When Life Gouges Deep: He Fills Us

A couple weeks ago I sat on our family room couch staring at our dented-up coffee table trying to decide if I wanted to sand it down and stain it again or just donate it.

But how could I give away the table I learned to walk around, that my kids learned to walk around, that we all scarred with teeth marks and toys?

I stared down at the table-top—varnish paper-thin, naked wood poking through gouges so deep there was no sanding them out this time.

As I ran my fingers over the scarred surface, I remembered the time I danced a jig on it in a purple tutu when I was eight. I remembered the silver “Our Daily Bread” platter mom placed in the middle on a white doily. I remembered our oldest, Micah, giggling as he launched match-box cars over the rounded edges.  I remembered the Christmas my world fell a part and I sat on the table weeping as my boys huddled at my feet.

Every scar— a story.

And I’ve been reading so many stories—a new widow fighting for the life of her baby girl. A woman, married just a year, losing her husband on December 7. My friend, Christa, coming home from Sunday dinner with friends and finding her home burned to grey ash. And my friend Valerie aching over the days-old loss of her grandpa.

Life gouges deep.

We try—I’ve tried!—all sorts of fillers—food, work, exercise, busyness.

We paint on thin veneers of righteous living, worldly success.

But the fillers never fill, the veneers eventually crack, and our real selves—scarred selves—poke through.

Then—raw, naked, vulnerable—we’re ready to be filled with the only One who truly fills.  

When life gouges deep, Jesus fills us with the fullness of Himself. 

And we who are redeemed are not defined by the scars of this life but by the Fullness of God.

So we do not lose heart!

For when Jesus fills us up, he opens our eyes to

Hope in Him,   

Eternal inheritance In Him,

Power In Him!

For, in Him, our inner self is being renewed day by day, and the scars of life are preparing us for glory beyond all comparison, in Him!

So we look not to the scars that are seen, but

To Jesus,

who is able “to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”

To Him be the glory, forever and ever.

Amen. 

*2 Corinthians 4, Ephesians 1, 3 paraphrased.

Hope Does Not Disappoint

Driving our Dodge Caravan down 95^th street at 3:30pm, the line of cars in front of me braking red because of the yellow light flashing on the white “School Zone” sign to my left, I see a boy-man swaying down the sidewalk, ear buds in ears, head bobbing side-to-side, backpack barely hanging onto wide shoulders, and a goat loaded up like a pack mule trotting down the sidewalk behind him.

What in the world?

I close and open my eyes just as our van passes the shaggy, brown-haired, two-horned, bearded goat and his teenage owner, and I yell at my boys sitting quietly (for once!) in the back seat, “Boys! Look over there! A goat!” As the boys look over their shoulders at the goat’s swaying rump, my mind wanders from 95^th street to the time my parents took my boys and I to Deanna Rose—a working farm in the middle of the city—to feed a tribe of shaggy goats.

I remember Dad pushing silver quarters in a gumball-looking machine that dumped out brown lumps of goat feed into waiting palms. I remember three-year-old Micah running into the goat pen, food pellets dropping from clenched fingers, only to fly out screaming when a grey goat with glossy black eyes gnawed on his white t-shirt, leaving behind a hole, slimy goat spit, and a kid who didn’t like goats anymore . . . .

It’s that time of year again—when the smallest (or strangest) thing triggers a mural of memories. You see a piece of jewelry, an old black-n-white photo, a sweater, a restaurant sign, and one memory leads to another, leaving you in tears of joy or tears of pain.

Even now, as I sit on the white couch in my living room typing on my laptop, I hear the deep bong-bong, click-click, click-click, of the electric clock on my buffet, an out-of-the-blue gift from a cousin earlier this year. Across the bottom of the dark wood clock is a silver plate with the inscription: Irma and Gil, 25^th Anniversary, 1937-1962.

That clock sat on top of the TV cabinet in Grandma Irma’s Chicago condo all through my childhood, and now, as its gentle bong-bong snakes around my living room, I remember the one time I played hide-n-seek with cousins in Grandma’s condo. I hid in the front hall closet with my cousin Josh, right next to the old Hoover, right under the moth-ball-smelling coats, and as we waited for someone to discover our hiding place, I asked him if he liked girls, and I don’t remember what he said, but I do remember my parents, uncles, and aunts sitting on Grandma’s floral  hide-a-bed and rose colored wing chairs, chatting about Chicago weather and memories of long-dead Grandpa Gil, avoiding politics and religion because no one (well, except Grandma) wanted to offend Uncle Jack, the lone atheist/agnostic Democrat. As the conversation flowed round the room, the clock rang out its gentle bong-bong, click-click every fifteen minutes, marking the seepage of time.

