Archive for April, 2008
you are a loser
Daddy, I feel like such a loser. That was the beginning of my conversation with God this evening, after a long, hellish day where everything went wrong, from computer issues to razor burn right down to nearly hitting a motorcyclist on the highway after a blonde in a BMW almost ran me off the road.
In fact, the entire week has been a bit FUBAR if I may be honest. I’ve run myself ragged, tried to do too much, failing and flailing in relationship, losing sight of true north.
So I finally said it out loud, what I’d been thinking, what I’d been feeling. You are a loser, God replied without missing a beat. My finger squeaked in my ear as I checked to make sure my spirit was hearing rightly. But as I tuned into God’s voice more deeply, making sure that it wasn’t my own deceitful, hypercritical voice or that damned accuser, I realized it was Him. It wasn’t indictment. It was truth decked out in kindness. And looking quite lovely, I might add.
Like a dad giving his child a spankin’ and a good talking to, God was giving me a little dose of reality. The Message translation of Hebrews says it this way:
My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.
I was being disciplined, corrected, embraced, loved as He held a mirror up to my face so I could really see. So I could see Him.
Thankfully, God didn’t stop by calling me a loser. He went on to say, “It’s okay that you’re a loser. It’s good that you’re weak. When you’ve failed, when you’ve done all you can do, I finally get to be my gracious, strong, more-than-enough Self in you and through you. I finally get a chance to show up and minister to you in your broken-down, dust-ridden humanness. I wish you’d let Me do that more often. For your sanity. And for our relationship. When you stop trying to get everything right and save the world in one afternoon, I get to be Your God. And you get to be My Child.”
He went on like this for a while, singing over me, reminding me what is good and true about my loser-ness, pointing me to more bread for feeding on. Like Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that says this:
…and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
Suffient. Strong. Champion. That’s the good news for me today as I sit here – incapable, insufficient, weak, tired, rough-edged, washed-up, frail – listening to God call me a loser. It’s the Good News. And I’m quite happy about it. Being a loser, that is. Because He has already won the day. Forever.
1 Commentlittle light
Don’t mind me. I’m just sitting here. Admiring my brilliant-beyond-brilliant work. My creativity and flair. My genius abilities where craftiness and art are concerned. You see, tonight, I made a beeswax candle. Oh, yes. You heard right, my friend. A golden, glowing, honey-scented beeswax candle.
And, as I gaze at the flickering flame of my handiwork, I feel it again. It’s the same thing I feel any time I create – be it a poem, a meal, a candle. Connection – that’s what I feel. But tonight I finally realized what I feel connected to.
It must have been after the tenth or eleventh picture I’d taken. After I set the shining amber jar in just the right spot at the center of our home. While I inhaled the natural scent of bee nectar.
This is a fraction of how you feel about me, isn’t it, I asked God, smiling at the thought of Him being a bit silly over His fascination with me.
And there it was: connection with my own Creator.
Maybe it’s not impossible to believe that God feels this way about His stuff. That He gets rowdy about mountain peaks, ocean tides, deciduous trees, rain showers, purple flowers, redbirds, vineyards, puppy dogs. That He gets rowdy about you. About me.
That He would say, “Don’t mind me. I’m just sitting here. Admiring my brilliant-beyond-brilliant work. My creativity and flair. My genius abilities where craftiness and art are concerned. You see, I made Krista. Oh, yes. You heard right. My precious, treasured image-bearer.”
I suppose this little light of mine – imperfect, shining, dancing in the center of my dining room table – isn’t that different from me as I live in the center of God’s love. And the way I feel about my simple and extraordinary creation isn’t that different from the way God feels about me. Giddy about His own little light. Imperfect. Shining. Dancing. Loved.
3 Commentsordinary day (making much)
It was an ordinary day, a Tuesday. I was working. Jason was working. And it was also the day marking our second year of marriage. Normally, I make much of these occasions. I plot out gift purchases months in advance. I craft brilliant poems, homemade cards and sweet vignettes. I buy new outfits, cook the perfect dinner, bring out the good China.
But this year, this sacred occasion slipped up on me somehow. Not that I could ever forget April 8. It’s engraved on my wedding band and on my heart. It’s my most unforgettable day, when I joined forever my every molecule of breath & spirit with my soul’s mate. It’s just that so many pressing matters, really urgent and important things, have filled up my moments (and his moments, too), and I didn’t have time for my typical above-and-beyond-ness.
And I felt guilty. Ashamed. Like I had failed at all the unwritten rules of wife-dom. (At least the rules I’d conjured up.) I felt guilty for not making much.
But then, not long after Jason surprised me with a dozen roses at the office where I spent the afternoon working, I realized that we, Jason and I, make much everyday. We give flowers – verbal flowers, emotional flowers, hug-and-kiss flowers – to each other on quiet Mondays, rainy Saturdays, and weary Wednesdays. Not just one-day-a-year flowers. We surprise each other with the gifts of presence, laughter, singing, kindness, dancing, listening, hoping, believing, dreaming, loving. And we give these gifts consistently, passionately, selflessly.
