I Am Not a Beautiful Mess

Sometimes revelation comes through reiteration. Last Wednesday, I sat beside two middle school girls in youth group, writing some idle notes as Ross talked about Christmas and why Jesus came as baby. Stuff I've heard before. It's easy to become complacent about the gospel when you've heard it a million times.

Something about the way he described God's holiness and humanity's messiness produced a revelation in my mind. Up to that point, the insight had been percolating in my head, a vague silhouette that for years I have been trying to snatch and pin down: what human messiness means.

I’ve been trying to write about it, but it keeps slipping through the spaces between the laptop keys. I gave notice at my job so I could focus on my passion. My passion: writing. Focus: writing passionately. Writing like J.R.R. Tolkien, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte. Writing that gets to the core of the human plight.

I think I haven’t been able to pinpoint that focus because worldly truth has been clashing with God’s truth. My writing—an attempt at raw, emotional, relatable messiness—is lacking because it is only fulfilling the worldly truth that messiness is beautiful.

You see it all the time in the media: Jason Mraz’s song “A Beautiful Mess,” Hunter Hayes’ “Storm Warning,” Brad Paisley’s “Old Alabama,” all with some version of a girl who is imperfect and therefore beautiful. Movies play up themes with protagonists who are broken and learn to embrace their brokenness, learn to see the beauty in their failings.

In the literary community especially is beautiful messiness embraced. (Memoirs are generally a reflection on a time in one’s life where everything was a mess and—in reflection—is beautiful.) Nothing messy is beyond the scope of beauty, therefore all messiness should be embraced because beauty is desirable. Society embraces messiness because it is relatable. When you read someone’s memoir and realize they do/say/think the same truly awful things as you do, you feel less guilty for your failings.

Where does this understanding of embracing messiness come from if not an innate desire for beauty and wholeness? Our original design is for a beautiful wholeness, and our messiness is nothing more than a reminder of how great God’s plan is to redeem His design. The only beautiful thing about our messiness is that God still wants a relationship with us, even though our messiness separates us—and that’s because of His grace, not because our messiness is somehow attractive.

Because secular society does not acknowledge that Jesus is the source of the desire for wholeness, all it can do is make an idol of its messiness. We have come to celebrate our messiness because it is “only human.” All sorts of messiness (which is just a euphemism for sin) is justified because it is only human, and humanity is messy.

I’m beginning to realize there is something terribly flawed with this wisdom. Messiness is nothing without grace. Our messiness can’t approach His holiness. His justice cannot let our sin go unpunished. So He decided to suffer to allow us access to His beautiful wholeness until He makes us fully whole in the New Earth. How incredible that the God of the universe would make Himself human and experience the messiness of the world so we might have a savior who is able to sympathize with our weakness! So I might be in relationship with Him and embrace His beautiful wholeness.

I am not a beautiful mess. I am a terrible, sinful, hurtful mess. And it is only by His grace that I can partake of His beautiful wholeness. While I await the promise of a restored body and soul, I must divert from the literary world's wisdom and write about His grace, because my messiness has no meaning apart from his wholeness.

 

 

 

Grace in "the Land of If Only"

Yesterday I initiated a car accident. (Shocking, I know!) I was leaving 35W to pick up something from my dad’s office and had to merge three lanes to get to 11^th Street. The cars were shuffling in and out as they tried to get over to 94, so I was (very responsibly) looking over my shoulder before merging. I turned to check for a clear lane before I merged into my last lane, and when I faced forward, the guy in front of me was at a standstill.

I punched the brake, swore, and my backpack went flying from the passenger seat as the front of the car crunched into his bumper. My body wrenched against the seatbelt like a ragdoll and I saw the ripple of impact as my hood bunched up.

We were at an underpass and pulled up onto the shoulder as best we could—he had bumped into the person in front of him. The cars pulled around us, crunching over the glass and fender bits. I sat clutching the steering wheel and started to cry as Kool 108 crooned Christmas music. The sandwiched driver climbed out, spreading his arms in a what-the-hell gesture, though he was probably thinking worse. He looked like a character I had seen in a movie, but I couldn’t quite place him. A cross between Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber and a Smurf, almost like Mayor Maywho in Carrey’s The Grinch.

