We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. --Romans 5:3-4
Simply put, character is the nature of a person. As His ambassadors, God wants us to have a Christ-like character and He wants to develop this in us. In the same way that the trials we face reveal our character based on how we respond, God uses the trials we face to teach us to rely more on Him. We could choose to go our own way, in which case our trials won't refine our character at all. But if we take our sufferings as proof that we simply cannot thrive without God's help, then we learn to persevere through the pain and trust God with every aspect of our lives.
Our sufferings are where the human meets the divine and our character is the result of what happens in this interaction. Pain and suffering is part of the human experience; the divine part of the equation is God's grace and power, both of which He is waiting to pour into our lives. Our character develops when we choose either to trust Him or to turn from Him--when we choose to take His usually longer and rougher road or when we seek the easy way out of our suffering. God wants to bless us, but He also wants to refine us. Through our suffering, He can ultimately do both, and we will find this truth in the character He develops in us during our pain.
Apparently a new report has been released that says sexualized images in the media lead to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression in girls. Um...duh. It's through the media that girls learn that their primary value in our culture is based on their appearance--how thin they are, how sexy they are, etc. It's through the media that girls learn what "beauty" is--size 4 legs and size C breasts (btw, these two do not occur that often together in nature). It's through the media that girls learn that it's better to walk around with an all-day wedgie from a thong than to be in comfortable underwear with a panty line. Is it really that surprising that when they are daily bombarded with sexualized images and ideas that young girls would begin to see their only value lies in their appearance? Is it surprising that they would then compare themselves to these images and become distraught when they see they don't measure up?
I agree that the parents at home have some responsibilty for the development of their child's self esteem, but part of the problem is that even the most well-meaning parents inadvertantly reinforce the media's idea of girls by never discussing society's perception of women at all. If a girl doesn't hear anything at home one way or another, she's probably going to listen to the message she is hearing from outside the home since no one is telling her it's wrong. Young girls want to please. The media tells them one way to do this, and if that's the only way they hear, it's natural for them to buy into it. Other well-meaning parents reinforce the media's image by allowing their daughters to wear clothing with suggestive phrases across the chest and/or butt. Really, does a 9-year old need to wear a shirt that says "sexy" in order to express herself? Other parents reinforce the media's image by visibly buying into it themselves with their own focus on physical appearance and image over things of substance such as character development, education, and personality. This is difficult for many parents because even though we may want to tell the younger generation, "do as I say, not as I do," children are more inclined to listen to our actions and attitudes than our words.
I work in a high school, and I have students taking weight loss pills and throwing up their food because that seems to them to be a more worthwhile use of their time and energy than studying. Believe me, I understand their pain. It was in high school that I began the diet that led into my anorexia and subsequent battles with other eating disorder behavior. And I can't say this enough--no matter how many people tell you an eating disorder isn't about the weight, it certainly was for me. Sure, my preoccupation stemmed from my low self-esteem but part of my low self-esteem stemmed from my weight, so it becomes a question of which came first and, no matter how you slice it, weight factors in. And the weight factors in because of the images in the media that I saw every day. So it is no surprise to me that a study is now linking the images of women in the media to depression, low self-esteem, and eating disorders in girls. That's what happened to me.
Nichole Nordeman sums it up well in her song, "Is It Any Wonder?":
Is it any wonder
That she would feel less than real
When she reveals what is clearer
In her mirror
Take a look around her
Magazines, glamour queens
Waist-line dreams in her diary
So inspiring
Nobody told her that little girls
Don't have to have the softest curls for love
So whatever's left inside her
Is gonna smile wider, shine brighter
Until she gets pulled under
Is it any wonder?
When I was young and naive, I adored ladybugs. Their red and black wings and round little bodies always looked friendly to me. Back when I thought they were beautiful and innocent, I relished in the rare moments when God would send a ladybug my way. All of this was before I moved into a house with a strange infestation of these polka dotted beasts. Now I hate them.
Everywhere I turn in my house, there is a ladybug or two breaking up the view. They creep and crawl around the bathroom sink and floor. They lurk near the windows, often falling to their death on the carpet below. One even menacingly waltzed across the rim of a dirty coffee cup on the kitchen counter. I washed that cup twice before putting it back in the cabinet. And thanks to that rogue crawler, I have fits of paranoia if I leave a glass on the table and even briefly take my eyes off of it. I have visions of bunches of ladybugs swimming in my drink with microscopic loofahs to keep their wings nice and shiny.
