Conquerors

I have no excuses to offer for being so remiss in posting this month other than that it's been hectic for me both at work where I am dealing with upcoming graduation issues and at home where my husband and I are finishing our basement and spent our entire 3 day weekend and the past two days painting the freshly laid dry wall. I have missed writing and realize that I should have tried harder to make time. I apologize.

A parent of one of my seniors who will be graduating this year has asked me to write something inspirational that she will add to a scrapbook she is making for her daughter. This family is Christian and her daughter and I have discussed issues of faith. I am honored that they are including me in this memory book for her. It is probably the most meaningful task that I have been asked to do outside of my normal duties and perhaps once I have finalized the message I will send to her I will share what I wrote on this site. For now I will say that I have worked with this girl about seeing who she is in Christ and basing her self-esteem on how the Lord sees her rather than on how she sees herself, and I think this is a topic all of us could stand to remember.

I read a devotional a few years ago that I recommended to my student called Who I am in Christ by Neil T. Anderson. In this book, Anderson lists many of the ways that the Bible describes the characteristics that all of us can share once we give our lives to Christ. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is searching for self-definition and self-esteem as I was 11 years ago when I was, like my student, on the verge of adulthood but still feeling like a child and trying to figure out who I am and where I fit into the grander plan.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible that describes who we are in Christ is Romans 8:37, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Merriam-Webster defines the word conquer using some of the following phrases: "to gain mastery over," "win by overcoming obstacles or opposition," and "to overcome by mental or moral power." These are all very significant phrases when considered in light of our Christian walks

We have a very real enemy who tries to work against God by working against us on our walks. Just as Romans 8:31-39 describes, our enemy whispers words of condemnation in our ears and tries to veer us off-course during our hardships. He lies to us about who God is and he lies to us about who we are as God's children. But Romans 8 is clear, we have the power to conquer--to gain mastery rather than to be mastered by--our enemy. Through Christ we can overcome every obstacle and opposition the enemy tries to throw at our feet. By staying focused on the Lord, we can keep ourselves from being distracted by the enemy's ploys and we can find victory (1 Corinthians 15:57, 1 John 5:4).

Christ won our victory for us on the cross and we are called to walk in that victory rather than in bondage to our enemy (see Romans 6). In practice, this means daily putting on our spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-18) to walk out onto the battlefield. For even though we already have victory, we still need to fight. Because the battle often begins in our minds where we give the enemy's lies ground to land on, we must "overcome by mental power" by taking every thought captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). We must stand firm in our faith and in the truth giving ourselves to the Lord's work even when our enemy tries to block our efforts (1 Corinthians 15:58). The enemy has waged war on us, but through Christ we daily conquer our enemy.

Real Beauty

Today I stumbled across a discussion board on "real beauty" where a woman wrote that she cannot think of one attractive feature about herself. She painted a brief physical picture of herself (which sounded frighteningly similar to the way I look--short, fair skin, freckles) and then described how she would prefer to look--tall, tan, larger bust--not surprisingly very much the way Hollywood would also prefer that she and every other American woman look. As I was reading her brief post, I first felt empathy for her knowing that I used to feel the same way about my appearance and admittedly still do on occasion. I then felt my heart fill with praise at how God has brought me to a place where I can see beauty in even the parts of myself that I once thought were irrevocably flawed--my short but powerful legs, my freckled face that reflects my love of the outdoors, my wide feet that faithfully carry my body and my burdens. I praise God for this because it took a good chunk of my teens and twenties to get to a point where I am no longer incessantly raging against the genetics God gave to me. After praising Him, I then felt indignation at the enemy for the plight of the woman who posted the comments about her body and all my sisters who struggle against this attack of the enemy.

How much time and money and energy do women in this culture waste on trying to reach an unreachable standard of appearance? The multi-billion dollar diet and beauty industry daily send us the enemy's message that we are not good enough, that our worth can be measured on a bathroom scale, that our physical is more important than our spiritual. The industry does so under the guise that they are trying to meet our needs and desires, but really they are creating artificial needs and desires through their advertising. And so many of us gladly buy in. We overstuff our bodies until we are completely hidden behind layers of fat or we starve our bodies until the emptiness in our eyes barely hints at the life than once lurked behind them. The enemy is crushing out the fire in the hearts of women with his war on our beauty. He is instilling in us at young ages that it's better to reflect the airbrushed, plastic beauty of Hollywood than the real beauty of our Lord. The God who created us deeply values diversity in all ways, including physical appearance. Our enemy would prefer for us to reject God's creation and seek to become clones because he knows full well that our efforts to measure up to the impossible image of beauty that our culture has adopted will only drive us further away from God. Obsessive diet and beauty efforts draw our time away from the Lord's service, and they also sap our energy and strength and even our passion away from Him to whom all of these things should be directed. Do not be mistaken, Satan claps his hands with glee as he watches us expend ourselves on ourselves rather than on the Lord.

I mourn for all the years of my life I've wasted on the pursuit of the world's beauty. Frankly, the time has left me exhausted. During therapy in college, I read in a book about body image that we should only engage in exercise that brings us life--not punishment, not compulsion, not pain, but life. These words stuck with me even though I never really learned how to practice them. The problems I have now with my knee can be directly linked to the hours I have spent punishing myself with intense cardio after I ate the "wrong" thing. The pain in my knee reminds me daily of the price I paid to my enemy in hopes of fitting a certain physical mold. My heart grieves over this in my own life just as my heart grieves at the pain that all my sisters feel after giving themselves over to a greedy enemy who never satisfies. My prayer is that we might all recognize the pure beauty God has instilled in each of us, that we might start to appreciate our own unique beauty and the unique beauty of our sisters, that we might spend our time cultivating God's beauty in our hearts rather than the world's beauty on our bodies, and that we might spur each other on towards victory over an enemy whom our culture has given far too much power to in this (and every) area.

