I’ve been so stressed this week. Frown line, headache, TMJ, knots in my neck, upset stomach, tossing and turning type of stressed. With PMS and no chocolate. Sad life.
Right now, though, I feel content. I had a really great time shopping with Gesika today, and sometimes best friend time is all you need. She was in a bad mood too when we first set out, but we were able to turn it around with the help of some chai and retail therapy.
Ahhhh…I feel better.
Finally!
There are a few things that, as a rule, I can’t stand. Church people and girls are at the top of the list. So girls from church are my personal hell on earth.
I realize that I’m generalizing and stereotyping. But in my experience, most of the girls I’ve had the displeasure of associating with in churchlike settings are vapid, shallow, concerned with appearances and unable to stand on their own. They’re daddies girls who are constantly seeking approval from everyone around them and their main goal is to marry someone who is important or the son of someone important in the church.
I used to want to be one of them. Oh, so badly.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself fit in. So I eventually quit. For a while, I quit everything related to church and even stopped playing in the band. When I returned, I didn’t hang out with anyone. I literally had NO friends close by. I went to school, work, and came home. My grades were great and I watched a lot of TV. It was a very quiet time in my life, and my only face-to-face conversations of any importance were with my mom. I spend a lot of time texting and calling my far away friends. And although I’d still see on Facebook all of the comments and pictures of church people hanging out, I had absolutely no desire to join in. I no longer cared.
I worked through a lot of hurt in that time, and after a while got to the point where I could see people that had ostracized me without feeling that old stab of pain. I even struck up conversations with people now and then, but this time I had no expectations.
Then I shocked myself by meeting someone I really liked. She started dating one of my friends and was the sister of someone I had gone to school with for years. We hit it off from our first conversation. She was hard to get ahold of when we weren’t at church, but every time I saw her we chattered away and had a blast. We hung out a few times with our friends and I looked forward to seeing her. I felt as if I didn’t have to be strategic around her- I could just show her who I was. We giggled, a lot, and whispered about things that would earn us shocked faces and frowns from most people around us. I liked her because she had a pretty real view of things that most people in church try to pretend don’t exist.
She was one of those people that, if you could PICK someone to be friends with, it would be her. We both got new jobs around the same time, and then the holidays were crazy, and so many times we said, “When things calm down, we’re going to hang out. Just us.”
Finally, I decided to try to make it happen. But she wasn’t responding to texts or facebook messages for days, or the next time I’d see her she’d apologize. Finally, I got fed up with it and asked her boyfriend if he could see if she was getting my texts. I’d heard stuff about her phone not getting messages before, and was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She texted me later that day and started going on about how she was a loner and didn’t have much time to hang out and well, basically told me to quit trying.
Salt, meet wound.
I was hurt and extremely angry. I ranted and stewed and seasoned my bitterness like a witch’s brew. I wrote her off in my head and made every effort to avoid her. Fortunately, I didn’t see her at church for like, a month. Then, I saw her unexpectedly. She tried talking to me as I was walking outside to get my jacket from my car. I smiled stiffly and responded with as few words as possible and kept going. When I came back inside, I went into the bathroom. She was there. She tried to strike up a conversation. I kept trying to brush her off, but she persisted. Finally, I said, “I’ll come out and sit with you in a minute.” She grinned and said okay and walked out the door.
So, as I’m peeing as angrily as possible and berating myself for telling her I’d come sit with her, because there was no way out now- I heard God speak to my spirit.
“Forgive her.”
Of course, I wasn’t giving in that easily. A dialogue ensued.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She hurt me!”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to!”
“I don’t care.”
I’m certain that I had a big scowl on my face. I’m also certain that God was lounging on His throne with his arms folded and staring at me with a calm, yet pointed expression. I was having a standoff with someone who knew He was going to win. Soooooooo infuriating.
And, well, let’s just be real. There, in the church’s bathroom, I said, “Damnit!”
At that moment, I TOTALLY felt God smirking at me. My candor and whining didn’t bother Him. My stubbornness amused Him. I felt no censure, and I think it’s because He knew that I was deeply hurt, that I had deeply cared about her, and that I truly wanted to do the right thing.
I washed my hands and stomped over to the door. I took a deep breath and sighed it out forcefully and then, with a small bit of resignation mixed into a whole lot of determination, I said, “Okay.”
I went out there. Forgave. Talked. Hugged. Expressed my hurt. Cleared the air. Made a few jokes. Giggled. Hugged again.
That was a few weeks ago. And since then, I’ve only seen her once and said hi in passing. We haven’t had any other contact.
It still kind of hurts.
I still love her.
And I think God is proud of me.
I didn’t know what the “terrible twos” were until I met Heidi. She hit two and the cute little girl turned into a nightmare. She would throw tantrums for no reason, hit people, throw things, lie, stomp, whine and complain. It was such a stark contrast to her surroundings- living in a family who explodes with love, would take on the world for her and parents who spoiled her with anything she could ever want. Not getting her way was usually nothing more than getting the wrong flavor of popsicle.
