My Obsession With Me

I have a confession to make.

I am addicted to myself.
Maybe I'm not alone in this. Perhaps you're addicted to yourself too. In some ways, I think we all are.

For me, it usually doesn't manifest itself in a prideful, I'm-so-awesome type of way, although now and then it does take that form.

Usually, it's worse than that.

It's self-loathing.

Self-loathing is an addiction, a harmful and destructive drug in every sense. When I make a mistake in class, it's lurking there, waiting for me to slip into its arms and embrace what it says about me, who it says I am.

It is ready to capitalize on every moment of weakness.

When I realize I am not the favorite person in the room, there it hovers, ready for me to swallow that pill and descend into dark and untrue places in which I am small and everyone else is big and tramples over me. When I'm acutely aware of everyone staring at me, when strangers shout at me ("Hey! Foreigner!"), there it is again at my shoulder, saying, "You should hide. If only you didn't look different from everyone else, if only you could blend in." And it spirals from there into deeper self-consciousness, into a fear that spreads and smothers my soul and makes me walk around with a cast-down face and a scowl, in hopes that I might disappear.

Self-loathing is by no means confined to a single phase of my life or a single country. In college, in the United States, I remember days walking around in a pretty summer dress, because, well, I like dresses, and when I caught stares in the corner of my eye, my mind would immediately flutter to "She's thinking, who does that girl think she is, wearing a dress to class? Who does she think she's trying to impress? Why isn't she in Nike shorts and a t-shirt like the rest of us?" It was difficult to believe that perhaps someone might actually be staring because they like my dress; it was even more difficult for me to not care one bit about what I was wearing and feel beautiful and loved all the same. Then the next day I would wear Nike shorts and a t-shirt, and that same horrible voice would whisper, "You're so much uglier than the other girls. Look how fashionable she is. Why aren't you wearing that hipster outfit from Urban Outfitters?" Then the next day I could wear the hipster outfit from Urban Outfitters, and...well, you get the idea.

Here's the thing, though: In the middle of my spiral of self-loathing thoughts, I always hear my Savior and King call out to me, but sometimes His voice sounds far away. I hear Him call out, "All your days were written in my book before one of them came to be!" I hear him say, "I have numbered the hairs on your head, and every one of them is precious, my daughter!" But I shake my head in denial. His voice seems so distant and powerless, whereas the voice of self-loathing is so close and seemingly so invincible, its breath hot in my ear. It's like that quote from Pretty Woman: "The bad stuff is easier to believe." I'm like her. I don't believe Him. I deny His authority. I choose to take the pill without protest.

I give power to that which should have no power and deny the true power of the Lord. I submit to that horrible voice/spirit outside of me and refuse to submit to the one Voice and Spirit I should obey, the one that is living and active in the very depths of my being.

One day when I was admitting all my self-destructive thoughts to my mom, she said, "Have you noticed a common thread here? Me, me, me. I'M worthless, I'M unloved, I'M unlovable. Turn that focus upward and outward instead of downward and inward." This truth has been circulating in my mind ever since. But turning thoughts upward and outward is some heavy, gravity-defying lifting. The problem is that my thoughts literally implode on my soul, and I let them sit there so long without protesting that they get too heavy for me, by myself, to lift. Thus, the truth is crushed, and the lie wins.

The Lord has been patiently and persistently releasing me of this terrible, tenacious stronghold for years, but I keep failing and running back to it. It's always the little things. The self-loathing starts with someone ignoring me, or complimenting someone else instead of me, or me feeling stupid, or someone disagreeing with me in a rude way, and spirals downward, ending with me dissolving into tears, thinking everyone hates me, wondering why I even exist and what use my life is. I can tell the difference between deception and truth, and I know mentally what the truth is, but my heart still finds God hard to believe, and my mouth still finds self-loathing easier to swallow than his promises. As the title suggests, self-loathing is, too, a form of pride, a form of obsession with the self, preferring masochism to grace as long as it means I can refuse His hand. Self-loathing is painful, but it's at least a realm with which I'm all too familiar. A poisonous security blanket. Freedom from comparison with others, unshakable joy, full confidence that I am forever loved? These are relatively new concepts. And, though already accepted mentally, they are sometimes hard to swallow when faced with an indifferent world that seems to so easily smother the Word of God in my head.

I'm reading good ol' Beth Moore, and she's talking about release from strongholds. She writes, "Maybe you can't yet picture being free from that stronghold for the rest of your life. But can you picture it for a day? How about until lunch? How about for an hour?" She said that when the Lord was freeing her of her destructive thought cycles, she would count the days she went without giving in to those thoughts, and the day she gave in, she would start right back at 1 the next day. But rather than getting discouraged, she encouraged us to rejoice that we even have the opportunity to start back at 1. To try again. To be allowed to take our first tentative steps, fail, and yet know we will be picked right back up again and set on the right path. Every. Time.

Right now I would say I'm in the "withdrawal season" from this drug of self-loathing. It might last for a long time. It will be incredibly easy to have relapses. Thankfully, I'm in a rehab program called "Conforming to His Image," and this program will never give up on me or kick me out. Though I may burn out and give up and return to the poisonous security blanket time and time again, His loving hand will not rest until His goal is obtained. He who began a good work in me will carry it through to completion. He will not rest until I am living in victory.