And now, twenty-some years later, I remember another family conversation, a conversation between Dad and I the morning after one of mom’s rages ended in scary suicide threats and crazy stories. I remember pleading with Dad to see a Christian counselor who specialized in such things, and he said:

“There’s nothing I can do. I’ve tried it all. There’s nothing a counselor can tell me that I don’t already know.  This is my life for the rest of my life,” his voice flat-line, cold, matter-of-fact.

No hope. No hope. No hope.

I remember saying to Dad, the pastor turned seminary professor: “But God can do anything, anything at all. There’s always Hope!” but even as I said the words, they felt soulless because I wasn’t sure if I believed them anymore.

No hope. No hope. No hope.

    And the memory of Dad’s hopelessness brings me back to my junior year of college—sitting in American Lit. with Dr. Sommers, the white winter sun beaming in through the narrow window of the fourth floor classroom onto the worn blue carpet, and I hear her voice reading soft:

“’Hope’ is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm- That could abash the little Bird - That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.Share this text ...?Twitter” Emily Dickinson).

According to Miss Dickinson, Hope keeps you warm in the midst of a storm, in the chillest land, on the strangest sea. Hope is like a bird—perching on the edge of your soul, singing a silent, sweet song that buoys you up in the hardest of times.

But what is the foundation of this Hope? What keeps Hope singing its silent song to your soul, even in the most hopeless of situations, the darkest of memories? What makes Hope more than mere wishful thinking: “I hope things will turn out!”

What makes Hope the sure anchor of the soul?

For years I put my Hope in family members getting help, in counselors giving answers, in research and understanding, in ME just being strong enough, fighting hard enough to fix all the problems in my life.  But I was left feeling betrayed, disappointed.

And this morning, as I ran my miles on the treadmill, I put this song on repeat, letting the truths sooth my soul:

Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost;
Christ's the Rock of our salvation,
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.

(Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted, emphasis mine)

This year, as my mind inevitably travels down the hall of memories, as my heart longs for healing in my family, I place my Hope in He who does not disappoint: And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.(Romans 5:5-8)

This year, when tears of sorrow fall--for lost family, for broken marriages, for the difficulty of life circumstances, I look to Jesus, the sure foundation of my Hope. He is love and peace, and works “all things together for good.”

May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

 

Salve to the soul this morning: Fernando Ortega's Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted.

 

 You can view a live cello/piano version of this song here. The song was played at John Piper's Act the Miracle Conference. (My hubby got to hear it live! Said it brought him to tears.) The song is at 41:48 on the video.

Related Post: My Mamaw: Origins of Delusion

Overcoming Shame Part 3: Seeing Jesus

(This is the third post in a three-part series. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here )

Sitting in the sagging 1970’s green chair in my writing professor’s office, tears flowed down my cheeks. Rough copy #3 of my Spiritual Essay lay open across my lap, my tears dropping, smearing black ink. Avoiding my professor’s, “I-can-see-right-through-you” gaze, I shuffled the white papers in my lap and stared at the frayed blue carpet under my feet.

I couldn’t figure out how to end my essay on the Samaritan Woman, and I didn’t know why I was runny-nosed sobbing about it in front of my professor. (Talk about embarrassing!)  But one thing I knew for sure—I understood the Samaritan Woman, was just like her—looking for Living Water in all the wrong places, filling my water jar— heart—with good grades, guys and the affirmation of others.

Just like the Samaritan woman, I felt like an outcast. She was a ‘worthless’ half-breed and I the naïve, homeschooled ‘nobody.’ And just like the Samaritan woman, hoping for redeeming love, I’d thrown myself into bad relationships with guys who cared nothing for my soul. Just like the Samaritan woman, I felt shame for what I’d done and what others did to me.

Just like the Samaritan woman, I longed to be worthy of love.

But as a 20 year-old college student melting down in my professor’s office, I didn’t understand how to overcome my feelings of worthlessness. I knew “Jesus is the answer” but couldn’t explain what that meant in the day-to-day of life (which is why I couldn’t figure out how to end the dang essay!).

