And I Just Need a Place Now to Begin
I wanna find my way
Find my way back home
I want to learn to love
And I want to be knownCause I want to tell you how
But there’s no good metaphor
Knocking at my doorSo will you help me friend?
Help discover this new world
Don’t quite know where to begin
But I imagine it on the horizonThe light is breakin’ through
Still I don’t know what to do
Standing here just me and youAnd you know that I would run if the wind would call me
And I would rise, but it seems I’m falling
And I just need a place now to begin… to begin
So I can begin againSo do we just start right here
Or go back to the same square one
Isn’t that my biggest fear?
That I’ll miss it when it comesCause I don’t know what to do
Is the Kingdom even breakin’ through?
God, I hope it still is trueCause from everything I see
The biggest problem still seems to be me
And for all the ways the world is shit
There is so much beauty in all of itBut I can’t seem to find
The very thing that haunts my mind
Could it be that I’m still blind?And you know that I would see if you’d wash my eyes
But I keep swallowing the same old lies
And I just need a place now to begin… to begin
So I can begin againIs it true? Or is it fantasy?
What is real? Is it mere chemistry?
And where is home? Some place I can’t be.
Is it true? Or is it just my own delusion?Cause you know that I want to believe you now
But I lost my way somehow
And I just need a place now to begin…To begin to see that I can find my way home, my friend
And I might, but until then, well…
I just need a place now to begin… to begin
So I can begin again(“Begin Again” by The Cobalt Season from their album In Search of a Unified Theory)
If ever there was a theme song for my life the past few months, this would be it. I have felt very lost lately. I have been drowning in doubt, fear, and guilt. Hope has been like sand slowly slipping through my fingers.
I have been struggling to know, see, and feel God. (Of course, I haven’t been trying that hard to know or see or feel…) I have doubted the accuracy and relevance of the Bible. I have struggled to see God as love. I have this image in my mind of an Old Testament-style God who is full of wrath and anger because of my mistakes. It has been hard for me to reconcile this image I have of an angry, vengeful God with the image I have of a God full of grace and love. I don’t understand how the two meet, how they exist in one Being. I believe God is there. I do not doubt his existence or his hand in creation. But I do struggle to believe, especially now, that he loves me and finds me valuable.
I have also been feeling quite brokenhearted recently. I have stood by and watched friend after friend enter into relationships, get engaged, and get married these past few years. I am still single. I have never been fought for or pursued. I have heard story after story of my friends’ respective happiness. I have heard about cute things partners have done. I have witnessed handholds, gazes, and kisses. But I have been only a witness, never a participant. It is difficult to feel valuable as a woman when I feel that no one sees me as such. I still feel like a little girl playing dress up whose friends have suddenly outgrown the game and are moving on to reality.
I feel extremely guilty for these struggles. I feel guilt for doubting the God who has blessed me with so much. I feel guilty for doubting Scripture, but the whole “The Bible says it so I believe it” line just won’t work for me anymore. I feel guilty for wanting some sort of proof.
I feel guilty for not being able to put aside my own emotions and simply rejoice alongside my friends who know God-ordained love. I feel ashamed that I have never known it, that no one has ever invited me into it.
I am fearful of so much, mostly ending up abandoned and alone. I am still so young, but I struggle to believe that my future will contain happiness and fulfillment. Sometimes I worry that God does not care about my happiness, only about my righteousness.
One reason I feel so guilty about all of these various emotions is because I am so richly blessed. I have never known true need. I have an abundance of food, clothing, and “stuff.” I have a group of wonderful, loving friends. I have a family who loves and adores me. I have so, so much. But there is still so much I long for.
As I sat down and allowed myself to feel these feelings, to think through them, I realized that I don’t see myself as others probably do. I don’t consider myself worthy of God’s love or forgiveness. I don’t look at who I am and see anything special or unique, anything that only I possess. I know these feelings are not from God. I know they are not from circumstances in my life. I know many of these thoughts are from Satan, a force I rarely consider. But they feel very real. The anxiety they bring is painful.
I do want to begin again. I want to learn how to see the truth and trust in it without evidence. I want to rejoice with those in my life who deserve joy and love. I want to be able to see myself as God sees me. I want to be able to live as a Christian without feeling like a failure every single day.
I want so much. And even in some of these wants, there is guilt.
