Get Unwrapped!
By Judy Gillis
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About this ebook
Ever wonder - as a Christian - where is the abundant life that Jesus promised? whether it's all a matter of "The Emperor's New Clothes?" or wondered whether God plays favorites because there are some people who just automatically "get it" and those (like you perhaps) who just "don't"?
This book is for you.
Ever try and try and try again to live that abundant life, with trip after trip to the altar to lay it all down again, and fail Every Single Time?
This book is for you, too.
Ever try to change someone in your life? Ever pray and then try to influence the outcome? Ever feel like you're the only one in your church who, if people really got to know you, they'd never have anything to do with you? Ever feel so incredibly weary, like you have the weight of the whole world (or of your whole family) on your shoulders?
Yes, this book is for you.
In "Get Unwrapped!", Judy Gillis pierces through the facades and gets to the root of the matter. She uses her own experience to come alongside and help you get from that place of despair and brokenness that you don't dare show anyone else, and travel the road to wholeness and healing from the inside out.
The journey won't be easy. But if you commit to the path Judy shares with you, it will be worth it.
Judy Gillis
I am a Christian wife, mother, singer, musician, author, and friend - and much more, to my great surprise. God has brought me through so much in my life and especially since February 2009, healed me of a lifetime of being wrapped up in self-righteousness, in rules and in trying to control or influence or rescue the people I cared about. A private person by nature, I try not to "toot my own horn." Writing this book is my way of "tooting God's horn." I hope that you will purchase my book and that you will be helped by it. And stop by my blog to see what I'm up to these days.
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Get Unwrapped! - Judy Gillis
Foreword
We hear it every day, sometimes several times a day. Magazines and newspapers say it. We hear it shouted or sung on the radio and talk shows, and we’ve heard it so often and so loud that we believe it without question. It’s my life.
I did it my way.
Somehow we’ve bought into the idea that we have control over our own lives. We are such big believers in free will and in choice. We figure that what Walt Disney said is somewhere in the Bible, If you can dream it, you can do it.
The allure of this idea is that it is partly true. There is much that we can achieve if we believe we can do so. Often all it takes is enough confidence to try, in order to do something we never thought possible.
But there is much in this existence that is beyond our control. Life happens. Circumstances change. Jobs are lost. Children stray from what we’ve taught them. A loved one gets sick, or passes away. Even then, our attitude toward life in general has a great bearing on whether these things will defeat us or make us stronger. But it doesn’t stop them from happening.
We go to church. We hear wonderful, stirring sermons about how our lives should be, of how many people we could reach, of the victory that is ours in Jesus. We go to the altar. We weep; we promise God things will be different. If we were to think about it, we might wonder just how all of that happens. We look at our lives, how little we are doing for God, how blah we feel most of the time, how mundane everything is. We are in the highest heights during the church service, and the moment we step outside the door, we are complaining because of the weather, or the traffic, or the guy who double-parked. Inside we despair. Will we ever be different in our daily lives? Will things ever change?
It’s so frustrating. We’re told what is the right way to live but we can’t live it. We know where we want to be as Christians. But we haven’t the faintest clue how to get there. We study the Bible but often that just increases our knowledge ABOUT God, not our knowledge OF God. Nobody seems to know how to communicate to us how to live the kind of life we so desperately desire.
And if we were to try to describe ourselves… well! Where would we start? Some of us are so caught up in other people’s needs, either in our families or in the church, that we don’t even know who we are anymore - if we ever did. We’re told we aren’t to think of our selves but we secretly wonder if we will ever be happy.
I’m going to be brutally honest with you; you may be surprised at some of the revelations in this book. But this was what my life was like even after I had been a Christian for decades. If this describes your life too, if you are hurting, if you have ever wondered how to get from where you are to where you want to be spiritually, then this book is for you.
This book is primarily for Christians. Born-again, committed Christians who perhaps have grown up in the church but still feel there's something missing.