The point is not my failure, but His faithfulness. I am not strong enough on my own; I am crushed under the weight of lies before I can even consciously redirect my thoughts toward the truth, before I can even recall those Scriptures to mind that I have been trying to memorize. It is so much easier for me to think of myself rather than others, to follow a bad train of thought to its conclusion rather than immediately fighting it with the sword of the Spirit. Thankfully, He is faithful to do the heavy lifting for me. If He hasn't given up on me, I know He hasn't given up on you either, whatever your stronghold may be.

Oh, can we all take a moment and praise His glorious name for that?

Slave to Sin

Yesterday, for the billionth time, someone annoyed me. Someone stepped out of their place and said things they shouldn't say. Someone dared to insult me, to make me feel uncomfortable, to treat me as lower than them. And I deserve special treatment, right? Because I'm a foreigner, because this isn't my first language, because I'm older than them, because I'm a girl...whatever, I can always come up with some reason.

And I let him know he annoyed me too. I didn't care one bit that my putting him in his place was completely counter-cultural (in fact, the horrible, rebellious, prideful side of me rather enjoyed that fact). In the moment that I was seeing red, it didn't matter. I had no desire to even try to follow Jesus, no desire to even try to act like him. In that moment my desire was completely to act on the rage/wounds that had built up inside me. I didn't care how I looked to others, didn't care if this guy knew any of my friends...I just had to stand up for myself.

Later, I told God, Okay God, I know that wasn't right, but did you see what he said? How dare he, right? I know it was sin on my part, but it was understandable sin. It was in response to another sin.

But whatever I might have said to justify myself, my heart still knew it was wrong. I am the world's worst at turning the other cheek. If someone insults me or wounds my pride or says I'm wrong when I'm right, of course I have to let them know it. It's completely understandable. It's what the world says I should do.

It's in those moments that I realize how not conformed to Christ I am. How, even though I generally desire to follow Him, in those brief moments of anger I only have a desire to follow myself.

Later, as I sat at the table thoughtfully peeling an orange, the dog I'm watching trotted in. As soon as I started peeling it, I knew the fragrance would waft through the house, and she would have no choice. It was only a matter of time; she would have to run in. She began begging in the most pitiful voice, even tapping me with her paw to let me know she was there, as if I didn't already know. No dignity. She would do anything to get a piece of that orange.

I realized that I am as much a slave to these "understandable sins" as the dog is to that orange.

I obey my fleshly desires just as reflexively and helplessly as she obeys her nose. What can be done? It's the way we're wired, right? She as a dog is wired to act on that nose, to do anything for food, and I as a human am wired to do anything to satisfy my own desires.

Then as I threw a couple slices to the dog (she gobbled them up and was back to begging as pathetically as if I had never given her any orange slices...there are definitely more parallels there), my thoughts turned from her to a medical problem I've had. Six months, many doctors, many medicines. The severity comes and goes, but it's always there. I saw another parallel between that problem and these respectable sins, like what we like to call "justifiable anger."

Wouldn't it be ridiculous if I just let this ailment go on without at least trying to treat it? The treatments aren't working perfectly, granted...but what if I just completely let it go?

I even tried that for a bit, in fact, and trust me...it was complete misery.

You can't let a huge, persistent problem like that go untreated. Especially when it so deeply affects your all-around quality of life and infiltrates every moment, reminding you that you're unwell. You wouldn't let a non-life-threatening ailment go completely untreated and justify it by saying that at least it isn't cancer.

And yet that's what I do with my "understandable, respectable, justifiable" sins.

I just patch over them after the fact, reasoning that everyone around me when I made that nasty comment or lost my temper at that car that honked too much or yelled at that guy who was rude to me must have surely been on my side, right? Everyone must have seen that what I did was okay. God must have even given me an understanding pat on the shoulder and a knowing wink, right? And so I just let the problems go on untreated. Oh, sure, at first they may be no big deal, and everyone may understand why I made that snarky comment, but what happens when it gets worse and worse, and before I know it I have absolutely no control over my tongue?

I'm no better than the dog. My tongue owns me the same as her nose owns her.

"What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:15-23

Not gonna lie, the phrase "slaves to righteousness" didn't used to be one of my favorites. I pictured a monk or a nun living a life of self-denial, no laughter, going to bed at 8pm, a boring life, if I can be quite honest. I ran away from that picture. But now...I want so badly to be a slave of righteousness! I realize so fully the implications of my slavery to sin. I have been released from so much, but Jesus wants to release me from so much more. When sin is my master, I am helpless against the awful things that want to spring out of my mouth. I am helpless against things like self-condemnation and jealousy. My own thoughts devour me. Continuing in slavery to sin, when you have already been purchased for Christ and marked for sanctification, is so painful. It's like trying to serve two masters. Now I think my increased understanding of slavery to sin helps me understand the true beauty of what slavery to righteousness would be. Currently, awful thoughts take root in my head, horrible words come out of my mouth before I can stop them, and anger clenches my heart so forcefully that I lose the will to pry its fingers away. If I were a slave to righteousness, my allegiance and vivid vision of Christ before me would not allow me to say horrible words even if they were on the tip of my tongue. Evil thoughts would be forced to die no matter how much my flesh wanted them to take root. Mercy would come out of my mouth before anger would even have a chance. Oh how wonderful that would be!