Addiction vs. Definition

Some behaviors we engage in because they are our habits; others we engage in because they are part of who we are. As I have said before, I unquestionably have an addictive personality, which is why I count my blessings that I have avoided any kind of addictive involvement with drugs or alcohol. Still, there are some things I do because of my addictive tendencies. As I live with myself longer, I'm learning to recognize the difference between an addiction and a defining behavior. The difference is not just that one is bad and the other is good. These qualifiers could apply to behavior in both the addictive and the defning categories. The difference between the two is far more subtle than good or bad. Obviously, one difference is that defining behaviors are even harder than addictions to change. I can go to therapy to get over an addiction because my addiction is not the essence of who I am. But defining behaviors seem to live within my very marrow. Addictions are crutches I learn to lean on over time as a way to cope with life. Defining behaviors are an inherent part of my life. I may feel compelled to engage in addictive behavior, but I feel truly lost when I don't engage in my defining behaviors.

In Proverbs, we are instructed to write love and faithfulness on our hearts (Proverbs 3:3). Our hearts are permanent tablets, so when we write the behaviors of love and faithfulness upon our hearts, these behaviors should become part of us. I vividly remember an experience I had in college during an extremely low point when I was actually in therapy to get over a negative addiction that I had been engaging in for 8 years at that point. As I walked across campus to the health center to see my counselor, I remembered thinking how much easier life would be if I was not a Christian. Before I even completed this thought, I felt an overwhelming awareness that I could not simply choose to no longer be a Christian. My faith in Christ is an essential part of who I am. Even though I could hope for recovery from my eating disorder, which was simply an addiction and not a defining behavior, I realized that day that I could not even begin to define myself apart from my faith. Similarly, I've come to understand that there are other behaviors that are part of my composition--behaviors I had previously considered disposable but that I am now learning can't simply be cut out or overcome the way an addiction can. I'm learning to embrace these behaviors as part of what makes me who I am.

Of course, God can change us at our cores even if therapy and 12-step programs can do nothing to chip away at our defining behaviors no matter how successful they are at breaking us of our addicitons. In the process of sanctification, God will refine the beahviors that define us so that they are used for His glory rather than ours. He will transform us and what has previously defined us may change, particularly if our defining behaviors are not honoring to Him or His word. The transforming power of His love working in us is the only element strong enough to alter our core being.

Saints and Sinners

We want to be saints, but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life; we want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; we want to have the depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends, and go out. --Ronald Rolheiser

Rolheiser's words capture the struggle of humanity so clearly and concisely. We are spiritual beings imprisoned by flesh. Our spirits within us hunger for more than what the world offers us, but our flesh foolishly continues to chase after the world. We want some of everything, but we can't worship God and the world at the same time (Mattew 6:24).

I have personally said, "I don't want to miss anything" in reference to the very active social life I had 4 years ago. The irony is that when I fill my time with the lessor things of the world, I am missing the better, more fulfilling things of God. I am choosing the world's imitation of life over God's offer of abudant life (John 10:10). And so are so many other Christians.

This is not to say that we should not enjoy the gifts God has given us, including socializing with our friends. We have to live among the world so that we can be a light in the darkness, but we have to be careful not to choose the things of the world over God or our lights will dim. As humans, we must live in the world, but as Christians we cannot live for the world.

We are weak, divided creatures who daily struggle in the battle between spirit and flesh that Rolheiser describes. We love the Lord, but we live in a society of such material abundance that it's easy for us to choose the quick fix promises of the world over the long road of Christian life. The world offers many different paths for our flesh to take, but God designed our spirits so that, ultimately, we will not be fulfilled apart from Him.

Seeking Glory

I daresay we’ve heard a bit about original sin, but not nearly enough about original glory, which comes before sin and is deeper to our nature. We were crowned with glory and honor. Why does a woman long to be beautiful? Why does a man hope to be found brave? Because we remember, if only faintly, that we were once more than we are now. The reason you doubt there could be a glory to your life is because that glory has been the object of a long and brutal war.

--John Eldredge, Waking the Dead

I know Americans didn't invent self-obsession--the Romans were good at it long before we were. Maybe self-obsession is a natural by-product of living in a society of abundance. We have all we need and then some, so since we don't have to focus on meeting our needs, we focus on "enriching" our own life experiences even more. We feel driven to better ourselves, and unlike the majority of people in the world, we have the time and money to do so. I think John Eldredge's point is correct--we feel this drive to better ourselves because we know that we were created to be more than we are now.

The problem is that we go about trying to restore our glory in all the wrong ways. The world tells our problem is superficial. If only we looked better, made more money, drove a nicer car, had more success in our careers...if only these things happened for us, then we would have glory once again. Listening to the world, we seek superficial and manmade fixes for our lost glory when the problem is not superficial at all. The problem is a spiritual problem and the only solution is found in God. Only through God's power can we fight the daily war waged against who we were created to be. Only through God's word and His whisperings to us can we learn who we are and begin to walk in that glory. All other efforts will leave us emptier than when we began our search. Only in surrendering all that we are to God will our glory be found again.

Slabs of Meat and the Love of God

"America is one of the most immoral countries in the world...our media has reduced humans to slabs of meat." --Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Whether we are looking for them or not, every day the media sends us images touting their idea of beauty. It's a very limited vision of beautiful--thin bodies; tanned, clear skin; silky hair; straight, white teeth; long legs and large breasts on the women; broad shoulders and toned muscles on the men. We are all vulnerable to these images and the havoc such images can create on our own self-perceptions. Adolescents are especially at risk because their self-images are so shaky as is, so it is no wonder that eating disorders tend to begin during the impressionable years between 12 and 22. Mine did. And what I hate about that imprssionable age is that I started down a path of behavior that would quite literally shape who I would be for the rest of my life. 14 is too young to decide on a college major and a career path, the government even deems it too young to vote in an election. Yet at the age I was able to choose to listen to voices that would enter me into a lifelong battle that quite frankly I'd rather not have to fight 15 years later.

