V

I See You, and I Judge

Ladies, I have a confession:  I am self-obsessed.  My guess is that you are too.

Ladies, I see you and I judge. You see me and you judge. We’re women, this is what women do. Where are you on the totem pole? Where am I? Looks, gifts, talents, bodies, children’s obedience, husband’s successfulness must all be compared and categorized.

Who is the thinnest, the prettiest, the wisest? It’s not enough to be regular, middle, ordinary. One must be the best, the winner, top dog. One must triumph over the pack, or suffer the mocking disdain of them.

Of me. And you.

Brutal Little Liars

There is a judge, a jury, a panel of accusers. “Do you think you’ve hidden your shame?” they cry. “You are a fraud, a loser, a wannabe. You’ll never make it to the top!” These voices have been with us all of our lives, it seems. Who are they anyway? The Bible tells us that this voice is the accuser of the brethren whose name is liar and yet . . . it still feels so true.

I, for one, am obsessed with trying to prove this liar wrong, for I know this voice. It is as comfortable as an old, moth-eaten blankie, enveloping me in its filthy, disease-ridden reassurance. This is who I am called: fat, ugly, embarrassing. What are you called? Stupid? Boring? Alone? These labels are powerful in their brutal deceit.

We are too much, too little, too loud, too scared.

We are lacking.

The truth is that we are obsessed with ourselves. We don’t spend near this amount of time or energy or interest or money or worry on the things of Jesus. We try to fight this battle with the flaccid weapons of, “I’m fine, God made me the way that I am, and I am his child. My husband/friend/mother thinks I’m beautiful, certainly my children and my grandchildren love me.” All that is true of course, but it is not the first truth.

Bowing Low to His Loveliness

The only weapon powerful enough for this fight is Jesus. He is beautiful. He is loveliness beyond description, splendor and glory and might. All this time and energy and attention are only worth it for Jesus. All this money and fuss and focus are a waste of time unless the time is redeemed in him. The melding of a mother’s heart with her children is his work. The love of a man for a woman is a mere hint of the beauty to be found in Jesus’ eyes. Beloved Jesus is always and only the point. He is beauty.

Him.

I bow down, I bow low before the awe,

the wonder, the fearful beauty of Jesus.

It is here that I am changed.

There is no ladder of competitiveness. Others’ gifts are a clear pathway to see him. Others’ beauty are sweet fragrances of Jesus. As women are my sisters, we are daughters together of the one who actually matters.

And because of this, our mattering is put in proper perspective. Bowed low is the only position that brings sight to that which is constant. It is in our precious Lord Jesus that we mirror who we are, that we become truly whose we are. It is in him that a woman’s face reflects that which changes everything.

Jesus.

This article is from The Resurgence website (http://theresurgence.com/2012/10/24/i-see-you-and-i-judge).

I hope you are encouraged on this lovely day.

IV

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome. 

I want to be improbable, beautiful,

and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.

– Mary Oliver

This quote stares at me all day long.  I have it sitting on my desk at work.  It’s one of my favorites because it reminds me of freedom. 

I’m a soft-spoken person.  I’m also timid, in that I’m afraid to express my thoughts and feelings a lot of the time.  There was a period when this was not the case.  I want to think again of these “dangerous and noble things;” I want to have these thoughts and feelings and feel the freedom to express them.  This first sentence also remind me of Romans 12:2 -

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Dangerous and noble teachings are in the Bible.  Jesus teaches about ways to live and act that are against cultural norms [give to the poor, don’t live in excess, love others as yourself, etc].  My mind needs to be renewed and saved from this world so I can learn to think “again of dangerous and noble things.”

I am weighed down by stress, guilt, and anxiety of all kinds.  Some of this is because I am way too concerned about worldly things.  In my brain, being “light and frolicsome” means having all the weight lifted off your shoulders.  A lot of this anxiety is caused by lack of confidence.  So, having a renewed mind will result in confidence in Christ, because of Christ – which brings about being “light and frolicsome.”

“I want to be improbable, beautiful, and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.”   Another word for “improbable” can be “unexpected.”  I want to be unexpected – yes, I do have shy tendencies, but when we engage in conversation… I want my personality to be unexpected!  I want to have genuine conversations in which I am fully engaged with the other person and what they’re saying – not when I half-heartedly listen because I’m too concerned about what my hair looks like and what clothes I am wearing.  (Please note: I am not always half-heartedly listening when other people talk to me!)

I want to have a beautiful heart, full of God’s Love and Joy and Peace and Wisdom.  And, I want to be afraid of nothing and feel the freedom that only God can make me feel. 

These are the longings of my heart right now.

Take delight in the Lord,    

and he will give you the desires of your heart

Psalm 37:4

III

And let us consider how to stir up 

one another to love and good works, 

not neglecting to meet together, 

as is the habit of some, 

but encouraging one another, 

and all the more as you see 

the Day drawing near. 

– Hebrews 10:24-25

Community:  The thing I most deeply crave and the thing I am most scared of.

My fear of community stems from the fact that I have an unhealthy fear of people in situations/places that make me feel uncomfortable.  I am a completely different person at work than when I am at church.  I am confident at work – confident in my abilities, confident in my professionalism, et cetera.  It’s quite easy for me [most of the time] to strike up conversations with strangers.  Switch over to church [or any other uncomfortable social situation, for that matter].  That confidence is shattered.  I shrink back to the shy girl I [with God’s Strength] worked so hard to overcome in the past.

[I am reminded of this quote by Andre Dubus:  “Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.” So true.]

What is my deal!?  The answer to that question is always the same when I really ponder on it – my relationship with God.  Confidence in Christ and bearing the Fruits is how God strengthened me to defeat that paralyzing shyness I battled with for so many years. 

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves 

to claim anything as coming from us,

 but our sufficiency is from God. 

– 2 Corinthians 3:5

Which now brings me to the lack of community that is plaguing my heart.  Through community with the girls I lived with in college and the amazing church I attended, God healed me of that lack of confidence and shyness.  He restored to me the Joy of salvation, and I was bearing the Fruits!  People were pouring into me, and I was pouring into them.  It was a beautiful period in my life. 

Fast forward to now.  This lack of community has affected me in ways that I’m just now realizing – bitterness.  Bitterness toward God, bitterness toward my current church, bitterness toward my husband, and it goes on.  I am blaming other people for my lack of community.  As I am admitting this, I know that it’s a wrong way of thinking, but I am still blaming other people for my lack of community in my head.  Why isn’t anyone pursuing me?  Because I’m not putting myself in a situation to let anyone reach me.  This, I know.   But I’m still bitter.

“Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency 

which abandons others to their sin. 

Nothing can be more compassionate than 

the severe reprimand which calls another Christian 

in one’s community back from the path of sin.” 

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I need to immerse myself in community so I can be severely reprimanded for this uncalled for bitterness that I’m harboring.