Of course, we’ll keep marking April 8, our favorite day. But even if life catches up with us and we’re pulling a last minute Hallmark stop on the way to dinner at Zola’s, it’s okay. Because there are plenty of other days when a love note gets tucked in a pocket, when a favorite chocolate bar ends up in a backpack, when a deep soul cavern is excavated and understood. Plenty of days when some flower is left on a windshield and, with it, a card with a word only the two of us know.
3 Commentswild
Last night at 8:15 pm, I got a text message. The message read, “Emmaus is launching an outreach to strippers tonight. Please spend a few minutes asking God to give us focus & courage as we follow Him into the heart of the dark kingdom.”
“Wow, that’s wild,” I said, staring at my phone as I thought about this strange and risky mission. Then I decided, “Strippers. Yeah. This makes sense.” And I prayed.
This particular outreach, Nashville M’adam, is one Emmaus Church in Nashville has modeled after a similar ministry in L.A. And it’s an outreach nobody is doing. Well, almost nobody.
I guess it’s just easy to think of the sex industry as the enemy. To get angry, indignant. To be afraid. After all, so many men and women are caught in the ugly snare of sex addiction. And, while we’re doing the great good work of shining light on these issues with programs like SA, Samson Society, and XXX Church, most of us (including me) have missed the fact that there are countless unloved women huddled in the darkest corners of this disease. We have missed the 60-90% of women currently working in the sex industry who were sexually abused as children. We have missed these women who often experience rape, violent assault, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We have missed the opportunity to show uncommon love and lavish mercy. But Christ didn’t miss them. He loved them wildly.
Like the time He was having dinner in the village of Nain. In Luke 7, we find the town harlot weeping on Jesus’ feet. And not only that. The text goes on to say, “Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with perfume.” Scandalous! But what’s even more scandalous is that Jesus receives it. He even uses this occurrence to teach the Pharisees a lesson in forgiveness and peace.
Another time, we see Jesus scribbling in the sand as the Pharisees prepare to stone an adulterous woman. In John 8, He says, “The sinless one among you throw the first stone.” After they leave, Jesus asks the naked, shaking woman, “Does no one condemn you?”
“No one, Master,” she replies, probably in a breathless whisper.
“Neither do I,” He answers, “Go on your way and, from now on, don’t sin.”
Jesus wasn’t scared of the sexually addicted, the sexually abused, the sexually promiscuous. He wasn’t afraid to reach to them. He didn’t get uncomfortable if they cried on His feet. Because He saw. Saw what no one else could see. Saw their pain, their nakedness, their scars. And then He took on scars of His own, so they could be free, clothed in His beauty and light.
His love was wild. Ours can be, too.
1 Commenttrue
“Hey, I saw you in a video.” I turned to see a familiar face looking at me. He repeated himself. “You were in a video I just saw.”
“Hey, Jordan*” I replied, smiling and grabbing my sack of groceries. He beelined toward me and began to walk out of the store with me.
The video this friend was talking about was a project I participated in as part of the True Campaign. (Watch the video.) He had found out about the recently released video through a mutual friend.
“The video was sort of about eating disorders and stuff like that, wasn’t it?” he asked quietly, a sheepish look on his face.
“Yeah, kind of,” I replied. “The True Campaign is about challenging the lies that culture, media tell us, the lies we tell ourselves, about beauty, our identity, the kind of impact we can make in the world. It’s about being aware of the issues we might struggle with, like body image, disordered eating, things that steal from us.”
He looked at me, then looked down at his fingers, tangled together. “It’s just such an obsession for me. Counting calories, thinking about what I’m eating all day long. I eat something bad, something I don’t think I should eat, then I fast the rest of the day. I feel so much guilt and shame. Then I get hungry, so I eat whatever is right in front of me, usually something bad for me, but I spit it out before I swallow it. Then I feel even more guilt for spitting it out. I hate living this way. So obsessed about it all.”
In the space of 10 seconds, this friend (who I never would have suspected as having an eating disorder) basically told me he lives in a binge-starve cycle that includes chewing and spitting. I couldn’t believe he had shared so honestly with me, and in the parking lot of a grocery store, no less. I guess it was the most appropriate place, come to think of it.
And I recognized it. Maybe not that exact struggle. But the guilt, the obsession, the fear, the shame. And, by God’s grace, mercy and healing, I’ve come to the other side. A place where I know who I am. A place where I see myself beautiful. A place where I can make an impact. So I spoke.
“The True Campaign is for you. It’s about this exact stuff. Getting honest with ourselves about these things we wrestle with. Getting to the heart of the lies, the root of the issue. And becoming who we have been called to be. All this obsessing, it steals life from us. When we move away from the extremes of obsession and carelessness, we meet in the middle, at a place of balance and respect. Respect for our bodies, our minds, our relationships.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, his face brightening, his hands looser at his side. “There’s so much more to life than this shame, isn’t there?” he said. Then he looked out across the parking lot and smiled at some distant hope that was just for him, for today. And he had found it, even in a short & honest conversation about truth. And it was all so much closer than he thought; hope, truth, and freedom, that is.
* name changed for anonymity
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