To be fair to my 14-year old self, I honestly didn't know any better. I went on a diet to lose a few pounds because I thought I'd be happier and less depressed if I looked a little better. I must have had a predisposition that led me into trouble with the diet, maybe there is an eating disorder gene since there seems to be a gene for everything else. Or maybe it was just a combination of a previously established low self-esteem coupled with a home environment filled with many mixed messages about appearance from my father. People say eating disorders have nothing to do with weight or food. They're lying. In my case, the eating disorder began because of weight and food. Sure, there were underlying problems such as depression and poor self-image, but rest-assured that the weight and food played a big part in my condition and still do. In fact, my low self-esteem was and is based largely on physical appearance and cop-out or not, Hollywood doesn't help in the matter.

At 14, a few pounds turned into a few more until I had shrunk down to a size 4 and still felt like my legs were too thick. I would never have sought help for my "condition" if my habits hadn't swung full circle during my junior year in college when I went from meticulously counting every fat gram I put into my mouth to putting every fat gram I could find into my mouth. No, I'm not exaggerating. During the swing from anorexia to binge eating, I would sit down and eat an entire jar of peanut butter with a spoon in one sitting and finish an entire bag of candy (not the snack bags, the big bags you get for the kids at Halloween) in one afternoon. I sought help not so that I could finally develop normal eating habits but rather so that I could find the will power to return to starvation. I wasn't happy when I was thin, but at least I thought I looked good.

So, why bring all of this up now? Well, back in November I decided that I wanted to lose a few pounds again. I joined Weight Watchers because the only question they asked was whether or not I had an "active diagnosis" of bulimia. I haven't had true symptoms of bulimia since college, so I thought I would be fine. Turns out, any type of diet (call it a lifestyle if you want, but focusing on what I am eating still spells diet to me) can set off the binge trigger in someone with a history of eating disorders, active or not. And this happened for me in a big way. Even though I didn't learn that it was to be expected until I read an article about it several weeks later, I quickly found myself returning to the very thought patterns that got me into trouble when I was younger. And even though I only followed the Weight Watchers program for a couple weeks, I just finished off a dinner of cookies tonight, a couple months later.

And I feel stuck. God loves me and wants to deliver me from my self-addiction, but I'm still stuck in a culture where every day I'm reminded of what I'm not. Of course I realize we're all more than what we look like, but the rest of our country doesn't realize that, or least doesn't act like they realize it in a real way. I need God to deliver me from more than just self-obsession, but I also need deliverance from giving a rat's ass about what other people think of me. God's opinion should be the only one that matters. Should be the only one that matters. Should be.

So here I am with a stomachache from too many cookies, a heartache from always letting God and myself down when it comes to this daily task of eating, and a headache from analyzing myself too much and pondering the reason why I always come back to this point. I could spend all night cursing the immoral culture that wants me to be thin and cursing myself for buying into the hype and missing out on what really matters (which, by the way, I do know on some level is not a number on the scale), but that would just get me back to this place tomorrow and I'm tired of being here.

Donald Miller writes something else in Blue Like Jazz that I find so profound when I look at it in light of my own life. He writes, "And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.... God's love will never change us if we don't accept it." I want God to deliver me from my self-addiction, but He can't change me with His love for me if I don't receive it. And I mean receive His love more than just in my mind where I already intellectually accept that God loves me, but receive it into my heart, my soul, and my spirit. Receive it so that it is in the marrow of my bones and that it becomes what I live by. Even with so many years as a Christian under my belt, I don't think I've done this yet. Actually, I know I haven't done this yet because the evidence of me not receiving God's love is written all over my negative thoughts and actions towards myself, which of course spills over into negative thoughts and actions towards others.

I'm the worst kind of sinner, there is no doubt, but God loves me anyway. Really loves me. And He wants me to receive this love so that I can love others in return. He wants me to stop obsessing about myself and start obsessing about Him and His cause on this earth and His cause in this immoral country where He's planted me. I honestly believe that if I let it, His love can cut the chains that I have used to reduce myself to nothing more than a slab of meat. His love can set me free, but only if I accept it into every part of me and let it govern me where I have previously been letting society dictate who I am.

Self-loathing

I would never define myself as a masochist because of my aversion to physical pain, but my emotional life illustrates a different story. More than the average person, I am quite skilled at mercilessly beating myself down. Case in point: last week my husband and I joined another couple on a cruise. It was the first real vacation that John and I have taken since our honeymoon. In my preparations I read an article about leaving a cruise more buffet than buff. Determined not to let this happen to me, I packed workout clothes and committed myself to exercising 5-6 days of our 7 day trip using the ship's jogging track and gym. As the days passed without me moving any more muscles than what it takes to shift positions on a lounge chair, I began to pile the guilt on myself for not being motivated to exercise. By the end of the week, I had beaten myself down pretty badly, in spite of my long-standing knowledge that after I left the anorexic behavior behind, all the guilt in the world no longer seems to motivate me to act a certain way. I spent my cruise vacation as probably the average American would--laying in the sun, reading, and enjoying ample quantities of good food. Yet I couldn't let myself fully enjoy my much-needed downtime because of my self-inflicted guilt for not being "better." And because all this guilt only adds to my self-obsession, I became ultra-paranoid that everyone with whom I shared my plans to exercise that week was judging me with the same gavel with which I judge myself.

