Westerns don’t normally interest me, but this film drew me in. There was one scene, in particular, that grabbed my attention.

One of the main characters in the film is Charlie Waite (played by Kevin Costner). He’s a Cowboy trying to escape a past filled with pain and regret. During the night, he has a nightmare of being attacked by a masked gunman. The woman, whose house he was staying in, heard Charlie stirring and tried to wake him up. Startled, Charlie momentarily mistook the woman for the man in his dream and drew his pistol on her.

The next morning at breakfast, Charlie apologized to the woman. He went on to explain that he was trying to put some bad times behind him “but sometimes they don’t stay put.” The woman paused for a moment and then spoke these profound words to Charlie,

“Always make me feel better to let things breathe a little—not bury them.”

As a counselor, I couldn’t have said it better. When we bury and try to suffocate the painful realities of life, they start to own us in ways that are not good. It’s best to let them “breathe a little.”

Facing our pain is not about becoming bitter and angry. It’s about putting our hearts in a honest position where we can begin to heal.

Whatever it is, leaning into our pain and letting it breath allows deep lies and false interpretations of events to surface so they can be identified, challenged, and replaced with what it is true. It’s a difficult process for sure, but it allows God to speak into our painful places and bring truth that heals our wounded hearts.

Is there a pain you need to let breathe?

Cha-ching, cha ching.

This one hit me pretty hard. Not only was it forcing me to spend money I don’t have, the unseen forces of darkness used it to lie to my heart and pit me against God. Questions like  ”How could You let this happen again?” or  ”Are You truly for me?” or “Do You really care?” began to surface in me.

I’m normally “the glass is half full” kind of person, but it got sort of dark and negative there for awhile.  At one level, I was aware that I was sinking inside, but a part of me (not the redeemed part) just didn’t care.

Hours after hearing the bad news, God began to remind me in little ways that He was and is still there. No, He didn’t suddenly fix my car (although I would’ve have been up for that). But He sent a person across my path that made me aware of a less expensive option. Another friend prayed for me and against the lies that were assaulting my heart. Later on I learned how God graciously provided for my wife when the car broke down on the side of a busy road. And what may seem to be unrelated, a person who is typically cold and unfriendly, unexpectedly cracked a smile and joked with me.

It’s not always easy to spot, but God’s kindness was all over these things. Slowly, the truth of Who He really is (a compassionate God who promises to never fail or abandon us—Hebrews 13:5) began to confront and replace the lies that had seeped into my soul.

Looking back, it was the truth of His kindness in the little things that snapped me out my funk and brought me back to Him.

“Who are you? Who, who…who, who?

The words strike me as more than a line from a catchy tune by the British band The Who. The lyrics actually raise a core question-do we know who we really are?

It’s an important question. And answering it is not as simple as rattling off the basic information found on our passport—name, address, etc. There’s a lot more to us.

For instance, the opening pages of the Bible tell us that we bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). The Bible also tells us that “we are God’s offspring” (Acts 17:28). In other words, who we are is wrapped up in being one of God’s kids. And those of His offspring, who have found forgiveness and restoration through Jesus Christ, can learn to walk in the peace and the joy and the purpose of a new life in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Reading what the Bible says about us is truly good news. And I wish it were that simple. The problem is there are other destructive messages that come to us in various ways that compete with some of the things we read about ourselves in the pages of Scripture. As we’ve gone through life in a broken world, we’ve all heard lies that cause us to doubt who we really are; false messages that say we’re nothing or unwanted; half-truths that seduce us into believing there is something deeply flawed and unredeemable in us.

So…who are you? What are the messages you’ve heard? A lot is riding on the answers we end up with. If we don’t know what God really thinks of us, we will continue to live far less than who He intended us to be.