Reality Check Bio – Lorraine Walker

Born and raised in southern Ontario, Canada, Lorraine Walker has been interested and involved in Southern Gospel Music since the mid-80's. As part of a ladies' trio, she became more familiar with this style of music and the people that made it popular, and began writing occasional articles for a Canadian publication on Southern Gospel.

Known online to her internet friends as "CanChik", Lorraine began writing a monthly inspirational article entitled "CanChik's Corner" for www.johnlanier.com in 2002.  This column began on www.sgmradio.com in January of 2005, a popular southern gospel music radio and information website which also publishes other features and interviews with her byline.

”Reality Check” is a monthly column relating the realities of living every day as child of God. Lorraine welcomes your comments and suggestions, and you can write her at sgmradio.lorrainewalker@gmail.com

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Do you ever have those moments when you feel like an idiot? I know, many of you don’t, but trust me it happens all too often for me. I get stressed or tired and try to do too many things at once. I lose focus and then it happens: stupidity strikes. I say the wrong thing to the wrong person, throw out that important paper or lock my keys in my car. I’ll say to myself, “What’s happening to you? Is this the sign of things to come? Are you completely losing your mind?”

While it’s true that words from others can scar you for life, your words to yourself can cause permanent damage as well. The more you tell yourself you are stupid, the more you believe yourself. After all, who knows you better than you?

I learned something today. God knows me better than I know myself. While in the middle of a morning of “Why did I do that?”, the devotions for the day were from Acts. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, begins to preach and astound the crowd. What did the crowd think? “This has to be God because this man is uneducated.” In other words, the crowd figured that Peter had to have supernatural help to speak because he was just a lowly fisherman and not highly intelligent. God took something lowly and made Peter shine. Not only that, he was transparent enough that God got the glory.

So that made me feel better about my life. No matter how lowly I feel I am, God can use me. God can take this ‘old lump of coal’ and make something beautiful from it. Hopefully, people will see what He has done in me and give Him the glory.

I know that when I beat myself up about doing stupid things, I am doing something unhealthy and I need to stop that self-talk. I also know that the stupidity isn’t really a pattern, fortunately, and I can continue to work on my bad habits, decrease my stress levels and hopefully have fewer ‘moments’ in the future. I am glad that God knows I am not as idiotic as I think I am at times. I am glad He knows my true worth because He made me who I am. He reminds me of my worth daily, especially in those moments when I feel worthless.

I thank God that He can use me exactly as I am for the purpose He has designed me for. My prayer is that He never stops using me or challenging me, helping me become more of the person He wants me to be. I hope He never stops working on this ‘old lump of coal’.