Guilt that I am not satisfied already. Guilt that I dare ask for anything when so many people in the world have nothing. Guilt that I just can’t seem to understand what faith really means.
I want desperately to be fixed, to be whole. I know that only God can cause these things to happen, but I have prayed and sought answers for these wounds before and here I am, still aching.
I feel as if I am in the middle of a dense fog.
I read a quote by Dan Allender a while ago and it struck a chord in me:
“You cannot know that which is most beautiful in yourself unless you are willing to name that which is most hideous.”
I want to find the beautiful in my life and in the way I view myself and love. I can name many hideous aspects of my life, things rooted in nothing more than self-addiction. I cannot just ignore these ugly spaces inside myself; I must admit them and confess them. I must learn how to rest in my brokenness, in this present ache.
I must learn how to rest.
There another song besides the one above that I’ve had on repeat lately. It’s “Tension is a Passing Note” by Sixpence None the Richer. Part of the song says this:
But tension is to be loved
When it is like a passing note
To a beautiful, beautiful chord
It is my hope that I am not just standing on a cliff, diving down into sadness and despair. It is my hope that I am just in a valley right now, ready to ascend to a place I have never been, to see a view I have never before witnessed.
I feel so broken. Ironically, I cannot seem to hope in anything but that brokenness. Perhaps it is my brokenness that will ultimately be necessary for my eventual healing. Perhaps Sixpence is right and beauty is on its way. I am just waiting for the fog to lift, unsure of what else to do.
Dust
It lands like dust,
Covering things forgotten
Or ignored. The things we see
But don’t always notice.
A finger cannot trace a shape
Unseen. A path is always left
In the wake of contact.
There is always something left to wipe away.
Regret is the heaviest thing
To carry around. Its presence makes void
All that is good
Or at least all that could be.
The possibilities are choked
Before they are allowed to breathe.
It is hope that comes in breaths,
Slow and steady, that cleans.
This I Know
If someone were to ask me what I know about God, I would be able to list very little. I know He is the ultimate artist. I know He is love. I know He is beyond time and gender and science. I know He equals beauty.
I want to know more. I want to know how He thinks Christians should respond to issues facing modern society, things like homosexuality, AIDS, genocide, the war in Iraq, and the upcoming Presidential election. I want to know what He thinks the Church should focus on: building itself up or pouring itself out to others. I want to know which theologies are correct and which ones miss the point. I want to know how much of science is truth and how much is fiction.
Obviously, my list of questions is far longer than my list of answers.
The questions sometimes suffocate me. They have the ability to drive out all faith and make room for immense doubt. The questions I have about God and religion and humanity are endless. To most of these questions, I know I will never get an answer and that sometimes suffocates me even more.
A man who knew what it was like to question God was Moses. In Exodus, Moses asked to see God’s glory. In response, God said this:
And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” (Exodus 33:19-22)
Twice God tells Moses no one can see His face. The best Moses could hope for was to catch a glimpse of God’s back, to see where He had just been. He could not have survived if he had seen more than that. I assume that the glimpse Moses got of God did not answer all his questions or silence his doubts; I assume that glimpse brought additional wonder and uncertainty.
One of my favorite bands is Sigur Ros. They are an Icelandic band whose music is mostly instrumental, yet is sometimes filled with words that almost sound like a chant. I can’t understand any of the words. They are not in a language or diction I know. The music of Sigur Ros is beautiful and original and rich. It is the most worshipful music that I know of, something I’m sure isn’t intentional. Sigur Ros reminds me of God-I rarely know what’s going on in their music, but I am captured by its beauty.
So it is with God. I rarely have any answers, but I know that there is something mysterious about Him that calls me back time and time again. Grace finds me when I am my most hardened and cynical.
I read this today and it struck a chord with me:
“The truth is there are a million steps, and we don’t even know what the steps are, and worse, at any given moment we may not be willing or even able to take them; and still worse, they are different for you and me and they are always changing. I have come to believe the sooner we find this truth beautiful, the sooner we will fall in love with the God who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us to not rely on easy answers, bullet points, magic mantras, or genies in lamps, but rather in His guidance, His existence, His mercy, and His love.”
–Donald Miller, from Searching for God Knows What
The questions are important. The answers are important. But what is most important, what is not supposed to be missed, are the glimpses of God. The journey to know God should be one of joyful surprises and awed confrontations.
