Define your IT then, “Just Get Over IT!”

photo credit: Mr Tickle – Wachoo Wachoo Tribe Congressman

Just Get Over IT!

Chapter 1-Define your IT!

Defining your IT is a lot like the person who goes to their first AA meeting and sits down with the assembled group as they one-by-one stand up and come to the podium and states, “Hello, my name is John Doe and I am an Alcoholic!” You see, you cannot define it, if you will not acknowledge it exists! It is so comical how people talk about neighbors, relatives, friends, strangers in the mall and the poor soul on TV about how dysfunctional they are. We can see it in everyone. We can see it especially in our spouse’s family or our friend’s children. We have so many thoughts on how we would do things differently if it were my kids, my parents, or my in-laws! It is amazing how we have 20-20 vision looking outside the window, but we are blind when we look into the mirror.

Jesus put this in perspective and really grabbed his crowd’s attention when he spoke the following words that gave a picture image which would have brought forth some laughter in the crowd as they recognized their own outward focus when he said in Matthew chapter 7: 2-6, “And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brothers eye.”(NASB)

To put this in today’s understanding would be like a person having an eyelash in their eye and another person with a telephone pole protruding out of their eye trying to assist the person to get the eyelash out. This would be a ridiculous situation, wouldn’t you agree? We would point, stare, laugh and joke about a person so foolish to think that they could, at a minimum, hold that telephone pole up off of the ground, much less maneuvering it around and trying their best not to knock the other person unconscious in the process! Unfortunately, we must all confess that we have done this on many occasions.

Jesus also calls them Hypocrites. When we think of a hypocrite, we visualize a person who speaks one way and acts another. When Jesus spoke this in the First Century, he was using something they would understand and could visualize. First Century actors would use masks in a play. If the scene called for an actor to be happy, then they would put a mask with a smile carved into it and hold it up over their faces. In essence, Jesus was saying to the man with the protrusion out of his eye, “Dear sir, you are as an actor on the stage.” You have problems underneath the mask, but the mask is portraying you as happy. You have issues under that mask that you need to deal with first before you try to correct the issues that your friend has.

So, to begin your healing process you must realize that it is mandatory to take the mask off and the telephone pole out of your eye right now so you can see more clearly. When the mask and pole are gone, you will be gazing into the mirror with a clear view of a person in need to confess that they have an it and even greater a need to define it! Please do not feel alone, and thinking you are the only person reading this book with an it. Everyone has an it, and most of us have multiple its!

The life issues which I have defined as our its, began approximately 6000 years ago and continue to this day. The story we all have heard and some of us have read about in children’s church is in regards to our forefather and mother, Adam and Eve. In the garden there was absolute perfection. Not a hair out of place and not a freckle to be found. They were graciously given everything they could ever need or desire in that garden. They had food to eat and seeds to grow more. with such variety that there should not have been a desire for anything more. The colors I imagine were brilliant and inviting to the eyes for this couple. I cannot even speculate the exquisite and undefiled taste of those fruits, nuts and figs in their state of perfection! They had a sense of purpose, tilling and keeping the garden. They had each other and were commanded by the Lord to go and multiply and fill the earth. Now that has to occupy some time and attention! They could do virtually anything except for one thing. The Lord told Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because when he did he would surely die.

Well, you know the rest of the story. Not very long afterwards they made a willful decision and disobeyed the Lord and ate it! That’s right, they ate it. That was the beginning of it. The Garden of Eden is where it started and proceeded from. You see, since Adam and Eve ate it and you are their children’s, children’s, children….. Then you have it within you and have passed it along to your kids as well.

So, I commended you that you were right! Your neighbors, friend’s kids, strangers in the mall and all of those people on TV have it as well. Now don’t you feel better knowing that you are not in it all alone? Now that we realize that we are in this together, we can take our masks off and be direct with one another. It is imperative to understand that to begin the healing process you must now, “Define your it!”