Tonight I had a true moment of terror at the hands of one of these demons. As I peacefully lounged on the couch reading a novel, I heard a quick buzz fall past my ear, felt a tap on my left hand, and then felt another one on the side of my head, as if a ladybug took a dive and richoceted off my hand into my hair. In a panic, I grabbed Felicia who was snoozing at my feet and I asked her to find the bug. Dachshunds were bred to be hunting dogs, after all, so I figured her instincts would kick in. Instead, she stared at me, annoyed to have been roused so rudely from her slumber and not in the least bit interested in sniffing anywhere on my head for the intruder. So I ran into the other room to seek John's help. He got up and looked through my hair and clothes, but he found no ladybug. When he stopped his search, I pointed to the floor, "Look!!! There it is!!!" He picked up the bug body and turned it over on his finger. It was only wings! The black body was nowhere to be found under this shell. "I think this one has been dead for awhile," he said and then traisped it back to the trashcan. My mind still racing, all I can think is that the ladybug is a more crafty creature than I first imagined. It must have shed its wings and burrowed its body into my shoulder to lay ladybug eggs!
Earlier in the week, before the ice storm shut the schools down for three straight days, I conversed with a co-worker about my ladybug plight. She told me that she had the same problem when she first moved into her current house. She told me it took her a few years of diligently vaccuuming up every spot of red that caught her eye before she noticed the population dwindling. A few years?! What's worse, the exterminators wouldn't help her because ladybugs are supposed to be helpful bugs. Maybe so, but they aren't helping anyone when they're inside my house.
As a little girl, whenever I asked my mom why God created this creature or that creature, she would patiently smile and tell me that every little being in God's creation has a purpose, even the ravenous mosquitos that would pester us on our family vacations at the river. I used to think the ladybugs' purpose was to brighten up an otherwise drab day with their rare bursts of beauty. Now that I am living in an apparent ladybug refuge, I think their purpose is to hasten the day when I am finally committed to the psychiatric ward.
I can't stand that new Dr. Pepper commercial. You know the one with the words "I want it all/I want it all/I want it all/And I want it now" blaring in the background while the guy jumps from scene to scene. How obnoxious. I mostly hate it because that song is pretty much the motto of our culture. So much so that I think those words concisely sum up all of the problems with our society. We are so materialistic and self-focused that we have no clue who God is or what He wants for our lives. And we don't really care because we're so consumed with our collective sense of entitlement that we don't see the need to concern ourselves about the bigger picture at all.
God has some things to say about greed that would make most Americans stop in their tracks if they took the time to listen and really understand what He is saying. I will just highlight a few key points from the Bible on materialism.
Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." --Luke 12:15
These are words straight from the mouth of our Savior. The enemy has infiltrated American culture so deeply that many of us truly believe that our lives do in fact consist of the abundance of our possessions. One of my favorite lines from Rent is "And when you're living in America/At the end of the millenium/You're what you own." We're now at the beginning of a new millenium and these words still ring true. Many of us in the upper-middle class sector spend our days slaves to jobs we don't like because we say we need the money. Maybe there is something we would rather be doing, but that would mean a pay cut and a sacrifice of the lifestyle we love. The line between what we truly need and what we simply want is so blurred that when we speak we say we need it all. Inadvertantly or not, we have given our lives to our possessions. We still feel empty because we are missing the abundance of life that God has for us that has nothing to do with what we own. But instead of recognizing our emptiness for what it is, we seek to fill it with even more possessions.
