Love Story of a Recovering Sinner

As I was wallowing in my misery the other day, facing a mountain I couldn't climb, I remembered kinda what got me facing the mountain in the first place.  I have this insatiable desire to PLEASE EVERYONE.  no matter the emotional or mental cost to my self.  Living that way is a challenge, to say the least.  But it's exceptionally challenging when you're trying to please God, too.

See I have this idea that I'm not lovable.  So I have to MAKE people love me by being amazing.  I try really really hard.  And most of the time, it works.  People love me.  But then they don't love me for who I am, they love me for how I make them feel, or what I do for them.  So I'm left feeling just as empty as before.  The only love I have is the love I create by making myself indispensable.  oh, THAT's why I'm always busy, stressed out and tired.

This might seem quite all right to you, but it has bigger repercussions.  I can't believe that God loves me for me, either.  I believe He loves me when I'm doing something for His kingdom (like leading Bible Study or doing evangelism) but when I'm NOT performing up to par (like recently).  (Up to par in my head is leading a bible study, praying with other women on a regular basis, basically being a busy Christian woman doing Christian woman things and not having time to think).  So there's this big mountain that I've built between me and God, separating us because of my attitude toward Him.  I can't experience His love completely, and I can't experience His blessings.  Sounds like that whole idea of sin, right?  Oh, right.  Sin.

So yesterday, I was sitting there, in Macy's Taste Bar physically, but mentally I was facing this huge mountain.  I want to be on the other side, to see and experience the beauty and majesty on that side of the mountain.  To set up my tent and just...stay there.  But I can't get there on my own.  No matter how hard I try to make people love me, I can't move that mountain.  And it's getting in the way of the love I want, know is mine, and God wants to give me.

Then, Jesus comes from around the other side of the mountain.  Well, actually, I'm not sure how he got there.  He has this habit of just APPEARING randomly, especially when I'm pouting.

Hey Sweetheart, let me help you move this mountain.

AND like any truly hopeless woman, I said to Him:

Good luck, mister.  I been workin' on this here mountain for far too long.  I just wanna get to the other side, but it's impossible to get there.

Then I turned my back on the man and continued to pout.

ok, so maybe the dialect on that was not characteristic of yours truly, but that's how it's running in my head.

I can do it.  I'll move this whole mountain for you.  Will you marry me?

Excuse me? Run that last part by me again...

I said, will you marry me?

*dramatic pause*  Is this a trick?

 Then He laughs, shakes His head, turns His back, and starts digging.  WITH His bare hands.

Now look, I've known this guy for a long time.  He's really not all that impressive at first.  Short curly hair, dark skin, muddy brown eyes.  Kinda short...although He has great muscle definition.  Probably from digging at mountains with nothing but His bare hands.  We've been friends for a long time - since I was three.  When I was 18 He went from being my childhood friend to being my best friend.  Sometimes we go a really long time without talking - usually because I'm angry or ignoring Him.  We're coming off a stint of not talking for a while, at least not really about anything important.  Story is, I got angry and confused and He didn't tell me His plans, so I figured I'd do things my way.  Then I got into a mess and He saved me from it and I was licking my wounds for a while.  I shifted my focus from my relationship with Him to making His Dad love me despite me. (The fact that He and His Dad are really the same person doesn't necessarily always compute...)

Another reality is I promised to marry this guy a long time ago.  Like, when I was three.  I didn't understand it then, but I promised.  And we were married.  And then, because I didn't really understand what I promised, I got distracted and started not acting like I was married.  Then He pulled me out of a bad situation, and I remembered.  And then I forgot.  And then I remembered.  And then I forgot.  And now He was asking me to marry Him...again.

I turn around to look at Him - this man I married so long ago.  Somehow, watching Him work for me turns a key in some lock in my heart, I got up, and walked over.

Hey, what are you doing?