Years later, as a 35-year-old woman, I picked up my Bible and read the Samaritan woman’s story with  new eyes. As I read her story in John 4, I saw how Jesus looked at her—with compassion and grace—and I longed for Him to look at me as he looked at her. Jesus knew everything she’d ever done: “The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband!” Jesus also saw through her feeble attempt to deflect Her shame onto Him: “you Jews . . . ,” and Jesus, knowing and seeing ALL of this woman, still offered her Himself. In offering her Himself, he offered her Life and Dignity—worth.

It was only after seeing Jesus for who he was: “I, the one speaking to you—I am [The Messiah]” that the Samaritan woman put down her water jar—the one filled with bad relationships, poor choices, hurt and pain—and accepted Living Water.

Then, full of Living Water, full of Jesus, free from shame, this woman invited other Samaritans to see Jesus: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did!”(John 4:29, emphasis mine).  After the Samaritans saw Jesus for themselves, they declared: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:39-42).

For the Samaritan woman and her people, the cure for shame was truly seeing Jesus!

For most of my life, I tried to “cure” shame with performance. Just like the Samaritan woman, I filled the water jar of my heart with human effort: reading the Bible, going to church, singing worship songs. I thought my efforts alone would somehow make me worthy of love and acceptance. But performance didn’t heal shame, and when I inevitably screwed up, I fell deeper into the black pit of believing “I’m just one big loser!”

For years I tried climbing out of the black pit of shame by preaching biblical truth to myself: “I’m made in the image of God, so I’m worth something!”  and “God loves me, so I am valuable!” But, as the Christian counselor Ed Welch says, merely telling yourself the truth over and over again “usually doesn’t work.” (61*).  Just knowing I was made in God’s image, that he loved me, didn’t make me believe I was worthy and loved.

Ed Welch offers this wise advice to people who, like me, were/are trapped in the pit of shame:  “Try a counterintuitive approach to escape shame. Try changing the subject so it is more about God than about your shame. The basic idea is to focus on the matchless worth of the Lord God and then get connected to him . . . . The cure for shame will always be found in how we become connected to God. ”(Welch 61, 103).

In other words, the key to overcoming shame is getting your eyes off Self and on God. Just like the Samaritan woman, we need to stop filling our water jars—hearts—with human effort and truly behold the face of Jesus.

But how do you do that?

Scottish pastor Robert Murray McCheyne, says this:

Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms . . . . (Robert Murray*, emphasis mine)

Looking outward—towards Jesus—instead of inward, towards Self, isn’t easy. Setting aside human effort to seek and savor Christ requires acknowledging that our worthiness is found in our connection to Christ Alone. We must learn to be like Lazarus’ sister Mary, who understood, “few things are needed—or indeed, only one . . .  [Sitting] at the Lord’s feet,” (Luke 10).

When our eyes are on Jesus, shame loses its power, and we see ourselves as He sees us—Beautiful, Worthy, Redeemed. And just like the Samaritan woman, when we see ourselves as God sees us, we are free to share our story with everyone we meet because Christ covers every part of that story—good and bad—with Himself.

“Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely,

and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12: 1, 2, emphasis mine)

* Ed. Welch quotes taken from his book Shame Interrupted. You can view this resource on Amazon here.

*Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne [(Edinburgh, 1894), 293].

Overcoming Shame Part 2: Covering Shame with Blame and Denial

(This is Part 2 in a three part series. Read Part 1 here.)

Beeep. Beeeeep. Beeeeep. I sat up in our four-poster bed and pulled my blue phone off the bedside dresser, the black numbers—12:00AM—flashed too bright across the white screen: Why on earth is my alarm going off now?

I threw the phone back on the dresser and pulled cool sheets up to my chin. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep.

I rolled over again, fingers searching dresser-top for that stupid phone! Squinting at the name flashing across blue screen, I hit the mute button. My sister. Why is she calling at midnight!?

Eyes blurry with sleep, I gazed at blue screen until the beeping silenced. But when the beeping started up a third time, I realized: Something’s wrong!

Heart pounding in my head, I hit the green button saying, “Hello?” my sister’s words flooded fast: there was an email in her inbox saying a family member was about to commit suicide.

What do we do?