Of course this self-deprecation is not in the least way a Biblical lifestyle. Contrary to popular belief, the Bible doesn't preach self-loathing when we are taught about humility. There is a middle ground. We are called to recognize the wonder in our personal creation (Psalm 139:13-14) and to know our gifts that we may share them for God's glory (Matthew 25:14-30). Self-loathing makes it impossible for us to live in a way where we maximize God's glory because self-loathing, I've found, maximizes our self-focus rather than our God-focus.

Soon after my father died, my pastor and I were dicussing the grief cycle and guilt. One thing he said to me that I've held onto is the idea that guilt is not from God. Revolutionary when you consider how many others view Christianity as a religious system! Yet the concept fits Biblically. Satan is known as the accuser, the one who finger points whenever we fail (Revelations 12:10). God is the grace-giver, the one who extends mercy and covers our sins and shortcomings with His love (Romans 3:22-24). Satan uses guilt because guilt creates a distraction from our spiritual walk and can cause us to feel out of the reach of God's grace. When I am mentally caught up in the self-abusing guilt cycle, I punish myself rather than accepting grace. God's grace offers freedom from this cycle so that my time and energy can be used for His kingdom purposes rather than my own self-serving tasks.

As I relect on the waste of time and energy it takes for me to mentally abuse myself, I came to a revelation about myself: I have no one to credit for my low self-esteem other than myself. There is no one else I can blame because no one else sends me messages that are as negative as those I send myself. I choose to measure my worth by hours in the gym and by the number of times I restrain myself from the candy jar at work. It is no wonder that I constantly fall short of the strict standards I set for myself. And it is no wonder that my self-esteem is so low when I always set myself up for failure with these measures. There is no way to sugar coat it--this is idolatry. By measuring my value by the gym and my sugar-intake, I am worshipping the false God of the American culture that tells me I am what I look like and that drives me to compulsively serve diet and exercise in order to be rewarded with a more culturally admirable appareance. In doing this, I am down-grading the one true God's opinion of me and the one true God's way to salvation which is the path of grace and not the path of punishment. The Bible clearly defines who we are in Christ. When I choose not to recognize who I am in Christ and live out that identity, I am instead living out an idenity set up for me by the fallen world. And in doing so I am cheating God as well as myself. Instead of being used for His purposes, I am being used for the enemy's purpose, and this is evident in my depression and paranoia that drives me deeper into my patterns.

To be clear, I think that a healthy diet and exercise are important when kept in perspective. Our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), and we are called to treat them well and take care of them. The problem is when we fall to extreme compulsion in diet and exercise that leaves us guilty when we even slightly stray from the course we ourselves have laid out. In one of my newer daily reads, a recent post about the New Year said, "May you choose food and exercise that nourishes your life - not punishes it!" This is my goal for the new year. I want to find the place where I let go of the drive to punish myself for having an appetitie, where I stop striving and just let myself be, where I finally learn to make peace with myself so that my life can start to be about loving God and loving others instead of punishing myself and neglecting both God and others. I want to continue to strive to eat well and exercise, but I don't want to obsess about it. I want to be healthy so I can serve Him longer, not to worship diet and exercise with the hopes that I'll look better and therefore be happier. As I should have learned from my super-skinny days, thinness and happiness are not one in the same. And as I should have learned from my early salvation days, walking closely with God and doing His will brings a joy to my life that I can get through no other means no matter how much Satan would try to convince me otherwise.

In summary, humility requires a healthy fear of God and a healthy understanding of who we are in the universe. It also requires a respect for who we are in Christ and the power that we have in His name. If we live in self-loathing as I often do, we aren't in His will. If we live in love and humility, we are living as He's called us. I pray that 2007 would be a year where all of us who share in the battle of body image and self-obsession would make peace with all of our strengths and all of our limitations, remembering that these physical bodies are only temporary and relatively inconsequential in spite of all the time, energy, and money we spend on them. What lasts is not our flesh but our spirits, and the bulk of our resources should go to improving the quality of our spiritual lives rather than our pants size (1 Corinthians 15:42-50).

Fire

I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure, just as gold and silver are refined and purified by fire. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'These are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God.' --Zechariah 13:9

Life is not always easy. Sometimes we are so weary from our struggles that we feel like we can't handle any more. And then more comes. We cry out for relief, but it seems slow to arrive. This is not how we imagined life would be when we gave our lives to Christ. We thought we'd be blessed, yet we feel cursed. We think that if He is calling us His people then He should give us an easy life so that others will see how great it is to follow Him. Instead, God seems to be making life so uncomfortable that we have no choice but to rely on Him because our own limited resources are not enough to carry us through. This is not what we signed up for. In our language, a blessed life should translate into an easy life. In God's language, a blessed life translates into a holy life. We can't live holy lives while our souls are rife with impurities. So, since God is all-powerful, we ask Him to gently remove our impurities while we sleep. He refuses. We are His children, a people set apart for Him. He wants to strengthen us for His purposes as He purifies us, and strength is something that comes from testing and trial not from peaceful rest. Silver and gold aren't refined by a matter of will and neither are we. Just like these precious metals, God won't refine us without sticking us deep into the fire. Others see we are His not because we walk an easy road, but because we perservere on our way down the hard road and we come out better for it. Our joy is not based on easy living, it's based on hope and faith that endure and actually deepen through the pain. Like silver and gold, we are too precious to God for Him to keep us out of the fire.