I must present myself to him as a slave - nothing else. Anything other than a slave means that I still retain the right to tell him, "Oh, but that sin was justified, right? You understand. I mean, we can't turn the other cheek all the time, right? That's just impractical. We have to stand up for ourselves or people will run all over us." These kinds of things. But if I am a slave, I have no right to stand up for my sin, to justify it - and hopefully, as I get in the habit, not even a desire to do so. I would so much rather be his slave than my sin's slave! My sin does not have my best interests at heart. My sin will not make me into the person that I need to become. As the book of James says, "The anger of man does not bring about the righteousness of God." There is no way that I will attain to his full righteousness if I still allow angry thoughts to take root.

Pure obedience from the heart - this is what I desire. A heart that, instead of forgetting Jesus in that moment of seeing red, will see him all the more clearly on the cross. I pray that, instead of losing my temper or patience and then immediately repenting, my repentance will take place before the anger even has a chance to come out. I will see him there on the cross and feel remorse at the idea that I was even thinking of nailing him once again. That rather than seeing the person who is annoying/insulting/whatevering me standing before me, I will only see my Savior, the one who was pierced for all my willful sins, pierced for all the moments I conveniently forget I belong to Him.

We are slaves of what we obey. I don't want to bend my will to that which destroys my soul. I want to gladly offer myself as a slave of the only One who can offer true freedom.

24 years

I don't think that God's grading me on how well I understand election vs. free will, or how well I can explain the genocides in the Old Testament, or any of the other burdens other men try to put on my back so I can prove myself a real Christian, someone who fits the mold and isn't heretical.

I think, perhaps, He really means what he says: that he freely gives love and grace through his perfect and precious son Jesus - love and grace that I have accepted with all my heart. Love and grace that I still must remind myself to accept every morning when I wake up, lest I fall back into slavery to what others think of me and what culture tells me to do.

I think, perhaps, He desires with all His heart that I love Him and love His people, rather than that I understand Him perfectly and explain Him without contradiction to others.

After all, "his ways are beyond searching out," right? Doesn't he sit enthroned above the earth? Isn't it foolish to think I can ever understand all his ways or explain away everything He does so that He never angers me, never terrifies me, never awes me, never confuses me?

I think it's impossible to ever get to that point, where I can understand God well enough that I can point a finger at others and say without a doubt that THEY'RE WRONG. May I never, ever be one of those "ministers of the gospel" who smiles smugly and self-assuredly while others walk away confused and lonely. I ask that instead I'm the one who prays with them and puts a blanket around their shoulders. I may not understand, but I love you, and I know that He does too.

However,

One thing I think is perfectly possible,

and that the Word agrees is perfectly possible,

is to tell of the Jesus I know and love intimately,
to tell what He has done for me,
what He has done for others,
what He has done for the world.

I can tell of the new life He gives.
I can tell of His healing power, both physically and spiritually.
I can talk about how I continue to struggle with things all the time, dark things like depression and loneliness and feelings of unworthiness
(not unlike the writer of the Psalms),
and how,
while He hasn't completely cured me of those things,
He holds me and walks me through those times,
step by step,
never leaving, even though He may be the only one who walks beside me.

I can tell of how I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
(how you are fearfully [with great care] and wonderfully made),
even though sometimes I look at myself and wonder why he saw fit to make me,
why I'm here,
what I'm doing,
where I'm going.
I can still say, "I believe You when You say I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Though my heart doesn't agree right now, and my head doesn't know where I'm headed, I know in my soul that You have a purpose for my life."

I can't explain all His ways,
But I can say those things.
I can believe Him.
I can do that.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Jane Austen Lovers

Written as part of the "Broken Hallelujah" series with Prodigal and SheLoves Magazine

When October approached and I had been here a year, I felt I was really getting the hang of things. I could go to the tea shop and help my friends sort tea, I could eat the local noodles without gagging, and I found I was actually WANTING hot peppers in my food. My language had improved a lot. Though my grammar was still oftentimes horrific, I could communicate with people pretty well, and I felt I had grown to understand the culture much better. Crowds and honking didn't bother me as much as they had at first. I could keep my cool in chaotic situations that would have made me lose it a year before, and I could now speak to people in situations where before I would have frozen up. Oh, sure, there would still be moments when I used the wrong tone and had to repeat myself, but even the local people have those problems sometimes. All in all, I was feeling pretty comfortable.

A friend invited me to go to her hometown for the Mid-Autumn Festival. I was so excited to be spending a few days with all local people, even though I was a little nervous about it. But I felt I was ready, and I loved this precious friend. So we squeezed into the crowded bus like so many sardines, moving and pulsing as one with the squeaky stoppings and goings of the bus, and then packed ourselves onto a train where I sat across from a shirtless elderly man who liked to spit on the floor. I smiled as I thought how this was no big deal to me. In fact, I enjoyed the smooth motion of the train and was not too bothered by everyone peering over their chairs or strolling down the aisles only to stop and stare at me. Even the people walking down the aisles of the train shouting as they sold things like toothbrushes and light-up bouncy balls just made me laugh, even when they woke me up.