He smiles.  I take a minute to look at Him again.  His muddy brown eyes are serious, going about his business like it was the only thing that mattered.  I remembered that it was looking into those eyes that always made me feel like I was the only thing that mattered.  But I know Him better than that.  Everyone matters to this man.  His heart is so...pure.  So full of love.  For everyone.  Which makes me feel even more humbled that He would spend this time with me, when so many others need and deserve His time. 

I suddenly am hit by the reality that He's sweating, like His clothes are drenched.  As I'm looking at Him, I also see His hands.  The old scars that have been there since I met Him have opened and started bleeding.  Bleeding badly.

Jesus, You're bleeding.

Yeah, these old scars open up every time I do something like this.

Does it hurt?

Not as much when you're talking to me again.  It's always worth it just to hear your voice.  I wish you wouldn't stop talking to me.  The silence hurts more than these old wounds.

This is silly.  Let me do this.  It's my mess.  My mountain to move.

You already tried, Remember? you can't by yourself.  I have to.  But if you like, you could help me.  We could work on taking apart this mountain together.

Will it hurt?

Yes.  But you won't bleed like I am.  I'll do all the really hard stuff.

Okay.   

We work together in silence.  My hands are all chapped after a while, but it's good to be working with Jesus.  He has this song He sings to make the work go by easier, and His voice is beautiful.  I know a few verses, and the chorus, so I sing with Him when I can, but when I can't I'm content to just listen.  Every once in a while, I make a mistake and He takes over to fix the mess.  I feel awful, but he comes to comfort me, telling me I'm still learning and I'm not expected to be perfect yet.  And I look into His eyes and see no disappointment there, only overwhelming love.  I start to cry and He wipes my tears away.  He holds me comfortingly and kisses my cheek, and we just sit for a while, Him and me.

  You know what?

Nope.  No idea.

I love you.

Jesus, You always say that.    

It's always true.  Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Forever.  I'll always love you.

I love you too.

I know.  Just don't forget again, please. 

And then He kisses my cheek again, gets up, starts whistling, and we go back to work.  Trying to move this mountain.
  

Beauty...(It's a theme right now)

I was thinking the other day out loud to my mom, and I was talking about how *beautiful* a certain friend of mine was.  Mom saw a picture, and later said she didn't understand.  not to be rude or anything, Mom thinks my friend is beautiful, but she was expecting the face that launched a thousand ships or something because of the way I talked this girl up.  Her physical beauty is what my mom was expecting to be hit by.  Mom said she was very pretty.

Helen of Troy - or Diane Krueger.  Same difference.

Which made me think today...I have this idea that I'm friends with the most beautiful people in the world.  None of them are supermodels, none of them are Helen of Troy or Aphrodite, or even Iseult, but they're the most beautiful people I know.

Mom has never met most of them.

I've learned and grown through the influence of each of them.  Especially the ones I'm closest to.

I seem to remember being struck by their beauty the first time I saw each of them.  While I'd like that to be true, my mom's reaction made me wonder if I'm remembering right.  I seem to remember thinking all of my friends were the most beautiful woman I'd ever met...no homo.  But for so many women to be the most beautiful woman I've ever met...

I'm beginning to think Helen of Troy wouldn't stand a chance when lined up to my friends.  Because my friends have beautiful hearts. Beautiful, wonderful, feminine hearts that God made knowing I would need women with such good hearts around me.  And while none of them would mind being called the most beautiful woman ever to live in a contest including a few angry goddesses, none of them would trade their current titles as wives, sisters, friends and daughters to the people around them for the world.  Helen of Troy *apparently through no fault of her own, Aphrodite* did.  Sorta.  you'll have to read the story.  How to start an ancient war for dummies.

So, thanks to my beautiful friends.  I think you're all physically the most beautiful people in the world, but also the women with the most beautiful characters I've known.

I feel like I'm not making my point very clear...