Tonight, I feel a certain freedom in the mystery of God. I feel swept up in a story so much bigger than myself. I will never have all my questions answered. I will never see God’s face on this Earth. I will always wonder and poke and prod and wander, but I am part of the mystery, part of the restoration, part of the never-ending cycle of love and grace offered by the Creator of the universe. If I know little else, I know that for certain.
A Bit of Hope
This year has been extremely difficult. It has been full of challenges I have never had to face before. I have never felt older, but I have also never felt younger or as unequipped to handle the things I’ve encountered. Stress has certainly taken its toll on me, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
For the past year, hope has been hard to hang on to. Being raised in church, I always have this idea in the back of my mind that tells me God has a plan and that His plan is perfect. But when you can’t see a trace of that plan, when you are worried the plan isn’t what you would ever choose, the fear pushes out the hope.
I have realized this year how much fear controls my life. I am scared of so many things. I am scared of being abandoned. I am scared of living my life alone. I am scared of someone truly knowing who I am. I am scared of dying. I am scared of losing the people I hold most dear. I am scared that I will never have this whole spirituality thing figured out enough to live properly.
Some of my fears are seemingly tiny, insignificant things. Others are fears I have never shared with anyone. Regardless of their size, fear has no place in my life and I know this. I want hope instead. I want to hope that even if the plan God has for me isn’t the one I prayed for, that I will still be able to walk down that path with faith and joy, no matter how small either turn out to be.
I am hoping the remaining months of this year will be better than the ones that have preceeded them. I am feeling stronger and happier already. I am feeling more and more hope spill into my life.
Whenever autumn gets closer, I begin to feel a sense of renewal. It is my favorite season and I eagerly anticipate it all year. I love the crisp air. I love the leaves. I love the colors. I love the boots and school supplies and apple cider and pumpkin goodies. I love it all.
I begin my third year of college this September. I am incredibly excited to go back. Back in May during finals week, I was at the end of my rope. With the stress of life plus the stress of school, I was a mess. I thought I would never want to return to classes again. By early July, I was more than eager. I love school, and I’m thrilled to be returning. I’m looking forward to each of my classes and feel hopeful that this semester will be my best yet.
As I said, I have felt extremely young this year. Another friend recently got engaged and is traveling to Africa for 4.5 months. Half of my friends now are married or engaged. Some are homeowners. Some have kids. Looking at their lives sometimes, I feel like a kid playing dress-up as an adult. But while their changes have been mostly external, mine have been internal. I am learning to be okay with who I am. I am learning that all of my quirks make me who I am. I am learning how to be secure in my identity and not to seek validation so much from other people.
Hope has been rare this year, so I am extremely grateful for the amount I hold tonight. I am blessed, even in my trials and anxiety. I hope to remember that always.
Back to Basics
My mother claims that when I was a small child, I wanted to know the details about everything. I wanted to know why something worked or why it didn’t. I wanted to know the process things went through in order to be the things they were. I have always been inquisitive; it is a trait I carry with me still, especially regarding matters of faith.
I think everyone, even those who don’t follow Christ, has his or her own personal list of questions they’d like to ask God. I certainly have a long list myself. Why do such horrible things happen to kind, selfless people while harmful, selfish people are allowed to keep on existing? Why are natural disasters allowed to occur when they tear apart so many lives? Why is there a disease called cancer? How would Jesus respond to gays and lesbians and how can I respond in the same way? Why do some couples who long for children fail to conceive while unprepared, irresponsible women get pregnant and choose abortion?
I marvel at people who are compassionate, giving, and selfless human beings who don’t claim to be Christ-followers, just as I marvel at angry, self-addicted, and arrogant people who do claim Christ as their Lord. I struggle with how we, as 21st-century human beings, can truly understand and interpret Scripture written thousands of years ago for entirely different audiences with entirely different dialects.
I often wonder if what I believe is really the truth. I read a lot of various books on Christianity and religion. Oftentimes, I will read something in one book that I think it beautiful and correct, then I will come across another book or article ripping apart the author I just read.
Even inside the Church, there are many, many issues that cause division. What role are women supposed to have? What does it mean to honor the Sabbath day? What attire is appropriate for worship services? What music and instruments are most God-honoring?