Hands shaking as adrenaline pumped, I prodded Jon awake. Together we sorted out the fearful situation and responded the best we knew how. It was 3AM before we turned off the lights and pulled up the bed sheets.

But I never fell back asleep. 

The next morning, I opened the laptop and found an email from yet another family member in my inbox. I wasn’t surprised at the words that popped off the computer screen: “Please contact N______ and apologize for what you’ve done and try to help N_____ before N____ does something drastic and you regret it for the rest of your life!” Somehow—in the mind of this family member—I was to blame for the suicide attempts of a sibling I hadn’t seen or talked to in over two years.

Shifting blame—it’s one way dysfunctional families (and individuals) cover up the painful feeling of shame.  

Blame: The Shame Cover-up

 For most people, personal association with issues like mental illness, pathological lying, abuse, eating disorders, and alcoholism is shameful. Families who struggle with issues like these fear being labeled “crazy” or “messed up” and, therefore, unworthy of friendship or value. So, out of fear of being deemed “unworthy/unacceptable,” dysfunctional families work hard to keep the shameful issues hidden. If anyone dares point out or talk openly about the issues, that’s when blaming starts: “We aren’t the ones with the problem—she (the person exposing the issues) is the one who’s really messed up!”

"When we are feeling shame and fear, blame is never far behind. Sometimes we turn inward and blame ourselves. And other times we strike out and blame others. . . . When we try to get out from underneath the pain of shame and fear by blaming others, we often explode. We lash out at our child, our employee, our partner or maybe even the customer service person standing in front of us." (Brene Brown, PhD.* 23).

And the truth is this: everyone—not just members of dysfunctional families—feels shame.

Picture this scenario: it’s mid-morning on a Saturday, the kids are playing nicely in the basement (for once!), the hubby is relaxing on the couch with a book, so you decide to pop on Facebook for “just a second!” In that second, you stumble across Suzie Q’s pic of her newly decorated kitchen in her $500,000 home. Her children sit primly at the kitchen table reading books while Suzie kneads bread dough on her new granite counter tops in her size zero Lucky jeans, and the caption below this blissful snapshot reads: “Just another average day!”

As you gaze at Suszie’s pic, you begin to feel your postage stamp kitchen with thrift store décor is simply not acceptable, your kids sure don’t read as much as they should, and you remember that you still can’t fit into your size 8 jeans (never mind that baby is only 4 months old!). And, suddenly, you feel ashamed of who you are—your house, your kids, your body. But, rather than address the painful feeling of shame, you snap the laptop shut, yell at your hubby to get his “lazy butt off the couch,” and scream at your kids to “stop wasting your time and do your homework for Monday!” As you scream at hubby and kids, you indirectly blame them for your shameful feelings of inadequacy.

Sadly, I’ve been guilty of similar episodes of blaming to cover up my own shame. Ashamed of bad parenting decisions, hurtful words spoken in anger, a less-than-perfect body, house, child, life—I have lashed out at husband, children, and others. (See Part 1 of this series for an example of this with my son, Micah, here..)

Denial: The Shame Cover-up

Another method families (and individuals) use to cover up shame is outright denial of painful issues: “Problems? What problems?” And to convince themselves “our family is problem-free!” they gather for Christmas, Easter, and birthdays, smile at the camera and post “happy” pictures to Facebook, as if the photo-façade somehow proves: “We are the perfect family!”

In my dysfunctional family, denial is accomplished through simply pretending (or purposely overlooking) the family history of various forms of abuse, mental illness, pathological lying, adultery, fornication, porn addiction, and so much more. The issues are never dealt with. They are simply buried and “forgotten.” Family members frequently use phrases like this: “The past is in the past. I don’t dwell on it. I live for the good in the present,” which really means “the shame of the past is too hard to bear, so I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen.”

But if you cover shame with denial, the dysfunction of the past never stops—the physical abuse becomes emotional, the old lies give birth to new ones, and yet another generation suffers with unresolved shame.

Biblical Origins of Shame, Blame, and Denial

Covering shame through blame and denial is nothing new—it’s the Garden Story repeated in the Now. Adam and Eve felt guilt over their apple-stealing disobedience and this guilt led to feeling naked—ashamed. Afraid of God discovering their disobedience and shame, they hid. Then, when God found and confronted them, they refused to take responsibility for their actions; instead, Eve blamed the serpent and Adam blamed Eve.