Darkness

I am a dark person. I think I was born this way, but the dark side of my remained latent until puberty. I have dark dreams at night and dark thoughts continually creep across my mind during the day. In the past when I was feeling more creatively inspired, I wrote a lot of dark poetry. I've been on and off anti-depressants. For awhile, I didn't want anything to do with them because I felt like they stifled my creativity. I'm not on them now because I finally see the advantage to my dark side. I feel like my darkness makes me better at counseling the confused, hurt, angry, and dark adolescents that I see every day at work because I have the same turmoil inside myself. When they share their dark sides with me, I don't have to fake empathy. I really do understand. Over the course of my life, I've had many theories about why I must fight this internal battle with darkness. As I start to feel more comfortable in my job (miracle!), I'm starting to think that God knew that my battle with the darkness would help me reach the people I work with in a more real way than I could reach them without the ongoing internal experience I have in myself.

May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. --Hebrews 13:20-21

Sometimes God's equiping isn't what we'd expect to see, but He works ALL things for good (Romans 8:28), even those which Satan intended to put in our lives to harm us (Genesis 50:20). Sometimes when we beg Him to change aspects of ourselves or aspects of our lives, He says no. We have to trust that God knows what He is doing and when He says no it's because He has a bigger plan that we may not be able to see. Satan would have us get so caught up in the no that we become closed off to God's calling on us. Don't let Satan win.

Perception

I had a bad weekend. Not bad because I started the weekend with enough plans to legitimately be too busy too rest, not bad because of the on-going family fued that I was confronted with again on Saturday, and not bad because I was dreading work today, although I would be lying if I said that I was looking forward to this day. My weekend was the kind of bad where I cancelled all the plans I could and spent most of my time curled up on the couch under a fleece blanket wearing a XXL t-shirt, a pair of my husband's athletic shorts, and a red bandana on my head in what my husband lovingly terms "Aunt Jemima" style. This weekend was the kind of bad where I didn't want to leave my house, and I certainly was not going to answer my phone and actually talk to someone. I barely even spoke to John! I took this weekend to wallow in a self-pitying depression in a way that I haven't wallowed in a long while.

My misery began Saturday morning. Since June, I have known that my field hockey team was going to scrimmage my alma mata, and I've been dreading it pretty much since I found out. Even though I graduated high school in May 1996, the same man who was coaching the team when I played is still coaching today. I did not leave things on a positive note with him. Long story, but basically I felt like he didn't want me on his team anymore because of my eating disorder. I viewed him as a coward and I've been holding a grudge ever since. Not very Christian of me, I know. I was insecure in high school, more so even than I am today if you can imagine it. Going back to the scene of my insecurity, eating disorder, and unforgiveness left me with a sick knot in my stomach from the moment I stepped out of bed. And it was all downhill from there.

I realized even on Saturday that it was all an attitude thing. When I got mud all over my khaki shorts when moving the sprinkler on our field before we left for our game, I had a choice to either laugh it off or feel bad about myself because of it. A scarlet letter in the form of a dark brown splotch marking my weakness and proving I don't belong. I smiled as much as I could in spite of it, but when we got to my old school, the knot tightened. I soon learned there would be no officials at this game and we would have to officiate ourselves. Yes I played the game and yes this is my second year coaching, but I would rather have been at my desk changing student schedules than officiating. I am not quick enough in calling fouls, and I get my hands mixed up when I'm trying to give the signals. I told the varsity coach that I did not want to do it. He told me to do the best I could. The best I could was pretty bad. The varsity team finished with the players and parents pissed at me and me feeling like bursting into tears. I wanted to appear sophosticated and polished in front of my former coach not even more clumsy than when I graduated! Varsity lost 11-0. It was all up to my team to salvage what was left of my dignity.

Never one to hide my moods, I had to be reminded by the varsity coach to "keep it positive in front of them." Oops. He was right, of course, but I didn't know how to be positive when I felt so negative. We were being dominated from the beginning and ended up losing 4-0. Better than varsity, true, but still somewhat demoralizing for a team that never played a game last year where they didn't get a few shots on goal and at least one point. Saturday we barely left the 25 yards in front of our own goal. Afterwards we got in line to slap hands with our opponents. I was banking on the fact that my old coach wouldn't remember me and I could escape in anonymity. No such luck.

"Are you Kim?" He asked when I reached him line.

"Yes."

"I thought that was you! I couldn't tell because you didn't come say hi to me. How are you?"

What is this? Could this man actually be happy to see me? All these years I thought he judged me and hated me and he's actually happy? Could I have been harboring unforgiveness and my own judgement of him for no reason at all?

We talked for several minutes, and it suddenly occurred to me how much my perception had impacted the negativity I had been nurturing all these years. What's past is past. It's time to let it go and move on. I am not the same insecure girl I once was. God has brought me too far for me to still quiver in an utter lack of self-confidence at the sight of my past. I may have done a crappy job officiating and my team my have lost, but this man still wanted to talk to me. I may have failed at my job for the day, but that does not mean I am a worthless human being.

My pride had wanted so badly to exact revenge by crushing his team and looking great, but God would not grant me prideful satisfaction. God had another plan. From what I can tell, He wanted to teach me humility. But even more than that, I carried away the lesson that even though humility may not feel natural, being humble does not change who I am in Christ. If anything, humility means that God is better able to work His power through me. God did incredible things through Moses, He even talked to him face to face, yet according to Numbers 12:3, "Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." I am not comparing myself to Moses by any stretch (I'm certainly not faithful enough for that!), but I do think humility is important to God even if it feels uncomfortable to me.

Nevermind that I left that field still feeling pretty low. My revelation about myself did not salvage my weekend. In fact, I went home mourning the officiating disaster and feeling like a complete fraud as a coach. This then led to me mourning the wasted time and energy I spent to enter my current profession. I have written many times about how far separated my current job is from my dream. Most of my depression over the past year has been centered around my dissatisfaction and feelings of regret from the choices I made that led my down this path. I'm only 28, but that still feels too old to start from scratch on the career front. Or maybe that's all a matter of inaccurate perception as well.