Think of this book as a how-to book. God showed me through an incredible set of circumstances how to live the Christian life. He showed me how to really live by following a simple sequence of spiritual exercises that place Him at the centre and that are designed to discover not only who He is, but who I am. If you want that for yourself, read on, and open your mind to embrace change, to believe that you can have that life, and that God can AND WILL make a difference in your life.
And have a pen and paper ready. This is not a walk in the park. You’ll have homework to do.
Now, I know that writing is hard for some people. For me it is a release, but for others it is agony. I know that; there are those in my family who have never written to me because the words simply fly out of their head the moment they pick up a pen to write something down.
You can use point form if you want, then find a quiet place and talk it out with God – or with someone you trust with your life and with your innermost feelings. You can write pages and pages (like me) if you want –but only if it’s how you get your feelings out. You can go for walks out in nature. You can put it on computer, use a spreadsheet or a table if you like. Flowchart it, pie chart it; draw it. Just do it. The method isn’t important. The process is.
Introduction - A Brief Self-Portrait: Before
I was in a tailspin at the age of 48. Wife, mother, in the music ministry at our church, with a great job doing what I loved, I looked like I had it all. But it was all a sham. I felt lost, out of control, hopeless.
I grew up afraid. My whole life was out of control from as far back as I could remember. When I was a child, I had a physically and emotionally abusive mother, a father who shied away from her temper and who let her treat me the way she did, a relative who sexually abused me, and nobody my age who wanted to hang out with me unless they had to by reason of family ties. I had no friends: lots of cousins but no friends. I wanted desperately for someone to like me. For reasons only the neighborhood kids or their parents knew, I was a pariah.
I was afraid of people’s anger, especially my mother’s anger. I was afraid of being rejected, believing I wasn’t worth anyone’s time. I thought that I wasn’t wanted, that the only use I was to people was what I could do for them. My mother was a very practical, hard-driving person, very task-oriented. She never seemed to see what I did for her, just what I had left undone. I felt unappreciated, unloved. So I gave up trying after a while.
Fear, anger, and shame plagued me. My whole life.
I had definite opinions on how things should be. But nobody wanted to listen to them. My opinion didn’t matter. I was short, petite, and non-athletic. I was shy and I avoided confrontation. I hated being teased by anyone; it would reduce me to tears. I quickly became the brunt of cruel practical jokes.
The only model I had of someone that was in control was my mother. She intimidated me. I feared her anger and did everything I could to avoid it. She would shame me in front of family and friends, calling me lazy. She did it to motivate me to action, but it had effects she never could have dreamed. I didn’t have the words to tell her how her abuse (I didn't even know it WAS abuse - I thought I deserved it) tore away at my identity as a person, how it belittled me I ways that I wasn’t emotionally equipped to handle.
As I got older and moved out away from home, I found myself using some of the tools my mother had used on me, sometimes with amazing results. I could throw a guilt trip as well as she could. I manipulated, wheedled, and when all else failed, I’d throw a temper tantrum (replete with tears and snot) – and it worked. It sure came in handy with my husband, my kids – or at least I thought so.
But I was in a trap I could never get out of: an invisible one I couldn’t even tell was there. I just knew that no matter what anyone did, no matter what I did, I just wasn’t happy. I was miserable.
To deal with the pain, I tried to make myself into the person I was expected to be. I wanted so desperately for people to get along with each other that I would tie myself up in emotional knots just to get people to agree on something. I would make excuses for people’s behavior; I let them get away with such horrible things. I would let them walk all over me, and then lay awake at night thinking about what I would have liked to say. But I never had the courage to say it. Unless I was angry. Then I laid waste to people, cut them to ribbons verbally ... and would be in mental and emotional agony for weeks afterward.
I learned instead to manipulate people, to use guilt to get people to do what I wanted them to do. I played the victim, even the martyr. It was easy because at that time in my life, I was a victim. I believed that I was worthless.
When my children were born, I was plunged into the world of care taking. I had to make sure my kids didn’t suffer as I did. Nothing was good enough