Well, we authors are real good about telling you what to do and not telling you how to do it. So, I would now enjoy helping you understand how to define it and, consequently, how to JUST GET OVER IT! .

How do you define it ? Well, you first must be able to recognize it. It can be a person, a specific problem, insecurities, fear, hurt, discouraging words, guilt, physical challenges, emotional scars, anger, shyness and a laundry list of other challenges that this life can bring. It is those life challenges that make your it unique to you.
Your personal challenges are specific to you even though others have experienced the same life “hurdles.” I found this out the hard way. Just because I had some challenging experiences with my dad (more about this in chapter 2) did not mean that I understood those of others. To explain this I will tell you of a valuable life lesson of mine that I trust will help you. I lost my job due to my position being moved out of town. I did not relocate my family, so I began searching for another job. I prayed diligently and the only door that was opened to me was in the funeral business. I learned many valuable life lessons there. (Probably enough for a good book, too.)

We had A gentleman that died and I answered the “Death Call.” A death call is where a family or facility calls the funeral home and the Funeral Director sends the person on duty out to retrieve the body of the deceased and bring them to the Funeral Home and prepare the body for the mortician. I brought this gentleman into the Funeral Home early that morning about 3:00 am. I went back home and was able that night to get a couple of hours sleep. I was working that day as well, so I got back up and went to work at 8:00 am. We contacted the daughter who was out of state and she seemed distant. Not just mileage but emotionally distant to the point of coming across as uncaring and cold toward her dad’s demise. We called her to request permission to embalm the body as he had now been deceased more than eight hours. Due to Rigormortis you only have a small window of opportunity to work on the body before it is simply too late to have a successful embalming procedure.
We waited all day for that daughter to call back. I had the responsibility of going back and checking on the body all day long. Now, this is very morbid, but it will help you understand my feelings and thoughts about the situation. I literally watched this man’s body go from an ashy gray to a dark blue to a darker color that one cannot really explain in words. This man was decaying on this stainless steel table, and we were helpless to do anything about it! Even I would not let this happen to my dad even though we had severe issues.
Several conversations with the daughter proved to me that she was not a nice person. I made several negative comments to one of the other funeral directors in charge of this service, and he did not respond to them. We finally got the approval from the daughter to embalm her dad later in the day. It was close to being too late for us to refresh his decomposing body, but the mortician on duty, with a great deal of care, was able to bring this man’s body back to a fleshy color that was presentable to family and friends for viewing. The daughter arrived and I acted professional; however, I still had negative feelings toward her. The funeral director spent the necessary time with her in the arrangement office to finalize the services we would conduct for her. She left the building, and the director in charge of the arrangements and I proceeded to the laboratory to dress, place, and then present his body in the family room for visitation later that evening.

As we were making the final touches on his garments and making sure he was presentable to the family, the funeral director told me about his conversation with the daughter as she was completing her dad’s arrangements. She was very emotional as she shared a family secret with that director. When I heard it I was mortified, no pun intended, and embarrassed about my former feelings about her. She told the director that her dad had molested and raped her for years, and she had to come to terms with it, before she could take care of his arrangements with a right heart.

Needless to say from that day forward I never assumed again how someone feels or try to guess why they say or make the decisions they do in any circumstance. Through this I learned that it is best never to say to a person in a difficult situation,” I know how you feel,” even if you are experiencing what appears to be identical circumstances. What it looks like on the outside can be much different on the inside!” Also, we all come from different backgrounds and family dynamics that give us our unique perceptions. I took away several meaningful life lessons from this job. One you and I do not know how someone feels in times of loss, hurt, or pain just because you had a similar experience. Two, the best thing you can do, especially at a funeral, is to not say a word. Just be there for them and listen. Silence can be the most powerful statement you will ever make!

