(I was totally expecting that my next post would be the continuation of "Faith Is...", but right now, I'm kind of frustrated about a situation and feel the need to try and get my thoughts out in a more... constructive manner. More constructive than beating my head against a brick wall until reality fades away, anyway... Let's just call this one a teaser for "Top 10 Myths of the Christian Life" and call it good, 'K? :-D )
---------------------------
Our world tells you that the most important thing in life is to be happy. Whatever you do, do what makes you happy and tell the rest of the world to go to Minnesota. (Which, in my opinion, is a phrase that Tim Hawkins left out of his list of 101 Cuss Words for Christians... Here's the video, courtesy of my daughter's completely awesome boyfriend who first showed it to me...)
But anyway...
Our culture tells you that if you're unhappy, there's something seriously wrong in your life that needs to be fixed. If your husband/children/teachers/friends make you unhappy, ditch 'em and find someone who makes you feel happy again. If you're unhappy all the time for no apparent reason, take this pill so you can feel happy. It's all about being happy, happy, happy all the time.
And that, my friends, is a lie.
Happiness is based on situations. If it's my birthday and my husband takes me out for dinner at Olive Garden, I'm happy. If I get a paycheck in the mail, I'm happy. If my kids bring home all As on their report cards, I'm happy for them. If my best friend's boyfriend asks her to marry him, I'm happy for her.
All that happiness, however, is based on an "if"; remove that "if" and the happiness goes away... If my hubby forgets my birthday, I'm unhappy because it implies that something else is more important to him. If my bills come due and I don't get a paycheck to cover them, I'm unhappy because I now have to call and ask for payment arrangements so they don't shut off the electricity. If my kids hide their report cards and the teacher has to call to find out why my son didn't return the Discipline Referral slip she sent home three days ago, I'm unhappy because now I have to deal with whatever it was he did AND with the imminent grounding he has just earned. If my best friend's boyfriend breaks up with her over Facebook, I'm unhappy because now she's miserable and because he has destroyed part of my faith in "nice guys".
Life is full of situations, both good and bad... Every day is a new situation, and every day we have things that make us happy and things that make us unhappy. There is simply no way to get around that. And when we have one of those days where our emotions are being yanked up and down and all over the place by situations, we end up exhausted and miserable and sick and confused as heck about what we're supposed to be feeling. If life is all about being happy, then there is really no point to any of it because, as soon as something happens to make us happy, something else always seems to come along to make us unhappy and we end up forgetting the happiness we had at the beginning.
I don't believe that life is supposed to be about being happy. I choose instead to believe in contentment.
Contentment is not about being happy all the time. It's not like that old Sunday School song about being "in-right, outright, upright, downright happy all the time" (The only Sunday School song that I can say I actually, really, truly, completely HATE... here's a video of it in case you don't know it by heart already...)
(Note: I have nothing at all against the people in this video or against anyone who uses this song in their children's church or Sunday School program... I just really think the song itself is horrible and misleading to children of all ages because it tells them that, if they become a Christian, their life will be all wonderful and they will be happy all of the time. Which, as anyone who has been a Christian for more than a week or so can testify, is simply not true :-/ )
But anyway... Contentment is knowing that, whatever happens and however the situation you're in turns out, you're going to be OK. It's knowing that no matter how bad your day is going and how scary the pit you're standing at the edge of looks, tomorrow will be a new day and it isn't the end of the world. It's knowing that what you're feeling isn't the be-all end-all of what you are, and that even in the deepest, darkest depressions of the night, you are still a beautiful creature with the right to have hope and a future.
For the Christian, contentment is knowing that there is no situation coming over you that wasn't allowed for and prepared for by the Maker of the universe Himself. It's knowing that no matter what happens next, God Himself knows the number of your days (Psalm 139) and the plans He still has for you to fulfill (Jeremiah 29:11). Contentment comes from knowing that each and every situation will either 1) make you stronger and give you yet another glimpse of how God is working in your life, or 2) kill you and therefore transport you into His presence in Heaven, where there are no more crazy situations to have to deal with :-) (OK, so maybe that either/or was a wee bit extreme... Oh, well, that's just how we roll here, I guess... ^_^ )
Even though I am a Christian, if I'm going to be honest and have even a shred of integrity, I have to admit that here are a lot of situations in my life (and in the lives of a lot of my friends and family members) that I am most definitely NOT happy about. I am NOT in-right, outright, upright, downright happy all the time :-P But... I can be content knowing that, no matter how unhappy I feel or how frustrated I am with what's going on, it's not the end of the world. When things are fantastic and everything is coming together and it all works and I'm in love with the world and everything in it, I can be content to not cling to what's fleeting and to just bask in the glory of a rare good day. When things are going badly and life just kind of sucks and I feel like blasting my frustrations all over Facebook just to get them out of my head, I know that this is not how my story (or the stories of all those hurting people I love) ends.
That's what contentment is.
Don't strive and work and chase after and exhaust and starve yourself trying to find happiness, because even if you do catch it, it will fade and drift away. Look for contentment, and in those moments when you realize, "Hey, I'm actually happy today!", you will be able to stop and relax and enjoy and savor it :-D
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
What Salvation Means to Me...
As Christians, we hear a lot about salvation (i.e. "being saved", "getting saved", "leading someone to salvation" "being washed by the blood of the Lamb", etc.) Some of us even take what we hear and then go out and talk to others about salvation... and we call that "leading people to Christ", "soul winning", "leading them down the Romans Road", etc. I wonder though, sometimes, if maybe we talk so much about "salvation" that people who aren't already Christians have learned to just tune us out like so much noise. I mean, we use all kinds of simple-yet-abstract phrases to dance around the topic... "just ask Jesus into your heart", "get right with God", "save your soul", "become a believer", "meet Jesus", and on and on... and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong or false about any of those words or approaches at all; each one explains a certain facet of salvation, and who knows which phrase will be the one that totally makes sense to someone who's searching for the truth about Jesus Christ?
But I wonder if maybe we spend so much time trying to find the right words to say it and the right phrase to summarize it that we never actually get around to explaining what salvation could actually mean to the person we're talking to, and we end up just adding to the noise instead of helping anyone. And if we're all just so many noisy clanging cymbals, is it any wonder that, when the topic of religion comes up and we say, "Well, I'm a Christian...", no one ever follows that up with "Oh, really? Why are you a Christian, and what is it like to be a Christian?" Unless of course they're just looking for reasons to dismiss you as an idiot, lunatic, or fanatic... and if that's the case, then they're going to find reasons to do that no matter what you say, so what you say really doesn't end up mattering in the first place :-/ But that's a whole 'nother topic, and not one worth going into at the moment anyway, so... :-)
So, basically, if you have no interest in my answer to the question of "Why are you a Christian and what is it like to be a Christian?", and/or you don't care to read about what salvation means to me, then that's just fine... you can skip the rest of this post and read about some of my other, less "religious" soapboxes. No offense taken :-)
But... if you're curious or if you really want to know more about why I am the way I am, then here we go:
What "Salvation" Means to Me
We all strive to fill our days with stuff to keep us busy, to keep us interested, to keep us from getting bored. We go to school and/or to work, we come home, we eat our meals, we go to sleep. We read books, watch TV, listen to our iPods, look for YouTube videos, play Minecraft. We play in bands, compete on teams, work on projects, spend time with our loved ones, relax with friends... well, we try to relax when we're not busy doing all of the other stuff, anyway.... Sometimes we go places to worship those things that are bigger than us... whether they're worthy of our worship or not.
But then, there are those times when we're all alone, when the work is done, the friends have all gone home, the loved ones are all asleep, when the computer is off and the TV is silent. Those times when we have nothing to distract us from that gigantic gaping hole in our souls that keeps us awake, whispering in our ears...
You. Are. Alone.
And we realize that not only are we alone and feeling kind of lonely in that moment, but we are undeniably, painfully Alone as well. Because there is a difference between simply being lonely and being Alone... Lonely is what we feel when we think no one is around and we wish that someone was; we know that it is temporary and that we will survive. When we are Alone, we're not so sure about either. We spend our days trying to convince ourselves and others that that hole isn't there, that we are complete and that we have it all together... but when we are Alone, we look it in the face and know that we are liars.
(OK, so maybe you're sitting there reading this and thinking to yourself, "Oooooh-KAY then... Let me know when Reality comes calling again, and until then, just keep your little CRACKED self over in that corner way, way away from the rest of us, 'kay? Thanks..." And that's fine... I'm not likely to come after you with anything but a dull pencil, so you're most likely safe where you are ^_^ But next time you're alone, and you're thinking about all that big dark Meaning of Life stuff... I'll bet you'll remember this and start to wonder why... o.O)
So, what is this hole in our souls and why is it there? I would say that it's the spot where our spirit should be, and that it's been carved and shaped and left empty by God so that we would look for Him. You see, we're like little kids with a jigsaw puzzle... We've got most of the pieces together, we know what our lives should look like, but there's just that one spot we can't seem to find the right piece for.
So what do we do?
We take all of the pieces we've got left and try to fit them into that spot to see which one is the right one. Trouble is (and I'm sure we've all run into this at least once in our lives... I know my kids did a LOT when I was still running my day care :-D ), all of our puzzle boxes have gotten spilled a time or two, and with this particular puzzle, there's one piece missing.
So, what do we do now?
Well, we can try to keep cramming random pieces into the hole, and get more and more frustrated with each one that doesn't fit. Hey, we can even go and get all of the other puzzle boxes out, dump them all over the floor, and then try all of those pieces in the hopes that one of them will fit. Just imagine all the super bonus frustration that you can have with that approach ^_^ And then when none of the pieces fit, we can get all mad and throw all of the puzzle pieces all around the room before setting fire to them in the bathtub. And then try to explain the reasonableness of our decision-making process to the nice firefighters and the insurance adjusters when they come to call...
Or... We can go to the adult of the house and ask them if they know which piece goes there and where that piece might be. And if they would be so kind as to help us find it and put it in its place.
See, this is the situation I found myself in when I was 20. None of my pieces were fitting together, and I knew that I had great big gaping holes in my life where things like hope, security, and a will to live should have been. I had been trying for years to put myself together and keep myself there, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to work for very long, and as soon as I thought I had it figured out, another piece would fall to the ground and my whole puzzle would shatter.
I was Alone.