We arrived at my friend's hometown late at night. It was much colder than my city. The entire town has no taxis or buses, as you can mostly walk anywhere or pay the equivalent of a dollar if you want to take a little 3-wheel red vehicle to get somewhere. Or if you had a lot of people, you could take a bouncy white bread truck. We loaded up in a bouncy bread truck and thumpity-thump-thumped all the way to my friend's home. We walked up the stairs to the apartment, and I ate some instant noodles because I hadn't had any dinner. I looked up at the posters of prosperity gods and the Chairman plastered on the aging walls during the local TV commercials.

When it came time to sleep, we turned off the matchmaking game show and I shared my friend's bed, a hard board covered with a thin blanket but with a big poofy comforter on top. The windows were all open even though it was cold outside; I slept like a baby.

In the mornings we would eat the local noodles and moon cakes. We might go do a short activity in the late morning, then her mom might make lunch that consisted of things like greens, beer fish, pigs' ears, and chicken soup. Then we would have a long nap in the afternoon and maybe get up at 3:30pm. I couldn't understand her mom very well because she spoke their local dialect, but she was so kind to me.

There was nothing at all wrong with what we were doing every day. It was wonderful to be so immersed in my local friend's life and language. We would go to beautiful pagodas and hills and temples, we would go visit her various family members - uncles and grandparents - and we were getting some great rest and fresh air. But suddenly a longing for home gripped my heart so tight and wouldn't let go.

It's not that everything was bad - it was just all DIFFERENT: Meeting all her different family members, who all had shrines to the female Buddha in their homes and looked at me as a big curiosity and yet were incredibly hospitable and gracious to me; eating countryside food all the time; eating the noodles not just now and then but every single day for breakfast; constantly being corrected in my language usage because this was the first time I'd ever had to use it all day every day; not being able to understand anything my friend's family was saying because they would all jovially shout at each other at dinner in the local dialect; sleeping on a bed that, while comfortable to me, was so different from my own; being careful to not step into the squatty as I showered and dumping buckets of water into it to flush it; and waking up to the smell of incense offered to the female Buddha every morning. I realized that even though I'd been here a year, I still had always had my little me-centered refuge of an apartment that I could return to at the end of the day, complete with cheese and hot chocolate and heating.

I felt a strange shyness creep over me. I began concentrating very hard on my food at meals and feeling oppressed by the unintelligible local dialect that was being shouted across the table. I began relishing times in the afternoon when I could read the very western Jane Austen and escape back to my culture and to my comfort zone, glorying that English flowed so easily in and out of my brain.

Then one day, after sitting down at another meal with tons of local people I didn't know all shouting at each other, looking desperately through the fat and organ meat for a piece of meat I wanted to eat, I walked out of the room to escape the noise and jumped out of my skin as a bazillion firecrackers went off just feet from me, followed by a whole wedding party staring at me. I ran to take refuge in the squatty potty so I could find a place where I could rest, where I knew no one was staring at me. When I got the courage to emerge, we then rode in my friend's dad's bread truck, where he bounced frighteningly fast over mountain roads and knocked the side mirror off of a fellow bread truck that was hurtling toward us at an equally dangerous speed. Then he let my friend drive and gave her a driving lesson by shouting at her constantly in the local dialect as she swerved off the road and onto the other side of the road quite a few times. This swerving caused my stomach to churn on top of everything I was feeling.

Tears started coming down before I could stop them.

I was so embarrassed and ashamed of myself. I'm supposed to be hardcore and cross-cultural, right? I'm not supposed to let my American-ness get to me. In my heart of hearts, I love the countryside here and the small towns and their precious people. In my heart of hearts, I knew her family was being nothing but gracious and hospitable to me. Even what sounded like "shouting" to my American ears was not shouting to them, but lively dinner conversation and cautious instruction from a loving father teaching his daughter to drive (and perhaps not wanting to die). They were offering the best food they could give, and incorporating me, a foreigner, into their daily lives during a very traditional festival.

I was so ashamed that they noticed, and of course they immediately began driving back home. When we got there, I escaped to my friend's room and got away with Jane Austen, tears still blurring my eyes as I tried to read. Even though my eyes were reading Victorian prose, my heart was still in Asia, searching...why was I reacting like this? I'd been in this country a year now. I thought I had outgrown all my weird discomfort over things that were not bad, just different. I felt so ungrateful, so in need of the Father's grace. I felt so ashamed because the last thing I wanted to do was hurt my friend's feelings after all the kindness she and her family had shown to me. I felt like a spoiled, selfish American brat. I told God I was sorry for failing him by failing to have constant joy and love for my friends.

And first, quietly, my friend's little brother's girlfriend walked in. She is tall and thin and soft-spoken and graceful. She has a sweet and gentle heart. You would think she'd listened to all of Beth Moore's lessons or something. But she's never heard of Beth Moore. And the only reason she's read a little of the book I read every day is because I've shown it to her.

Yet she came in and quietly put her arm around me, speaking words of comfort in both her language and mine. I kept apologizing, and she kept showing grace and love. Then my friend who originally invited me came in with a cup of tea for me, sitting down and saying, "JC says not to cry. We are your friends and we love you," and even talking to him for me, though she believes differently.

That night as we sat outside drinking oil tea, I made friends with a cute chubby little boy who wanted to practice his English, and his mom gave me all these local gifts because she was so happy her son had an English speaker to converse with. A guy close to my age who was introduced to me by my friend promptly said, "Sorry, I am shy because you are a beautiful girl!" As we all laughed, I thought to myself how we might all have a lot more dates if American guys were that blunt.