When I came to my senses, I called my dad, called 911, and called my brother (whose car I was driving, though it really belonged to someone else). The ‘94 Chrysler La baron was drivable—we pulled off the exit and waited for the State Trooper to come file a report. I was still trying to gain control of my tears, and the two other drivers—Stuart and Michelle—were tremendously gracious about it (granted, most of the damage was done to my vehicle). “Is this your first accident?” they asked. Cool as cucumbers.

That day I learned how to exchange insurance information, and that 911 doesn’t ask what’s the nature of your emergency, but what the location is. I also learned that there is grace is not being able to determine the future. I kept thinking, if only I had stopped at the bank on the way out. If only I had gone to the coffee shop first and the office second, I might have changed the course of the future. As I reflected on it, I realized I was looking at it from the wrong angle. Instead of living in the land of If Only (a concept I read in a book by Robin Jones Gunn), I should be living in the land of grace. There was grace in the fact that I was not hurt, that Stuart and Michelle were not hurt. There was grace in my seatbelt, and that I was wearing my glasses (which I picked up not a week ago), and that I hadn’t been texting. Somehow I think there will be more grace as I work out the details of insurance and repair.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for God’s omniscience and grace in situations beyond my control. As I reflect over the past year, I am overwhelmed by God’s gracious hand in orchestrating my future (now my past) and I have assurance that he is omnipotent to continue that work of demonstrating grace again and again in my life.

 

 

 

Dear Grace...I have great news!

Today is a momentous day in history. Well, my history. Today is the day I opened my email inbox and saw these words: ENCOUNTER Acceptance.

My first publication where I get paid for putting my experiences into words. The editor even wrote, “We’d like to purchase “Free to Struggle” to publish,” as if I were doing them a favor! It was the most exhilarating feeling: They want me work. They want to pay me for my work. I’m an author! Wait, no—really? Am I? Does this count?

I’m still trying to decide.

I sent ENCOUNTER a piece in April about my experience as a member of a Frisbee team. It was dry and superfluous, lacking heart and impact (kind of like the experience, I suppose), and I wasn’t surprised it was rejected. I sent four other pieces in the following five months, and went to China with the hope of gleaning some writing material.

I did glean material, but not what I imagined. Going to another culture revealed some dangerous habits in my life that had been festering for at least twelve months and started to surface there, refusing to budge when I returned to the States. The piece is a testimonial about an eating disorder that might’ve sucked me into a secret hole of discontentment and guilt, had the Lord not been faithful in uprooting my idols.

His grace allowed me to see the signs and get help. His grace allowed me to struggle against temptation. His grace offered me forgiveness when I gave in. When I decided yesterday that writing is my calling and gave my boss notice, his grace appeared today in that acceptance email with the reassurance that he will provide for me. I am thankful for and worshipful of His faithfulness in things big and small!

Tomorrow I will have to come down to earth. The long nights and short deadlines, the writer’s block and painful transparency yet to come will be steady reminders that this calling is not always euphoria and contracts.

But there is grace for that, too. :)

(“Free to Struggle” will be published in Fall 2014, and I will put the link up after it’s printed, as I no longer own first rights!)

Marriage Isn't for Me, Dating Isn't for Me

Yesterday I read a blog post by Seth Adam Smith who says, "Having been married a year and a half, I've recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn't for me." I didn't understand why all my friends were sharing it on Facebook until I read further and captured his real meaning: marriage is for the other person.

While I am not married, I think his premise can be applied to the dating scene, especially since I believe dating should be an avenue to tying the knot. A year has passed since my embarkment of exploration on that wobbly gangplank called dating. At that auspicious time, the walkway eluded to journeying, adventuring, and treasure. I didn't think about getting lost en route, thwarting weather, or sea sickness. I quickly learned that not every ship makes its destination.

