#PreApproved Writer of the Week: Elizabeth Stewart
#PreApproved Sisterhood Series
Welcome to a new series, hosted here on the blog. Every Tuesday night, one of our PreApproved sisters will share her story on letting go of a love idol.
Together, we’re giving up our love idols, and we’re not taking them back.
We are already approved; we have nothing to prove. In Christ, we are #preapproved.
God’s Word is Enough
Elizabeth Stewart
He whispers his insidious lies, not outlandish enough for me to dismiss outright like “there is no God,” for to me, God’s existence is evident all around me. No, Satan is much more clever than that. He crafts his deception to fit my weakness perfectly, then builds his case by pointing to the circumstantial evidence and tries to get me to believe that he is actually speaking the truth. “You are not enough” he breathes into my ear. The evidence to confirm what he says is piled high…
* the fact that Daddy left Mama for another woman when I was nine years old, then adopted a little girl and a little boy with his new wife, replacing not only my mama, but me and my little brother
* the physically awkward stage that lasted from fourth grade for way, way too many years
* graduating third in my class…not quite good enough to be valedictorian or salutatorian
* betrayal by friends
* times of deep trial and testing
* never being able to please everyone in our ministry
“I’m not enough, not enough, not enough…” became common background noise in my mind.
My slimy, sulphur-breathed enemy had just begun his dirty deed, for that little lie is just the tip of the iceberg. What lay beneath was the bigger lie that he tried to get me to swallow. “God’s not enough. Look how He’s failed you. He really dropped the ball on that one, didn’t He? If He really loved you, why did He let this happen? You can’t really trust Him. He’s not enough, not enough, not enough…”
I don’t even remember how I knew what to do to fight Satan’s accusations against God. But, I began to gather my own stack of evidence, evidence to prove my enemy wrong.
I was twenty years old, so young, but already married with a beautiful brown-eyed baby girl, when I took my old green-covered Living Bible and started going through it and marking every verse I could find about God’s love for me with a smiley face. Through the years I marked those same verses in other Bibles with a red-colored pencil heart. I poured over and over and over those verses, and that beautiful love-filled truth trickled right on down from my mind into my heart and began to grow bigger and stronger and louder than all the other voices.
For years and years, I’ve saturated my mind and heart with those smiley face/red-heart-marked truths. The years have turned into decades, and I can look back and clearly see God’s overwhelming love and faithfulness to me. In recent years, I’ve started counting my blessings, noticing and numbering and journaling the everyday evidence of God’s goodness in my life. The evidence of my more-than-enough God is piled so much higher than Satan’s circumstantial evidence to support his lies that I have become fully convinced:
I am pre-approved by my God.
I am overwhelmingly and completely loved by Him. I am rooted and grounded deep in God’s love and His love fills my not enough life right up. He is more than enough.
Elizabeth Stewart loves her life as a passionate Jesus follower, pastor’s wife, mama, nana, Bible teacher and mentor and writer/blogger.
She and her husband have three beautiful daughters, two great sons-in-law and four of the most wonderful grandkids in the whole world with another grandbaby on the way.
THE LOVE IDOL MOVEMENT
Click here to find out more about the Love Idol movement.
Click here to purchase the book that inspired the movement.
Click here to join us on Facebook as we lay down our Love Idols and declare our #preapproved status in Christ.
THE PRINTABLES
Click here to print the black and white preapproved cutouts.
Place these where ever your Love Idols have lurked!
A pink PreApproved printable: to frame, to put on your refrigerator, to give to a friend.
Click here to print. My gift to you, brave soul!
Love this post, Elizabeth. Your little bio needs to be updated that you have 5 adorable grandchildren : )
I know! I wrote this a few months ago for Jennifer’s Love Idol series and our little guy wasn’t born yet.
Oh Elizabeth! How did I miss your post here? Well I did take a few days away from the computer….. Your story, pricked my heart. The things that the enemy wanted to use to destroy you, God will use to bring Himself glory! Amazing grace how sweet the sound… I hear Him singing over you… Love you so!
I know that these truths are familiar to you and sustained you through you own times of trial. Thank God for His Word and His great love!
Your story is amazing how you pursued God and His truths to defeat Satan’s lies. It especially touches me because I relate on so many different levels. I have had rough family times and am married at 20 years old. I am so thankful that God is more than enough to sustain us in this life!!
Thanks so much for reading my post. Start young filling your mind with the truth of how God feels about you. When you are firmly rooted in His love you won’t be easily shaken by circumstances.
🙂 I will definitely take this advice to heart.
I love how, in marking the pages of your Bible all those years, you can go back and see your story tucked in this bigger love story of God’s. This is beauty, right here.
Elizabeth, thank you for the reminder to saturate our minds with the truth and to count our blessings. It is simple but so easy for to go through seasons of wandering from doing that which brings such abundant life.
I’m one of those who can fall prey to those lies that don’t full on confront my faith with the “big B” beliefs, but get me on the “little b” beliefs – the lies that make me doubt the promises of God.
Elizabeth, You wrote so intimately about this terrible struggle we all face.
He crafts his deception to fit my weakness perfectly, then builds his case by pointing to the circumstantial evidence and tries to get me to believe that he is actually speaking the truth.
This where My personal downward spiral much later in in life, but nearly took me down.
You also wrote victory. I am learning to fight the lies and live in victory. My heart breaks for women who are still bound in those chains. Thank you friend.