A morning rant

I woke up the other morning totally worked up. 

GETTING WORKED UP

My phone is one of my (many) alarm clocks, so when I hit snooze for the 49th time, I noticed there were no replies to an email from the day before. This is something that TICKS ME OFF. When you're asked a question, why can't you frickin' ANSWER the question??? If you're not sure yet, just reply and say you're still figuring it out! Say SOMETHING! But don't just ignore me and leave me to wonder what message you're trying to send with your silence! 

After all, I know I'm not the type of person that people clamor to be with. So when you don't answer my invitation, I wonder...are you putting me off while you look for an excuse to turn me down? Are you trying to insinuate by your silence that you're out of my league and I was delusional to have approached you in the first place? Are you hoping I'll just forget about my request so you don't have to feel rude by coming out and saying you don't value me enough to sacrifice your time for me? Or am I not the problem at all, and it's just that you're a slacker who has no ability to keep track of your emails and reply on a timely basis? If you don't ANSWER me, then how should I know what you're trying to say? And how can I adjust my response appropriately??? Seriously, I'd rather you just TELL me you want nothing to do with me so I know to quit bothering you than to ignore me and make me wonder if I'm imagining insinuations that aren't really there. Aaaaaaah!

So that was my thought process at 5:20am. I visualized conversations in which I pinned people to the wall and said, "Look, maybe I'm not the most fun person who ever lived, but at least I'm a respectful and compassionate enough person to answer you when you ask me a question!!!!"

From there, things went downhill. I started folding laundry from last night, all the while thinking, "Those slackers who don't answer emails are also lazy slobs. They rarely even DO laundry, much less fold it nicely and put it away. Sure, maybe I'm not the most charismatic person ever, but at least I know how to live as a responsible adult! So who are they to think they're better than me???"

I was on a roll. I started condemning people who are bad teachers, people who don't listen, people who give bad advice...you really don't want to hear it all. At this point, it was something like 5:28am. (It didn't take me long to work myself up into a frenzy, as I was following well-worn mental pathways of indignation in my mind.) 

IS INDIGNATION THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT?

Now, I generally assume that all of my thoughts are actually words I'm directing to God...that my thought life is really just an ongoing prayer. And since I consider prayer a conversation, it only makes sense to ask my Dad to weigh in on what I'm thinking. So I slowed down long enough to give him an opportunity to agree with me. I wanted him to be just as riled up as I was that people were failing to appreciate the good qualities of his beloved daughter and treating her with less than the respect and consideration she deserved! I wanted him to cheer me on in my indignant rant and to reassure me that compared to these losers, I wasn't so bad!

But when I paused my imaginary vindictive conversations, the only thing I felt was this weird kind of silence, as if God refused to enter into my fury...yet still invited me into his presence...saying, "Wow...um...that's a lot of energy for 5:28am. Let's talk about it." 

Now, when I want to hear from God, I usually jump-start the process by asking myself, "What would God probably say about this?" So as I reflected on what I know of my Dad and his character, the thought that went through my mind concerning the morning's rant was...

Nowhere does it say that the fruit of the Spirit is indignation. 

Rather, the fruit of the Spirit is: 
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control...

and I'm certainly at the opposite end of the spectrum from ANY of those right now. 

So perhaps this worked-up feeling is not my Dad's desire for me after all.

But honestly, that just added to my indignation. "WTF, Dad?!?! Are you saying I have no right to get upset about these people putting me down??? I'm just supposed to be HAPPY when people call me a loser and let them do it??? Don't you care about the injustice being done to me???"

I knew that couldn't be the case. I know my Dad DOES care very much about correcting injustice! I know he DOES get upset when his kids are put down. I know he DOESN'T just sit back sipping his margarita when people are attacked. After all, this is the same God who said, "Anyone who harms you harms my most precious possession. I will raise my fist to crush them..." (Zech 2:8-9) 

So acknowledging that my Dad DOES actively care, I had to admit...the feelings God wants me to have (love, joy, peace, etc.)...those do, in fact, sound way more pleasant than feeling worked up and indignant. 

But the fact of the matter is that I sort of ENJOY indignation and worked-up fury. I get some sort of rush out of mentally proving people wrong and putting my rivals down. I love to recount the ways I've been mistreated. Even though I know it just gets me MORE worked up and annoyed and self-righteous, I enjoy following that line of indignant thought. Somehow I've been fooled into thinking indignation and self-righteousness are POSITIVE feelings. But why the heck is that???

WHY I ENJOY INDIGNATION

I think it's this: Getting indignant feels better than the alternative...which is to feel the shame of agreeing that I really AM as unacceptable as I'm accused of being. 

I mean, there's a part of me that doesn't believe I'm a second class person...that believes I have unsurpassable worth because I'm made in the image of God. On the other hand, there's another part of me that worries that my accusers might be right - that I'm NOT good enough. After all, even if these specific accusations about me aren't true, I can't deny that I DON'T live up to who I want to be.