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. --Ephesians 5:3
Paul is pretty clear here. The very things which permeate American culture are basically the opposite of what God wants to see in our lives. The enemy has used the media to normalize that which is improper for God's children. I am certain it breaks God's heart to see how many of His children have chosen the enemy's path rather than God's path. Falling into Satan's trap of immorality is not an excuse to stay there when God has given us access to the truth. Maybe it is difficult to overcome the daily pressure from the media to live a certain lifestyle, but nowhere in the Bible are we promised an easy life when we become Christians. Part of the way God refines us is through our daily battle with temptation. We cannot get away with using the influence of the media as an excuse for leading improper lives. We are called to overcome the lure of materialism and we will be held accountable for our lifestyles, including how we use the financial gifts He's given us.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. --Colossians 3:5
Paul's words in the verse are similar to the verse above from Ephesians, but what we need to focus on now is that last word: idolatry. Our materialism translates into idolatry because we are worshipping our posessions. God does bless us materially sometimes, but if our possessions become our focus instead of the One who gave them to us, we are idol worshippers. When we walk around with the "I want it all" mantra cycling through our heads, that attitude becomes part of our hearts and our spriits and we live subject to our things rather than to subject to our Creator. God is jealous (Exodus 34:14). He wants our whole selves--heart, mind, body, soul--and He is angered when we give all or part of ourselves to anyone or anything other than Him. This is the sin of materialism and the very definition of idolatry. Many of us give our things and the pursuit of more things lordship in our lives.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence." --Matthew 23:25
I saved these words from Jesus because His description of the Pharisees sums up the lifestyle of so many Christians living in our society today. We purify our lives from the outside rather than from the inside. We spout off self-righteous words, but our lives reflect hypocrisy rather than purity. We are quick to cast judgment on others for the sin we see in their lives (sexual sin being a favorite topic of judgment for many Christians), but we don't recognize the areas of sin in our own lives. Certainly it is easier to dwell on the things we are doing well rather than to look at the areas where we are failing God's call on our lives. Much like in Jesus' day, our society focuses all of its attention on outside appearances which is how we got so caught up in materialism in the first place--our possessions are easy to see and an easy way to measure our worth. But Jesus called the Pharisees to look at the inside rather than the outside, and He is calling us to do the same.
At the beginning of DC Talk's "What if I Stumble" song, a recording says, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." If our mantra is our culture's mantra, "I want it all," then this becomes our lifestyle. People can tell by looking at us whether we serve the God of the Bible or our culture's god of greed. Which god do you live for?
I haven't posted in awhile, but not because I haven't had anything to say. I haven't posted in awhile because I've had too much to say and I couldn't figure out where to start. So I'll start with this: damn all the self-righteous judgment-casters. I'll start with that because I'm going to say what is on my mind even if it means that some self-righteous people are going to feel the need to talk. I'm tired of censoring myself out of fear of being judged by them. I'm going to be real and raw right now.
I'm depressed. Not crying all the time or contemplating suicide depressed, but more of a general despondence with life. Some of it can be tied to my circumstances. There is definitely a lot of stress in my life right now, and it seems like a whole lot of little things are falling apart along with the bigger things. To run through a litany of all that has not gone right over the past two months would take much longer than I what I feel like giving right now, so you'll just have to trust me that it's a lot and that it runs the gamut from the heat breaking down in the townhouse right after we finally got an offer on it to the smashed side window on my car to the knee pain that I'm taking to the orthopedist this week to the fact that I feel completely disconnected at my current church to the broken relationships in my family. A lot of it I'm sure is just the nature of life and I shouldn't be wasting my time in my comfortable self-pity, but I can't deny the spiritual toll that all of this has taken on me.
Remember Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty? He said he felt like he was an ant and God was a mean kid with a magnifying glass. People laughed. I laughed at the time not realizing I would one day know that feeling as well as I do now. I'm supposed to be leading a good life of example, but I'm too worn out to care. So instead of faking it, I'm going ot be real and say that sometime life just sucks. Period. If that makes me ungrateful than we can just add that to the list of things that I need to repent for when I have the courage to pray again. I was talking to the one person whom I have told how I'm really feeling and he said, "So you feel like Job?" But that's not it. Job was a righteous man and God allowed for him to be tested because of his righteousness. I'm not righteous and I don't feel like I'm being tested. I feel like I'm being punished. I'm not Job, I'm an Israelite following Moses on the way out of Egypt.
Like the Israelites wandering in the desert, I'm finding my way back to my familiar crutches because it's easier to deal with the pain and emptiness that I get from turning to them than it is to deal with the pain and emptiness I get from facing my own life right now. Instead of getting right with God, I'm only doing things that are making me more wrong. And I'm so depressed that even if all the wrong in my life means that God kills me before I make it to my promised land, I don't care. Apathy has taken over where passion used to live. Even though I am happier when I'm around other people and not thinking about myself, I can't find the motivation to leave the house and actually be around them. Even though I'm happier when I'm walking my road, I'd rather just sit here on the couch and stare at the wall because there are too many places to trip if I get up and walk. I wouldn't say I've given up, but I have put myself into time-out for an indefinite amount of time. That is what I'm feeling. It's not sugar-coated; it's real. If you want to judge me for it, go right ahead. I'm too apathetic to give a damn.
***UPDATE***Apparently, God likes irony. Literally, as soon as I hit "post" on this entry, John's cell phone rang. It was the realtor who showed our house this morning calling to report that a pipe burst and our basement was soaked. My life has now officially hit train wreck status.