But then God was there, and He offered me the piece I'd always been missing. And once that piece was in place, all of the other pieces made more sense. Of course, it helped that now I could ask God for help putting the pieces together... "So, hey, Lord... How does this piece with the iguana in polka-dot boxer shorts balancing on a beach ball fit into the whole picture? Oh, wait... What do you mean it's really a red carnation balanced on the steering wheel of a Toyota Camry? Well, I guess that does make a little more sense, especially when you put it between those other two pieces..."
But still... What does any of this have to do with salvation?
Well, salvation is the name of that missing piece to my puzzle... No, not the iguana one, the other, analogy-type one, smart-alecks :-P You see, I needed a savior, someone to rescue me and help me put the pieces of my life together, because as long as I was trying to put myself together on my own, I was doomed to failure.
But what did I need saving from? What super-scary threat did I need to be rescued from?
Now, this is the part where a preacher would talk about eternal punishment for sins, the death of the soul, separation from God and light and all things that are Good, and unending punishment in a lake of fire. And all of those things are in the Bible and all of those are gigantically big, end-of-the-world, Meaning-of-Life kinds of things that I am fantastically grateful to be rescued from. Because it is a huge relief to know that I don't have to worry about any of those things when I die. But, it seems to me that there should be more to salvation than just the things I won't have to worry about until after I'm dead. And I'm really not much of a preacher anyway, so...
I think we all get the concept of being saved from a white slavery ring by a devoted father (a la Taken), or being saved from genocide like in Schindler's List, or being saved from a sinking ship like in Titanic, or even being saved from Loki and the Chitauri by Nick Fury and the Avengers. We totally get that, and we even pay a good chunk of money to see those stories play out on the big screen. And in Christian circles, we hear all the time about people being saved from addictions, saved from prostitution, saved from disease or infirmity or financial difficulties... which are all amazing and fantastic, but not something we've all gone through. Most of us live pretty mundane lives, with few or no tales of sinking ships or bank robberies to tell. But that doesn't mean we don't need someone to save us sometimes. Here are the mundane little things that I needed saving from:
The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I was too stupid to know any better.
The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I really did know better.
The worry that no matter what I did, I would always be a failure.
The worry that everyone was about to find out that I would always be a failure.
The pressure of trying to be good enough for people to finally accept me for who I was.
The pressure of just trying to be better than I was.
The endless work of getting up every morning and still just being... me.
The suspicion that my existence and my life really was just a random collection of chances with no bigger meaning or point to it.
The fear about what if it would mean if that suspicion turned out to be true.
The frustration of going to work and to school each day and wondering why on earth any of it even matters.
The added frustration of being told that it all should matter by people who couldn't seem to explain why it should matter.
The realization that everyone I knew and everything I had was, at one point or another, going to leave me.
The panic in realizing that there was nothing I could do to stop them.
The terror of feeling lost and knowing that I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing, or how in the hell I'd gotten where I was.
The quiet certainty that all of that was my fault.
The knowledge that with every day I lived, I risked hurting the people who loved me and the ones that I loved back even more than I had the day before.
The knowledge that even if I tried to explain that to them, they'd deny it to my face and tell me I was just being melodramatic.
The loneliness of being completely, utterly Alone in this world.
The understanding that the only way to end that loneliness was for me to die.
The pain that I knew it would take to get myself there.
The damage I would do to myself if I didn't succeed.
The uncertainty of what was actually behind the dark veil of death.
To sum the whole list up in 7 words or less:
I needed to be saved from myself.
All my life, I had been hoping and waiting for my Bryan Mills, my Oskar Schindler, my Thor, my own personal superhero to come and rescue me from myself so that I could go out and finally be everything I always wanted to be. None of them ever came.
Jesus Christ did.
And in asking Him to rescue me and trusting that He actually would, I finally found the peace I had been missing. Which was followed by the hope, the security, and the will to live that I so desperately wanted. And He has never left me, even in my craziest, my darkest, and my scariest times... and I won't lie, there are still times like that, even now that I'm a Christian. The difference is that, when things get dark and no one is around, Jesus is still there and I'm not alone anymore.
I will be the first to admit that I'm not some well-read theologian; I know that there are a vast number of different theories about the afterlife, the soul, the "true" meanings of heaven, hell, grace, justice, redemption, propitiation, atonement, and so on-- even within Christianity alone. And I don't know much about most of those theories, much less about what other religions and worldviews have to say about such things.... and not knowing much means I should probably not say much, lest I sound even more like a total idiot than I already do ^_^
But what I can talk about is what I know from my own life and what it has convinced me of. And so, this is what I mean when I talk about "salvation"... I'm talking about the peace I have that comes from being saved from my own self-destructive impulses. The hope I have that comes from knowing I'm going to be all right after all. The relief that comes from knowing I have a Superhero who will come to either rescue me from whatever trouble I get myself into or stand guard over me as that trouble blows over. The joy that comes from knowing that whatever crap may be going on in my life right now, there is something 3 million times better waiting for me once it's over.
So, maybe you're asking: What on earth brought this particular train of thought roaring through the station at 3:30 in the morning on a night when my youngest child is home sick with the flu? (Well, maybe you weren't asking, but now that I've brought it up, just go with me on this one, OK? If for no other reason than sympathy for a sick kid... ^_^)
I've been thinking a lot recently about someone I know who doesn't see the same things I do when they think about God, the universe, the meaning of life, and a lot of that stuff. This person has become one of my very favorite people in the world, and I care a lot about them and what they think and feel and believe, even if we agree to disagree on some of the Big Picture Stuff. The thing is, because I care about this person, I want them to be more settled and feel more at peace than they are right now, and all I know is that I've found that kind of security, peace, joy, and meaning in my relationship with Jesus. What I don't want to do is to preach at them or make them feel like I'm lecturing or threatening them, because I remember what that feels like and I absolutely hate, hate, HATE that feeling... that feeling that because I'm not a saved believing Christian, I'm somehow subhuman and therefore not worthy of value unless I get my act together and get "saved." But, how do I talk to them about salvation without them thinking I'm trying to change them into something they're not or puff myself up into something I'm not? And I know that, as I go through this life, I'm going to meet more and more people like this, and I'm going to find myself over and over again in this same situation of wanting to speak but not feeling welcome to... and that doesn't even begin to count all of the people I'll never meet who will get to know me by reading this blog. The possibilities here actually hurt my brain o.O
So maybe I'm kind of hoping that, even if I never get the chance to tell them my story in person, they'll read this blog, and hopefully, they'll actually listen to what I have to say without shutting me out. In the meantime, my job is to love them right where they're at, whether we agree or not. Because really, it's not up to me to "save" them... that's between them and God. All I want to do is tell them what I know so that they can hear the truth about being a Christian from someone who's been there and has finally found what they are still so desperately looking for.
But I wonder if maybe we spend so much time trying to find the right words to say it and the right phrase to summarize it that we never actually get around to explaining what salvation could actually mean to the person we're talking to, and we end up just adding to the noise instead of helping anyone. And if we're all just so many noisy clanging cymbals, is it any wonder that, when the topic of religion comes up and we say, "Well, I'm a Christian...", no one ever follows that up with "Oh, really? Why are you a Christian, and what is it like to be a Christian?" Unless of course they're just looking for reasons to dismiss you as an idiot, lunatic, or fanatic... and if that's the case, then they're going to find reasons to do that no matter what you say, so what you say really doesn't end up mattering in the first place :-/ But that's a whole 'nother topic, and not one worth going into at the moment anyway, so... :-)
So, basically, if you have no interest in my answer to the question of "Why are you a Christian and what is it like to be a Christian?", and/or you don't care to read about what salvation means to me, then that's just fine... you can skip the rest of this post and read about some of my other, less "religious" soapboxes. No offense taken :-)
But... if you're curious or if you really want to know more about why I am the way I am, then here we go:
What "Salvation" Means to Me
We all strive to fill our days with stuff to keep us busy, to keep us interested, to keep us from getting bored. We go to school and/or to work, we come home, we eat our meals, we go to sleep. We read books, watch TV, listen to our iPods, look for YouTube videos, play Minecraft. We play in bands, compete on teams, work on projects, spend time with our loved ones, relax with friends... well, we try to relax when we're not busy doing all of the other stuff, anyway.... Sometimes we go places to worship those things that are bigger than us... whether they're worthy of our worship or not.
But then, there are those times when we're all alone, when the work is done, the friends have all gone home, the loved ones are all asleep, when the computer is off and the TV is silent. Those times when we have nothing to distract us from that gigantic gaping hole in our souls that keeps us awake, whispering in our ears...
You. Are. Alone.
And we realize that not only are we alone and feeling kind of lonely in that moment, but we are undeniably, painfully Alone as well. Because there is a difference between simply being lonely and being Alone... Lonely is what we feel when we think no one is around and we wish that someone was; we know that it is temporary and that we will survive. When we are Alone, we're not so sure about either. We spend our days trying to convince ourselves and others that that hole isn't there, that we are complete and that we have it all together... but when we are Alone, we look it in the face and know that we are liars.
(OK, so maybe you're sitting there reading this and thinking to yourself, "Oooooh-KAY then... Let me know when Reality comes calling again, and until then, just keep your little CRACKED self over in that corner way, way away from the rest of us, 'kay? Thanks..." And that's fine... I'm not likely to come after you with anything but a dull pencil, so you're most likely safe where you are ^_^ But next time you're alone, and you're thinking about all that big dark Meaning of Life stuff... I'll bet you'll remember this and start to wonder why... o.O)
So, what is this hole in our souls and why is it there? I would say that it's the spot where our spirit should be, and that it's been carved and shaped and left empty by God so that we would look for Him. You see, we're like little kids with a jigsaw puzzle... We've got most of the pieces together, we know what our lives should look like, but there's just that one spot we can't seem to find the right piece for.
So what do we do?
We take all of the pieces we've got left and try to fit them into that spot to see which one is the right one. Trouble is (and I'm sure we've all run into this at least once in our lives... I know my kids did a LOT when I was still running my day care :-D ), all of our puzzle boxes have gotten spilled a time or two, and with this particular puzzle, there's one piece missing.
So, what do we do now?
Well, we can try to keep cramming random pieces into the hole, and get more and more frustrated with each one that doesn't fit. Hey, we can even go and get all of the other puzzle boxes out, dump them all over the floor, and then try all of those pieces in the hopes that one of them will fit. Just imagine all the super bonus frustration that you can have with that approach ^_^ And then when none of the pieces fit, we can get all mad and throw all of the puzzle pieces all around the room before setting fire to them in the bathtub. And then try to explain the reasonableness of our decision-making process to the nice firefighters and the insurance adjusters when they come to call...