And my friend started opening up to me a lot more. Because I had been open with my ugliness and my shortcomings, she began to open up  - about how it is so difficult having divorced parents in the countryside because it is still very taboo there. How she hates the rush in your late twenties here to get married before you get "left over." How marriage should be about true love, not finances or family connections. And I shared in turn what my favorite book says about marriage, what a beautiful picture it paints. She told me the story of the female Buddha and how people in the countryside still revere her because they had nothing else to pray to during the starving times, and they felt they understood her because she had sought a life of suffering so as to identify better with the poor of the world. We talked about poverty and how Father dearly loves and fights for the poor and the sick and the starving.

On the bus ride home, as I continued to read Jane Austen, I meditated on how even when I'm ashamed of myself and feel like a failure, when I feel like a victim of the comfort I have grown up in, Father lavishes me with grace and good gifts and laughter...even, yes, even through the people I feel I've offended. And this is a grace, not that spoils me, but that refines me and helps me grow. This is a grace that gives me security and peace. It is not conditional, it is not given if I am a good girl; it is freely given that I might have the abundant life and be free to love Him in return with all of my heart. And so in the middle of my shortcomings and failures and chains to my own culture and language, my eyes turn not inward but upward and outward, to Him who gives grace and to the precious friends through whom He gives it. And so when I feel completely unlovable, I can rest in the assurance that I am still eternally loved, and I can still whisper a feeble, contrite, yet hopeful "halellujah."

Thoughts on Womanhood

I was a little girl who loved reading - anything she could get her hands on.

From the Bible - even things in the Old Testament that I "wasn't supposed" to read yet (Hey Mom, do you know what's in Genesis 19? Well, if you don't remember, then I'M not going to tell you)...

To history and science magazines like Kids Discover and National Geographic World...

To fiction like Goosebumps and Harry Potter...

To poetry like Shel Silverstein...

and everything in between.

I was a little girl who loved to WRITE.

I would write stories about ducks and aliens and princesses (usually not all at the same time),
poems about nosy neighbors, and endangered species, and towels that became epically-proportioned monsters because no one cleaned them.

I wrote plays, I wrote songs and even composed them on the piano, I designed video games with just notebook paper, with multiple levels and various monsters and bosses to defeat.

Then I began to be told that these things weren't enough.

It wasn't enough to create, to be comfortable in myself as God's creation.
I wasn't supposed to write fanciful stories or dream up video games in my spare time.

I watched MTV and saw women being valued only for their bodies.
I watched much of Christianity and saw women being valued only for their servitude.
I watched at school and saw girls being valued only for their powers of manipulation and exclusion.

so how was I to fight back?

with intellect, right?

No one could value me for only my body if my conversation was good enough. No one could value me for only my servitude if my ideas were good enough. No one could value me just for my popularity (or devalue me for the lack thereof) if I had really good grades.

I became angry and defiant, perhaps not always on the outside but on the inside.

I became prideful.

And I deceived myself by thinking these things were virtues.

The problem was, though, that I found that whatever other virtues I possessed (intellect, good conversation, hard work),
people could still dismiss me if they wanted to.
People could still treat me like just a body, "just a girl," or something else to be written off.
There is no way to safeguard against dismissal.
Or rejection.
Or humiliation.

But I tried, oh, I tried.

I dreamed of being something important, something that couldn't be dismissed
like a lawyer
or a professor
somebody important
an inspiration for other women
and someone all men would respect

I worked hard. I overcommitted myself. I strived, I strived, I strived.

I was not interested in a family
or kids
or being thought of as anything like a "homemaker"

Then my heart began to change.

Now before you think I did a complete 180...
I'm single
I'm just as curious about the world as I ever was
I love "weird" people, the ones who don't quite fit the mold they're assigned, who don't quite say or do what they're "supposed" to
I thirst for knowledge of all kinds
Faith, philosophy, science, history
and most of all

the knowledge of the Most High.

But as I began to let go of my anger
my defiance
my pride
and began to give it to God
to receive his freedom
his lightness
to spend time with these women I used to think I never wanted to emulate -
[devoted wives
moms
homemakers]
I began seeing something.
I used to imagine that all these women were held back,
that they had settled for something less.

But instead I met women who were kind, wise, discerning, patient -
role models,
inspirations for other women,
respected by any man whose respect was worth having.

I began to be estranged from my previously-held ideas that women needed to fight, to be assertive, take no prisoners
because, oddly enough,
I began to realize that there is more fight in a discerning woman than an aggressive one
more resolve in a patient woman than in a selfishly ambitious one
more passion in a caring woman than a detached woman
more confidence in a selfless woman than a narcissistic woman
more beauty in a wise woman than a seductive woman

and as I met women who showed respect to their husbands and the utmost love to their children, and constantly welcomed guests into their homes,
or treated their small groups as their children, took international students under their wing as their adopted brothers and sisters, took the homeless into their homes for meals without fear
I began to realize that what I had heard was wrong
That these women had not given up their dreams or talents
Among them were actresses, painters, linguists, teachers, naval officers, dentists, counselors, scholars
They listened to God and longed to become who He created them to be, down to every last detail.