The questions never stop, it seems.
I meet with a group of my peers on Thursday nights for Bible study. We’ve recently started reading C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. We talk about what wisdom and understanding we can gain from Lewis’s work and how we can apply that to our relationships with Jesus. This week, we mentioned how overwhelming faith is, how difficult living life parallel with Christ can truly be.
Something that I have to remind myself to do quite frequently in my overwhelmed, panicked moments is to remember the basics of Christianity: I am a person made in the image of God, a person born into sin who cannot save herself regardless of what I do or abstain from. The only way to God is through His Son Jesus Christ, who was both God and man. Christ gave His life as a sacrifice for my sins, so that I could have unity with God on this Earth and for eternity in heaven.
As I talked with my friends on Thursday, I realized it all comes down to this. All the faith and spirituality stuff I immerse myself in, it all comes down to Jesus and who I think He is and what gifts of His I choose to claim. All Christians should agree on these basic elements of the faith. Everything else is open for interpretation, as long as that interpretation does not blatantly go against Scripture.
I can’t expect all Christians, or even just the Christians I know, to all agree on how to live out their faith. What I find beautiful, what speaks to me, might not speak to someone else. What draws me into worship might not be the thing that draws someone else into communion with God. There are many different answers and possibilities out there in the world. They do not answer the hard questions, the list of questions I’d like to ask God, but I do believe the possibilities enable us to gain wisdom. Wisdom isn’t about knowing all the answers, but about asking questions in order to better know and resemble Christ.
To end my ramble, I’ll quote a writer whose work has greatly influenced my own thoughts on spirituality. I love this quote because it reminds me of what truly is important:
“At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that is my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is the feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.”
–Donald Miller, from Blue Like Jazz
PostSecret: Loving Better 101
One of my weekly Sunday traditions is checking PostSecret, the wildly popular blog where anonymous postcards are posted every Sunday revealing the senders’ secrets. Some secrets are joyful, some are scandalous, and most are heartbreaking.
Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been fascinated with people. I have this constant urge to know what’s really going on inside someone’s head. My favorite novels and movies are those that allow me special insight into a person’s way of life. I like slow, meandering stories that mimic real life. I think that is why I look forward to PostSecret’s update each week. I’ve been reading the site for a long time now, but I am always shocked and humbled by the words and images on the cards people send in.
I’ve wondered for a while now how much a person can ever truly know about someone else. Can we only know what we are allowed to see?
I was having a conversation with one of my best friends last week. She was telling me two different stories, but they both tie into my current stream of thought. The first story was that she was talking to a friend of hers and he said that she didn’t open herself up to him enough. He said that he couldn’t fully love another person unless that person was willing to share everything with him, past and present.
My friend also told me about another friend of hers who has been growing more and more distant. My friend has done certain things this other person didn’t agree with and it’s as if, because of that behavior, the other person is trying to make some sort of moral statement by pulling away.
As I was talking to my friend about these things, I thought the same thing about both situations. In both cases, one person’s love was based upon other person’s actions; their love rose and fell based upon behavior. I don’t think love is true, God-given love if it is at all based upon the person I’m loving. If I begin to “love” someone less because that person doesn’t share things with me that I’d like to know about, that’s not genuine love. If I react to behavior I disagree with by punishing the other person, that’s not showing love but judgment.
Every Sunday as I read the postcards on PostSecret, I am reminded that every person has secrets. Every person has committed atrocious offenses. Every person has his or her personal baggage.
I want to be the type of person, the type of friend, who loves at all times, even when the worst of mistakes are revealed. I want to be able to love people as they are, scars and all, without judging them or their decisions. I want to remember that every person was created in the image of God, that every person is a candidate for grace and redemption.
I want to be able to love myself, knowing that I too have secrets and baggage. I want to be able to forgive myself for my own offenses. I want to be able to fully claim the grace of God and stop taking advantage of it.
Imagine how different the world might be if people were able to love better.
$$$
A few posts ago, I wrote about my desire to live in such a manner that I could be confident and secure in all areas of my choices and actions. (Some days this desire is stronger than others. Sometimes I feel completely convicted and other days all I want to do is please myself.) Out of all the different areas of my life, the one I’ve been thinking about most lately in the area of my finances.