Let's think about a practical example of beauty - the Mona Lisa. What's so beautiful about her? She has no eyebrows, her forehead is really a six head, he eyes are kinda close together, and her hair is kinda greasy. She actually looks a little sick now that I think of it.What's captivating about the Mona Lisa is that enigmatic half-smile she greets you with, and the light that DaVinci captured in her eyes. She is inviting. You can't imagine her as a real person with crossed arms and a pout. I can't even imagine her sitting for the portrait with crossed arms. The real Mona Lisa just HAD to be one of those women who treated everyone like a close friend, invited you to tea even when it meant moving her schedule around and made you feel like you were the most important person ever.

As a disclaimer, I don't sit around thinking about how my friends DON'T live up to my idea of beauty...I was making a point.

Beauty that I enjoy, to continue with the definition I gave in my last post about beauty, is the kind which provides rest, which provides some kind of nourishment through contemplation.  And it's not necessarily all wrapped up in the physical attributes of something.  So many times it's about how it makes you feel when you think of it.  It gives you a sense of peace, of awe, and of transcendence.  My friends will continue to be beautiful throughout all time to me.  Because beauty doesn't rest on the absence of blemishes (which I don't seem to remember on my friends anyway...) or how much you weigh or what your laugh sounds like or how you move.  It rests on those qualities which make something enjoyable.

A Discourse about Beauty and Daleks

My sisters are coming home for a visit next week tomorrow! By which I mean, we were expecting them next week but they'll be here tomorrow.  Which, actually, now is today.  Woops. *mental note - I should be cleaning*

In thinking of this I realize - my family always has visitors we're really not expecting.  And most of them are family members we haven't seen in a while.  :) which is great, and lends itself to great stories.  The most recent one is that our cousin Jason came into town on his scheduled visit, but we had forgotten to write down the schedule.  So Jason texted Dad about directions to our house.  Cue mass hysteria.  we had forgotten that he was coming!

But his visit was great, and we had some great conversation.  Which is always nice.  Because I think I was still a little kid last time I saw Jason.  It's nice to finally have grown-up conversations with my grown-up cousins.  Which brings me to the point of this whole thing.  One of our topics was the complete misunderstanding of God on the part of most modern-day thinkers and people in general.

We talked about sublimity - the difference between the Sublime and the Beautiful.  In literary and art and philosophical circles, it's not an unheard of topic.  Philosophers have studied the Sublime aesthetic for a very long time.

Basically what it comes to is this - Beauty makes you feel good.  it's there for enjoyment and pleasure. It inspires contemplation. The Sublime is something different.  The very beauty of something that is truly Sublime is terrifying.  Because that which is Sublime is capable of terrible things - That which makes you long for the experience of the sublime (its beauty) is inherently capable of killing you.  it's like you're a moth attracted to the light dancing from the dew of a spider's web.  You know it's gonna kill ya, but ya can't resist it.  The experience of the Sublime inspires action in response.

The disturbing thing is that we came to the conclusion that our culture has lost the idea of the Sublime.  We think any kind of beauty should be peaceful, should be conciliatory, should bring people together.  But the Sublime has a way of dividing people.  There is not a gray area when one is confronted with the Sublime.  Everything is an extreme.

In consequence of watering down our idea of beauty, our culture has lost depth, vitality and true inspiration.  What's truly tragic is who we have made God into.  Even the church has watered God down from a Sublime being to merely a Beautiful and benevolent benefactor.  The way we worship Him corporately, the way we pray to Him, the way we look to Him takes into account all of His delightful beauty, but subtracts His terrifying glory and power so that we forget we should respond to Him as a Sublime Deity.  That which originally inspired man to worship - the unimaginable power of God combined with his unimaginable Beauty - has been forgotten, and we are left with lifeless worship of dead choruses merely repeating how much we love Jesus.  Like a bunch of drones.  

 

Daleks, from the hit BBC TV series, Doctor Who.  One of my guilty pleasures.