But agreeing that I'm unacceptable and living with the resulting weight of all that shame is something I don't think I could survive! I'd rather accuse others than take the accusation myself! So that's why I resort to projecting indignation and self-righteousness. It feels better than receiving accusation and shame. 

The problem is, my Dad doesn't say SHAME is what he wants for me either. On the contrary, he says the output of a person facing him should be love, joy, peace, etc. So how am I supposed to get there? How can I forego the bondage of both shame AND indignation...and instead experience the freedom he's talking about?

WHATEVER YOU'RE FACING IS WHAT YOU'LL REFLECT

That's when I remembered something I learned from my man Tim Keller: "Whatever you're facing is what you'll reflect." Basically, he's saying that you can tell what's going into you by looking at what's coming out of you.

If adorableness is reflecting out of the mirror, then adorableness must be facing it in the first place.

But if the things reflecting out of me are accusation, name-calling, comparison, and rivalry...then it must indicate that I'm somehow facing an input of all these things. I decided to analyze the input of thoughts I'd been experiencing lately, and I recounted the following thoughts that have been going through my brain lately:

• You're not made right. There's something fundamentally wrong with the way you're designed.
• You're the kind of person people just put up with. You're not the kind of person people CHOOSE.
• You're not competent to run your own life. You lack social aptitude and the ability to interpret reality.
• No one will ever understand you because you're just weird.

Eek. No wonder there's indignation spewing out of me at the butt-crack of dawn if that's the kind of input I'm receiving! But where is that accusation coming from?

I was suddenly reminded of Galatians 5 where Paul gives two opposite lists of outputs in order to help people determine where their input is coming from...God's Spirit or his enemy. I looked it up in the Message version, and here are some of the things on the list:

Signs my input is coming from the Enemy		Signs my input is coming from my Dad
a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage	vs.	serenity
cutthroat competition	vs.	not needing to force our way in life
a brutal temper	vs.	a sense of compassion in the heart
the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival	vs.	a conviction that a basic holiness permeates people
spending time comparing ourselves with each other	vs.	able to marshal and direct our energies wisely (even at 5:28am)

Okay, so these lists made it pretty clear to me which input I was facing and reflecting...and it certainly wasn't coming from my Dad. 

It also occurred to me that the accusatory input I was receiving wasn't REALLY coming from all those people I was mentally skewering, either. The true source of it was my Dad's enemy who "accuses us day and night." 

I mean, sure, maybe the enemy was using those people to deliver his accusatory message, or maybe he was just twisting their words in my mind to make me hear insinuations that the person never intended, or maybe they were simply deflecting the accusation they were receiving just like I was...but ultimately, that accusation came from the enemy. So if the accusation I was hearing wasn't really coming from people, I was just wasting my time trying to find ways to turn it back on them.

A NEW INPUT

But all this information didn't really calm me down. By this time I was sitting in completely stopped traffic on my way to work...which did absolutely nothing to help my worked-up fury. In fact, to tell the truth, I was getting more and more agitated as I admitted that my morning rant was outside of God's desire for me - in fact, it was participation with the enemy in one of his favorite activities (accusing people) - and yet I had absolutely no desire to stop it. I felt sooooo frustrated because it seemed like everyone and everything was against me.

In one of my less proud moments, I turned my accusatory spew on God. "Fine! I get it! This rant is sinful because I'm acting like your enemy; not like you. But guess what...I DON'T WANT TO OBEY YOU AND BE PEACEFUL. I want to continue relishing in my rant. Maybe the fruit of the Spirit does feel better than indignation, but right now I CAN'T GET THERE. What you're asking is too hard. So if you want my output changed, you're going to have to give me a new input." (I'm always surprised when this type of thing doesn't bring lightning bolts down from the sky.) But instead of the lightning I deserved, this is the thought that flashed across my brain in technicolor:

I don't accuse you; I accept you.

At first I dismissed it and continued my mental rant, but it just kept coming to me over and over again until eventually my whole thought process slowed down and I started to listen. And this is the thought that came to my mind:

God's not the one accusing me.
He didn't give me those lists to accuse and condemn me; 

He gave me those lists because he DOESN'T want me to feel condemned.
He gave me those lists so I could recognize when the enemy's feeding me condemning bullcrap...
and then stop receiving it from him.
So maybe I should repent and listen for God's input instead.

CALMING DOWN

This still didn't really help, though, because I imagined that at this point, my Dad's input would be pretty annoyed and sharp...telling me to grow up and get over myself.

However, a passage of Scripture came to my mind that began to dissipate my worked-up fury. This is what it said:

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. (Zeph 3:17) 

When I thought about this verse, suddenly I realized something...he quiets me with his LOVE. He doesn't quiet me by yelling at me and telling me to fix my attitude OR ELSE. He doesn't quiet me by telling me I'm an idiot who needs to get it together. He doesn't quiet me by sending me to time-out until I can act like a big girl.