There has never been a time in my life when I have ever gone without. I have always been blessed with excess. I have no idea what it’s like to be truly hungry. I have no idea what it’s like to need new clothes and not be able to get them. I have no idea what it’s like to not have constant shelter. Looking at the world as a whole, I am rich and I know this.
In spite of my material and financial blessings, I am not at all giving when it comes to my money. I don’t tithe regularly because I don’t want to. I don’t give money to those in my church I know could use it more than I could. I don’t donate money to causes that I know I should be supporting. I would much rather go out and buy a new pair of shoes that I in no way need than to write a check and give it to my church or to an organization. I would rather satisfy my constant hunger for more stuff than to give back to those who do know actual need.
It is almost a trend now, it seems, for people in the church to talk about social issues. We talk about the AIDS crisis in Africa. We talk about the victims of Hurricane Katrina and how New Orleans is still in shambles. We talk about the desolate people scattered around the globe. I have talked about these things. I have acknowledged the need to give. I have spoken out about why we should give. And yet I have given nothing to help battle these broken conditions.
I am incredibly self-addicted. I know there are many people I could benefit by giving what God calls me to give, but I would rather satisfy myself than meet their needs. I realize there is poverty all around the globe, yet I do nothing to fight it. I will go to Starbucks and fork over five bucks on a latte, yet I can’t find the desire to place that money where it will actually make a difference.
Last fall, I took an ethics class. One of the essays we had to read was written by Peter Singer, a well-respected philosopher who is not a Christian. In the essay by Singer, he said that people should be living on as little of their income as they possibly can. They should spend money on what they absolutely need to spend money on and give the rest to people who actually need it. From what my professor said, Singer practices this lifestyle.
I was amazed as I read his essay. First of all, I was shocked that this perspective would come from someone who doesn’t claim to follow Jesus. Singer’s view on finances is so extreme and so focused on others that it would make more sense to me if such a view was arrived at in the light of religious faith. Secondly, as I read what Singer had to say, I thought about how I could never live that way (or how I would never want to live that way). I thought about the fact that I earn the money I receive and should be able to treat myself to nice things. I thought about how people need to reward themselves from time to time. I thought about all these counter-arguments to Singer’s viewpoint and none of them held any true weight because they were entirely self-motivated and unimportant.
I want to learn how to better control my finances. I don’t spend any money that I don’t have, but I certainly don’t spend my money wisely. Sometimes I will look at my bank account, see my balance, and not be able to pinpoint where the money went. It’s a ridiculous cycle, and I know it. I also greatly enjoy it because I get the things I want.
I want to learn how to want different things. I want to learn how to give with grace and joy instead of spiritual obligation. I believe that God would rather me keep my money instead of giving it with a spiteful heart. He certainly has a lot of work to do in me. I think He already knows this, though.
Not What I Hoped For
When I was about five years old, I was a bride for Halloween. I had the white dress, shoes, and even a real veil that my mom borrowed from someone else. Needless to say, I have been planning my wedding for a long time. I used to play dress up in my mother’s wedding gown. I would look at her and my father’s wedding album time and time again. I loved bridal magazines and spent hours with my friends on wedding websites picking out dresses and rings. As a little girl playing dress-up, I never once paused to consider whether or not this dream wedding of mine would ever actually happen. I never stopped and asked myself whether or not the famous prince would come along and give me my fairy tale ending. Now, at twenty, I’ve been wondering this constantly.
I have never been asked on a date. I have never been kissed. I have never known romantic pursuit of any kind. It is incredibly hard for me to even write those things because they cause me a deep sense of shame. I have wondered so often what is wrong with me. I have felt as if I am too much and have also felt that I am not near enough. I have felt ugly, unwanted, unloved, lonely, and incomplete. I have felt as if I have failed as a woman.
Another friend of mine announced her engagement this week. When I found out, I wanted to cry. It was a big struggle to be happy for her. Her news stood as a reminder of the one thing I want so badly yet cannot seem to have. I congratulated her, but through jealous, gritted teeth. I truly am happy for my friends who are married or are in relationships, yet I am envious, too, and wonder at what they take for granted.
I have known the desire for a mate often, but it usually fades after prayer or sleep or both. But the desire this time doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I’m not sure how to explain it except to say that it feels like loss.