Or... We can go to the adult of the house and ask them if they know which piece goes there and where that piece might be. And if they would be so kind as to help us find it and put it in its place.
See, this is the situation I found myself in when I was 20. None of my pieces were fitting together, and I knew that I had great big gaping holes in my life where things like hope, security, and a will to live should have been. I had been trying for years to put myself together and keep myself there, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to work for very long, and as soon as I thought I had it figured out, another piece would fall to the ground and my whole puzzle would shatter.
I was Alone.
But then God was there, and He offered me the piece I'd always been missing. And once that piece was in place, all of the other pieces made more sense. Of course, it helped that now I could ask God for help putting the pieces together... "So, hey, Lord... How does this piece with the iguana in polka-dot boxer shorts balancing on a beach ball fit into the whole picture? Oh, wait... What do you mean it's really a red carnation balanced on the steering wheel of a Toyota Camry? Well, I guess that does make a little more sense, especially when you put it between those other two pieces..."
But still... What does any of this have to do with salvation?
Well, salvation is the name of that missing piece to my puzzle... No, not the iguana one, the other, analogy-type one, smart-alecks :-P You see, I needed a savior, someone to rescue me and help me put the pieces of my life together, because as long as I was trying to put myself together on my own, I was doomed to failure.
But what did I need saving from? What super-scary threat did I need to be rescued from?
Now, this is the part where a preacher would talk about eternal punishment for sins, the death of the soul, separation from God and light and all things that are Good, and unending punishment in a lake of fire. And all of those things are in the Bible and all of those are gigantically big, end-of-the-world, Meaning-of-Life kinds of things that I am fantastically grateful to be rescued from. Because it is a huge relief to know that I don't have to worry about any of those things when I die. But, it seems to me that there should be more to salvation than just the things I won't have to worry about until after I'm dead. And I'm really not much of a preacher anyway, so...
I think we all get the concept of being saved from a white slavery ring by a devoted father (a la Taken), or being saved from genocide like in Schindler's List, or being saved from a sinking ship like in Titanic, or even being saved from Loki and the Chitauri by Nick Fury and the Avengers. We totally get that, and we even pay a good chunk of money to see those stories play out on the big screen. And in Christian circles, we hear all the time about people being saved from addictions, saved from prostitution, saved from disease or infirmity or financial difficulties... which are all amazing and fantastic, but not something we've all gone through. Most of us live pretty mundane lives, with few or no tales of sinking ships or bank robberies to tell. But that doesn't mean we don't need someone to save us sometimes. Here are the mundane little things that I needed saving from:
The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I was too stupid to know any better.
The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I really did know better.
The worry that no matter what I did, I would always be a failure.
The worry that everyone was about to find out that I would always be a failure.
The pressure of trying to be good enough for people to finally accept me for who I was.
The pressure of just trying to be better than I was.
The endless work of getting up every morning and still just being... me.
The suspicion that my existence and my life really was just a random collection of chances with no bigger meaning or point to it.
The fear about what if it would mean if that suspicion turned out to be true.
The frustration of going to work and to school each day and wondering why on earth any of it even matters.
The added frustration of being told that it all should matter by people who couldn't seem to explain why it should matter.
The realization that everyone I knew and everything I had was, at one point or another, going to leave me.
The panic in realizing that there was nothing I could do to stop them.
The terror of feeling lost and knowing that I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing, or how in the hell I'd gotten where I was.
The quiet certainty that all of that was my fault.
The knowledge that with every day I lived, I risked hurting the people who loved me and the ones that I loved back even more than I had the day before.
The knowledge that even if I tried to explain that to them, they'd deny it to my face and tell me I was just being melodramatic.
The loneliness of being completely, utterly Alone in this world.
The understanding that the only way to end that loneliness was for me to die.
The pain that I knew it would take to get myself there.
The damage I would do to myself if I didn't succeed.
The uncertainty of what was actually behind the dark veil of death.
To sum the whole list up in 7 words or less:
I needed to be saved from myself.
All my life, I had been hoping and waiting for my Bryan Mills, my Oskar Schindler, my Thor, my own personal superhero to come and rescue me from myself so that I could go out and finally be everything I always wanted to be. None of them ever came.
Jesus Christ did.
And in asking Him to rescue me and trusting that He actually would, I finally found the peace I had been missing. Which was followed by the hope, the security, and the will to live that I so desperately wanted. And He has never left me, even in my craziest, my darkest, and my scariest times... and I won't lie, there are still times like that, even now that I'm a Christian. The difference is that, when things get dark and no one is around, Jesus is still there and I'm not alone anymore.
I will be the first to admit that I'm not some well-read theologian; I know that there are a vast number of different theories about the afterlife, the soul, the "true" meanings of heaven, hell, grace, justice, redemption, propitiation, atonement, and so on-- even within Christianity alone. And I don't know much about most of those theories, much less about what other religions and worldviews have to say about such things.... and not knowing much means I should probably not say much, lest I sound even more like a total idiot than I already do ^_^
But what I can talk about is what I know from my own life and what it has convinced me of. And so, this is what I mean when I talk about "salvation"... I'm talking about the peace I have that comes from being saved from my own self-destructive impulses. The hope I have that comes from knowing I'm going to be all right after all. The relief that comes from knowing I have a Superhero who will come to either rescue me from whatever trouble I get myself into or stand guard over me as that trouble blows over. The joy that comes from knowing that whatever crap may be going on in my life right now, there is something 3 million times better waiting for me once it's over.
So, maybe you're asking: What on earth brought this particular train of thought roaring through the station at 3:30 in the morning on a night when my youngest child is home sick with the flu? (Well, maybe you weren't asking, but now that I've brought it up, just go with me on this one, OK? If for no other reason than sympathy for a sick kid... ^_^)
I've been thinking a lot recently about someone I know who doesn't see the same things I do when they think about God, the universe, the meaning of life, and a lot of that stuff. This person has become one of my very favorite people in the world, and I care a lot about them and what they think and feel and believe, even if we agree to disagree on some of the Big Picture Stuff. The thing is, because I care about this person, I want them to be more settled and feel more at peace than they are right now, and all I know is that I've found that kind of security, peace, joy, and meaning in my relationship with Jesus. What I don't want to do is to preach at them or make them feel like I'm lecturing or threatening them, because I remember what that feels like and I absolutely hate, hate, HATE that feeling... that feeling that because I'm not a saved believing Christian, I'm somehow subhuman and therefore not worthy of value unless I get my act together and get "saved." But, how do I talk to them about salvation without them thinking I'm trying to change them into something they're not or puff myself up into something I'm not? And I know that, as I go through this life, I'm going to meet more and more people like this, and I'm going to find myself over and over again in this same situation of wanting to speak but not feeling welcome to... and that doesn't even begin to count all of the people I'll never meet who will get to know me by reading this blog. The possibilities here actually hurt my brain o.O
So maybe I'm kind of hoping that, even if I never get the chance to tell them my story in person, they'll read this blog, and hopefully, they'll actually listen to what I have to say without shutting me out. In the meantime, my job is to love them right where they're at, whether we agree or not. Because really, it's not up to me to "save" them... that's between them and God. All I want to do is tell them what I know so that they can hear the truth about being a Christian from someone who's been there and has finally found what they are still so desperately looking for.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Broken Stained Glass Candles... Like Me
So... The holiday season is now over and things are about to go back to "normal"... well, at least as normal as it gets around these parts o.O
For Christmas this year, my youngest gave me this stained glass candleholder made of grout and bits of broken blue glass...
He didn't make it himself (I know this because I was with him at Goodwill when I picked it up and commented on how cool it was... which was about 3 aisles before he told me "Mom, DON'T LOOK... I'll be right back!" and then took off running ^_^), but all the same, I love it just as if he did because of what it says about life and about me.
Allow me to explain.
Once upon a time, I was created as a beautiful, unblemished piece of art, without understanding of life or sin or failure. Granted, I had some structural flaws-- mainly health issues and a family background that would make life difficult for anyone-- but as far as I could see with my newborn eyes, I was perfect, lovely, and loveable.
But then, life happened. Over time, I was bumped, dropped, knocked around, fractured, and crushed by circumstances. In response, I lashed out, cutting myself and others with the sharpened edges of my shattered innocence. My flawless surface began to show cracks where I had been hurt, dribbles of glue where people who loved me had tried to fix me, and scraps of cellophane tape where I had tried to heal myself. Bits and pieces of me were broken off and embedded in the hearts of those who tried in vain to understand me, just as pieces of them were left buried in me.
As I began to see the power that I could have by hurting people, I became not a piece of art but a weapon, wielding my damaged pride like a knife and using my bloodied edges to slash at others before they could pierce me with their own. Yet the blood was not just theirs, but mine; for every wound I inflicted on them, I took two of my own. While the damage I did to those around me was spread out among dozens, the damage I did to myself landed only on me. Every cruel word I spoke, every bruise I left, every vicious tirade I inflicted echoed in my mind, and each word came back to haunt me as I realized that everything I said had been true... about me. I cut others so that I could forget that I had been cut myself.
Once I was an innocent; now I was a monster.
Once I was whole; now I was deformed.
Once I was beautiful; now I was broken.
My original form was lost, my once-shiny colors and designs covered by dirt and shattered by situations and choices. Like broken glass littering the midnight street, I had become ugly and useless, a cruel glittering of danger waiting only for the distracted feet of my next victim to tread upon me.
But then...
God steps in.
And bit by bit, He begins to gather up the broken pieces of me. He cleans them off and sets them aside, separating them by color, shape, and size.
Some pieces He refines, rubbing off the sharp edges and rendering them harmless; others He leaves sharp to be used as tools for His work.
Slowly, one by one, He takes each of the broken pieces and places them into a mold. At first, the design makes absolutely no sense to anyone but Him; in time, however, glimpses of the bigger picture become visible.
I write these paragraphs in the present tense because I am still a work in progress; God isn't finished putting me together yet. I still have some sharp edges and many missing pieces; I still have great big gaping holes where the pieces of my soul aren't quite ready to be put back in yet. I still feel lost and broken sometimes, and every so often, I accidentally slice open the hands of those who reach out to touch me. I am flawed and I am broken, and I know that, until the day God puts the final piece of me together and I see Christ face to face, I will always be flawed and broken.
But...