When I worship sometimes, or watch others worshipping, it seems like we're all only going through the ritual - doing what we've been told to do.  It reminds me of some characters from the popular British TV show, Doctor Who.  The Daleks, a race of time-traveling beings whose goal is to become the only life form in the universe because they believe themselves to be superior, constantly chant "Ex-ter-minate. Ex-ter-minate." in a robotic monotone.  The Daleks firmly believe they should kill everything that is not Dalek, because it is not Dalek. They passionately believe in their cause, without having their own inspiration or proper understanding of why they must do what they do.  We may not be out to exterminate all other life forms, but it seems like we're holding on to this form of worship without understanding where the worship comes from.  We do it because we're meant to.  We may even feel something, because we know we're supposed to.  But do we do it because it's the only option left to us when faced by our cultural view (as a Church) of God?

In being confronted with the truly Sublime nature of God, the prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, and John could do nothing but hit the floor and worship.  They saw His beauty, His power, and His glory - and it was too much. It was terrifying, and it was wonderful.  They desired not to leave the LORD, but desired to hide themselves from Him too, because of the power displayed in His Sublime Beauty.  They desired to be close to Him, but knew it was not safe to be close to Him.  Their experience of God was a paradox of sorts.  They loved him so much it hurt, and feared him so much it hurt.  They wanted to be as close to Him as possible, and wanted to be as far away as possible.  They wanted to stay, and yet wanted to leave.

I do have some hope.  When I first began learning about the philosophical idea of the Sublime versus the Beautiful, it was difficult to comprehend.  But there were a few who eventually did - myself, another Christian, and a few Muslim women.  In a class of 250 college students, there were only 5 or so who ever really grasped the idea of Sublime vs. Beautiful - and all of us equated the Sublime with God.  Something Christianity and Islam have in common is this historical fear mixed with longing inspired by the presence and knowledge of God.  And in being confronted with a growing Muslim community in the world (Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, proportionately), American Christians are beginning to rediscover the proper response to God.

I encourage you all to read Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement: Book 1 and Book 2.  They lay out an idea of Beauty versus the Sublime which, from a Christian perspective, enriches and enhances one's idea of the Character of God.  The Cliffs Notes version might be the most helpful, if you're not interested in translating the philosopher's jargon.  It's not exactly an easy read.  After reading that, and chewing on it for a few hours (...or days), I encourage you to return in your quiet times to Colossians 1:15-23 and contemplate what it says about Christ.  I think it will enrich your relationship with God and your worship experience.

Happiness is a straw.

So much has changed from my last post...it's been a year and some change.  Another reason I was intimidated by the prospect of a blog in my first entry - I'm really bad at follow-through.  ha.

A reason I've been uncommunicative - so much has changed since I wrote my last blog!  I graduated, moved back home, got a *cough* job.  and have been thoroughly disillusioned with the wide world.  YES! PROGRESS!

...

Sorry that was disheartening.  Really, my emotions are all over the place.  I'm SO THANKFUL FOR THE MERCIES OF GOD in NOT giving me what I think thought I wanted.

The truth is, I can't even tell you everything I've learned.  my heart and head don't always give me the words to communicate my thoughts.  Some lessons I don't didn't even want to learn.  Some I thought I should would learn in a way other than the way God chose to teach me.  And while I wouldn't say I'm HAPPY about the changes, I also wouldn't say I wish they hadn't happened.

I guess I've learned (yeah, right) begun to learn the secret to contentment - something I studied last semester with a very special young woman named Rachael.  It's not necessarily being excited about what you've been given.  Cause sometimes it's like getting a package of hanes sports socks as your only christmas present.  You're like *WHAT?!* but the truth is you needed them more than any other stuff you could have gotten.  It's not even necessarily being happy about it.  But it's choosing to see the things you've been given as a blessing because they're what you've been given.  It's choosing to recognise that HOLINESS that sets God apart from us, and the perfection that is inherent in His divine plan.

It's like Joy.  Joy isn't happiness.  It's something different all together.  I think maybe I've been chasing my happy ending, but waaaay before the end.  maybe that's why I've been discontent and heartsick.  I'm grasping at straws to change God's plan.  I'd rather stick to joy and contentment.  Maybe that would make me a happier person too.