On the contrary, he quiets me by grabbing me in a big bear hug and whispering words of love and affirmation until I calm down and realize I have no need to prove myself because I'M ALREADY LOVED AND ACCEPTED. I've already been labeled his most precious possession. I've already been adopted as his child. I've already been chosen as his bride. I don't need to prove myself to him.


And that was pretty humbling, because I realized what a crazy response that is. After all, when I feel accused, I respond by indiscriminately throwing condemnation back at my accuser...even if they don't deserve it. But when God gets falsely accused by me, he responds by indiscriminately giving out LOVE...even though I DO deserve his condemnation. (After all, let's face it...who am I to talk to the creator of the universe in such a flippant manner???



SWEEPING ME AWAY

So he quiets me with his LOVE. But what is that love really like? How strong is it? Suddenly I thought of the verse that says God's love has been poured out into our hearts (Rom 5:5), and I got this image of me standing underneath a raging waterfall...trying to keep my footing as an overwhelming outpouring of God's love rushed over me...so strong and wild that it was sweeping me away.  

I started thinking about the way my Dad loves me. 

I thought about the horrible weight of accusation and condemnation that I'd been feeling and how I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy...and then I realized that Jesus WILLINGLY put himself in a place to endure accusation and condemnation on the cross - even though he didn't deserve it. And why did he do that? He was taking MY accusation and condemnation so that I'd never have to sit under it again. He took the accusation and condemnation coming to me so that I could receive the acceptance and love that were coming to him.

I thought about the fact that I'd spent all morning trying to make myself right in God's sight, in my own sight, and in everyone else's sight...and how frustrating that was. Then I remembered that I'm ALREADY made right in God's sight because when Jesus switched "transcripts" with me, all of his good grades went onto my record. He did all the hard, frustrating work of living absolutely perfectly and proving himself so that I wouldn't have to...so that I could live peacefully without worked-up fury because I'm already proven.

I thought about how much patience my Dad has with me that even when I'm acting like a spoiled brat, he still cares so much about restoring me to fullness that he forgoes the annoyance he deserves to feel and continues to approach me with invitation and acceptance.

And then I suddenly realized...

• The more I thought about HIM (rather than thinking about ME), the more I felt the fruit of the Spirit described in Paul's list. 
• The more I focused on his love (rather than focusing on my rant), the more I calmed down. 
• The more I focused on his awesomeness (rather than trying to prove my own awesomeness), the more I felt release from all that shame. 

When God's voice was the input I was receiving, my output was totally changed. In fact, the more I allowed his love to quiet me, the more all thoughts of myself were swept away altogether. 

And here's the surprising thing: I discovered that I actually enjoy forgetting about myself a whole lot more than I enjoy indignant self-righteousness rants. I guess my Dad was on to something all along. 

Those who look to him are radiant; 

their faces are never covered with shame. 

--Ps 34:5

I stopped trusting God.

Until last week, I was MIA from this blog for several months. That absence was due not to a lack of time or interest, but to a severe crisis of faith. Now that I'm on the other side, I thought I'd explain what happened.

I stopped trusting God.

Now, it's not like I've never struggled before with trusting God. After all, it's hard to keep trusting that God's taking care of you when all your circumstances make you feel as though he's not. But even in those times, I've always had that belief underneath sustaining me...that belief that even though I can't feel it, I know God's my Dad who protects and provides.

However, the loss of trust I experienced recently was something completely different. This wasn't a loss of trust that God's taking care of me right now...this was a complete loss of trust in the idea that taking care of people is even something God does. And that rocked me to my core. Let me explain...


HOW I LOST FAITH
In my last blog entry back in March, I described an experience in which it became incredibly real to me that God is my Dad who's on my side. Believing that gave me an overwhelming sense of protection and safety. I felt the relief of knowing I didn't need to continue to over-analyze and over-think my entire life (the way I've been known to do) because there's someone wise and strong who loves me and has it under control. I felt all the security that comes with being a treasured child. I felt like God had my back.


Well, just two days later, I read an article and all hell broke loose. The two main points of this article were:

1. God doesn't have a plan...it's all up to you.
2. God doesn't lead you and guide you...you're on your own.

I can understand that some people might read those statements and like them!!! After all, if God's not in charge and doesn't care, then that means I can do whatever I want without consequences!

But that's not the way I responded to that message AT ALL. Basically, reading this article negated all those uplifting things I'd been believing and instead told me: 

You're all alone in this world. Sure, there's a God in heaven...but he's not a loving Dad with a plan for your life; in fact, he doesn't care what you do and he's certainly not guiding you. He'd rather you just figure everything out for yourself and do everything for yourself. You're not a treasured child with a Father who loves you enough to guide you, make plans for you, teach you, take care of you, and keep you safe. No, you're an abandoned orphan who has to fend for herself in the world. IT'S ALL UP TO YOU. It's all up to you to make the right choices, and it's all up to you to conjure up the strength to carry them out. If you want good things to happen to you, then you'd better work hard...because everything that happens to you is based on your own merit, effort, and deservingness. There's no ultimate plan of God in which he blesses people based on grace; YOU'RE in charge of meriting your own blessings. So don't even think about resting!!! You'd BETTER go back to your flow charts & worry & over-analysis, because if you don't have a loving Dad guiding you and working everything for your good, then there's no one else considering all the implications of your decisions except for YOU.