My well-intended philosophy of dating-maps-a-route-to-marriage was run-aground, and I thought it was my own failure as a crewman. During those months and the year that followed, Smith's philosophy never occurred to me. In hindsight, it probably wasn't my panic attacks, stress, doubt, or other uncontrollable things that steered the ship into the rocks. It was my own selfishness.

You know the breakup phrase, "It's not you, it's me." Well, you're on the second star to the right and straight on til morning. It is you. It is me. Our own selfishness. Our entering a relationship (of any kind) with the mentality that this adventure and all the treasure in it is for me. Even a sharing mentality won't work. You seem like a good mate for this adventure, let's split the treasure fifty-fifty...

Just imagining what the adventure would look like if I signed on thinking, this is all for you--you can have all the treasure and I will be the second mate, here to serve you is incredibly freeing. It frees me from the fear of sinking the ship during sea sickness and bad weather. Because those things are inevitable on a journey. But I'm able to weather the storm when I've taken the focus off me and puts it where it should've been all along--on him. And I can work harder than any other shiphand to achieve selflessness, but I only have the grace to do that when my compass is Him, the greatest Captain.

All that mused, weigh anchor and go serve your mate!

Dueling with Words

There is an old proverb that equates rash words with sword thrusts. In modern-day terms, we call it a filter (or lack thereof) and often it's used jokingly or flippantly (I once knew a girl who would always say, "I have no filter!", as if that excused her poorly-timed comments and lack of tact.) You've probably been on both sides of that equation, either speaking without thinking, or feeling the backlash of someone's thoughtless words. There's a reason the wise men of a bygone age made the analogy between words and swords--if you mishandle them, they can cut.

Sometimes you mishandle the sword out of an honest mistake, and end up cutting someone accidentally. I mishandled my words yesterday, in the worst kind of way, when you mean something but it comes out all wrong and ends up sounding like something else. I was lounging in a friend's living room, watching a TV show. She offered me half of the Nut Roll she was eating, but because I wasn't hungry, I said no thank you, and had the grace to add, "It will turn you into a nutroll."
What I was thinking was something along the lines of going crazy (like a nutter) because we were watching a show that contained nutcases. Instead I ended up implying that she was getting fat.

There's a reason for the cliche Stick-Your-Foot-In-Your-Mouth. I was so mortified. Instead of sheathing my sword and apologizing, I dug myself deeper into that shameful hole by not saying anything. I didn't know how to explain what I was thinking and where it came out wrong. She laughed lightly, because that's what you do when you've been cut and don't want to show that you're bleeding.
The exchange was there and gone, and in my confusion and floundering I tried to glaze over the comment by changing the subject. It will all be forgotten in a moment, I thought to myself. 

Yet I knew better. I'm a female, too, and we're hypersensitive to any reference to appearance. A thrust like that would leave a tiny scar for years to come.
Why do we do that?
Why do we cut people with our words, intentionally or not, and then try to save our own face?
What the world would be like if we all had command of our tongues...
There's another proverb that is more encouraging and a good reminder to live by:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Recently I read a blog post by Cor, the pastor of Hope Community Church in Minneapolis, and really appreciated his candor and conciseness, not to mention his insight. I wish some of the guys who asked me out would’ve applied these seven rules-of-thumb. Other guys nailed them all, and I still declined (for reasons of my own, not because of their failure to ask properly), but I was more likely to remain friends and give my respect and trust freely when they approached me in this way. If you’re curious what the list is, you can read Cor’s blog at http/www.justcor.com/date/.
This post is in response to the seven guidelines, because a date contains two parties, and if the men are following those guidelines, the women should know how to respond.  All these thoughts are my own, completely biased perspective, based on my limited experience.

1. Cor’s Advice to Men: Seek a friendship first.
My Advice to Women: Allow him to seek a friendship.
When a guy approaches you for the first time in a friendly manner, give him the benefit of the doubt that he just wants to get to know you as a person and a friend. You can judge his intentions about dating by the way he seeks a friendship. If he invites you to participate in group activities, be reassured that he’s cultivating companionship. If he suggests a one-on-one shortly after your acquaintance, or seems reluctant to let others in on your time together, you should be concerned about his motives for wanting to be around you. (On a personal note, I’ve been asked out so many times after first-time meetings that I am wary about meeting new guys. I hate having to preface my friendships with, “I’m not looking to date you….” Guys, make it easy for us to give you the benefit of the doubt!)