I thought,
I am created by an amazing Creator
He knew exactly what He was doing by giving me all my abilities, desires and passions
Yet He also knew exactly what He was doing by creating me as a woman with tenderness and compassion for the least of these and the helpless, a deep desire to love and be loved

And I thought,
Why can't I be all the things God has put in my heart? Maybe not all at once, but through the course of life?

Why can't I be a wife, a mom, a writer, a painter, a teacher, a historian, a reader, a scientist, a dreamer?
Why are we often taught that these things are mutually exclusive?

What is a mom, a wife, a homemaker anyway?
Have we created all these trappings around each of these titles that are not of God?
For instance, what if the point of Proverbs 31 is not the things this woman does, but the ways in which she does them - with a noble heart, with wisdom, and above all with fear of the Lord?
Every woman is a unique creation
an image-bearer
reflecting different aspects of His amazing nature

So perhaps being a mom doesn't mean she has to hover around her kids, shuttle them to everything under the sun, and lose a sense of her own self in them
Perhaps it really does just mean she needs to love them with all her heart, and seek the Lord when she can't by her own strength
For man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
Perhaps being a wife doesn't mean she has to have a knockout figure, act perfect all the time, fit a certain "mold"
Perhaps it really does just mean she needs to love her husband with all her heart, and seek the Lord when she can't by her own strength.
Perhaps being a homemaker doesn't mean she has to keep everything perfectly clean, buy only cute and matching things, cook like a pro, have something constantly baking in the oven
Perhaps it really does just mean loving her family with all her heart, and seeking the Lord when she can't.
After all, what is a home anyway?
What is making a home?
Is it building walls, is it painting furniture, is it mopping floors?
Isn't a home rather made of people, just as the church is made of people?
Isn't homemaking, then, primarily building up your family, cultivating hospitality, creating a space of openness and freedom and security and laughter?

so say the stay-at-home mom is able to keep a perfectly clean home (or perhaps she scrambles around cleaning up little ones' vomit all day and then is taken down by a migraine and the husband comes home to a mess)
or say the doctor doesn't have as much time to clean her home, but builds up her family with the purest love in her heart, instilling in her children the love of science and the love of helping people that have driven her to her ministry/career,
most importantly, say they both seek the Father and instill in their homes a love of Him above all,

aren't they both homemakers?
Aren't they both equally women - unique, beautiful creations of the Most High?

I hear the phrase "Biblical womanhood" so often, its meaning debated as we try to figure out what that all means.
I think there are a lot of different ways to be a woman
because there are a lot of different ways to be a human
and I praise God that He has given me legs to play soccer with kids, arms to hold them when they're sad, a brain to create stories, a mouth to tell them, and hands that can bake cookies, hold a book, play an instrument, or wield a scalpel.
I praise Father that even though I'm single, and sometimes my feet get black from walking on my ever-dusty floor (you'll understand if you live in this country), I can proudly call myself a homemaker - not because I love to decorate, clean, or cook, but because I love to welcome my precious friends into my home and create a space in which they can find refuge and a warm heart.

And at the end of the day I love to hear my Father whisper above all the other voices that no matter what my daily life looks like, or how my brain is wired, or how many mistakes I make, He sees my heart and its motivations...and He loves the woman He has created.

Facedown in an Omelet

First week at UT, and there I was, facedown in an omelet.

Well, not in the omelet...I just said that because it's a much more humorous picture. Actually, my face was on the table, exactly eye-level with the ham-and-cheddar omelet, at 3 am in Kerbey Lane as I contemplated life at the beginning of freshman year with a friend I would rarely see again (what UT student hasn't had a moment like this?).

I had recently left a party, was very tired, and THAT WAS THE BEST OMELET I'D EVER TASTED!!11! I ate some pancakes too. The waiter came by and told me to get my head off the table at one point because they'd had too many students pass out in the restaurant recently.

I had just come back from a party with people I barely knew, and was now eating with people I barely knew. Everyone was someone I barely knew, including myself. I mean, a few months ago I could identify myself as a scholarship recipient, cheerleader, leader in the youth group, and Valedictorian, among other things. I'd had an identity and a history. Maybe not one I always liked, but I had one nonetheless.

And here, I was the girl who was being told to not pass out on the table.

I had recently attended Camp Texas, this magical place where everyone seemed to be smart, athletic, good-looking and confident all at once. I'd been completely overwhelmed. Most people already seemed to have a plan - a major, a country in which to study abroad, and even which sorority they would join. My first week at UT confirmed that I was constantly surrounded by smart, driven students. While I loved the new environment in which I found myself, I also let it threaten who I knew myself to be. Jesus couldn't be the same here as he was in my one-stoplight town in West Texas, could he?

I was at a crossroads. I could live for myself in college, or I could live for the God who redeemed me at the age of 13. This was a test. Was he real? Was I serious about this?

All through freshman year, I don't think I was quite sure. I had one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom. This was not the first or last time my life would be like this. We all have moments when we have one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom, one hand holding God's and the other holding money/power/people. I wanted to have everything. Jesus was not my only Pearl.

Then, I ended my first semester with a 3.4 GPA. Even though I'd been Valedictorian in one of the tiniest schools ever, I still had delusions of the unshakable awesomeness of my brain. That even at UT, I could do everything and still make the grades I wanted to make. That wasn't the case.