If by my brokenness, other people will see that there is a God and that He is the one who saves me from myself, then it is worth the pain. If by my flaws, other people can see that God is real and that if He can love a person as messed up as I am, He can love them too, then it is worth it. If my struggles and my shortcomings and my failures-- and the hope I still have in spite of them-- can show people that no situation is hopeless, then they are all worthwhile. If my weakness shows God's strength to carry me, then by all means... bring it :-)
Day by day, piece by piece, reminder by reminder, God takes the broken pieces of my life and puts them together into something beautiful again. Not the same as I was before... that design has been crushed and obliterated beyond recognition, and will never, ever be made whole again. But all the same, the end result will be breathtakingly beautiful... and like my broken stained glass candleholder, I think I will love it all the more for the work that He has put into it :-D
"Art in Me" by Jars of Clay
Images on the sidewalk
Speak of dreams' descent
Washed away by storms to graves
Of cynical lament
Dirty canvases
To call my own
Protest limericks carved
By the old pay phone
And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
See the art in Me
See the art in Me.
Broken stained glass windows
The fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls
An eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works
Of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to You
In awe once again
And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
See the art in Me
See the art in Me.
And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
For Christmas this year, my youngest gave me this stained glass candleholder made of grout and bits of broken blue glass...
He didn't make it himself (I know this because I was with him at Goodwill when I picked it up and commented on how cool it was... which was about 3 aisles before he told me "Mom, DON'T LOOK... I'll be right back!" and then took off running ^_^), but all the same, I love it just as if he did because of what it says about life and about me.
Allow me to explain.
Once upon a time, I was created as a beautiful, unblemished piece of art, without understanding of life or sin or failure. Granted, I had some structural flaws-- mainly health issues and a family background that would make life difficult for anyone-- but as far as I could see with my newborn eyes, I was perfect, lovely, and loveable.
 |
| http://supercleanpr.com |
But then, life happened. Over time, I was bumped, dropped, knocked around, fractured, and crushed by circumstances. In response, I lashed out, cutting myself and others with the sharpened edges of my shattered innocence. My flawless surface began to show cracks where I had been hurt, dribbles of glue where people who loved me had tried to fix me, and scraps of cellophane tape where I had tried to heal myself. Bits and pieces of me were broken off and embedded in the hearts of those who tried in vain to understand me, just as pieces of them were left buried in me.
 |
| http://tektites.co.uk |
Once I was an innocent; now I was a monster.
Once I was whole; now I was deformed.
Once I was beautiful; now I was broken.
My original form was lost, my once-shiny colors and designs covered by dirt and shattered by situations and choices. Like broken glass littering the midnight street, I had become ugly and useless, a cruel glittering of danger waiting only for the distracted feet of my next victim to tread upon me.
 |
| http://westoftheimagination.wordpress.com |
God steps in.
And bit by bit, He begins to gather up the broken pieces of me. He cleans them off and sets them aside, separating them by color, shape, and size.
 |
| http://earofthewind.com/about |
Some pieces He refines, rubbing off the sharp edges and rendering them harmless; others He leaves sharp to be used as tools for His work.
 |
| http://boehmstainedglass.blogspot.com/2011/07/octagonal-window-glass-cut.html |
Slowly, one by one, He takes each of the broken pieces and places them into a mold. At first, the design makes absolutely no sense to anyone but Him; in time, however, glimpses of the bigger picture become visible.
 |
| http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com |
I write these paragraphs in the present tense because I am still a work in progress; God isn't finished putting me together yet. I still have some sharp edges and many missing pieces; I still have great big gaping holes where the pieces of my soul aren't quite ready to be put back in yet. I still feel lost and broken sometimes, and every so often, I accidentally slice open the hands of those who reach out to touch me. I am flawed and I am broken, and I know that, until the day God puts the final piece of me together and I see Christ face to face, I will always be flawed and broken.
But...
If by my brokenness, other people will see that there is a God and that He is the one who saves me from myself, then it is worth the pain. If by my flaws, other people can see that God is real and that if He can love a person as messed up as I am, He can love them too, then it is worth it. If my struggles and my shortcomings and my failures-- and the hope I still have in spite of them-- can show people that no situation is hopeless, then they are all worthwhile. If my weakness shows God's strength to carry me, then by all means... bring it :-)
Day by day, piece by piece, reminder by reminder, God takes the broken pieces of my life and puts them together into something beautiful again. Not the same as I was before... that design has been crushed and obliterated beyond recognition, and will never, ever be made whole again. But all the same, the end result will be breathtakingly beautiful... and like my broken stained glass candleholder, I think I will love it all the more for the work that He has put into it :-D
And now, for the musical interlude part of the blog... Here is someone else's video for a song that perfectly captures what I'm trying to say here, only in a more poetical form :-) Lyrics are below for anyone who needs them...
"Art in Me" by Jars of Clay
Images on the sidewalk
Speak of dreams' descent
Washed away by storms to graves
Of cynical lament
Dirty canvases
To call my own
Protest limericks carved
By the old pay phone
And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
See the art in Me
See the art in Me.
Broken stained glass windows
The fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls
An eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works
Of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to You
In awe once again
And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
See the art in Me
See the art in Me.
And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
Saturday, June 16, 2012
What To Expect When You're High-Schoolering...
Yesterday, my daughter and most of her friends graduated from the 8th grade; as she keeps reminding me, she's "officially" a high schooler now, and "not some little seventh grader anymore, Mooooommmm... " <insert dramatic eye-rolls here> I'm kind of hard-pressed to find the words to say how proud I am of her and all of her friends, and how hope-filled, excited, and nervous I am for all of them as they start the final leg of their journey to adulthood: high school.
With that in mind, here is what I'd like to say to them-- the little bits and pieces of advice that I'd like to give them as one who went through high school and survived. Not that they would listen at the moment, since they're too busy reveling in the fact that it's finally SUMMER (Yay! Yah! WooHOOOOOOOOO!!! and all that jazz) to actually listen to anyone, but hey... that's what my blog is for, right? ^_^
So, without further ado (sounds so much more dramatic than it really is, huh? ^_^), here is my Top 8 list of Things Every New High Schooler Should Know:
1. Everything counts.
If you have a goal of succeeding in high school, going to college, and getting a job where you get paid a lot of money for not working very hard (as one of my daughter's friends was quoted as saying in their graduation ceremony), you have to start now, with that first Freshman Study Skills class. In high school, there are no MDFs to turn in when you were too busy to finish your homework and need an extra day or two (or 17, as the case may be) to get it in... Either you turn it in on time or the teacher docks you by half, no ifs ands or buts. It's not that there are no second chances in high school... it's just that second chances in high school are called "Credit Recovery" and you have to take them during your summer vacation :-( Which just plain sucks. Big time.
2. Don't underestimate the little things.
You never know what someone else is going through, and your one insignificant little action could be the thing that either makes their day bearable or destroys their will to go on. A whole school year of little things can make the difference between giving up and pushing through... especially since you have no idea of all the other "little things" that someone is thinking about in any given moment.
3. Kindness.
No matter what, you will never go wrong with kindness. Don't do to others just because they did it to you... an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and all that. It doesn't matter who started it... You can be the one to finish it :-)
4. You don't know the future.
You may get the chance tomorrow to make amends for the stupidities of today. Then again, you may not. You have no way of knowing what is going to happen next to yourself or to that person walking away from you... As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone, and don't wait to make the wrong things right.
5. You can't change the past.
When all else fails, today is a new day, and you can always choose to keep walking forward. It really doesn't matter what everyone says you are or what everyone is predicting based on yesterday and all that came before... You are who you are because God has formed you and shaped you to be in this place, and where you go from here is between you and Him. Don't let the haters tell you who you have to be.
6. YOLO.
When Nickelback says to live like today was your last day, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should go out and give everything away and refuse to plan for the future. Rather, live each day so that when you lay down at night, you don't have any regrets to keep you awake. If you have to think about how you're going to hide what you're about to do, chances are good you probably shouldn't be doing it. If you've screwed up and need to make things right, do it today, ASAP. Very few people will be ticked off at you for calling or texting them at 10:45 PM to say you're sorry :-)
7. YODO. You only die once too. Don't be excessively stupid :-) (And, since I forgot to include a video in the last post, I'll throw in a bonus video here...
And finally, with all that being said...
8. Enjoy high school.
This is your last chance to be a kid, before you have to worry about a job, a place to live, insurance, settling down and raising kids, etcetera. Think about it... If you're 14 now, you could have at least 60 years ahead of you to do all those things. You don't have to choose a husband or wife, a career path, or a house right now (although the choices you make now could end up having a huge effect on those choices down the road...) Enjoy being young and having your whole life ahead of you... Don't be in such a hurry to weigh yourself down with the worries of being an adult just yet, because in 20 years, you'll be looking back and going, "Y'know, I really, really wish I hadn't done that...", and you'll end up sitting at your kitchen table writing all of these things down in a blog instead of actually telling your kids and their friends what they need to know to survive high school ^_^
I think this song pretty much sums up everything I want to say here... and knowing my daughter, chances are good that she'd rather hear it from somebody yelling into a microphone than from me, anyway ^_^
Today really is the first day of the rest of your life... and not just because that's what the vice-principal said in his official 8th grade graduation speech that he's probably been giving from memory since Vanilla Ice was still cool o_O No, today is the first day of the rest of your life because, as long as you still have life in you, you can choose to make it the first day. This is your life, no one else's... and no one can take that away from you :-)
With that in mind, here is what I'd like to say to them-- the little bits and pieces of advice that I'd like to give them as one who went through high school and survived. Not that they would listen at the moment, since they're too busy reveling in the fact that it's finally SUMMER (Yay! Yah! WooHOOOOOOOOO!!! and all that jazz) to actually listen to anyone, but hey... that's what my blog is for, right? ^_^
So, without further ado (sounds so much more dramatic than it really is, huh? ^_^), here is my Top 8 list of Things Every New High Schooler Should Know:
1. Everything counts.
If you have a goal of succeeding in high school, going to college, and getting a job where you get paid a lot of money for not working very hard (as one of my daughter's friends was quoted as saying in their graduation ceremony), you have to start now, with that first Freshman Study Skills class. In high school, there are no MDFs to turn in when you were too busy to finish your homework and need an extra day or two (or 17, as the case may be) to get it in... Either you turn it in on time or the teacher docks you by half, no ifs ands or buts. It's not that there are no second chances in high school... it's just that second chances in high school are called "Credit Recovery" and you have to take them during your summer vacation :-( Which just plain sucks. Big time.