 And that message freaked me out to the point where I couldn't stop crying at work, at the gym...pretty much everywhere. I'm not quite sure what caused me to believe this message (after all, it's not like I'd never heard someone say that before). I guess it was the way the author made her points...not with anger and resentment, but with the kind of joy and freedom I usually sense when I hear from God. But for whatever reason, I DID believe it. And believing it made me an absolute MESS. To explain why it affected me so much, let me take you back in time...


A FLASHBACK TO 2006...

Growing up, I thought I had control of my life. If I wanted something, I made it happen. If I tried something, I worked hard and became good at it. I was the girl who earned straight As, won spelling bees, and got trophies at piano competitions. I believed anything could be accomplished by simply analyzing the options, devising a strategy, and trying your best. I looked down on people who COULDN'T do that, because I thought they were lazy or stupid. I was a master manipulator, dedicating all my thoughts to analyzing situations and running through cause-effect scenarios until I knew my best course of action. I had big plans for my life and no doubt that I would accomplish them. My motto was, "Get determined"...and it worked. 

But around 2006, things started to fall apart. I was "getting determined"...but it was no longer working in any aspect of my life. For example, I wanted to get all my students to pass state tests...but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. I wanted all parents to think I was the perfect teacher...but no matter how hard I tried, they still complained. I wanted to get married...but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. I wanted to make friends...but no matter how hard I tried, nobody liked me. I wanted to be the perfect Christian who did great things for God...but no matter how hard I tried, nothing materialized. I blamed this all on myself. Clearly I wasn't devising the correct strategies! Clearly I wasn't trying hard enough! So I devised harder and tried harder...but I was GOING INSANE and panicking that I would NEVER figure out how to make my life go right and that I'd never be a success. I was desperately afraid that my life story was going to turn out to be one big tragedy and it would be all my fault.

This struggle went on for a while, until one day as I was doing my abs workout, I had this random thought: 

You're stressed out because the pressure's all on you. You're trying to be the author and the hero of your own life story... and you're overwhelmed because you're discovering you aren't competent at either role. But what if you're feeling pressure you don't need to feel because you're trying to fulfill roles you were never meant to have?

 What if GOD is the author who is writing your story and the pressure's on HIM to figure out how to bring about success and resolution...and all you have to do is live within the story he's already writing? And what if you're not the hero of the story either? What if God's also the hero, and the story's actually about HIM; not you? If that's the case, then your failures aren't the end of the world because the success of the story depends on whether HE succeeds; not whether you do. If he's the hero, then the pressure's on HIM to win all the battles and look good and succeed...and all you have to do is support him in whatever he tells you to do. But even if you mess that up, the pressure's still on HIM to fix it...and it all reflects on HIM; not on you. Your story is a success if HIS story is a success. The pressure's off.

So basically...

1. God has a plan...so the pressure's off. 
2. God's the hero and you're on his team...so someone's got your back.

I can't explain what a HUGE relief this was to me. It meant I didn't have to lie awake at night devising a plan...because God already had one. It meant I could just relax and live life without worrying so much about how it was all going to end up...because there was somebody else figuring that out for me. It meant that even if I never accomplished all the things that the world says you need to be considered a success, my life could still be a win because it was part of a bigger story in which the true hero DOES succeed. It took the pressure off so I could just enjoy life without worrying ALL THE TIME about how I was going to make sure it ended up the way it was supposed to. It's not all up to me.

That changed everything. It's not like I was instantly cured of my engineering and stressing, but it started a process of learning to rest from all my manipulation and just follow my Dad.


BACK TO THE PRESENT TIME...

So...with all this in mind, you can see why I PANICKED in March when the idea was introduced that God does NOT, in fact, have a plan and that he expects ME to author, engineer, and manipulate my own life and protect myself. If God's not looking out for me, it erases all the relief I felt on the abs machine 8 years ago. It means I DO need to feel relentless stress; I DO need to work my mind to death manipulating situations; I DO need to worry that I may end up a failure...because the pressure's all on me and success is not guaranteed. And seeing as how 2006 proved that I CAN'T figure it out and make myself a success - no matter how determined I get - this was pretty much the blow of death to me. If the most competent person controlling things in my life is me, then that's really, really scary.

Beyond that, I started to feel like I was losing my grip on reality. After all, here I'd been believing (despite all evidence to the contrary) that God was taking care of me, and I'd been banking my life on that fact...and now I find out that's not even something he does?!?! If that's true, it means all my comfort, hope and confidence have been false. And what about the MULTITUDE of times when I believed God was leading me? Were those all fake? If so, then I don't even know what's real anymore!!!

