Lindsay L. O'Connor

What would you say if you stopped editing yourself? Not in a public forum, but just alone with your Self, and maybe even with God.

Part of my deconstruction has been finding the safety to stop editing myself in what I share with God. I used to be so bound up in behaving correctly and being good that I would try to think my feelings into what seemed acceptable before praying about it or even just intentionally being with God.

We sometimes need to repair attachment wounds, and this carries over into our spiritual life, as Krispin Mayfield so wisely explains in his book, Attached to God.

In secure attachment, we feel understood, known, and accepted (shoutout to ReclaimU Counseling for this language). When was the last time you felt known, understood, and accepted by God? Were you able to sink into and savor it? If you haven’t experienced that, perhaps it’s not due to a failure on your part but is simply an indication of a wound that needs to be healed.

Secure attachment allows us to be our authentic selves and to find the security we need in order to take reasonable risks for learning, exploring, and creating.

It makes sense that “Love” and “Creator” are two names of God that describe God’s essence. We are made in God’s image, so we are like God when we create. Creativity helps us tap into our authentic selves, and secure attachment emboldens us to risk the vulnerability of sharing our creative endeavors—expressions of our authentic selves—for the sake of deep, authentic connection.

Some of us struggle with feeling safe enough to take creative risks, and others have trouble risking the vulnerability of sharing our creative endeavors and thus miss out on the intimacy of connection from that deep, authentic place.

Yesterday I journaled something very unedited to God. Later, I went back, afraid of my own irreverence, and scribbled it out. Both actions—sharing the thing and then scribbling it out—are authentic expressions of who and where I am in this moment, and I’m so glad God can handle all of me. The process of healing attachment wounds (with God, self, and/or others) can be slow, but it opens us up for creativity and intimacy.

May we keep pressing forward in our healing so that prayer might become a time when we feel known, understood, and accepted by God and we can bask in the freedom to create and connect from a place of authenticity. You are so loved, just as