Perception is a powerful thing. More powerful even than reality. It certainly beat me down this weekend, and it's been the force that has been beating me down since puberty if not before. Satan knows the power of perception well. It is the very force he uses to deceive us. When we listen to him, he distorts reality and thereby changes our perception of all we think we know. He is the father of lies (John 8:44), so it is no wonder that he tries to change our perceptions to the point where reality is blurred and we're all living in our own little worlds. Sometimes we really do mess up and make bad choices. But when we believe that it's too late to rectify a situation, we are believing a false perception. God can bring good out of everything, even our own mistakes (Romans 8:28). If there is one area where we cannot allow our perceptions to be distorted, it is in our view of God's power. Satan would have us put God in a box, but don't be fooled. The God of the universe cannot be contained no matter what lies we believe about Him.

On another note, has it really been a month since my last post?! I'm such a slacker!

Sensate and Spiritual

In a recent post on the topic of human boredom, Jeff Blazer proposes, "Humans are sensate, visceral, palpable. I believe that means life isn't really THAT philosophically abstract, rather more about how we feel in a given moment. If you don't get it or don't believe me, think of it this way: do we really care if god is good if we feel like shit? Get it now?" It's been awhile since I've taken issue with what someone else has blogged about, and I guess you could say that my boredom has driven me to it today. I'm certainly not arguing with Blazer's point that boredom is strictly human issue like rational thinking and addiction, nor am I arguing that most of what we do is designed to combat boredom, I do, however, take issue with the idea that life is all "about how we feel in a given a moment." I think it is certainly possible for us to make life all about how we feel in a given moment, but I do not think that is what life is meant to be or even how it has to be. In fact, I think we are the only species blessed with rational thinking so that we can overcome our natural drive to act and live on nothing more than how we feel. The Bible is clear that we cannot trust our feelings. Jesus states in Matthew 15:19, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander." None of these are good, but they are what can develop in hearts that are left to themselves. If we always choose to make life about how we feel in a given moment, we will consistently act in ways detrimental to ourselves, to those in our immediate presence, and to society as a whole. Beyond that, we would render ourselves no greater than wild animals who are creatures of instinct rather than thought. Making our life's purpose a series of attempts to overome our natural state of boredom and believing that acting to appease our feelings is what life is all about makes us infants who haven't fully developed mentally, spiritually, or physically rather than mature adults capable of willing ourselves to do the right thing even if it's not what we feel like doing and to seek out ways to help each other rather than only helping ourselves.

Blazer's concluding question of "Do we really care if God is good if we feel like shit?" does not resonate with me. Actually, it's when I'm most depressed or uncomfortable that I most care about God's goodness. If I do not have the belief in God's goodness to hold fast to when I'm most miserable, I have no hope or reason for resolve. I am personally quite familiar with feeling crappy, and often the only thing that keeps me going during those times is faith in God's goodness and the conviction that His word is true. God promises me in Romans 8:28 that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (emphasis mine). Even when everything around me seems to be falling apart, I can trust in God's goodness and believe He will bring good out of even the most seemingly hopeless of circumstances. In bleak circumstances, I can look to His word in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." God chose humankind to be the species entrusted with emotion, rational thinking, and the capacity to have a personal relationship with Him. With these capabilities comes a critical choice. We can choose either to be ruled by our feelings and let our lives be governed by seeking ways to fill the boredom, or we can choose the path of faith and let our lives be governed by a higher purpose and higher calling. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can become more than merely sensate, visceral, and palpable, we can become spiritual beings who are capable of enjoying the sensate, visceral, and palpable without living for those things.

Natural Beauty

From Mount Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines in glorious radiance. --Psalm 50:2

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the beauty of God's creation. I watch perfect white clouds waltzing across a bright blue sky. I marvel at the green of the treetops illuminated by golden sunbeams and the ripple in a lake created by a delicate spring breeze. I listen to birds chirping their love songs and the carefree laughter of children playing outside. I rejoice in the warm, fresh air caressing my skin, and I wonder at God's glorious radiance. The same God who created the spectacular beauty that is our natural world, including such majestic feats as Mt. Zion, knows each of us better than we know ourselves. He keeps creation running smoothly, and yet He also knows the exact number of hairs on each of our heads (Luke 12:7). Just as He commanded all the beauty of creation into existence, He breathed life into each of us (Genesis 2:7). And while the beauty of the world sometimes makes my heart flutter like butterfly wings when I try to take it in, the beauty of the world is only the backdrop for God's masterpiece of humankind. We are the culminating work of His creation, yet since the fall we don't always reflect His glorious radiance the way nature does. Our sin has dimmed our glow, but God offers a cleansing through the blood of His Son. When we have been washed in Christ's blood, God sees us as He made us and intends for us to be rather than in the ugliness of our sin. When we walk with Him, His glorious radiance will illuminate us from our spirits outward, and we will effortlessly find ourselves responding to His command to let our light shine in the world (Matthew 5:16). Like nature, we cannot help but shine when we reflect the radiant image of the One who created us.

Heckler

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. --1 Peter 5:8

There is a student at my school who I sometimes I really think is a messanger of Satan. She has this thing where she sits in the lobby of the counseling office waiting for her counselor. When I walk out, she stops whatever she was doing or saying, follows me with her eyes and then starts laughing like a hyena when I walk away. It's happened more than once. I am almost twice her age, but whenever she does this, I want to punch her. I don't. I ignore her because I know she wants me to react, but I get back to my office fuming that someone could be so rude and wondering what is so laughable about me? Even though I shouldn't let her, she gets me angry and frustrated. She is like all of my childhood social trauma reincarnate and back to make me feel incompetent and worthless all over again. And because she reminds me of my childhood, I want to react like a child. I want to call her stupid, and certainly much worse, but the part of me that remembers my age and position doesn't want her to know she has any effect on me at all.