2. Don't underestimate the little things.
You never know what someone else is going through, and your one insignificant little action could be the thing that either makes their day bearable or destroys their will to go on. A whole school year of little things can make the difference between giving up and pushing through... especially since you have no idea of all the other "little things" that someone is thinking about in any given moment.
3. Kindness.
No matter what, you will never go wrong with kindness. Don't do to others just because they did it to you... an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and all that. It doesn't matter who started it... You can be the one to finish it :-)
4. You don't know the future.
You may get the chance tomorrow to make amends for the stupidities of today. Then again, you may not. You have no way of knowing what is going to happen next to yourself or to that person walking away from you... As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone, and don't wait to make the wrong things right.
5. You can't change the past.
When all else fails, today is a new day, and you can always choose to keep walking forward. It really doesn't matter what everyone says you are or what everyone is predicting based on yesterday and all that came before... You are who you are because God has formed you and shaped you to be in this place, and where you go from here is between you and Him. Don't let the haters tell you who you have to be.
6. YOLO.
When Nickelback says to live like today was your last day, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should go out and give everything away and refuse to plan for the future. Rather, live each day so that when you lay down at night, you don't have any regrets to keep you awake. If you have to think about how you're going to hide what you're about to do, chances are good you probably shouldn't be doing it. If you've screwed up and need to make things right, do it today, ASAP. Very few people will be ticked off at you for calling or texting them at 10:45 PM to say you're sorry :-)
7. YODO. You only die once too. Don't be excessively stupid :-) (And, since I forgot to include a video in the last post, I'll throw in a bonus video here...
And finally, with all that being said...
8. Enjoy high school.
This is your last chance to be a kid, before you have to worry about a job, a place to live, insurance, settling down and raising kids, etcetera. Think about it... If you're 14 now, you could have at least 60 years ahead of you to do all those things. You don't have to choose a husband or wife, a career path, or a house right now (although the choices you make now could end up having a huge effect on those choices down the road...) Enjoy being young and having your whole life ahead of you... Don't be in such a hurry to weigh yourself down with the worries of being an adult just yet, because in 20 years, you'll be looking back and going, "Y'know, I really, really wish I hadn't done that...", and you'll end up sitting at your kitchen table writing all of these things down in a blog instead of actually telling your kids and their friends what they need to know to survive high school ^_^
I think this song pretty much sums up everything I want to say here... and knowing my daughter, chances are good that she'd rather hear it from somebody yelling into a microphone than from me, anyway ^_^
Today really is the first day of the rest of your life... and not just because that's what the vice-principal said in his official 8th grade graduation speech that he's probably been giving from memory since Vanilla Ice was still cool o_O No, today is the first day of the rest of your life because, as long as you still have life in you, you can choose to make it the first day. This is your life, no one else's... and no one can take that away from you :-)
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
But I'm still here...
This past couple of months has been full of what Mark Lowry would call "life... more abundantly". What he means by that is that life is full of ups and downs... it's not a plateau by any means. And (further paraphrasing Lowry), if Jesus came so that we might have life more abundantly (John 10:10... pretty easy to remember, if I could only remember to remember it...), then this logically means that instead of life being happy little series of hills and valleys...
life should be more like this...
... crazy, chaotic, completely out of our control at all times.
This is how it works. I get that. It keeps things interesting.
Over the past couple of months, I started and finished my first bout of full-day student teaching... 3 weeks in a second grade classroom, which has in itself its very own microcosm of ups-and-downs. This was a higher point in the crazy roller coaster ride of the past few months... the kids were overall pretty sweet, they theoretically learned some math, and I got 27 construction paper "thank you" cards at the end of the last week (plus a Dutch Brothers coffee gift card from the teacher :-D) And now it's back to regular college classes for another 6 weeks or so... happy happy joy joy ^_^
Of course, there's no point whatsoever in mentioning everything that I wrote before that last paragraph unless I'm now going to talk about the abundant downside of life... but at least you can go into reading the rest of this post knowing that no matter how it might seem in the moment, there ARE still high points to life...
Recently, not one but two teenagers within our family's circle of friends have threatened or attempted to commit suicide. Both girls survived, but to say that they are "OK" would be a huge mistake and would actually be a lie. Physically, they look fine... "no permanent damage has been done" as the doctors say. But still, they're not OK.
I know because I've been there.
The biggest question that people keep asking is "Why?" As in, "Why would she do such a thing? I mean, look at her... she's beautiful, she's got such a nice family, she's smart, she's got friends who love her... There are thousands of people out there who would gladly trade their life for hers, or who would gladly take the years that she's willing to throw away... What on earth could make her think that suicide is ANY sort of an answer to the momentary troubles of this present life?"
Let me tell you why.
You may have a great family, with a mom and a dad and a nice house in the suburbs. Maybe your family has been attending the same church since you were a baby, or at least since you were old enough for Awanas. Maybe you went to the good schools in town, and maybe you've always gotten good grades and made everyone proud of you your whole life. Maybe you have awards on the wall for your art, or for your band solos, or for your writing... maybe your name has been in the paper as an Academic All-Star or as the top finisher in the long-jump or the 500m dash. Maybe your friends are all good kids with the same sorts of awards on their walls and the same badges on their Awanas vest.
Or, on the other hand, maybe your family is fractured beyond fixing. Maybe your mom and dad spend equal parts of their time fighting and making up, making peace and raising hell. Maybe your mom tells you that you're stronger than your past and your dad tells you to make sure you go farther than he did. Maybe life is tough, but you know that you'll make it if you're tougher. Maybe you've had to work hard for your good grades (or your not-so-good grades), and maybe you're just hanging onto your spot in the Jazz Band or on the soccer team through the kindness of people giving you rides to practices and events. Maybe you're even good enough to someday get a scholarship to a college that's somewhere far away from this godforsaken town you've landed in, and then you will make your own decisions and run your own life.
Or maybe your story is somewhere in the middle, or a mix of both.
Either way, it doesn't matter. Because none of it does.
Your church attendance, your Awanas awards... you know it's all a scam. Underneath, you know how messed up you-- and your family-- really are. You know that the thrill of winning first chair in the band or first place in the art fair will wear off after a day or two... and then everyone will expect you to top yourself next time. You know that no matter how tough you are, or how good you look on the outside, nothing can fix the things that are broken on the inside.
And frankly, you get tired of keeping up the act. It gets harder and harder each day to keep everyone from seeing the real you, from seeing how you're barely holding on, barely holding it together. You feel like one of those plate spinners in the circus... You have to keep all of the plates spinning, because if one plate falls to the ground and shatters, people will notice and you will be a failure. And you can't just stop, because then all of the plates will fall and shatter and no one will notice anything but your failure.
And when your life is reduced to the spinning of stupid china plates, you realize that none of it has any meaning. That your life is meaningless and empty. Nothing-- not your good grades, not your nice family, not your reputation or your status or your trophies-- has any worth or any value.
You have no value.
And when you have no value, your life has no value.
If your life has no value, it is insignificant.
If you're insignificant, then no one would notice if, suddenly, you weren't there.
So, you start dropping hints... "Imma gonna kill myself. I know where they keep the guns."
"What do you care... I'll be gone soon anyway."
"No one lives forever, you know..."
"I wish I were dead."
And then you wait and see what people do. You hope that it will make a difference, that someone will notice you and ask you how you're doing... and actually mean it. You hope that, finally, someone will look behind the mask and either help you spin the plates or take the plates from your hands before they fall.
But instead, they tell you you're just being melodramatic. You're just young, and you don't know yet that it will all pass. You have your whole life ahead of you... don't sweat the small stuff. When you're older, you will understand how silly your life right now really is, and you will look back on these days and laugh.
No one takes you seriously.
Unless you actually go through with it, that is.
And then, when they realize that they could have stopped you, but didn't... when they realize what a great and priceless treasure they let slip through their fingers... when they finally realize all that you could have been was lost because of their inaction... then they'll finally understand and take you seriously.
Death not only is supposed to make you a martyr, but it's also a way out of the meaningless endlessness of spinning all of those stupid china plates. It's a way to say, "I quit... this is stupid...", without anyone calling you a failure or a waste of space. It's a final rebellion against a system built on fakery and mindlessness: If you die young and leave a beautiful memory, you win.
Game over.
But... I'm still here to write this. Apparently, I was such a failure that I couldn't even succeed at suicide... which is the same spot that these two girls who have been weighing on my mind so heavily these past couple of days are in right now. What was supposed to be a final victory over an unfair world has now turned them into victims and prisoners and (according to their parents and the "professionals" who have been charged with watching over them) "persons who cannot be trusted."
But... I'm still here. Let me tell you why.
This life we live... all of the status, all of the activities, all of the homework and practices and awards... in and of themselves, yes, they are meaningless. No matter how much we do, or how well we do it, or how many awards we get, there will always be something left undone, or something we're not perfect at, or someone else who tops us.
All of our nice houses, or our nice families, or our nice friends... Some of that niceness is a facade, just like the siding on a house or the paint on a car. It makes it look better on the outside, but it doesn't do a thing to fix the rusted engine, or the leaky pipes, or even the squeaky garbage disposal.
Without a real meaning to life, life is meaningless. Without a good reason to spin those plates, there's no point to spinning them. In other words, if you're thinking your life has no meaning, no purpose... you may be right.
Which is as scary as standing on a cliff and getting ready to jump.
But... what if there is a meaning to life? What if there is a reason to get up and go out and be?
What if you are valuable because, out of all of the possible combinations of eggs and sperm and all of the situations in the world, someone chose the specific time and place and matter to create you? What if you are not a mistake, not an oversight, not an accident... What if you were chosen to be born into this world, to live in these times, to know these people... for a specific purpose?
Think about it this way. Think of everything you did today, all of the choices you made and the choices you didn't make, all of the things you did and the things you forgot to do, all of the things that were awesome and the things you wish you could take back... somehow, all of those random bits of circumstance ended up with you sitting here, reading these words right now, and thinking about a couple of girls who you've probably never met and who probably won't even read these words themselves.
If that ain't random, I don't know what is :-)
But I actually don't believe in randomness. Because when I was at the point where my life had no reason to go on, and where I figured I had nothing left to lose by committing suicide, I discovered that there really is a God, and that He really does love me... not because I was an amazing plate spinner, but simply because He chose to create me in the first place.
I had been told the "good news" countless times by countless Christians growing up... but not one of them could give me a reason why they thought that their God would love me. Sometimes their spiel was, "God loves you... Won't you make Him happy by getting saved today?"-- as if God's love was a limited-time, call-now-while-the-operators-are-still-standing-by sort of offer.