"In an attempt to ward off shame’s grip, often a person (or institution or nation) will project blame on another. The perfect control model doesn’t work, life’s imperfections and insecurities are disturbing, so blaming and scapegoating are enlisted, giving an illusion of control." (Kathleen Curzie Gajdos PhD, emphasis mine).

Control—the root motive for blame and denial.

Adam and Eve attempted to control God and cover up their shameful disobedience by blaming the serpent and each other. And, just like Adam and Eve, all of humanity is guilty of trying to control people and circumstances to avoid dealing with shame. We surround ourselves with people who tell us we are “beautiful, amazing, and right-about-everything.” We set up strict rules for our kids so they turn out “great” and make us look good. But the sad reality is this: “the control model doesn’t work.” Eventually your kids make poor choices, a good friend talks about you behind your back, your husband betrays you or you betray your husband, and deep down you feel unacceptable—shameful.  

So, how do you truly overcome Shame and view yourself as God sees you--worthy and acceptable in spite of your imperfections?

For me, the first step in dealing with shame was admitting how shame characterized virtually every aspect of my upbringing and how I repeated those family patterns in my own life. But simply seeing and understanding shame in family/self was not enough to overcome the shame woven deeply in my psyche.

Only through truly embracing the power of the Gospel have I been able to address the deep roots of shame.

Read Part 3 here.

*Brene Brown, PhD. in her book I Thought It Was Just Me (But it isn’t.)

*Kathleen Curzie Gajdos PhD. in her article “Mind Matters—Guilt and Shame.”

Overcoming Shame Part 1: What is Shame?

“We do not talk about shame. We experience it, we feel it, we sometimes live with it for an entire lifetime, but we don’t talk about it.”

(Brene Brown PhD.)

 

I stood on brown linoleum in the parsonage kitchen in Illinois. The red-check curtains over the chrome sink on the far side of the room fluttered in the summer breeze as Mom leaned over a pile of dirty dishes. I planted bare, dirty toes on linoleum squares, crossed nine-year-old arms across my sleeveless shirt and pleaded at Mom’s backside, “Mom!. . .  Mom!” Her stonewashed jeans brushed the counter as she wiped pewter plates in the kitchen sink with Palmolive bubbles and rinsed each plate under water. One plate—wash, rinse, slide into dry rack. Two. Three . . .

“Mom!” I pleaded again.

“What?” she sputtered without turning from sudsy plate in hand.

“Mom, listen to me! It really hurt my feelings when you said that about me in front of everybody. It wasn’t nice, what you said.”

Water dripping from plate, shoulders arrow straight, Mom sing-songed: “Nobody loves you, everybody hates you, guess you better go eat worms!”

Plate in one hand, Mom pulled a holey dishrag off bare counter saying,

“Becky, just get over it! Stop your whining!”

With Mom’s sarcastic song echoing in my brain, I felt weak, exposed, like I was some kind of big baby. Tears welled, but I willed them back. I didn’t know how to respond to Mom’s sarcastic song.

So, I said nothing.

And in that dish-washing, song-chanting episode, I felt shame—like I was a bad person for feeling hurt.  

As a kid I understood guilt—that bad feeling you get when you lie or call your sister a “brat!” But shame? What was that?

Then, twenty-some years later, when my five-year-old son Micah stood on my brown kitchen tile crying crystal tears and saying, “You hurt my feelings!” I remember how I knee-jerk sang Mom’s song, “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. . .” and as I sang, I felt like mean-mom and the song died on my lips.

That night I talked to Jon about singing Mom’s song to Micah, how it felt wrong, but I didn’t know why. Jon said: “Because you invalidated Micah’s feelings by making fun of them.” That made sense to me—the invalidation part.  But what I didn’t understand back then is that song stemmed from a deep well of SHAME I didn’t know existed.

Edward Welch Mdiv, PhD, defines shame as: “the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated . . . . Guilt can be hidden; shame feels like it is always exposed” (Shame Interrupted, 2, emphasis mine).

In the first few years of motherhood, I found myself repeating the shame-based parenting habits of Mom and Dad. Just like my parents, I felt unacceptable and unworthy, and to cover those uncomfortable feelings, I denied them or projected them onto my children, husband, and others.