Defining some of your its may be quite simple because they are raw and on the surface or they feel like twenty foot monsters stepping on your shoulders or chest. Other its can be very subtle and hard to pin down. Even worse, you can put them in mental filing cabinets and store them deep into the back of the drawer of your mind and they may even be forgotten to some degree. I would encourage you to take out a pen and paper at this point so that you can begin to speak out loud the things that upset you as a child, growing up, or currently, as a young person or full-grown adult still dealing with a past or present hurt. Say and write the obvious things that have hurt you. Jot down the name of the person, persons, institutes or things that hurt you. Make a list of discouraging words spoken into your life by people that mean the most to you or have some influence in your life. Remember the hurts of past or present loves. Think of emotional battles that you continue to deal with, such as fear, timidity, shyness, anger, an inferiority complex, and so forth.

There is something powerful about writing this down. It makes it legitimate. It brings it out into the open. It makes it real. It is the beginning of a confession to yourself and the starting line of the race. I should tell you though that speaking and writing these things on paper may bring up suppressed emotions that you have filed away for years. The reason there is no healing is that you have not confessed their presence.
Many of us in the Christian faith have been taught not to speak about it and maybe it will go away with enough prayer. Do not pay attention to it or confess it or it will take over your life. That really is contrary to what the Bible says. Jesus said to the disciples, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed (the smallest seed in that geographic area that brings forth what looks like a tree so large that birds can perch in it) you can say (speak) to that mountain, and command that it be cast into the sea, and it will.”

I have a personal story that I would like to share to illustrate this statement that Jesus made. My wife did not tell me for a long time that she had several lumps on her breast. She had prayed for healing continuously and didn’t understand why God had not taken away this affliction. So she kept this serious problem to herself and prayed alone. One day after much prayer she felt strongly impressed by the Lord to, “Speak” to that mountain and “Then” it will be removed! Up to this point she had tried to deny the existence of the “mountain.” Upon confession of the mountain, which in her case was a lump in her breast, the infirmity began to shrink until it was completely gone. Unfortunately, you do not always receive healing this quickly, and some never receive healing at all. Still, you cannot allow it to control you or set your destiny.
In the proverbs the Lord says,” I know the plans I have for you. Plans to do you good and not evil.” You must come under the covering of God’s Holy Word and its influence, power, and control over your life. You have overcome in Christ’s love. He has overcome the world and you through Him have overcome the world as well. That is a past tense statement because it has already been accomplished through Christ’s resurrection, and if you are in Christ then you currently have overcome, too, whether you feel like it or not.

Speaking of this I think we need to discuss in brevity your feelings and how useless they are in your life. Feelings and emotions are in your old nature. Your old nature is fallen and sinful. Your old nature is susceptible of being deceived. It will lie to you. It will get you into trouble. As a matter of fact the area (soul) of your feelings and emotions is where it resides and has set up its headquarters. This is where it dispatches the information, thoughts, feelings, and experiences of our lives to come up with its reasonings. It takes us reading God’s Holy Word to diminish its negative influence and wash us clean and begin laying a new foundation based on truth that will never lie to you.

