felt like you did?”
For a minute, I sat there thinking through the last three decades. I had always, it seemed, had a sense of not fitting in of being excluded.
However, we talked about how, in many cases, my experience of rejection didn’t always fit someone’s experience of me. There were times when I would feel left out by a friend, only to call to ask her about it and find out it wasn’t what it seemed. There were times when I would think someone absolutely hated me, and then I would be invited out to coffee by them later that week. It was disorienting. I couldn’t quite make sense of it. When I looked long enough, an abundance of evidence showed that despite what I felt, I had actually been welcome and accepted.
In other sessions, we had been working through the idea that there was a strong possibility that I was neurodivergent. All that means is that I can experience the world differently than others, possibly due to undiagnosed ADHD.
She said to me, “Tabitha, it could be highly likely that because of the way your brain functions, you may have seen the world through a lens that doesn’t always match its reality.”
You don’t have to be neurodivergent to have written a story about your life in which you’re always rejected, never included, or never thought of. In fact, at every moment, we’re all forming stories about the people around us, the experiences we have had, and the way it makes us feel.
But are they true?
I leaned back in my chair and didn’t say anything. I was speechless. I hadn’t ever thought of that. I had created this world I had been living in. And now that I could see it more fully, I understood that I could rebuild it. I could reclaim it. I didn’t have to live my life this way with this perspective - any longer.
- This is the hope of Christ in our lives. He opens our eyes so we can see.
Christ helps us see the way we have lived and now can live rehabilitated and rewritten.
Jesus sets His banner over us and calls us forth into life, prophetically fulfilling Isaiah 11:10,
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His resting place will be glorious.
We don’t have to live at war with ourselves. Jesus, Messiah the Root of Jesse offers us rest. He offers us a place of peace after we’ve been hurt and disappointed. We don’t have to work so hard to be loved. We don’t have to try so hard to belong.
Beloved is the banner under which we reside. Belonging is its gift to us.
The Lord ushers us into an abundant life where we have everything we could possibly need. Song of Solomon 2:4 says,
Let Him lead me to the banquet hall, and let His banner over me be love.
Jesus rewrites our stories, one of power and love, and not of fear (2 Timothy 1:7).
We can introduce to Christ each belief that we hold that hasn’t yet met Christ’s love. And each of these parts can be given a new name, a new song, and a declaration of triumph:
Instead of ashes, a garland.
Instead of rejected, beloved.
Instead of forsaken, His.
Instead of mourning, the oil of gladness.
Instead of a faint spirit, a mantle of praise.
Instead of abandoned, held and embraced.
We become pursued, seen, and wanted.
Under these banners and in this story, we move into a place of healing instead of hiding in the shadows and instead of running away. We move out of misery and into confidence.
These banners lead us into taking steps toward embodying the life, death, and resurrection of Christ in our hearts and hands.
Christ raises the standard for how we are to live. He raises this banner over us. And under this banner, we are grounded; we get to live at peace with ourselves.
To whom do we belong? Christ.
Whose power and authority stands behind us? The Messiah’s.
Who directs our lives toward goodness and wholeness?
The Lord.
We may have been divorced from those we love, abandoned by our family or friends, betrayed by the systems that raised us, but “though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me” (Psalm 27:10).
Christ carries the weight of our burdens. He will either send others on His behalf to hold us up or do so Himself.
Excerpted with permission from Loyal in His Love by Tabitha Panariso, copyright Tabitha Panariso.
Your Turn
Let yourself be held by Jesus today. Let His banner of love fly over you. No matter who has rejected you in the past, you’ll never be rejected by Him! He loves you! ~ Devotionals Daily