I was in a fender-bender when I was on my way to work the other day. I wasn’t hurt, nor was the woman who hit my car. It was a tiny accident, only causing a bit of mechanical damage to my car. Afterwards, my mom said to me how God has taken such good care of me. She pointed out that He has provided me with a job I love, allowed me to attend the university I wanted, and listed other blessings. As she said these things, I agreed that I was indeed blessed, but inside I wondered why He hasn’t yet allowed me the deepest desire of my heart: to know romantic, God-ordained love.
The absence of such love has caused me such immense grief (and also the aforementioned shame). With all the other things I want, I know that if I work for them and prepare for them, I can achieve my desires. But I can’t work for love. I can’t plan for romance. I can’t make it happen.
I am trying to be okay with these things. I am trying to be okay in my aloneness. I am indeed richly blessed with wonderful friendships, all the material wealth I could ever ask for, and a family who loves and supports me as I am, always.
But it seems that as much as I remind myself of all that I have, my mind keeps drifting to what I lack. And I’m not sure how to fix this. For now, it just hurts.
What I Learned From the Velveteen Rabbit
During and since the season of Lent this past year, I have been pondering and wrestling with issues of identity. I have wondered how true identity is found, how it is claimed, and how it can be lived out. I have seen the battle for personal identity pop up around me frequently. I assume this is not a new thing, but one I am just now truly becoming attuned to seeing. For example, I wrote a paper for my poetry class last semester on John Donne. He eventually became an Anglican priest but before that he was quite a womanizer. His poems vary from extremely sensual to beautifully pious. He writes about the woman he loves and God in the same format: with incredible honesty and eloquence. For my paper, I focused on his beautiful poem “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.” I argued that it was a poem all about identity, about the battle between the worldly and the divine, and that the themes Donne explored in that particular piece mirrored his own life.
I have thought about identity as I’ve considered American culture. Americans are so inundated with advertisements. There are ads everywhere we look, selling everything from clothes to cars to bodies. As I stopped to truly consider what it was these ads were trying to sell, I found it all so very silly. How many women truly resemble the 5′9”, rail-thin, airbrushed models who appear in magazines? How many people really need another *insert product of choice here*? Yet I buy into these ads. I see them, and I want what I see.
Like the images expressed in John Donne’s poetry, there is this struggle (for me, at least) between the secular and the sacred. Coming from a lifelong stint in church, it is easy for me to divide life into two halves, like boys and girls at a middle school dance: the holy is on one side, the worldly is on the other. I think part of growing up, or at least maturing spiritually, is realizing that the holy is everywhere, and is present even in the places and people and art that seem the furthest thing from sacred.
Not only do I struggle with a spiritual identity, there is also an ever-present struggle for cultural identity. Like I said, I buy into the ads I see. I subscribe to way more magazines than I probably should and I find myself wanting to resemble these well-dressed, perfectly coiffed women. When I do not, there is a twinge of disappoint because I was hoping my identity would parallel that of those idyllic models.
As I have entertained thoughts on identity and wholeness, I reread something last week that I feel talks about the issue of identity and being real better than anything else I have encountered on the subject. It is an excerpt from Margery Williams’ famous children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit:
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
”Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be unlovable, except to people who don’t understand.”
I love this passage so much because I find it so very true. Being real, finding one’s true identity, is not an immediate thing. It is a slow evolution, and, like the Skin Horse pointed out, once you have fully evolved you do not look how you did when you first started out on your journey. The outside will have changed because the inside will have changed first.
I believe that every person has this image in their head of the ideal man or woman, this ideal self. I also believe that it is incredibly important to think about what has shaped this ideal. I have to ask myself if I want to be this ideal woman because she is someone who I believe God created me to be or if I want to be this ideal woman because she would get a lot of worldly acclaim and applause. I have to examine what has shaped my ideals.
Without thinking too much about it, I realize that spirituality has shaped my ideal self very little. To be honest, thinking about the ideal Christian woman makes me think of the famous Proverbs 32 woman. Reading that passage of Scripture, I am overwhelmed. She does everything and seems to do it perfectly. I would rather be like the women I see in Vogue, with their tans, summer houses, designer wardrobes, and aristocracy. My identity has been so very wrapped up in culture and what that culture finds acceptable.