And then there's the cancer thing. I have the BRCA-1 gene mutation (like Angelina Jolie), which gives me a highly increased risk of cancer. When I first found out I had the mutation, I was a little scared, but basically I thought,

"Look, I am not at the mercy of this gene to determine if I get cancer; my life story is being written by God. So I may or may not get cancer...but if I do, it's not because of some defect in me; it's part of some greater purpose and some bigger story. The Author still has things under control and this is not a surprise to him. He's already figured out how to deal with it. I don't need to worry about it, because the outcome of my life is already secure, and my Dad will walk me through it." 

But if, in fact, God is NOT writing my life story, the pressure IS all on me, and there's NO ONE who's got my back...then that means I'd better do EVERYTHING I CAN to make sure I don't get cancer because it's all up to me and my story may end up a tragedy after all.

The same applies for every other aspect of life. If God's not in control, then if I don't make it happen, it's my fault and it all reflects on me. So I HAVE to make sure everyone thinks well of me because there is no way to count myself a success unless I achieve all the things you're supposed to do to be successful. And if that means lying or cheating or manipulating or seducing...then I guess I really have no choice, because my success is all dependent on me. (But then, of course, I have to ask...am I really successful if I've stepped on everyone on the way to get there? I don't think so.) So is there any hope for me???

I could go on and on about the ways I panicked. Underneath it all was this terrifying thought:

I'm all alone, no one's got my back, it's all up to me.

HOW THIS BELIEF PLAYED OUT

This went on for over 2 months. Other than my great Mid-Life Crisis of 2006-9, I've never experienced such severe spiritual crisis. None of my usual remedies worked...not prayer, not bombarding myself with Scripture, not preaching truth to myself, not consulting with friends. Nothing could restore my belief that God's my loving Dad who takes care of me and has my back. I felt completely unprotected. 

To make matters worse, during that time, I found myself in at least 6 situations where I needed protection...and there was none to be found. I was abandoned by friends and family whom I had trusted to always stick up for me. And all I could think was, "It's true...I really am alone and unprotected."

Believing this, I found myself making decisions far outside my normal tendencies toward self-control. After all, if I'm not part of some bigger story, then why not do whatever makes me feel good right now? I retreated from people. After all, if I can't count on God, why would I be able to count on anyone else? I grew more and more guarded and cynical. After all, where can I find security if I'm facing the world alone and unprotected?

TURNING THE TIDE
As this continued, I started to wonder if I'd EVER get out alive. I mean, my whole life has been based on walking with my Dad! I don't know how to handle crisis without him! I'd start crying out to him for help...and then have to remind myself, "Jill, what are you doing? Don't you remember there's nobody there listening to you?" And I can't even describe the resulting sense of emptiness that would overtake me.

In the midst of it, there were three events that started to turn the tide.

• Don't trust in my plan; trust in ME. One of the main things plaguing me was this idea that God doesn't have a plan; that he doesn't have things under control. After all, if God DOES have a plan, then I can rest easy that even bad things are being worked into a greater purpose. But if he DOESN'T have a plan, then everything is just random chaos. That made me feel soooooo insecure. To combat this fear, I reminded myself of the numerous times in the Bible where God clearly has a plan and goes to great lengths to work it out. I argued it out in my mind continually...but that just wasn't working, because all I kept thinking was this: "Sure, Jill, YOU read these stories and interpret them as though God has a plan. But there have been plenty of people throughout history who have interpreted it differently. After all, isn't this issue one of the big doctrinal debates of the centuries? So what if you've been wrong all along? What if God DOESN'T have a plan and he really isn't in control?" Man, oh man, did this freak me out. It shook the very foundations of my faith. I kept thinking, "But how could God POSSIBLY expect us to live with joy & peace & rest...how could he POSSIBLY tell us to trust him...unless he has a plan and he's working it out????" I obsessed about it. Then one day I had this thought...

Jill, I never wanted you to trust in my PLAN; I wanted you to trust in ME. Are you able to trust in the goodness of my character; to just trust that I'm your Dad who has your best interests in mind...whether or not I have a plan?

Wow. That was really difficult, but I DO believe my Dad is good. So I said yes. 

• Did God just protect me from myself? The decision that "My Dad is good" didn't cure me of my struggles, though. In fact, my crisis grew worse. Though I kept reminding myself, "God is good. God is good. God is good," I didn't feel it...and therefore I didn't act like it. At one point, I was so hopeless that I made a decision to do something that I KNEW would lead to my own harm and heartbreak (though it would be exciting for the time being). After all, if no one's protecting me, then I'm going to end up hurt anyway, right?...I may as well control the hurt by bringing it on myself! As I was scheming to carry out this decision, I had the thought...

If God were to prevent me from going through with this decision, it sure would seem like he's protecting me from my own worst enemy - myself.