Don't get me wrong, a 3.4 is not awful. Having a 3.4 instead of a 4.0 is definitely a "first world" problem (as many girls don't even get to go to school), but at the time, being the product of the first-world system and the middle-class family that I was, I felt like my world was shattering. My identity was gone. I wasn't the best. I wasn't even close. I was one of 50,000 students who had all been at least the top 10% in their high schools, and I was competing against them. Sure, I was in an honors program, but so were many others...some who had already started their own nonprofits that cured AIDS and written a Tony award-winning play about it (maybe slightly exaggerating there).

And then my idolatry smacked me in the face. In high school, I had grown to love Jesus. But I still wanted to love the things of this world. I wanted to be the Christian girl, the beloved girl, the smart girl, the successful girl, and the creative girl. The blow to my pride in the form of a 3.4 GPA was almost more than I could take, as pathetic as that sounds. The kind of girl I wanted to be was not the kind of girl who had a 3.4. She was the girl who had a 4.0, yet somehow managed to still be the lead in a play, a leader in a Christian organization, an intramural sports player, obtain a coveted internship, learn a foreign language, and study abroad...perhaps even obtain a perfect boyfriend while doing so.

When all this did not just magically happen, I needed to reevaluate who I was. Who I wanted to be. In a one-stoplight town, there are seemingly only so many choices, but in a big, diverse city like Austin, you can be whoever you want. The possibilities are endless, and you can always find people to agree with you. You have to throw the sand away and choose your pearl.

If this were your typical "success" story, I would say it was all an uphill trajectory from there. That I chose to be a follower of Christ and stuck with it. That I got my head in the game, as Zac Efron would say in High School Musical 3, and never got out of it. By God's grace, my GPA got much better, it's true; I whittled down the things that were good and focused on things that were best; Father blessed me with brothers and sisters who walked beside me through good and bad.

But the truth is, even now at any moment I know I am just a change, a mood swing and a bad choice away from being facedown in an omelet. There were still awkward moments after that, over omelets or pancakes or other late-night fare. There were entire months when I genuinely believed God didn't want me to be happy or care about me. There were times when I got angry at people who had been nothing but good to me, when I had thoughts that I'd be ashamed to tell even the devil, when I let my joy succumb to worry. When I found out I would officially be going overseas for 2 years, my first reaction after the momentary rejoicing was to cry my eyes out. Fear gripped my heart, I'm ashamed to say, more strongly than the love and faithfulness of my Savior.

And so often, it still does. I constantly struggle to love the people I should love easily. I'm faced with the prospect of yet more dear friends leaving our city, after saying goodbye to so many local friends going off to college. I'm faced with the prospect of nothing being the same when I get back home in a year, the uncertainty of where I will live and who will be there for me. That all-too-familiar demon of loneliness always hovers close at hand, never quite vanquished and always ready to pounce. That fear of being alone for the rest of my life, of never having permanent community, of always bouncing around without clear direction or purpose or guidance. There's that too.

My point in saying all this is: I haven't arrived. You haven't either. I know that every day I'm growing more and more, growing in freedom and love and peace. But we've never arrived until we cross over that river and possess the kingdom prepared for us since the creation of the world. As long as we are here, we are sojourners. There is no destination here, only the journey. Here, we travel, we grow, we struggle, we sin, we love, we forgive, we taste and experience the kingdom we have not yet fully known or possessed, and sometimes we pass out in omelets. And the minute we think we have sufficiently distanced ourselves from that omelet is the minute we slip on a giant one that just happens to be frying on the sidewalk. And we think we've made a big fat gooey mess of our lives.

Thankfully, Jesus has an even bigger spatula.

Drowning.

I love fun outdoors things like hiking, canoeing, etc. And I love thrilling things like roller coasters. So Saturday I went whitewater rafting, for the second time over here. A perfect fit for me.

I knew what to expect, I'd done this before, they gave us life jackets (albeit paper-thin) and helmets. Over here, they have two people to a boat facing each other, rather than a long boat with everyone facing forward, so I climbed in one with my friend Olivia because we'd done this together before. It was sunny, the water was blue, the mountains were green, and it was going to be wonderful.

And it was - for a few seconds. Until our boat hit a rock in such a way that it flipped over. After my first task was accomplished, which was to get out from under the boat, I hardly knew what was happening, only that I kept coming up for air only to get sucked back under, that I couldn't hear or see anything but the rushing water above and all around me, that I kept being buffeted against rocks again and again as I struggled, trying to hold onto something but finding myself weak against the current, my backside and my knees and elbow hitting rocks again and again.

Then I felt Olivia's hand grab mine. We were still being swept along by the current, but there was so much comfort in that one gesture. I'd had no idea where she was and didn't know how she'd found me, but in that one second I knew that I at least wasn't going through this alone. Others tried to help us, but we kept getting swept along, until finally the rapids ended and gave way to calm water, and we were able to climb together into a friend's boat. No idea what had happened to our boat, or Olivia's shoes.

It's incredible that it was over so fast and yet was so terrifying. The combination of the mental and physical stress, along with losing some blood and being pretty nicely bruised, meant that we were absolutely exhausted. Olivia told me she didn't know if she could have breathed much longer if we hadn't gotten help when we did. I was shaking from exhaustion when I hoisted myself into the boat.