I was SO excited when that little girl was born. But when she hit that pattern of behavior, I stopped trying to play with her. Usually never even talked to her because she would say something nasty. If she ever came up to say hi or give me a hug, it was like the earth stood still for a moment awaiting the four horsemen. I still loved her, but it was from a distance.
And then, somehow, I ended up playing basketball (badly) outside with my cousins. It was warm (as in, not freezing) and we were excited to be able to run around outdoors. A couple of them left and a couple went inside, including Bella, Heidi’s older sister. Thinking Heidi would want to go in as well to watch a movie with Bella, I prepared to follow them in. But the stubborn little stinker refused. When she was told that everyone was going inside, she pointed to me and said, “I want to stay out and play with Kay Kay.”
Erm, srsly? I warily agreed.
As things usually happen, it was the best time I have ever spent playing with her.
I held her up to dunk the ball. I chased her around. We kicked the ball back and forth and then threw it to one another. She demanded that I put down the second ball because she wanted us to share. She said hilarious things that had me in stitches. She wanted to see my car and climbed in the seat and honked the horn. She told me funny stories. She went inside to use the bathroom and dragged me back out to play again in the dark. She talked to the neighbors. She held my hand. When we were finished she told everyone what a great time we had, and when she left a little while later, she thanked me for playing with her and told me she loved me.
Just like that, the terrible twos were erased. She became a beautiful, lovable, loving little girl. It was there all along, but we just had to wait for her sweetness to come back and love her in the meantime
I’m so thankful that God never gives up on me. He greets me with such love even just after I throw a fit over silly little things. He knows that a sweet girl is there, deep down inside, and patiently draws her out. He loves me when I’m unlovable.
She sat at the table and recounted a story that is the closer to hell than anything I’ve ever experienced. Her straight posture and matter-of-fact manner didn’t welcome pity for her pain that she hid well behind a mask of cynicism and wit and bluntness. Yet as we sat there, my heart broke for her. It was too late for me to do anything about her pain, but I knew it was tangible and wondered if I could have done anything beforehand to help her through it. I even realized that such thoughts were useless, but it all felt so real in that moment that I could barely hold myself together.
And then when we were alone, she had the audacity to apologize for possibly offending me with her tale.
It was an issue that countless people have underwent, even in the church, and it’s something that usually results in immediate condemnation. Yet condemnation was the farthest thing from my mind. I haven’t known her for very long, but I can honestly say that I love her. And in that love there was no judgment. Only deep regret that I hadn’t been there to support her. That she had to endure it alone.
The thought that she could have kept her story to herself out of fear of offending me made me feel a whole host of negative emotions toward myself and the religious community in general. Yet it felt so powerful because she chose to tell me and my first response was grace.
This isn’t a post to talk about how fabulous I am. The desire to extend grace was the most humbling thing I have ever felt in my life. I realized that grace means you’re aligning yourself with someone. It’s not showing that you’re condoning their actions but rather that you see them as they were made to be and are willing to help them close the gap from there to where they currently are. Extending grace means that you might receive condemnation simply from associating with them. It doesn’t mean that you’ll receive grace in return and almost certainly guarantees that enemies will rise up immediately to punish you for daring to give them a free pass.
I would never presume that I’ve made any impact on her life at all. If you could write a life story that was exactly the opposite of mine, hers would be it. But I’ve learned so much from her. Even if we never spoke again, I will forever remember her as striking. Her appearance, her wit, her ability to cut through all of the crap in a situation or a person and call them out on it. Her tenacity is unparalleled and the way she can rebound from a bad situation and push through everything life throws at her is remarkable. She warns and even apologizes for her brashness but refuses to curb herself to fit a mold. She’s the type of person that everyone wants to tame but she’s exactly what we need to make us realize that molds are completely useless.
She’s changed my life.
We’d be offended by her story, and that’s exactly why we need it.
When you first start playing trumpet, you’re told to buzz your lips to make sound. Eventually, it sounds less like buzzing and more like a tone. Right around that time, if you have a good teacher, then you’re told….not to buzz your lips anymore.
It’s confusing, at first. But the point is to let the pressure of the air being pushed with your diaphragm to actually buzz your lips for you. It’s amazing if you can actually master it. It’s what lets you play wicked high notes and hours long concerts- or in my case, church services, without getting tired.
If, you know, you can pull it off.
I’ve never really mastered it. I don’t know why. I’ve felt what it’s like before but it hasn’t become habitual. And without this skill, you can’t become great. You can be decent or even good, but greatness is unattainable unless you can utilize the force of the air.
Kind of like God’s power.
We can coast on grace for a while and get to a certain point. We can rely on His hand to help us through trials and to even give us blessings. But until we make it habitual to completely rely on His awesome supernatural power, we’ll never be able to fulfill what He’s called us to be.