Another point I would like to make about defining your it is that many times it is not often the outward symptom but an underlining and many times subtle issue hiding underneath. For instance, it may be that you deal with outbursts of anger when the problem does not deserve that kind of response? You are going along in life and things seem to be looking good for you, and then, out of nowhere, a small problem hits or something just does not go the way you wanted it to or you’re trying to repair something around the house and you have no control over the situation, then “Bam!” Out of no where you are torn out of your frame and ready to tear something else out of its frame. Afterwards you are remorseful and ashamed that such a small problem can get to you so quickly. You may tell yourself that you have anger issues. Well, that is most definitely an outward expression, but is it truly the root of the problem? Is anger really your true it? Maybe it is, but maybe there is something much deeper growing in the dark undetected region of your subconscious. It could be that your it is the fact that your dad never took time to teach you how to repair or work on household or mechanical problems and when these problems arise and you can’t get it repaired, then that underlying hurt toward your dad comes out of hiding and rears its ugly head through anger. In the end it is not anger at all but un-forgiveness and/ or resentment. The reason I am aware of this is because the illustration I just gave is about me.
My dad never spent time with me at all. He rarely ever let me hold his tools and explain to me what he was doing and how to repair a broken item around the house. The only two times I ever remember him allowing me to participate with him I did not do it right and he yelled at me with frustration and what I perceived as disgust. So, I never put myself in that situation again and built a wall of protection. Well I never learned how to repair anything and because of the lack of opportunity as a young boy when I grew into a young man I was very careful not to put myself into situations that would show my ignorance.
You see, guys are supposed to know the difference between a radiator and an alternator. I simply did not know nor did I care. Well, until I had car problems and then I would have to go to an automotive shop. When you go to an automotive shop, the person behind the counter always has to ask you thirteen additional questions about your car, such as how many cylinders, the make, model, year, engine size, small block, large block, and on and on it goes. This would only ignite my anger and insecurities even more. My rage in my early years was palpable. It is only by God’s grace that I have grown in this area at all.
I want to be honest with you since we are becoming friends. To this day I still have to deal with this issue in my life. Even after having forgiven my dad and growing past our personal problems, when I cross a mechanical problem around the house I have to pray that the Lord will give me wisdom and patience to see it through. I also ask my wife and kids to leave the house since I must have complete silence and no distractions. Christmas time and birthdays are stressful times for me with the kid’s toys I have to assemble. If it is at all possible, I try to see if I can pay someone at the store to assemble the item for me. When I have to assemble the items, I still sometimes wish I could get a hold of the engineers that put those instructions together! Now, when I get frustrated with something, I jokingly look up and say, “Thanks Dad.” Then I laugh at the situation and say to myself, “Jeff, just get over IT!”

Once you have defined your it and have written it down, you can begin assigning biblical principals to it as strategies. When I train people to “Conceive, Believe, and Achieve,” I instruct them that they must put feet on their dreams and desires. A dream will remain just that unless we create a plan and work that plan. I encourage people to take out a piece of paper and write down at least one of their dreams or life goals no matter how silly or ridiculous it might be to others. When we write down our goals, it is as if we have just written out a contract to ourselves whereby we are obligated to perform on this agreement and bring it to success! I them ask them to write out to the side of their goal at least three steps they will take in the next thirty days to get the ball in motion.
When these are completed and the goal has not been attained, I usually find that the participants have gotten caught up into making their dream a reality and they are self-motivated to continue pursuing and attempting to apprehend that goal. These same principles can apply to what we are discussing today. When you have narrowed down to a point your it; I would encourage you to go to God’s word and find a correlating scripture that will be your strategy. If you are not well versed in the Bible at this point in your life, then find someone who is. Maybe you have a family member that is knowledgeable or your pastor could help you. When your strategy is in alignment with God’s Holy Word then you will have a promise joined with His power to point you in the right direction, place you on the right path, and guide you to victory where you will receive the prize of peace and healing. This is a journey not a jaunt. This is a long distance race not a sprint. We live in a fast- paced world with fast food and microwaves, and we want it done yesterday. Sometimes you can get quick results and a weight taken off of you; however, if this is a real problem and you have dealt with it for years, then it will probably take you some time to put the reins on it so you can control it rather than it controlling you.
The hope is that Jesus said that He is the Author and Finisher of your faith. He will see you through whatever it is. It is a relationship where we confess our needs to Him, and He will carry us to our final destination. King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs, “Man makes his plans but it is the Lord who guides his path.” We do have a part to play in our healing and that part is confessing the issue and doing what the Lord asks us to do. It really is pretty simple but it can be difficult. In the next chapter I will discuss my it and relate to you the difficulties you will face through this process but also the results that you will enjoy as well. So, get your hurdling shoes on because there are some obstacles ahead!
Jeff Clay
aka/Jumpin Jeff