Other times their routine was, "God would hate for you to be cast into hell... If you choose Jesus today, God won't have to do that to you..." Which always made me imagine God standing there, wringing His hands and waiting indecisively for me to let Him off the hook on the whole casting-into-Hell-business.
And then there was always this one: "God loves you. He sent His son to die for your sins. If you ask Jesus into your heart today, all your sins will be taken away and you will live happily with Him for all eternity." To which I had one question... Why? OK, two questions, really... Will Jesus make the kids at school quit picking on me, or make my mom and dad stop fighting, or give me an immunity to head lice? Which is actually more like four questions, but you get my point...
By the time I was 16 or so, I had my reaction to these oh-so-concerned soul winners down pretty pat.
But...
God-- the real, true God who really did create the universe, and who really did create me-- is much, much bigger than any of the so-called missionaries who tried to boost their own spiritual self-esteem by converting one more angry, hurting teenager for their church. God really did send His son Jesus to die for me... not because I owed Him one for creating me in the first place, but because He loved me and wanted me to return to Him and be a part of His family. God already knew all about my screw-ups-- after all, if He didn't, then He certainly couldn't have been much of a God at all-- but He also already knew about why I was so screwed up in the first place. God already knew about all of the people I had hurt... and about all of the people who had hurt me. He already knew that I couldn't keep the plates spinning... and He knew which ones were about to fall.
God knew all of this all along... Even when I didn't.
All I knew was that I was at the end of everything I had, and it wasn't enough. All I knew was that I had nothing left to lose, nothing left worth keeping, and nothing left to live for. I figured that, if this "God" or "Jesus" or "Whoever" was real, then great... Maybe He could save me from myself. And if He wasn't... then I was no worse off than I already was, and suicide would still be there tomorrow.
So I kind of put it to God this way: "OK, Jesus... fine. Save me... I dare you."
For the first time in years, I found peace. And for the first time in four days, I was able to sleep.
The next day, I woke up. Nothing in my circumstances had changed... same apartment with the leaky window, same crummy minimum-wage job, same classes that I was struggling to care about and pass, same insecurities about who I was supposed to be and whether I was doing any of it right.
But for some strange reason, now I had hope. And that was what made all the difference.
And so... I'm still here. And now I can see that God let me go through all of the crap in middle and high school-- including my 6 suicide attempts-- so that I could stand here, on the other side of darkness, and say, "Hey... I'm still here. Let me help you across."
As I was thinking about what to write here and driving my daughter back from Youth Group, I heard this song, and it just seems to fit... Yet another example of the Randomness That Isn't that is God ^_^
life should be more like this...
... crazy, chaotic, completely out of our control at all times.
This is how it works. I get that. It keeps things interesting.
Over the past couple of months, I started and finished my first bout of full-day student teaching... 3 weeks in a second grade classroom, which has in itself its very own microcosm of ups-and-downs. This was a higher point in the crazy roller coaster ride of the past few months... the kids were overall pretty sweet, they theoretically learned some math, and I got 27 construction paper "thank you" cards at the end of the last week (plus a Dutch Brothers coffee gift card from the teacher :-D) And now it's back to regular college classes for another 6 weeks or so... happy happy joy joy ^_^
Of course, there's no point whatsoever in mentioning everything that I wrote before that last paragraph unless I'm now going to talk about the abundant downside of life... but at least you can go into reading the rest of this post knowing that no matter how it might seem in the moment, there ARE still high points to life...
Recently, not one but two teenagers within our family's circle of friends have threatened or attempted to commit suicide. Both girls survived, but to say that they are "OK" would be a huge mistake and would actually be a lie. Physically, they look fine... "no permanent damage has been done" as the doctors say. But still, they're not OK.
I know because I've been there.
The biggest question that people keep asking is "Why?" As in, "Why would she do such a thing? I mean, look at her... she's beautiful, she's got such a nice family, she's smart, she's got friends who love her... There are thousands of people out there who would gladly trade their life for hers, or who would gladly take the years that she's willing to throw away... What on earth could make her think that suicide is ANY sort of an answer to the momentary troubles of this present life?"
Let me tell you why.
You may have a great family, with a mom and a dad and a nice house in the suburbs. Maybe your family has been attending the same church since you were a baby, or at least since you were old enough for Awanas. Maybe you went to the good schools in town, and maybe you've always gotten good grades and made everyone proud of you your whole life. Maybe you have awards on the wall for your art, or for your band solos, or for your writing... maybe your name has been in the paper as an Academic All-Star or as the top finisher in the long-jump or the 500m dash. Maybe your friends are all good kids with the same sorts of awards on their walls and the same badges on their Awanas vest.
Or, on the other hand, maybe your family is fractured beyond fixing. Maybe your mom and dad spend equal parts of their time fighting and making up, making peace and raising hell. Maybe your mom tells you that you're stronger than your past and your dad tells you to make sure you go farther than he did. Maybe life is tough, but you know that you'll make it if you're tougher. Maybe you've had to work hard for your good grades (or your not-so-good grades), and maybe you're just hanging onto your spot in the Jazz Band or on the soccer team through the kindness of people giving you rides to practices and events. Maybe you're even good enough to someday get a scholarship to a college that's somewhere far away from this godforsaken town you've landed in, and then you will make your own decisions and run your own life.
Or maybe your story is somewhere in the middle, or a mix of both.
Either way, it doesn't matter. Because none of it does.
Your church attendance, your Awanas awards... you know it's all a scam. Underneath, you know how messed up you-- and your family-- really are. You know that the thrill of winning first chair in the band or first place in the art fair will wear off after a day or two... and then everyone will expect you to top yourself next time. You know that no matter how tough you are, or how good you look on the outside, nothing can fix the things that are broken on the inside.
And frankly, you get tired of keeping up the act. It gets harder and harder each day to keep everyone from seeing the real you, from seeing how you're barely holding on, barely holding it together. You feel like one of those plate spinners in the circus... You have to keep all of the plates spinning, because if one plate falls to the ground and shatters, people will notice and you will be a failure. And you can't just stop, because then all of the plates will fall and shatter and no one will notice anything but your failure.
And when your life is reduced to the spinning of stupid china plates, you realize that none of it has any meaning. That your life is meaningless and empty. Nothing-- not your good grades, not your nice family, not your reputation or your status or your trophies-- has any worth or any value.
You have no value.
And when you have no value, your life has no value.
If your life has no value, it is insignificant.
If you're insignificant, then no one would notice if, suddenly, you weren't there.
So, you start dropping hints... "Imma gonna kill myself. I know where they keep the guns."
"What do you care... I'll be gone soon anyway."
"No one lives forever, you know..."
"I wish I were dead."
And then you wait and see what people do. You hope that it will make a difference, that someone will notice you and ask you how you're doing... and actually mean it. You hope that, finally, someone will look behind the mask and either help you spin the plates or take the plates from your hands before they fall.
But instead, they tell you you're just being melodramatic. You're just young, and you don't know yet that it will all pass. You have your whole life ahead of you... don't sweat the small stuff. When you're older, you will understand how silly your life right now really is, and you will look back on these days and laugh.
No one takes you seriously.
Unless you actually go through with it, that is.
And then, when they realize that they could have stopped you, but didn't... when they realize what a great and priceless treasure they let slip through their fingers... when they finally realize all that you could have been was lost because of their inaction... then they'll finally understand and take you seriously.
Death not only is supposed to make you a martyr, but it's also a way out of the meaningless endlessness of spinning all of those stupid china plates. It's a way to say, "I quit... this is stupid...", without anyone calling you a failure or a waste of space. It's a final rebellion against a system built on fakery and mindlessness: If you die young and leave a beautiful memory, you win.
Game over.
But... I'm still here to write this. Apparently, I was such a failure that I couldn't even succeed at suicide... which is the same spot that these two girls who have been weighing on my mind so heavily these past couple of days are in right now. What was supposed to be a final victory over an unfair world has now turned them into victims and prisoners and (according to their parents and the "professionals" who have been charged with watching over them) "persons who cannot be trusted."
But... I'm still here. Let me tell you why.
This life we live... all of the status, all of the activities, all of the homework and practices and awards... in and of themselves, yes, they are meaningless. No matter how much we do, or how well we do it, or how many awards we get, there will always be something left undone, or something we're not perfect at, or someone else who tops us.
All of our nice houses, or our nice families, or our nice friends... Some of that niceness is a facade, just like the siding on a house or the paint on a car. It makes it look better on the outside, but it doesn't do a thing to fix the rusted engine, or the leaky pipes, or even the squeaky garbage disposal.
Without a real meaning to life, life is meaningless. Without a good reason to spin those plates, there's no point to spinning them. In other words, if you're thinking your life has no meaning, no purpose... you may be right.
Which is as scary as standing on a cliff and getting ready to jump.
But... what if there is a meaning to life? What if there is a reason to get up and go out and be?
What if you are valuable because, out of all of the possible combinations of eggs and sperm and all of the situations in the world, someone chose the specific time and place and matter to create you? What if you are not a mistake, not an oversight, not an accident... What if you were chosen to be born into this world, to live in these times, to know these people... for a specific purpose?
Think about it this way. Think of everything you did today, all of the choices you made and the choices you didn't make, all of the things you did and the things you forgot to do, all of the things that were awesome and the things you wish you could take back... somehow, all of those random bits of circumstance ended up with you sitting here, reading these words right now, and thinking about a couple of girls who you've probably never met and who probably won't even read these words themselves.
If that ain't random, I don't know what is :-)
But I actually don't believe in randomness. Because when I was at the point where my life had no reason to go on, and where I figured I had nothing left to lose by committing suicide, I discovered that there really is a God, and that He really does love me... not because I was an amazing plate spinner, but simply because He chose to create me in the first place.
I had been told the "good news" countless times by countless Christians growing up... but not one of them could give me a reason why they thought that their God would love me. Sometimes their spiel was, "God loves you... Won't you make Him happy by getting saved today?"-- as if God's love was a limited-time, call-now-while-the-operators-are-still-standing-by sort of offer.
Other times their routine was, "God would hate for you to be cast into hell... If you choose Jesus today, God won't have to do that to you..." Which always made me imagine God standing there, wringing His hands and waiting indecisively for me to let Him off the hook on the whole casting-into-Hell-business.
And then there was always this one: "God loves you. He sent His son to die for your sins. If you ask Jesus into your heart today, all your sins will be taken away and you will live happily with Him for all eternity." To which I had one question... Why? OK, two questions, really... Will Jesus make the kids at school quit picking on me, or make my mom and dad stop fighting, or give me an immunity to head lice? Which is actually more like four questions, but you get my point...