As I had been flailing helplessly in the water, my thoughts had turned panicky and morbid. I thought of how I'd Skyped with Mom in the morning, and how I'd told her I'd be doing this, and how I didn't want that to be my last conversation with her. I thought I heard people yelling or something but couldn't tell where they were or reach them. There were those moments when the water wouldn't allow me to come up for air when I wanted, and I'd remember hearing that drowning was the worst way to die. Of course I was crying out to Father in my head, and once or twice out loud when I would surface. I knew he saw me but was wondering when he would come to my rescue, or if he would come to my rescue. I was thinking I wasn't ready to "go home" yet, at least not like this.

Though it might seem silly because we ended up being all right in the end, without even a broken bone or concussion (praise the Lord), the incident really left us thinking afterward. I remember Olivia saying she felt like she should have been much more calm than she was, entrusting her life to Father rather than panicking or worrying.

I thought a lot too, about how that is exactly how I react when I feel like I'm drowning in life. When I don't know what the outcome of a situation will be, whether things will be good or bad, and I freeze in my fear. In that time I'm certain that the Lord has forgotten me, that he has lied about having a good plan for me. I remember afterward to trust in God, but in that moment, in the pain and struggle, I find it so difficult to do so. I immediately feel that I have been forsaken before I have even seen things through to the end, before I have let him show me how he works all things together for good.

Another thing, too, was that in that moment, in the rapids, I felt that they would never end. I completely forgot the view from above. Before rafting, when I had viewed them from the top of a hill, I'd seen that the rapids had a starting and ending point, and then calm waters from there on out. But in that moment, in my mind, the rapids would never end unless I fought them. I couldn't relax, let my body be a ragdoll as I hear you're supposed to do, and trust that I would get air when I needed and get to calm waters at just the right time, that the rapids' speed would work in my favor and eventually carry me to safety. I couldn't see anything but the turbulence that was surrounding me, and it greatly affected my perspective. This again is how I treat the "rapids" of my life. Just because I can't see the ending point from my perspective, I think they must not have an ending point. When I think this way, I exalt my perspective above God's. I don't trust him to lead me to calm waters at just the right time, when the refining is over and he has taught me what he wants to teach me for the time being.

Once I was out of the water, back on dry land and looking down, I saw a very clear ending point. I thought that if I had just been able to see that ending point when I was thrashing around, my thoughts might have been far less panicked, and I'd have been much calmer.

I'm reading the prophets right now, and one thing I am learning is that all physical experiences have some spiritual meaning. For instance, God tells Jeremiah to bear a yoke to symbolize the yoke of oppression on Israel as they are ruled by Babylon. He tells Ezekiel to eat defiled bread to show how the people had defiled themselves before the Holy God. I think he still works this way. I think Father allowed this to happen to me so that I would have a powerful, strong reminder emblazoned forever in my memory of how to deal with trials when they come. How to have hope and faith in the midst of them.

I hope and pray that next time I encounter rapids in my life, my mind drifts to the view from above rather than the rushing water around me.

Other Moments

I enjoy sharing funny and inspiring stories about living in a foreign country. They're fun to tell, and more importantly, fun to live.

But then there are other moments.

I've been struggling a little bit lately with all the new things here. Things I'm not used to. I usually have an adventurous spirit and I'm always up for trying new things and being uncomfortable, but I will admit I actually struggle to leave the apartment at times.

First of all, I'm living by myself. Walking to class by myself. Sometimes eating by myself off in a dark corner of campus, just to get a moment of not being stared at, pointed at, or laughed at. Even babies in strollers have pointed at me, mouths gaping, because they recognize that I'm "different."

I feel so helpless. I have to go to multiple stores around town just to get basic sandwich fixings. Currently my refrigerator contains 1 kiwi, 1 half avocado, some ham, cheese, and a couple of uncooked eggs. And then when I do cook those eggs, I must do it on a gas stove...and I still haven't figured out how to hard-boil them just right. Also, I'd never had to peel two completely black layers off a grilled cheese sandwich until recently.

You know, the last time I came here, it was with 6 other crazy Americans. We stood out together, made cultural and language mistakes together, and tried new things together.

It's much different doing it by yourself.

How humbling is it when you can't even say what kind of meat you want in your dumplings? How frustrating it is when you know you've already learned the word, but of course you can't think of it in just the moment you need it. And then when I manage to stammer out a few awkward phrases in the language and I'm hoping to be told "good job," instead I am immediately corrected at such a fast pace that I can't understand a word they are saying.

I know I should just sit with random people at lunch, make goofy mistakes, and laugh at myself. But sometimes, that's much easier said than done.

Sometimes, I just want to speak English.
Sometimes, I just want for no one to stare at me like I just stepped out of a UFO.
Sometimes, I just wish I was back in Austin with that Starbucks right down the street.
Sometimes, I just want to not be humbled constantly.

And then I walk the 35 minutes back to the apartment, by myself, fighting back tears and secretly hating the loud honking cars and pedestrian-homing-missile bicycles that I have to dodge just to get across the road, with a bag of dumplings in one hand and a bilingual dictionary in the other, and fling my stuff down and cry and pray and sing out to the One who fully understands English, who would even understand nonsense words were I to utter them.

In some moments, that's the best you can do.