Israel, our deeper selves

Beth Moore hit me with a 2x4. AGAIN. She's good like that. She was teaching us about names and their importance to our lives- or at least the importance they used to have in old testament times. I do not know what my name should be, but I know what it means: It means victorious, victor.
I am not going to say what you think! This one is so old and buried that it frightened me.
I am victorious. I had an honest fight with myself and God. I won it only a short time ago. It was a fight about who I am. It was a fight about forgiveness and acceptance. It was a fight about the past. And do you know that he delivered me.
My name could have been Jacob. It means deceiver and cheater. But it could have been my name many years ago. Circumstances made it so. Choices made to me and for me made it so. Choices I made made it so. But a Jacob I have been. Jacob happened because of a moment of crisis and many years of self worth issues and perhaps self loathing. But Victoria was my birth name, and Victoria is who I ended up being.
The fight was so much longer than it needed to be. Once I let God find me and take ahold of me I realized what a fight I had ahead of me. I knew who I wanted to be, and that did not include guilt ridden and unforgiven. Beth's quote was 'God can break your legs or you can get on your knees'. That just cracked me up. If we would just give in and BEND he would heal us, he would bless us. But we just love a good fight- hanging on with all our might to what we really think we need or want from any given person or situation. Fighting tooth and nail to be proven right, righteous, guiltless. Just because we don't want to admit our part in our downfall or our sin. Pulling hair, kicking and screaming, clawing our way to the top we believe is for us.
We can live lives of lies. And that is what I did. I believed a lie, told to me as a teen. I believed it and because I believed it I acted the part. It was not a part created for me, but I surely did a bang up job performing. I was continuously trying to be what I knew I wanted for myself but continued to fall back into believing the lie. It's trying to do that which I know I should but continuing to do the thing I don't want to. That lie. That lie led me into the hands of God. Twenty years later-after cancer later- I finally gave up the fight. God let some things happen and in that process I was able to heal because truth was given to me- and proof of that truth was shown to me. The person who told me the lies became a christian many years ago. Huh. Now what. Can't hate anymore. Can't not forgive anymore. So I forgave, and told them so. And the freedom that came with that was the blessing God had been trying to give me for years.
Honest appraisal? I was full of unforgiveness and insecurity
Honest fight? a stronghold of insecurity can keep us from fighting the good fight, having an honest conflict.
Honest blessing? In every struggle do not let go until the blessing comes.
Honest name? Jacob for a time, Victoria now. Israel is my deeper self.
Beth continues to say God will touch our injury in order for us to be healed. Sometimes he has to hurt us to get us to submit so he can bless us. Oh why can't we just submit?
Oh that forgiveness were always easy. You would think that after such an awesome blessing forgiveness would come naturally. Not so much.
But, I am working on being Israel, Victoria. I am a child of God. Even now....