2. Cor’s Advice to Men: Take your faith seriously.
My Advice to Women: Ditto.
Like Cor said, if you, as a faith-filled woman, are intimidating to men, then they are not mature enough to lead you spiritually. Don’t get too cozy, and beware the man who pumps up his spirituality only to get you to date.

3. Cor’s Advice to Men: Be a gentleman.
My Advice to Women: Let him be a gentleman.
I remember one time I was at a restaurant with friends and went to use the restroom, a single, unisex one. My friend Dan was in line in front of me, and stepped aside to let me go first. I protested for a while (he was in line first!) until he said, “Grace, let me be a gentleman.” I realized it was his way of serving and honoring me. Girls, guys like to do stuff like that. It’s not because you’re weak or incapable. It’s just a way they show love for us. Guys, take note that it’s really hard for women to naturally let guys be gentleman (thanks to Eve and the feminist movement). We’re insecure and need to practice letting ourselves be gentlewomen, as much as some guys need to practice being gentlemen.

4. Cor’s Advice to Men: Remember the difference between confidence and arrogance.
My Advice to Women: Remember the difference between confidence and assertiveness.
Like Cor said, confidence is attractive. Assertiveness is a turn-off for guys (or at least the ones you want to keep around). You don’t need to prove anything by a low neckline, a brazen manner, or a coquettish attitude. That’s the insecure you, and he’ll want to date the transparent you, which leads to the next point…

5. Cor’s Advice to Men: Speak with vulnerability.
My Advice to Women: Encourage vulnerability.
As a woman, it’s naturally easier for you to be vulnerable. If you are the kind of woman who can be transparent about faults and mistakes and how that changed you, he is going to feel comfortable doing the same. Be inviting. Ask prompting questions, but don’t pry. Show you are trustworthy, and whatever you do, DON’T expect to be at a certain “vulnerability level” at a certain point in the relationship. Guys go at their own pace, and demanding that your emotional quota be filled by the second or third date is not a realistic expectation.

6. Cor’s Advice to Men: Be straightforward!
My Advice to Women: Give a straightforward answer!
So many guys these days are unclear about their intentions in dating. Women get used to it and when they are asked straightforwardly, they beat around the bush with their answer. If a guy asks you to go out, specifying his idea and intention for the relationship, the responsibility now falls on your shoulders to give him a specific answer. Don’t say “Maybe” or “I’ll check my calendar and get back to you.” If you don’t want to, say no. And for heaven’s sake, do it with some grace! Acknowledge the honor and give him a specific reason for saying no.

7. Cor’s Advice to Men: Express your interest in her and tell her why.
My Advice to Women: Tell him why you said yes (or no).
If you go on a date and he expresses why he’s interested, etc., you better have a reason too, otherwise things are just going to get awkward. If you’re only going because feel bad about saying no, you’ll end up lying about why you’re there. Time to practice saying no. If you do decline a date, and never intend to date him, your answer has to include that. Don’t tell him you aren’t dating at the moment and give him hope that you might in the future.
These barely scratch the surface of dating, but I’ve followed these rules pretty closely and found myself avoiding a number of scrapes.

Guys, would you appreciate women applying these? Ladies, do you apply any or all of them? What has been your experience?