When Micah expressed, “You hurt my feelings!” I felt like a Mom-failure, like I didn’t measure up, like I wasn’t acceptable. But, rather than acknowledge my feelings of shame, I made fun of my son, shamed him instead.

The truth is, every parent, every human, feels shame. This battle with shame began in the garden. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they felt guilty, but they also felt naked—ashamed—for the first time “And [Adam] said, ‘I heard the sound of you [God] in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10, emphasis mine).

Just like Adam and Eve, when we feel shame—because of something we did or that was done to us—we go into hiding. Adam and Eve covered their naked shame with clothes, we cover our shame with denial: “I never did/said that!” or “No, I was never abused/hurt/mistreated!” or “The past is in the past. I don’t dwell on it!”  We also cover shame through blaming others for our shameful feelings or actions: “I’ve dealt with my issues. You are the one who just can’t get over it!”

So, through denial and blaming—we protect our shame, grow it, and hurt our friends, spouses, children . . . .

This post is Part 1 of three posts on the topic of shame. Read Part 2 here. and Part 3 here.

Boy Meets Girl

For Jon on our 11^th Anniversary

(This post is part of the Redemption Story Project, which you can view here. )

In the fall of 1997 I sat in front of a Northwestern College library computer. I was talking to it, the computer that is, giving the fat monitor and its mystery-to-me software a piece of my non-techy, English Major mind.

Sitting at the computer next to me was my husband-to-be. We hadn’t met yet. I didn’t even know his name.

He, on the other hand, knew my name, though he didn’t tell me at the time. As he told me months later: “The other football players were talking about you in the cafeteria and they pointed you out and told me your name, but I couldn’t tell you that!” . . . .

So this boy-stranger sat in the chrome-and-plastic library chair next to me, and in the midst of my computer tirade, he leaned over and whispered in my ear:

“The problem isn’t the computer. It’s the person staring at the screen . . . .”

I turned from the blue screen in front of me and wide-eyed stared at the brazen, blond-headed freshman leaning back in his chair with a smirk on his face. He was wearing a gold chain round his neck and a white T-shirt with a picture of the cartoon-character-Hobbes gleefully flushing little-boy-Calvin down a toilet.

I couldn’t let this big boy’s insult linger too long in the air, so I glanced past his blue eyes to the computer screen behind him, and seeing a muscle-flexing picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger I responded,

“Well, at least I’m not a metal-head!”

And with a toss of my shoulder-length brown hair, I turned back to my computer, propped my elbows on the desk in front of me, and stared straight ahead.

But this boy leaned across the open space between us and gently squeezed my flexed bicep with his fingers, saying, “Wow, it looks like you work out!”

I recoiled, flinging my tan bicep towards my chest, nearly smacking myself in the face with my own hand. My cheeks flamed as I said: “Don’t touch me! You’re a stranger!”

And the boy laughed saying, “Hi. I’m Jon, what’s you’re name?”

“Becca” somehow escaped my lips, and he replied, “Well then, now we aren’t strangers. I know your name, you know mine.”

And so, we met for the first time in the NWC computer lab, in 1997, and the rest is history. . . . Sort of. (Is it ever really that simple?)  

He was 18. I was 19, and as Jon puts it, “We were really immature back then!”

But from that first moment in the computer lab, I liked the fresh football player from Northern Minnesota. He was funny and honest—he didn’t try the flatter-a-girl-to-get-her-to-go-out-with-you kind of crap. He didn’t perform. He just was . . . himself.

That computer-lab-encounter year,  Jon and I began “accidentally” meeting up at the library to “study.” That’s how I found out he was a public-schooled German Christian with a back-woods vocabulary and a philosopher’s mind. He didn’t care about grades and he always asked why. I thought that--asking why—made him a rebel, and I wanted to be a rebel like that.

And I, I was a homeschooled Preacher’s kid from the Midwest who cared about pleasing my parents and making straight A’s. I was a prisoner to other people’s opinions, forever an actor on a stage—performing the dreams and desires of others. But secretly I longed to  live the God-given beauty of my own breath, thoughts, and feelings.  

With Jon, perhaps for the first time in my life, I could just breathe and be the me that God created.   

We laughed together, ran miles of road together (I left him on a park bench in the middle of nowhere, once, and he still ran after me), drank way too many mochas at Caribou Coffee together, and talked about our mutual struggle to fill the hollow spaces in our hearts with God.