By the time I was 16 or so, I had my reaction to these oh-so-concerned soul winners down pretty pat.
Them: "Hello there, young lady... We're from that (fill-in-the-denomination-here) church just down the street. Do you know for sure if you died today that you would go to Heaven?"Which always made me laugh... If their God was so concerned about me that He sent them to tell me about Him and rescue me from the eternal torments of a lake of fire and sulfur, why were they always so quick to leave me once their script ran out?
Me: "I don't believe in Heaven."
Them: (Pause... for some reason, this must never have been the next line in any of the scripts they rehearsed back at the church.)"Well... if you don't believe in Heaven, you'll end up in Hell, then. You wouldn't want that, now, would you?"
Me: "Don't believe in Hell either."
Them: (Another pause... usually accompanied with frowns and blinking eyes as well.) "Well... if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, I guess you'll end up in Hell, then. Have a nice day!"
But...
God-- the real, true God who really did create the universe, and who really did create me-- is much, much bigger than any of the so-called missionaries who tried to boost their own spiritual self-esteem by converting one more angry, hurting teenager for their church. God really did send His son Jesus to die for me... not because I owed Him one for creating me in the first place, but because He loved me and wanted me to return to Him and be a part of His family. God already knew all about my screw-ups-- after all, if He didn't, then He certainly couldn't have been much of a God at all-- but He also already knew about why I was so screwed up in the first place. God already knew about all of the people I had hurt... and about all of the people who had hurt me. He already knew that I couldn't keep the plates spinning... and He knew which ones were about to fall.
God knew all of this all along... Even when I didn't.
All I knew was that I was at the end of everything I had, and it wasn't enough. All I knew was that I had nothing left to lose, nothing left worth keeping, and nothing left to live for. I figured that, if this "God" or "Jesus" or "Whoever" was real, then great... Maybe He could save me from myself. And if He wasn't... then I was no worse off than I already was, and suicide would still be there tomorrow.
So I kind of put it to God this way: "OK, Jesus... fine. Save me... I dare you."
For the first time in years, I found peace. And for the first time in four days, I was able to sleep.
The next day, I woke up. Nothing in my circumstances had changed... same apartment with the leaky window, same crummy minimum-wage job, same classes that I was struggling to care about and pass, same insecurities about who I was supposed to be and whether I was doing any of it right.
But for some strange reason, now I had hope. And that was what made all the difference.
And so... I'm still here. And now I can see that God let me go through all of the crap in middle and high school-- including my 6 suicide attempts-- so that I could stand here, on the other side of darkness, and say, "Hey... I'm still here. Let me help you across."
As I was thinking about what to write here and driving my daughter back from Youth Group, I heard this song, and it just seems to fit... Yet another example of the Randomness That Isn't that is God ^_^
Sunday, May 8, 2011
10 Reasons Why It Sucks To Be A Skinny Girl...
OK, so, once again, I'm sitting here thinking about how our lovely Oregon May (sunshine, blue skies, highs in the mid- to upper- 60s) seems to have turned so suddenly back into a not-so-lovely Oregon March (wind, clouds, showers... yeah, you get the picture), and somehow that gets me thinking about the past, and that somehow (yes, my thought processes usually are this random...) leads me to put together my "Top 10 Reasons Why It Sucks To Be A Skinny Girl":
10. We're always cold. Always. Not just in October, or December, or January, or March, but always. When it's 87 degrees out and the rest of the world is lounging around in their shorts and tank tops, we will be the ones shivering and wondering when summer will finally arrive as we grab our favorite GFU hoodie and bury our heads and hands in its folds. Oh, and this would be in July or August, mind you... because here in Oregon, that's about the size of summer as we know it :-)
9. We have the dubious privilege of being able to shop in at least 3 different sections of any department store: Women's, Juniors, and Girls 7-16. It's very difficult to find work-appropriate clothing that doesn't require a shiny pink patent leather Hannah Montana belt to hold them onto us, and it's even more difficult to earn the respect of your fifth graders when you're wearing the same outfit as three of them. Just trust me on this one...
8. Every time we go to any grandmother's home-- whether it's our own grandmother or not-- for dinner, we always get clucked over and served double helpings under the mantle of "fattening us up". Which isn't so bad, for the most part... unless of course the grandmother's specialty involves pork, leftover goulash, or Spam and green beans. Or all of the above... together. Then things get scary...
7. Every time we go home to visit, our mothers shake their heads at us and mutter under their breaths about how "college cafeteria food just isn't what it used to be and if only we would just live at home things would be better..." Which is really sad when you're 35, married with several small children, and you can't even afford cafeteria food. Which then moves right into Reason #6...
6. People assume (especially if any of the aforementioned small children are as skinny as we are) that we simply CAN NOT COOK.
Okay, well, I guess in my case they would be right... I'm not a creative cook, or a particularly good cook. I don't really even LIKE to cook. But I can sure microwave stuff really well, and I LOVE to bake :-D Actually, I'm getting better at cooking stuff that everyone in my family can and will eat, and I do eat what I cook, so the implication that I'm incapable of cooking actually does chafe a bit, the more I think about it...
5. A lot of women automatically assume that their boyfriends/fiancees/husbands are looking at us and wishing that they (the girlfriends/fiancees/wives... not the guys doing the looking) were skinny like us. Given my personal dating history and that of the other skinny girls I know, I can most assuredly tell you that this is simply NOT the case... or if it is, those women do a really, really, REALLY good job of keeping their men-- and any others in about a 15 foot radius, for that matter-- from showing any interest in us whatsoever.
4. When we go out to lunch with a group, the first thing that the host or hostess at the restaurant does is point us to the salad bar. I really despise the salad bars at restaurants, because honestly, if I wanted to eat lettuce and veggies, I'd spend the 3 bucks for a bag of Fresh Express and a bottle of Catalina and pig out at home. When I go out to eat-- especially if someone else is paying-- I want REAL food and plenty of it... nom nom nom :-D
3. Women who look just fine to us feel that they're perfectly entitled to begin conversations that involve food with, "You're so skinny... I hate you." And then they smile and say they're just kidding... usually. But still, the damage is done. No one likes to be told that they're hated for something that they can't control, and it's especially damning when, if we were to turn the tables and say, "Wow, you're a bit chubby... I hate you...", it would end the friendship right then and there. It's also hard when all the while, we're looking at them and wishing that we had those kind of curves, and remembering all the times that our husbands or boyfriends have looked at women with curves and tried to gently suggest that "it would be OK if we had curves like that too..." Constructive criticism be damned, it hurts to be told you're not good enough.
2. Nothing ever quite looks right on us. Even when we think we look fine, we constantly have friends and relatives looking us over when we walk into a room, shaking their head at us, and suggesting that we just need to get more rest, we just need to eat more and eat better, or we just need to stop working so hard. They ask if we're feeling OK, compare our arms to toothpicks and wonder aloud if we really do disappear when we turn sideways. (The answer to that last one, BTW, is that no, we don't, but right then and there, we wish we could...) What they don't see is that the mirror at home points out the roundness of our cheeks and the way our chins get wider when we tilt our heads just so, and that it laughs at us when we suck it in to make ourselves look slenderer. What they don't know is that we are trying as hard as we can to eat, to rest, to look normal, act normal, be normal.
1. People always assume we have an eating disorder.
Which is sometimes-- not always, but far, far too often-- true.
For some of us, at some point in our lives, someone told us that we would be happy if we were just a little bit thinner, that we would then be pretty and that people would finally love us. Sometimes that person is a parent, or a boyfriend, or a so-called friend at school, but more often than not, it's an invisible voice that we can never quite trace, a voice that seems to come from all sides and always pops up when it's least wanted or needed. We see other girls who seem to have it all together, and whether they're skinny or not, we assume that, if we were only prettier like them, we would attain what they have naturally. What we don't see is that they are scrambling just like we are to pretend that everything's fine and that inside, they're often thinking that if only they were pretty like so-and-so, then they would be happy too.
I struggled with anorexia from the time I was 13 until I was 19; it took me another 3 years and placing my unborn daughter at risk to finally break its hold over me. I honestly believed that, if I could just stick with 3 pieces of bread and a couple of glasses of milk each day, I would finally be slender enough that my face wouldn't resemble a potato and my thighs wouldn't wobble like beached whales when I walked. Of course, I always ended up eating more than that and cursing myself for being such a failure... everything in my life always seemed to come back to my inability to control myself and the inescapable fact that I was, and would always be, a failure. The most ironic thing? At my heaviest, I weighed only 131 pounds, which is completely normal for a 5-foot-6 teenager. More often, my weight hovered around 114... nowhere near overweight.
When I was 19, I finally admitted that my not eating was a problem and resolved to make myself eat more. Funny thing, though... suddenly, my appetite all but disappeared. Even after Jesus Christ saved me at the age of 20 (which is yet another long story that I may or may not go into at another time), it just didn't seem like my eating was all that important in the big scheme of things-- I mean, after all, aren't Christians supposed to force their bodies into submission and show self-control in all things and avoid gluttony and all that "be holy as I the LORD am holy" good stuff? (Yes, I'm being sarcastic here... please don't start posting comments about how I'm misinterpreting the Scriptures and making Christianity into some sort of ascetic self-mutilation cult. Thank you... o_O)
What finally gave my the wake-up call to start actually doing something about my anorexia was when the doctor who was to deliver our first child became concerned because, at 8 months of pregnancy, I had stopped gaining weight; she feared that my inability to eat enough had caused the baby to stop growing entirely. Two additional ultrasounds were inconclusive; there wasn't enough detail to tell anything other than that our soon-to-be born daughter was alive, but not moving as much as she had been before. For the first time, my eating disorder was endangering someone other than myself, someone I had been charged by God to take care of and to protect-- not to starve and cripple. Our daughter was born nearly 2 weeks past her due date weighing 8 lbs, 2 oz and (after spending a few additional days in the hospital for unrelated issues) perfectly healthy, so it turned out to be just a scare for all of us. BUT... I guess I needed something like that to shake me out of my stupidity and motivate me to actually conquer my eating issues. To this day, though, I have trouble gaining weight and keeping it on, and even though I eat and eat and eat, I never quite make it to the point where people actually believe me when I say that I'm fine. So I guess I will always be one of the "skinny girls"... and at this point, I'm OK with that :-)
There is a song I've always loved that helps me to put an image to this struggle with myself; maybe I like it so much because I have no innate musical talent of my own BUT if I did, I wish I would have written and sung this song myself :-) Anyway, here is a video that someone else made for the song, followed by the lyrics...