The "S" Word

So youth group last week…yet another sermon about that dreaded word. Singleness. No defensive walls erecting here. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the (single) guest speaker paired the topic with the most angering passage, 1 Corinthians 7, and there’s no author in the bible that can get under my skin like Paul. He was never married. What gave him the right to claim that singleness was the best way if he never experienced the alternative? Talk about bias! And then he gets the nerve to butt his lofty opinions into the heads of 21st century preachers who are even worse because they are fresh-out-of-seminary-newly-weds-with-a-child-on-the-way twenty-five year-olds who act like they’ve uncovered the secrets of the universe in marriage and look down on you with pity as if you can’t possibly understand holiness and God’s blessing until you’re married so they preach about singleness as a gift to make you feel better about your curse when the truth is you hate being single but can’t figure out how to find Mr./Mrs. Right and your demonstration of Christ and the Church is starting to look preety unattainable, but hey, at least you have a pint of Ben and Jerry’s to fall back on, right? And if you’re desperate, there’s always Christian Mingle.
*Rewind*

Ok. I’m exaggerating. I don’t really feel that way—at least that strongly. The topic didn’t stir such a snarky attitude in me, I have a tremendous amount of respect and liking for our guest speaker (and would prefer that he be single when preaching on singleness), as I do for Apostle Paul, and 1 Corinthians 7 is a necessary passage that needs to be approached with correct understanding and attitude. But I know I’m not the only one to be fed up with the way Christianity presents singleness today—there are plenty of people who react exactly like this to “exhortation” on singleness.

In my experience, there are two ends of the singleness spectrum that are presented in Christian society: 1) singleness is a curse (generally implied through a push for marriage) and 2) singleness is a gift (which generally implies that any desires to get married are not good and won’t be taken into consideration). Key words here are generally and implied, which may also be translated as Grace’s observations.
As I’ve observed, if you think singleness is a curse, you probably experience friends marrying all around you, seeing young families populating the church, and feel a nonverbal (or very verbal—think of meeting someone new at church, and the question that invariably comes after “What do you do,” is “Are you single?” pressure to find a Christian husband to provide for you, or a Christian wife to make a home for you, so you can have ten babies and raise them in the fear of God and home-learned arithmetic. But probably only if you go to a Baptist or Catholic church. There are other options, if you’re wary of the Amish-like lifestyle. Attend a grassroots, hipster church and you’ll likely marry a bearded, Capri-pants-wearing worship leader and have one boy and one girl, and raise them on non-GMO crops and goat milk. Which is still Amish-like.

If you’re a legalistic, Joshua Harris-hugging, purity ring-wearing Evangelical, you’ve probably had a sign from God (undoubtedly a Joshua Harris book) telling you to wait until He drops a spouse into your lap. You’re not looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right, because singleness is a gift, and you would never chase the dating scene because it’s so secular and don’t these Christians know that waiting is the only way to honor God? So you wait. And wait. And wait. Truth is, you’re scared sh**less of marriage, scared of the feeling deep down that you want to be married, scared that can’t be married because Paul says it’s better to be single, and scared that if you do get married, your marriage will fall apart like all your friends who believed singleness was a curse and jumped the gun. That was me, anyway.

I know those fears, still can’t completely eradicate those fears years after putting I Kissed Dating Goodbye on the shelf. How do we reach the middle of the spectrum? How do we marry (no pun intended) godly desires to get married with the gift of singleness? How do we marry our decisions with our pastor’s teaching? Well, I don’t have a 5-Step-Fail-Proof Plan. My apologies if you thought that’s where this was leading. (If you’re truly disappointed, I’m sure there is no shortage of churches that you could attend which promote 5-Step Plans. They probably write them down on Post-It notes—5-Steps to Finding and Securing a Godly Husband! 5-Steps to Raising Perfect Children! 5-Steps to Being a Legalist!—as they drink Fair Trade coffee.)

But seriously. What’s a girl to do? The only fail-proof plan I know of is the Bible, and even that doesn’t feel very fail-proof because on one hand you have God saying it’s not good for man to be alone, and on the other hand, you have Paul wiffling and waffling. I mean, come on, can’t he be a little more black and white? The man who marries does well, and the man who doesn’t marry does even better? I’m gonna be honest, I hate that. I suppose the confusion in the churches comes from the apparent contradiction in the Bible.