And, somehow, Jon saw in me what so many others didn’t: I longed to draw God close, but I didn’t know how, was too scared to try. So, out of fear, I kept God and others from filling the open, hollow spaces in my heart.

And, just as he did in the computer lab so long ago, Jon reached across the hollow, open spaces in my heart, drawing me close, talking about God and life in a way I’d never heard before—intimately, personally.  After our first summer home from college, Jon shared how he talked with God as he worked alone all summer, re-building his Dad’s garage. He shared how his talks with God led him to change his college major from Kinesiology to Bible.

And even though Jon’s parents thought his degree-changing was “crazy,” he took that step of faith because he knew God was in it. And that school year, as I watched Jon follow God’s plan for him, I realized Jon’s faith was for real—his own, separate from his parents.  

But my God was inextricably tied to my parents. The God I knew lived in my parents daily sermons and the pages of the Bible. God did not live in the day-to-day joys and pains of my life, my heart. Or, at least, I’d never felt His presence in that flesh-and-spirit kind of way.  

But I wanted to know Jon’s God—a God who lived close, intermingling flesh and spirit.

And ever since the day Jon and I finally became one flesh at Immanuel Baptist Church,  a country-like church in a the heart of a Minneapolis neighborhood, he’s shown me what it means to know God like that—in flesh and in spirit, in head and in heart.

And the very thing that drew me to Jon back in 1997—his ability to see, share, and pursue the heart-honest-truth about God and Self, no matter the cost--has freed me to do the same.  I’ve come to know God in the day-to-day of my life’s joys and pains. I’ve learned to see God move in flesh and spirit, drawing me close, and closer still. 

And with a husband like Jon, I know the next eleven years will bring more Calvin-and-Hobbes humor, more rebel-like discussions over a cup of Starbucks about the whys of life, and an even deeper awareness of God-with-us, every day, every hour, every moment.

“And the two will become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one.” (Mark 10:8)

Happy 11^th Anniversary, my love. 

 

Related Posts: Husband Love, Making He/She, We, 

Redemption Story Project Writing Assignment #6

"If God truly is good beyond our wildest imagining and if God takes evil and uses it for good, then how God redeems the tragedies of our lives will be nothing sort of glorious. We may not see the redemption in this lifetime. But then again, God just may do the redeeming right now. Our tragedy is also our redemption. God allows tragedy because he can use it to soften our hearts and make them more his own. . . . We can't love in a way that is truly selfless until we are broken. "(To Be Told, 96).

Part 1: Think back over your life to instances of "shalom (peace) shattered," when tragedy, no matter how minor/major, struck? Think about the first kid who hurt your feelings/called you a name in school, think about hurts from your parents (intentional or not), think about different forms of loss you've experienced (loss of relationships, loss of a loved one, etc.) How has God used tragedy in your life to draw you to himself?

Part 2: Write out the story of one of your life's tragedies. Capture how you felt/responded to the situation at the time. Now, think about and then explain how God has used that tragedy for good in your life.

What's in a Name: From Ugly to Beautiful

(Read the purpose for the Redemption Story Project here.)

When I was ten, Dad pastored a small church in the Midwest and our family lived in the parsonage behind the church—a mud-brown two-story surrounded by dirt roads and cornfields. On meeting-free mornings, Dad read aloud a family devotion before he walked down our winding driveway, across the church parking lot, and into his hole-in-the-wall of a church office.

One warm September morning, as Mom and I and my younger siblings sat upright at the kitchen table, Dad read aloud a devotion on Names. When he finished reading, Dad just-for-fun pulled out a Greek/Hebrew dictionary and, starting with my youngest brother, looked up each person’s name and commented on how we reflected our Name. As I waited for my name-reading, I could hardly sit still, my skinny-girl legs stuck to the wooden chairs that were once my Grandma’s, and I wondered: what does Rebecca mean? Am I really like my name?

When Dad finally looked at me with his grey-stone eyes and read: “Rebecca—a woman whose beauty ensnares men,” his grey-stone eyes squinted with laughter as he hit the table with the palm of his hand, and from the other side of the table, Mom snort-laughed as she preached: “Rebecca—you should never use beauty to ensnare a man! Only bad girls do that sort of thing!” and feeling awkward-weird about all the laughing, I timid-asked, “Can I see the dictionary?”