Even if this student doesn't know it, Satan is using her to make me want to walk away from any good that I may be doing at my job. He's using her to throw me off track, and on days like today when I'm exhausted before this girl even begins her heckling. Satan knows when I am at my weakest and he places the pieces on the board that are most apt to make me believe his lies at the time that I'm most apt to be receptive. Sometimes he gets the best of me, but as a challenging as it is and as hurtful as his ploys are, I must stand firm in the power of the Lord. I must be alert and ready for the enemy's attacks, knowing that the attacks will most certainly come. As I'm standing firm, I must remember who I am and who I am not. Satan is filled with lies (John 8:44) and distortions. If I believe his perception of who I am, I am believing a lie and then I am no better off than those who laugh at others' expense. The closer I am to seeing the truth, the more powerful the attacks against me will get because Satan is afraid he's losing his grip. Someone once said to me during a particularly difficult season of my life, "Don't let him win." I vowed to her that I would not, and I stand by that vow today even though I had to use everything I have this afternoon to overcome the temptation to give in to my anger and hurt feelings. I am certainly not going to let a heckler be the one who takes me down. Let her laugh. I know who I am in Christ and that is all that matters.

Blessed Ones

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. --John 1:16

I am too often guilty of taking my blessed life for granted. Complaints and wants tend to find their way to my lips more frequently than praise. I see the good in life in fleeting moments that pass between the times when I am busy focusing on the bad. But no matter how far my life falls short of my idea of perfection, the truth is that I am blessed with one blessing after another, the biggest of which being a Savior who speaks on my behalf. I often remember that blessing, but I would probably be a lot happier if I counted my little blessings more, too.

I am blessed to have a job that I can do and that pays enough for me to live on even if I can't afford the big house of my dreams. I am blessed to have enough of my health that I can enjoy most activities without a second thought. I am blessed to play on a terrible softball team that loses most games but usually has more fun than the winners. I am blessed to live in an area where seasons change and I can see God's beauty reflected differently all year. I am blessed to be able to drive with the top of my car down and the wind whipping through my hair while I blast Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith CDs. I am blessed to have people who love me enough to accept me where I am but also to help me keep striving to be better.

And this list is just the beginning. God has blessed me in innumerable ways--both material and nonmaterial, both of which I need to remember and thank Him for, particularly when I get run down with a case of "have not". I'm in good company among the blessed. God has blessed all of us in unique and innumerable ways. In Psalms, David often recounts how God has blessed him. These lists of praise give him strength to get through the dry times when he may feel less than blessed. Even further than building spiritual endurance, these lists of praise form sharp daggers that we can sling at the enemy when he tries his hardest to make us feel needy. If most of us stopped and took an honest inventory, we would see that we have more than enough. God pours the blessings until our cups overflow. But Satan doesn't want us to see this because when we notice our blessings, his hold on our lives is weakened. We know we have all we need in God, so we realize we don't need the emptiness Satan offers us. Satan knows that if we see our blessings, we would never cease to rejoice at God's goodness to us. If we notice how much our cups have overflowed, we will stop looking for new ways to fill them. If we knew how much we had in Christ, we would start living like the blessed people who we already are.

Changed Woman

As I was sitting in the emergency room yesterday becuase of an asthma problem, I found myself contemplating once again the subject of healing that I wrote about earlier this week. At 28, I feel too young to have medicine to take every day and to have a phsyical breakdown that leaves me in the hopsital instead of at work, where I should have been at that time and where I actually would have preferred to be (yes, some places do rank lower than work). It feels unfair to me that I should take so many steps to live healthier and still end up in the ER. I could wallow in self-pity for days, it is one of my exceptional skills that I omit from my resume. But yesterday I started thinking again about the healing God chose to give me in my eating disorder. I don't want to leave anyone with the false impression that God healed me, and I left that old woman behind for good. I've certainly remembered her and felt the temptation to be her again. I have even dabbled in the old behavior on occasion since my deliverance. But the reason I know I'm free now is that I never toy with my old ways long enough for them to control me again. God reminds every time I act like I used to be that I am a changed woman now. I am not who I was. God has healed me and made me different and my old ways no longer work or stick. My eating disorder used to be shackles around my feet, and now I walk freely thanks to my Savior. I praise Him for that healing every day. But I still occaionally need to remind myself of the sufficiency of His grace and how nothing else matters. As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8, "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Even healing from my asthma, no matter how badly I think I want it, would be rubbish compared to Christ. Healing would be nice, but it wouldn't matter at all. I can squelch the feelings of self-pity that swarm in the ER air by remembering Paul's words in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." This life is only temporary. I have been blessed tremendously with freedom from my eating disorder, and I can certainly learn to persevere through a chronic health problem. After all, it is only "chronic" while I am in my phsyical body and that one day, when I walk with Him in glory, I won't even remember how much it got me down to have to leave work early one day to get emergency medical treatment for it.

Our Ransom

God disciplines people with sickness and pain, with ceaseless aching in their bones. They lose their appetite and do not care for even the most delicious food. They waste away to skin and bones. They are at death's door; the angels of death wait for them. But if a special messenger from heaven is there to intercede for a person, to declare that he is upright, God will be gracious and say, "Set him free. Do not make him die, for I have found a ransom for his life." Then his body will become as healthy as a child's, firm and youthful again. When he prays to God, he will be accepted. And God will receive him with joy and restore him to good standing. He will declare to his friends, "I sinned, but it was not worth it. God rescued me from the grave, and now my life is filled with light." Yes, God often does these things for people. He rescues them from the grave so they may live in the light of the living. --Job 33:19-30