And lo and behold, no matter how hard I tried, I could NOT make this bad decision materialize. (And this is not something that should have been difficult to carry out.) It was almost as if there were some unseen force blocking my every attempt. I truly couldn't think of ANY other explanation for my failure except to say, "Geez, maybe God IS protecting me."

• Holy crap. But here's where it gets really crazy. (I know this is weird; I'm just describing what I experienced.) As I was starting to emerge from the darkness of despair, I had this sudden memory of something that happened back in February, shortly before this whole crisis began. I'd been driving down I-75, realizing I'd been listening to a lot of accusation, and asking the Holy Spirit to replace those thoughts with truth. As I did that, I thought about how grateful I was to have Jesus' protection against accusation, and I considered how horrible it must be for my friend "Greg" who doesn't believe Jesus is a protector. How does he deal with all those thoughts & accusations on his own??? I remember asking myself the question, "Jill, would you give up your protection so that Greg could have it? Would you step in and take the accusation that's being directed at him so that he can experience the emotional space to hear from God?" And I remember agreeing that I would. But then I didn't think any more about it...until this crazy moment in May. And in that crazy moment, I had the thought...

HOLY CRAP. When I said I would give up my protection so Greg could have it...DID THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN? Has this feeling of being unprotected been REAL???

I really don't know. On the one hand, that's kind of scary...that means things that happen in the spiritual realm are REAL. On the other hand, it was highly comforting for me to consider the possibility that this whole experience was actually part of a bigger story about laying down my life for Greg. Maybe my crisis wasn't due to my own failure and weakness; maybe it was actually due to my sacrifice...and I was just inexperienced and unprepared to deal with it. Maybe it didn't indicate that I was living in a world of random chaos; maybe it indicated that I'm living in a world where God definitely DOES have a plan (which includes a plan to rescue Greg)...and this time of apparent unprotection for me was actually an instance of me playing a significant role in it. Whoa.


ON THE OTHER SIDE
I can't explain everything that happened, but I can say that now - several months later - I think I'm finally on the other side. I can hear my Dad again. I feel his protection. I know that he's guiding me. And against all odds, I believe he's brought me out stronger than before.

When I think about it, I've learned a lot from the experience (though I can't say I EVER want to go through it again!!!) Here are my top 4 lessons...

1. Don't take spiritual things lightly. My goodness...if something I agree to in the spiritual realm can create THAT much turmoil in my life, then I need to be careful what I agree to! That means deliberately breaking agreements with bitterness, unforgiveness, rejection, and other junk. And it means deliberately making agreements with everything God says and not taking it lightly. So if he tells me to change my thinking in a certain area, I want to DO it rather than endangering myself and wasting opportunities by all my negotiating and dilly-dallying around! If he tells me to forgive, I want to forgive. If he tells me to risk, I want to risk. If he tells me to give something up, I want to give it up. I want to be quick to repent and quick to obey. This stuff is REAL...so I want to treat his authority and holiness with the weight he deserves. 
2. Hold on to what you believe in the light when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight. (Thanks, Mumford & Sons.) It turns out that this period when I felt most like God DIDN'T have a plan was actually a time when I was most participating in his plan. I can't see everything that's happening in the spiritual realm, so I just need to hold on to what I DO know. As Oswald Chambers puts it, "Believe God is always the God you know him to be when you are nearest to him." 
3. You won't survive if you don't get mature. I believe I had good intentions when I offered to give up my protection for Greg. But I also believe I could have avoided a lot of the distress I experienced if only I'd been more prepared and knowledgeable for the fight. After all, my Dad's Enemy is not stupid, and he is working hard to destroy me. This is a fight, and I NEED to be mature if I want to survive. So I've been spending a lot of time listening to good teaching, putting it into practice, repenting of believing lies, memorizing Scripture, and praying. Sure, I survived this time...but next time I want to be ready so I don't have such a close scrape with destruction!
4. The most important thing is to believe that God is good. Throughout this crisis, I think I got sidetracked by my need to know whether God has a plan, whether he protects his people, whether he's in control, etc. My obsession with knowing the correct doctrinal answer to all these questions (though important questions!) overshadowed the more important question: "Do I believe God is good?" It really all boils down to that. Even if I've got EVERYTHING else wrong, I'll be okay if I believe God is good. After all, that's the age-old question that's been echoing since the Garden of Eden..."Is your Dad really good? Is he really trustworthy?" And that's the thing I'm hanging on to - that he is.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
    he’s the one who will keep you on track. --Proverbs 3:5-6

I wish I were pretty.

I wish I were pretty.

After all, we live in a culture that assigns worth and respectability almost exclusively based on appearance. In fact, I'd say that cultural norm is so prevalent that I don't even need to waste space here proving it (though I could). I mean, we've all heard how men talk about women, right? And honestly, even most women evaluate whether another person is worth their time and interest based on how good they look. So it would be nice to be pretty and thus earn that stamp of approval.