I pulled the dictionary close, and looked down at my name--R-E-B-E-C-C-A--and the picture of a pretty Israelite woman with rings on her arms and a clay pot in her hand, and the words beside the picture: “A woman whose beauty ensnares men.”

And I didn’t know how to feel about this name of mine---Should I be ashamed? What on earth does “ensnare” mean? . . . . Am I beautiful like this clay-pot-carrying lady in the picture? But in the face of Dad’s palm-slapping laughter and Mom’s snort-preaching, I buried my questions deep in my heart, buried them until the flowering of teenage dreams and desires made me wonder anew: Am I beautiful?. . . Is beauty bad?

Then five years later, on yet another warm fall morning, I was fifteen and the questions buried deep in my ten-year-old heart were pulled into the light of day as I stared at my face in my dresser mirror and wondered: am I beautiful? Is it bad to want to be beautiful?

On that Saturday morning, I curling-iron-curled my hair and dressed in a cute parent-sanctioned outfit, hoping for a chance to walk across the street to the Old Car Show in the park where I knew I might meet a few cute boys my age (a rare occurrence when you’re a homeschooled, church-going girl of fifteen.)

I remember Dad walking into my pink bedroom, taking one look at my cute outfit and curled hair and asking: “Where are you going?” And me saying: “Well, I was thinking I could take the boys [my brothers] to the car show across the street.” And I remember my Pastor-Dad’s stone eyes flashing fire as he spewed: “I know exactly what you’re doing! You’re getting all dressed up so you can get the boys at that car show to look at you! That’s the kind of thing ungodly, bad girls do—try to get boys to look at them! That sort of behavior makes you Ugly!” And the look on Dad’s face said without actually saying it: ‘you are Unlovable! You are Ugly!’

In that moment Dad seared a new Name onto my fifteen-year-old-heart: Ugly and Unlovable.

But in my secret heart I yearned to be known by another Name: Beautiful and Loved.

And for years I warred with God and my parents—wanting to be Beautiful and Loved, not wanting to be Bad and Unlovable, Ugly.

And my parents—out of fear of outer beauty leading to reputation-marring sin—didn’t explain that God made outer beauty “very good,” but that inner beauty is even better because it reflects He who is forever-Beautiful.

To make my parents happy, to keep myself from being Bad—I chose to take on the name Ugly, to wear it on my secret heart, to feed the lie that to be acceptable to God and my parents—to be Good--I must be Ugly.

 I carried this secret name with me to college, to my first job, and into my marriage. I wanted to be Beautiful—acceptable, loved, worthy—but believed I was Ugly at the core. And I lived up to my secret-heart-name by pursuing mediocrity in my passions—running, writing, hosting, speaking--and deflecting the heart-felt compliments of my husband (and others): “I love you, you’re beautiful!” with self-deprecating words and thoughts: “I’m Ugly. I hate myself!”

I didn’t understand that my real name was not Ugly, but Redeemed and Beautiful, because He is the Beautiful Redeemer.

But as scripture says, “He has made everything beautiful in it’s time” (Ecc. 3:11), and in His Time, God entered my life Story and showed me my real name: Beautiful and Loved.

And, gradually, over time, with the help of my husband and others who saw me as God Named me—Beautiful and Loved—I began to take risks in my passions—to run races, to write out my heart-honest-thoughts, to start book clubs and plan parties—and to accept my husband’s love-words as true, replacing self-hatred and self-absorption with embracing Love.

And I’m still on that journey—to living in light of my real name, the name that God—the great Redeemer—has seared upon my heart and the heart of every woman, every person  he creates:

Beautiful and Loved.  

Related Post: Naming and Becoming: Birth

For Personal Reflection: What inaccurate/wrong names were you given as a child? How did God re-name you when he redeemed you? How are you working to live in light of your real, God-given name?

Redemption Story Project: Writing Assignment #3

Part 1: What are your families’ foundational stories? In other words, what stories tell you who you are as a family, your family characteristics, the rules by which you live?  What stories are most frequently told in your family at holidays and reunions? What stories are rarely or never told—are avoided or marginalized? What false stories are told to cover up family secrets? What stories does your family tell about you? Are the stories told about you accurate?

Part 2: Pick one of your family stories and write it out. Spend some time at the end reflecting on what truth—good or bad—this story reveals about your family and/or you as a person.