I want to be real, however. I want to be the person I was actually created to be, not the composite in my head. I want to find my identity in Christ’s redemption and grace, not in momentary trinkets. Like the velveteen rabbit found out, being real is a long process. It will sometimes hurt. Being real will often involve confronting old wounds and how those wounds have shaped us. It will involve stripping off the false layers and revealing the mess that might be underneath them.
I think I would rather be real, deal with my wounds, and find my identity in Jesus rather than hiding the wounds with momentary possessions and affection. To once again quote the wise Skin Horse, once a person is real, he or she cannot be unlovable, except to those people who do not understand. The world is full of people who do not and will not understand. Perhaps those people are the ones who are not real at all.
Tiny Voices
These past few months have contained some of the most challenging moments I have experienced so far in my two decades of life. I have been knee-deep in worry about so many different things. I have dealt with transferring to a new university and adjusting to the large amount of work and time that such a transfer required. I have dealt with health scares, my own and others’ close to me. I have dealt with old wounds and have been sad and frustrated when the scars seem just as tender now as the moments when I received the blows. Life has been hard in 2008 and I have found myself getting rather weary.
There have been moments this past year, especially during the season of Lent, when I have felt God’s presence so overwhelmingly. Then there have been moments when I have been angry and brokenhearted that He wasn’t answering my prayers the way I wanted him to. There have also been moments when I have wondered if He truly cares about my wounds, if He can truly heal them and if He’s actually trying. I am tired of walking around with the baggage those wounds have left. I am tired of just how deeply I have allowed my wounds to define my life over the past few years.
My heart has been longing for many things lately. I have longed for rest, wisdom, energy, healing, romance, peace, and courage. Though I have longed for these things, I feel as if I’ve received few of them.
This weekend, my number one longing has been a partner, preferably a male one who comes holding a bouquet of gerbera daisies and an emerald-cut diamond ring. As a little girl and teenager, I fantasized about my perfect wedding. My special day has been fully planned so many times, down to the very small details, such as the font for the wedding reception napkins. I am the girl who played dress up in her mother’s wedding dress, loved to look at bridal magazines, and the girl who has had a mental list of revolving bridesmaids rolling around in her head for years.
I hope and pray for a lot of things, but the deepest desire of my heart is to be pursued by someone who loves me, who will fight for me, and who will be my best friend. Now, I find myself fantasizing about staying in and watching a movie with this man and not so much about what color the flower girl dresses should be. I am starting to think more about grocery shopping and combining CD collections and less about tulle and bouquets. Basically, now I long for a marriage and not just for a wedding.
Sometimes it feels as if there is this part of me that isn’t completely whole because I’ve yet to meet my mate. Other times there is a part of me who is confident there is no mate to meet. I have often felt guilty for this particular longing and have punished myself for thinking that God isn’t enough. I know that God loves me, but I have longed for something tangible and physical. I have to remember that God created and ordained marriage. He created Eve so Adam would not be alone in the world.
These thoughts on marriage and pursuit have been extra-heavy this weekend. Almost every single one of my friends is either married, in a serious relationship, dating, or has some sort of interest. It is always hard to keep these longings at bay, but it is even harder when I hear my friends talk about their relationships and see how they take for granted things I have never, ever had.
Tonight I was feeling overwhelmed and thoughtful, weary and inadequate. In spite of the massive amount of thoughts and worries mixing around in my head, it was as if I heard this inner voice tell me to look up Isaiah 46:3. I did so and started reading:
“Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
all you who remain of the house of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,
and have carried since your birth.
Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
I immediately wept and read those particular verses again and again. I was amazed at how God had spoken to me and knew for certain that it was indeed His voice.
These declarations, that God has made me, carries me, sustains me, and rescues me…they match my current battles so perfectly. I needed so desperately to be reminded that I am a created being, someone made in the image of God with a specific purpose and life. I needed to be reminded that my Creator carries me when I can’t walk on my own two feet anymore. I needed to be reminded that I am always sustained by Him, even when I don’t always trust that. And I needed to be reminded that God does indeed rescue His people. He is all about rescue and restoration.
I need to be rescued from my worries and fears. I need to be rescued from my lust and pride. My heart so badly needs restoration, especially after the beating it’s taken these last few months.
I am awed and grateful for these words in Isaiah that remind me and promise me so much. God truly is in the moments where we don’t expect to find Him.