TO CLARIFY...
(Now, look...I know I'm not the bottom of the barrel as far as looks go. But I also know that there's a reason I don't let you see me without makeup. And I also know based on experience that if I walk into a room with ANY other woman, the man's going to choose her over me. And sometimes that upsets me because it would be nice to be noticed and validated.)

So anyway, I'm not saying this to fish for compliments. After all, I wouldn't believe you even if you said I was pretty. How could your pity compliment ever hope to outweigh all the evidence to the contrary...

• Jason who walked into my 11th grade history class and announced to everyone, "Jill is ugly!"
• Jeff who refused to go to prom with me because I had red hair.
• Jessica who told me I wasn't pretty enough to have a boyfriend.
• Tara who told me she was the pretty friend and I was the smart friend. 
• Luke who completely forgot he was talking to me whenever a pretty girl walked in the room.

I could go on and on. But that's not my point. My point is that since I've believed throughout my life that I'm not pretty - and yet prettiness is something on which our culture places great importance - these are the kinds of things that have gone through my mind:

You're not pretty enough, so you don't measure up. Since you're not pretty, you're scum and you're not worth anyone's time or interest. In fact, the best thing you can do for people is just stay away from them, because all you do when you show up is blemish the otherwise beautiful view in front of them. You should be ashamed of yourself.

WHERE I'M COMING FROM
And for a long time I WAS ashamed of myself. I believed those voices in my head, and I responded to them in two contradictory ways:

1. On the one hand, I'd get SO MAD. You see, I'm fairly certain that regardless of how unattractive the outer casing might be, deep down underneath my flesh, there lives the REAL me who is extremely valuable and worthy of respect and notice - completely independent of how I look on the outside! So I HATED when people made evaluations of me based on my outward appearance, because that's not the real me. I desperately wanted people to develop x-ray vision so they could look through the outer shell and value the REAL Jill inside!
2. On the other hand, I really did want people to look at my outward appearance...and then to tell me that I measured up. I DID want to be labeled as pretty (and therefore, worthy). So I spent massive amounts of time and effort trying to improve my appearance (putting on makeup, fixing my hair, picking out the right clothes, working out, etc.) and then freaking out if anything happened to ruin it. Damn you, humidity!!!

Basically I didn't care which way people wanted to swing...they could either a) look past my appearance and see the real me, or b) look at my appearance and judge it highly...but what I couldn't handle was to continue to receive that label: "Unworthy!"

I struggled with that sense of shame until I was about 30 years old...believing that because I'm not pretty, I'm not worthy of anyone's time or interest. But through a series of circumstances, God started giving me a glimpse of how he feels about me. I started to believe that my Creator doesn't love me just in a general sense, but that he actively pursues me and desires me and delights in me and WANTS me. I started to believe that God gives me TONS of time and attention...that he could gaze at me for hours without getting tired of it...that when I walk in the room, I'm the only one he sees.

When I started believing that, it just made other people's opinions pale in importance. (I mean, I still care what I look like and what people think about me, but not NEARLY to the same extent. It's no longer something I obsess about.) I started to believe God sees me as beautiful, and that's all that matters.


THIS WEEK'S RELAPSE
So why am I talking about this now? Well, I had a relapse (a.k.a. FREAK OUT) this week. Here's how it happened. I was talking with my friend Danielle about our mutual friend Tom, who's made it clear over the years that associating with an unattractive woman is a waste of his time and energy. Recently someone ran across his profile on Match.com, and in it Tom said that he's looking for a woman who "looks good without makeup, wearing a t-shirt and jeans."

Okay, so that's a pretty standard thing to write in a dating profile. But I have to tell you, when I heard that, I just about had a conniption. No joke. I'm talking about yelling-in-public kind of mad. Why did that bother me so much? Well, suddenly all those old voices rushed back in and started reading to me between the lines. And the message I heard was this:

A woman is only worth being shown attention if she's naturally pretty. If she's not born pretty, then she's got no hope. She's scum. And she's not allowed to DO anything to make herself look better or to be more worthy. She's just condemned to a lifetime of unworthiness with no way out. AND THAT MEANS YOU, JILL!!!

And when I heard that, I started seeing red...because though Tom was making just a general statement, it felt like he was condemning ME. Here's the thing...I know I'm not naturally pretty. But that's not a fate I CHOSE for myself! It's not like I'm TRYING to uglify anyone's surroundings. If I'd had a choice, I would have looked like Halle Berry! But I didn't. I was completely out of control in choosing what I'd look like. And to now be called unworthy and cast aside based on something I didn't choose and can't even do anything about...well, I felt so frustrated and condemned that I wanted to twist Tom's little head round and round on his neck until it popped right off the top of his body.

All I could think was that life would be so much easier if I'd just been born pretty. THAT'S the solution. If I were pretty, then I'd measure up and I'd be worth something.