Yesterday, the worship service seemed to drag on. The lights were hot and bright and the music blasting through my earbuds was loud. I had been working and getting up early for days and I was so tired and just wanted to sit down for a while. And rest, because isn’t that what Sundays are about?
Except in my type of church, we get a little overboard with worship sometimes and we keep going back into the same song over and over and over and over….and you wonder, “When will it be OVER?” I love Jesus, but after a while, well, I believe I’ve been set free. Can we move forward? Because I’m also standing up there in four inch heels. I know, I know, it’s my choice…but I don’t own flats.
Then I realized that my playing felt a little different. It felt easy. Effortless. Like the air was just floating. I wasn’t doing as much work as usual.
Without even thinking about it, I’d utilized a skill I didn’t even know I had.
When I was too tired to put forth the effort that the task normally would have required. When I was not concentrating. Not feeling up to it. Not being a very good person because I didn’t want to be there.
It happened. I did it. It was amazing. It was easier. Although Angelina Jolie lips are unavoidable after hours of playing, they didn’t feel like they were elastic or overworked. What normally would have exhausted me didn’t take its usual toll. When it was necessary, I finally performed like I needed to.
When it’s necessary, do you believe that God will perform for you?
I was pretty unfortunate looking in high school and the beginning of college.
I wasn’t hideous or anything, but my awkward stage lasted a lot longer than it could have. I didn’t have confidence. I had glasses and bangs. I’ve worn makeup nearly every day since I was in middle school and I’ve always dressed decently, but I was always a bit off somehow, and wasn’t really noticed.
So it comes as no surprise when I stopped in at church the other day and a girl there said, “You look like such a different person with straight hair and makeup.” No surprise because this girl has zero social grace and because, yeah, there’s some truth to it. The thing is, I’ve always worn makeup around her and sometimes I still wear my hair curly. It just looks better now than it did a few years ago. She tried to present it as a compliment with a hidden insult. It was probably obvious to everyone around.
I could have pointed out that she doesn’t wear eyeliner or mascara and really should. Or that she used to have super permed curly hair herself that looked absolutely awful on her. I smiled and said something to deflect the insult as much as possible when I wanted to retort. I have never been mean to this girl, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t need a reason.
I don’t really like her, but I gave her grace.
Then the very next day, I said something mean to someone I really care about. I know they care about me. They said something a little mean, hitting a sore spot that they know is a sore spot. So I fired back as hard as I could. It was nearly instantaneous, and I really hurt them.
I gave grace to someone who didn’t deserve it at all.
I retaliated against the person who, by all accounts, has been wonderful to me for the duration of our friendship and should have earned unlimited do-overs, undos, and freebies.
And they received no grace.
I feel awful about it.
What if Jesus revoked grace right when I needed it most? When I committed a sin that would be the equivalent of sticking gum under a desk rather than throwing it in the garbage? What if He suddenly got really angry about that whole cross debacle and snapped? Tore up the contract and threw me in chains?
But He won’t.
We’re at His mercy, but He is good. Always good.
I’m not.
I can only hope that I receive grace when I don’t deserve it from the person I refused it. And that I learn to keep my mouth shut and give grace abundantly.
I’m sending out 2009 with a wave of my middle finger and staring 2010 in the face. We’re having a wary standoff. I think it’s going to be a learning year, full of trial and hopefully not too much error. 2009 was painful, but I went through something so horrible that I realized nothing is worth being so miserable. Nothing.
The hard part, though, is that I feel like there are two choices in life. To be very lonely yet spiritually strong, or have a fun life and have a shriveled spirit.
I don’t like those options.
God is first in my life and always will be. There’s no use pretending otherwise. Yet I need to be able to find people who accept and include me, and I haven’t found those people in a church.
So 2010 is going to be about living in a wellspring of grace. Diving into it morning and night, gorging myself on it and allowing it to point me in the right direction. We misuse grace so much. Almost as if we’ve been so used to credit card debt and then suddenly it’s all paid off and we don’t have to worry about it anymore…and then we run them up again because we don’t know how to operate while being ahead or we just get so confused about having a surplus of money that it just sits there because we’re afraid to end up with nothing again.
I spend grace the same way. I either do too much or nothing at all. Both are bad investment practices. Fortunately, there’s a neverending supply of grace and I don’t have to worry about running out, but finding the favor in it and using it to my advantage is something that I’ve always struggled with. For the longest time I thought that I was doing things right, and then I pulled my head out of my overly religious behind and took stock of my life…and realized there wasn’t much substance to it because I had no real happiness.
I want a life of substance, meaning, and joy.
That can only be found through grace.
So here we go. Bring it on, 2010.
Hey there! Glad you stopped by to read my genius musings. Just kidding. Sort of. I plan to review books, expound on life with sage wisdom, and rant like a redhead here. I can be quite practical and objective, yet I'm a huge dreamer at the same time. Hence the heading and subtitle of the blog. Leave me a comment and a link to your own blog!
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