God's only Son, Jesus, paid the ransom for our lives. God loves us as much as He hates sin, and so He sent Jesus to pay the ransom for our lives so that we could live in the light. God did this because He knew that our sin would otherwise destroy us and because He loves us so much that He wants for us to live in the light instead of the darkness. He wants us to have joy and peace and to recognize that we cannot afford not to seek Him. The price of sin is too high (Romans 6:23). Often, we don't think of the cost of sin while we're sinning, but sooner or later we see a bill that is more than we want to pay. Jesus paid the bill for us. Because Jesus, His only Son, pleads with the Father for us to be set free from our bondage to sin and the eternal consequences of our sin, God accepts us and listens when we pray. He does not receive us reluctantly when His Son pleads for us like a parent reluctantly buying a toy for a child just so the child will stop pleading for it. No, when Jesus pleads for us, God receives us with joy and graciously restores us to right standing with Him. When He rescues us, we respond with gratitude in our hearts. He's given us the gift of memory so that we remember all we have to joyful about and thankful for. And sometimes He'll leave us with scars from our pre-rescue days just to ensure that we don't forget and return to our former ways. For our own good, He wants us to remember that sin is not worth the price. He wants us to continue to walk in the light. Thank Him today for His grace. He paid your ransom, and because of Him, you are free.

Jail Break

Me inside a jail cell in Alcatraz.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. --Galatians 5:1

When we become Christians, God sets us free from sin's enslaving power. Because of His Holy Spirit's power in us, we no longer have to submit to our sinful desires or be in prison to our sinful ways. We are free. Christ died for us so that we would be free. He did not die for us to stay in our self-created prisons; He died for our freedom.

Yet even knowing that through Him I am free, I find that it sometimes feels easier or safer to stay within the bars of the cell I've created for myself in my self-destructive habits. I recognize and understand the cell I've created with my bad habits. I may not be happy in it, but I trust it because I know what it will bring me. Freedom is unknown and unfamiliar ground, and I don't always trust that I'll like it there. Even though my experience in freedom has been wonderful, when times get tough and I need God the most, I actually find that I'm more likely to slink back to my prison cell for a taste of the small security that I find within its familiar walls.

Christ desires for us to embrace the freedom that He died for us to have. That is in fact why He died, and it hurts His heart to see us choose our prison cells over freedom. Galatians 5:1 tells us to no longer be burdened by our former slavery. We have a choice to accept Christ's free offering of freedom and leave our old lives behind. He's unlocked the door to our prison cell, we need only to make the effort of stepping out from behind the bars and walking in freedom. We don't have to wait for heaven to take hold of what is promised to us. We are free already, now we just have to live like it.

What our spirits are made of

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. -2 Timothy 1:7

God's word has much to say about times of trial and testing. But before trial hits, I think it's important to be prepared (1 Peter 5:8). The verse above from 2 Timothy was written by Paul to encourage Timothy in his ministry of evangelism. This verse was not written to comfort Timothy is a trial, but to encourage Timothy before the trial starts or worsens. As such, I find each aspect of this verse useful in fortifying our own hearts, minds, and souls for God's work in our lives. Meditating on these truths is a sort of preemptive strike against the enemy's lies that are aimed at disheartening us.

God has not given us a spirit of fear. In other words, fear is not from God, it is from the enemy. Courage is from God. Satan tries to work by placing doubt and fear of the unknown into our minds. But God gave us a spirit that knows no fear--a spirit with the courage to trust God with all of our needs. If we give into fear, we are giving into the enemy and not utilizing the spirit that God has placed within us. When we feel fear creeping in, we should recognize it for what it is--the enemy's handiwork--and for what it is not--real according to God's spirit within us.

The spirit God has placed in His children is one of power. In difficult circumstances, we may be tempted to give into lies and feel hopeless. But we are not ever hopeless. God has given us spirits of power and sometimes the greatest power comes when our spirits place full trust in God--when our spirits are in harmony with His Spirit. We don't always have control over our circumstances, but we do always have control over our reactions. Part of the power in our spirit comes from our free will with which we can make a choice about how we react. Our spirits exercise power over the enemy when we take circumstances that he hopes will devestate us and we choose not to be devestated. We have victory over the darkness when we choose trust and peace over despair.

God has also given us a spirit of love. Looking at God's character and Jesus' life, I truly believe that God created us to love with complete abandon. I think that the ways we "protect" ourselves by putting barriers up in our hearts hurt His heart. We build the barriers out of self-preservation because we listen to the lies of the enemy about people, our circumstances, and the future. In part, I think that God won't allow us to know what tomorrow holds because He knows that if we knew, we may choose not to love fully and completely as God loves all of His children, the lost ones included. All any of us has is today and we need to use each day to give of ourselves and our hearts without reservation or regret.

Finally, God has given us a spirit of a sound mind (or self-discipline, depending on the translation). This spiritual trait is particularly crucial to the Christian life during trial. Consider Job, for example. Satan requested permission to throw slings and arrows at Job because Satan knows that when times get hard, it's very easy for him to feed us with lies and lead us into temptation. But what Job (and Jesus during his temptation) demonstrates is God's higher calling on our lives. God wants us to remember in times when we're tempted to fear or lose heart that He gave us the sound mind/self-discipline to turn to Him for our hope, strength, and peace. Instead of giving into human fraility and losing our in place of our sound mind, we can choose to discipline ourselves to turn to God every time we feel the fear creeeping in.

Knowing and believing each of these aspects about the spirit God gave us will prove invaluable when trial comes (as it inevitably will). The best advice I could give to someone setting out on the Christian journey (or someone far along) is to meditate on this verse and keep each word of it on the tip of your tongue. Do not be deceived into thinking that hard times and testing won't come. They will come because they are part of the plan and part of the nature of fallenness. But know that when they come, you don't have to react with fear or weakness. In the very nature of the spirit that He has placed within us, God has given us exactly what we need to withstand any test or trial.