But is it a contradiction? I’m not a seminary student; I’m still trying to dissect the passage without trying to decipher a 5-Step Fail-Proof Plan from the meaning. I think the first mistake churches make in teaching the 1 Cor. 7 text is isolating it from the context of the chapters around it, and the book as a whole. 1 Corinthians is a letter Paul addresses to the local church in Corinth, a first-century church struggling to maintain proper theology and faith in a wealthy, immoral city. It was written mid-50s A.D., addressing issues that divided the congregation, marriage (in all its aspects) being one of them.

Chapter 7 addresses this issue, but is prefaced by the church’s disorders, failure to be sexually pure the last one mentioned (hardly a surprise, as Corinth was notoriously immoral). “Therefore honor God with your body,” is the last sentence of chapter 6, which transitions smoothly into the section on marriage. My NIV translation says, “It is good for a man not to marry,” in verse one, with a footnote that says, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” I don’t know why the NIV translated the entire chapter from sexual intercourse to the act of marriage. According to The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Paul meant marriage as a euphemism for sex. Perhaps when the congregation brought this issue forward, they presented it as marriage when they really wanted direction on sex. Still, marriage and sex can’t be divorced, and Paul seems to use the terms/concepts interchangeably.

One of many reoccurring things I see in this text is Paul’s reiteration of his words as advice, not a command (vv. 6, 12, 25). The only thing he says as a command from the Lord is in verse 10, a command not to divorce. At the end of his instruction on marriage, Paul writes, “I think that I too have the Spirit of God” (v.40). I think what he’s saying there is, my preference for singleness isn’t set in stone, but God has given me a spirit of discernment, and you should probably listen to me.

The first time I read this I thought his preference really pessimistic: “…those who marry will face many troubles in this life…” (v.2. But I think he’s being realistic. His preference for singleness is supported by two facts of life: 1) marriage will bring you trouble and 2) singleness allows undivided devotion to God.

I didn’t think about all the trouble marriage can get you in until recently, when I heard about the divorce of a Christian friend who had only been married two years. Since then, I’ve been plagued with the one command Paul does give from the Lord: “A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband” (v.10). There’s severe punishment for breaking a covenant marriage, not the least of which is the prospect of remaining single the rest of your life, regardless of how young you are. No wonder Paul thinks it’s better not to get married in the first place. “I want to spare you [trouble],” he says (v.2.

But to Paul whether or not you marry is not the issue. The issue is devotion to God. “An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord… An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit” (7:32, 34). Conversely, a married man or woman is concerned about how s/he can please his/her spouse. Paul advocates singleness as a gift because it allows you to devote all your time and energy to God. Makes sense. If you don’t have a spouse to devote that time and energy to, where else can it go but God’s work?

I don’t think Paul means that there is no trouble in singleness, or no devotion to God in marriage. Single people have lots of trouble—trouble staying single. I don’t balk at Paul’s advice to stay single as much as the response I get from the world when I want to be single. Christian society is so fickle. You’re either too young to be in a relationship, too young to know about love, or too old to be single, too old to start a family. And don’t even get me started on the response to the person you choose. As for devotion to God in marriage, I can’t think of a better example than my parents. Throw nine kids into the equation and you’ve got yourself a Paul-worthy challenge.

I don’t think there’s a contradiction between God’s institution of marriage and Paul’s exhortation of singleness. Paul is right to be so serious about the holiness of marriage and sex. He advises marriage if you can’t keep yourself from sexual impurity. But he advises singleness if you can control yourself, so you can serve God to the best of your ability and keep his commands. If the marriage vows are a demonstration of God’s love for His church, then the command not to divorce and remarry is surely to demonstrate God’s faithfulness to an adulterous people.

And in my own life? I’m perfectly content being single. I have freedom to pursue the passions God has given me, to develop relationships, to travel. To do anything, really. I still have my fears about marriage. I still have fears about remaining single my whole life. But if I’m so consumed with finding Mr. Right, if I’m not finding joy in serving God, maybe I need to get my priorities—no, my heart—straightened out. The bottom line of 1 Corinthians 7 and my life comes down to living wholeheartedly for Jesus—whether dating, married, or single. That’s the middle of the spectrum.

What do you think? Where are you on the spectrum, and how can you be devoting yourself to God there?