Anorexia is something that never completely goes away; it's always at the back of your mind, whispering in your ear and calling you names like "fat", "ugly", and "cow". It laughs along with the jokes about ugly people and pokes you in the ribs to tell you that, hey, they're laughing at you too. It tells you that no matter how hard you work or how far you go, you will never be pretty enough, attractive enough, special enough, or good enough for anyone to love you. And when someone finally does tell you that you are enough, you are special, and that they do love you, it calls them a liar. Anorexia is the enemy within; its weapons are the mirror and the scale, and it seeks to destroy us from the inside out. We are not strong enough to battle it on our own and win because it is us; this is why we need God's love and His strength to fight it on our behalf. And now, well into the second decade of this war against myself, I can at least say that I'm not losing nearly as often anymore... and that gives me hope for tomorrow :-D
And now that it's almost 12:30 in the morning, I think I'll be signing off for now... until later :-)
10. We're always cold. Always. Not just in October, or December, or January, or March, but always. When it's 87 degrees out and the rest of the world is lounging around in their shorts and tank tops, we will be the ones shivering and wondering when summer will finally arrive as we grab our favorite GFU hoodie and bury our heads and hands in its folds. Oh, and this would be in July or August, mind you... because here in Oregon, that's about the size of summer as we know it :-)
9. We have the dubious privilege of being able to shop in at least 3 different sections of any department store: Women's, Juniors, and Girls 7-16. It's very difficult to find work-appropriate clothing that doesn't require a shiny pink patent leather Hannah Montana belt to hold them onto us, and it's even more difficult to earn the respect of your fifth graders when you're wearing the same outfit as three of them. Just trust me on this one...
8. Every time we go to any grandmother's home-- whether it's our own grandmother or not-- for dinner, we always get clucked over and served double helpings under the mantle of "fattening us up". Which isn't so bad, for the most part... unless of course the grandmother's specialty involves pork, leftover goulash, or Spam and green beans. Or all of the above... together. Then things get scary...
7. Every time we go home to visit, our mothers shake their heads at us and mutter under their breaths about how "college cafeteria food just isn't what it used to be and if only we would just live at home things would be better..." Which is really sad when you're 35, married with several small children, and you can't even afford cafeteria food. Which then moves right into Reason #6...
6. People assume (especially if any of the aforementioned small children are as skinny as we are) that we simply CAN NOT COOK.
Okay, well, I guess in my case they would be right... I'm not a creative cook, or a particularly good cook. I don't really even LIKE to cook. But I can sure microwave stuff really well, and I LOVE to bake :-D Actually, I'm getting better at cooking stuff that everyone in my family can and will eat, and I do eat what I cook, so the implication that I'm incapable of cooking actually does chafe a bit, the more I think about it...
5. A lot of women automatically assume that their boyfriends/fiancees/husbands are looking at us and wishing that they (the girlfriends/fiancees/wives... not the guys doing the looking) were skinny like us. Given my personal dating history and that of the other skinny girls I know, I can most assuredly tell you that this is simply NOT the case... or if it is, those women do a really, really, REALLY good job of keeping their men-- and any others in about a 15 foot radius, for that matter-- from showing any interest in us whatsoever.
4. When we go out to lunch with a group, the first thing that the host or hostess at the restaurant does is point us to the salad bar. I really despise the salad bars at restaurants, because honestly, if I wanted to eat lettuce and veggies, I'd spend the 3 bucks for a bag of Fresh Express and a bottle of Catalina and pig out at home. When I go out to eat-- especially if someone else is paying-- I want REAL food and plenty of it... nom nom nom :-D
3. Women who look just fine to us feel that they're perfectly entitled to begin conversations that involve food with, "You're so skinny... I hate you." And then they smile and say they're just kidding... usually. But still, the damage is done. No one likes to be told that they're hated for something that they can't control, and it's especially damning when, if we were to turn the tables and say, "Wow, you're a bit chubby... I hate you...", it would end the friendship right then and there. It's also hard when all the while, we're looking at them and wishing that we had those kind of curves, and remembering all the times that our husbands or boyfriends have looked at women with curves and tried to gently suggest that "it would be OK if we had curves like that too..." Constructive criticism be damned, it hurts to be told you're not good enough.
2. Nothing ever quite looks right on us. Even when we think we look fine, we constantly have friends and relatives looking us over when we walk into a room, shaking their head at us, and suggesting that we just need to get more rest, we just need to eat more and eat better, or we just need to stop working so hard. They ask if we're feeling OK, compare our arms to toothpicks and wonder aloud if we really do disappear when we turn sideways. (The answer to that last one, BTW, is that no, we don't, but right then and there, we wish we could...) What they don't see is that the mirror at home points out the roundness of our cheeks and the way our chins get wider when we tilt our heads just so, and that it laughs at us when we suck it in to make ourselves look slenderer. What they don't know is that we are trying as hard as we can to eat, to rest, to look normal, act normal, be normal.
1. People always assume we have an eating disorder.
Which is sometimes-- not always, but far, far too often-- true.
For some of us, at some point in our lives, someone told us that we would be happy if we were just a little bit thinner, that we would then be pretty and that people would finally love us. Sometimes that person is a parent, or a boyfriend, or a so-called friend at school, but more often than not, it's an invisible voice that we can never quite trace, a voice that seems to come from all sides and always pops up when it's least wanted or needed. We see other girls who seem to have it all together, and whether they're skinny or not, we assume that, if we were only prettier like them, we would attain what they have naturally. What we don't see is that they are scrambling just like we are to pretend that everything's fine and that inside, they're often thinking that if only they were pretty like so-and-so, then they would be happy too.
I struggled with anorexia from the time I was 13 until I was 19; it took me another 3 years and placing my unborn daughter at risk to finally break its hold over me. I honestly believed that, if I could just stick with 3 pieces of bread and a couple of glasses of milk each day, I would finally be slender enough that my face wouldn't resemble a potato and my thighs wouldn't wobble like beached whales when I walked. Of course, I always ended up eating more than that and cursing myself for being such a failure... everything in my life always seemed to come back to my inability to control myself and the inescapable fact that I was, and would always be, a failure. The most ironic thing? At my heaviest, I weighed only 131 pounds, which is completely normal for a 5-foot-6 teenager. More often, my weight hovered around 114... nowhere near overweight.
When I was 19, I finally admitted that my not eating was a problem and resolved to make myself eat more. Funny thing, though... suddenly, my appetite all but disappeared. Even after Jesus Christ saved me at the age of 20 (which is yet another long story that I may or may not go into at another time), it just didn't seem like my eating was all that important in the big scheme of things-- I mean, after all, aren't Christians supposed to force their bodies into submission and show self-control in all things and avoid gluttony and all that "be holy as I the LORD am holy" good stuff? (Yes, I'm being sarcastic here... please don't start posting comments about how I'm misinterpreting the Scriptures and making Christianity into some sort of ascetic self-mutilation cult. Thank you... o_O)
What finally gave my the wake-up call to start actually doing something about my anorexia was when the doctor who was to deliver our first child became concerned because, at 8 months of pregnancy, I had stopped gaining weight; she feared that my inability to eat enough had caused the baby to stop growing entirely. Two additional ultrasounds were inconclusive; there wasn't enough detail to tell anything other than that our soon-to-be born daughter was alive, but not moving as much as she had been before. For the first time, my eating disorder was endangering someone other than myself, someone I had been charged by God to take care of and to protect-- not to starve and cripple. Our daughter was born nearly 2 weeks past her due date weighing 8 lbs, 2 oz and (after spending a few additional days in the hospital for unrelated issues) perfectly healthy, so it turned out to be just a scare for all of us. BUT... I guess I needed something like that to shake me out of my stupidity and motivate me to actually conquer my eating issues. To this day, though, I have trouble gaining weight and keeping it on, and even though I eat and eat and eat, I never quite make it to the point where people actually believe me when I say that I'm fine. So I guess I will always be one of the "skinny girls"... and at this point, I'm OK with that :-)
There is a song I've always loved that helps me to put an image to this struggle with myself; maybe I like it so much because I have no innate musical talent of my own BUT if I did, I wish I would have written and sung this song myself :-) Anyway, here is a video that someone else made for the song, followed by the lyrics...
"Piece of Glass"Can’t believe that I did it againWake me up from this nightmare‘Cause this monster’s wasting me awayTaking my daysEvery day, I live a bit lessOne night leads to anotherEven if I went backWould they recognize me?Or criticize me?Who are you that lies when you stare at my face?Telling me that I’m just a traceOf the person I once was‘Cause I just can’t tell if you’re telling the truthOr a lieOn you I just can’t relyAfter all, you’re just a piece of glassStill I control this nightmareWhen I call, it answersBut I can’t tell it when to come orWhen to stayWho are you that lies when you stare at my face?Telling me that I’m just a traceOf the person I once was‘Cause I just can’t tell if you’re telling the truthOr a lieOn you I just can’t relyAfter all, you’re just a piece of glass“Don’t talk… listen.Hold Me tighterStay with Me just for a whileUntil the sun shinesStay with MeJust give Me one more day…”Who are you that lies when you stare at my face?Telling me that I’m just a traceOf the person I once was‘Cause we’re not the sameYou’re just a picture of meYou’re gone as soon as I leaveYou’ve lived my life for meAnd you’re no more than just a piece of glassYou’re no more than just a piece of glass-- Danielle Young & Derek Webb
Anorexia is something that never completely goes away; it's always at the back of your mind, whispering in your ear and calling you names like "fat", "ugly", and "cow". It laughs along with the jokes about ugly people and pokes you in the ribs to tell you that, hey, they're laughing at you too. It tells you that no matter how hard you work or how far you go, you will never be pretty enough, attractive enough, special enough, or good enough for anyone to love you. And when someone finally does tell you that you are enough, you are special, and that they do love you, it calls them a liar. Anorexia is the enemy within; its weapons are the mirror and the scale, and it seeks to destroy us from the inside out. We are not strong enough to battle it on our own and win because it is us; this is why we need God's love and His strength to fight it on our behalf. And now, well into the second decade of this war against myself, I can at least say that I'm not losing nearly as often anymore... and that gives me hope for tomorrow :-D
And now that it's almost 12:30 in the morning, I think I'll be signing off for now... until later :-)
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