BUT WHAT IF I GET CANCER?
But as I continued down that line of thought, I came to the same conclusion I've reached many times before - that's actually no solution at all. I mean, what would things be like if I WERE pretty? What if my appearance WAS good enough to merit a positive evaluation? And what if someone DID declare me pretty enough to be worthy of time and attention?

If I did live up to standards appearance-wise, that would be nice for the time being...but what's going to happen if I get cancer or if something else happens to ruin my looks? Or what about when I just get old and wrinkled? If my worth IS based on my appearance, then when time or circumstances take that away, doesn't logic dictate that I would then no longer be valuable - that I'd become scum?

If a man were to give me his time and attention based on my appearance...and then I were to get cancer...wouldn't that mean he'd be justified in rejecting me when I was at my lowest point; at the time when I needed him the MOST? How could I be secure in a relationship dependent on my appearance? Why would I WANT a relationship like that? If he doesn't love me when I'm ugly, then he doesn't actually love ME.

Then the thought came to me, "Jill, if your worth is dependent on your appearance, then if you get cancer, you may as well kill yourself. After all, you won't be worth anything to anybody in that ugly condition." (Disclaimer: I do not condone this thought. I'm just saying it went through my head.)

Yikes. As I took the belief - "Your worth is dependent on your appearance" - and ran it out to its ultimate conclusions, my blood started boiling...because if our worth is based on our appearance, then things are hopeless for EVERYBODY! That's bad news for the ugly (right now) AND bad news for the pretty (when their looks fail)!


ARGUING WITH MYSELF
Clearly I was pretty worked up, so I started talking about this with some friends. Of course, when I shared my distress about Tom's profile, they fed me the standard line..."Just deal with it! That's just how guys are wired...they're all about the visual. That's just how it is." And honestly, that made me MORE ready to explode because in addition to all the condemnation I already felt, this latest statement said to me:

You're cast aside because you're not pretty...and you have no right to be upset about that kind of treatment, because men are CORRECT to condemn you. That's an okay thing for them to do, because it's just how God made them. In fact, God's okay with people condemning you. That's what he designed them to do.

What?!?! Now I'm sorry, but the heavenly Father I know doesn't tell people to go around condemning others. So I knew that message couldn't be from him, and I knew I needed to do some work to separate the lies from the truth in my head.

I started trying to talk myself down off the cliff using the following arguments:

• Sure, maybe that's how men (people) ARE - that their first instinct is to judge based on appearance - but that can't be how God DESIGNED us to be. That desire to evaluate and cast someone aside based on appearance causes separation and condemnation...so it has to be a result of the Fall; NOT a part of our original design. And in that case, even if it's someone's first instinct to focus solely on appearance, isn't it a first instinct that needs to be FOUGHT against rather than just accepted? I mean, just because something is a first instinct doesn't mean it's RIGHT. After all, my first instinct is to eat every donut and cookie set in front of me. But that doesn't mean I should DO it! It's much more healthy to set aside that first instinct in order to live in freedom and self-control. So in my mind it's a cop-out to simply accept our tendency to judge and to explain it as "That's just the way we're wired." And it's wrong to tell me I just have to accept being called scum, because that's NOT what God wants for me. (But this argument, rather than calming me down, just got me more worked up and angry as I seethed about all the people who were "doing me wrong" in this regard.)

• Anger felt no better than despair, so then I moved on to this argument: Hello, a person is not just a body! A person is body, soul, and spirit. And it's my spirit that's the truest part of who I am; not my body. If parts of my body got cut off, I'd still be ME. That's because it's my spirit that God sees when he looks at me, and it's my spirit to which he relates when he talks to me. It's my spirit where my true identity is found, and that spirit was made perfect, pure, whole, and righteous when I accepted Christ. THAT'S why God sees me as beautiful...because he's looking at the spirit inside me...which he has made perfect. My body, on the other hand, is just the outward casing in which my spirit is living right now. So anyone who looks at my body and makes judgments is not evaluating the true ME. After all, when I evaluate the worth of my iPhone, I don't look at the case it's in; I look at the iPhone itself!!! So people who evaluate my worth based on my looks are wrong. (But this argument didn't calm me down either. Rather, it got me more indignant toward the people who ignore the true me.)

• Indignation didn't feel any better than anger or despair, so then I started arguing along this line: Dude, these messages I'm hearing CANNOT be coming from my heavenly Father. He doesn't talk like that. His voice isn't tinged with tones of hopelessness and accusation and shame. Rather, my Dad's voice sounds like love, joy, peace, and freedom (Gal 5:1&22). My Dad brings life to the full (Jn 10:10). My Dad says that wherever he is, there is no condemnation (Rom 8:1). So I know HE can't be the one sending me these messages of guilt and shame. That has to be coming from my Dad's Enemy who tries to steal, kill and destroy (Jn 10:10) and whose mission is to accuse me day and night (Rev 12:10). In fact, just as I was processing all this, I was listening to an mp3 where the speaker said this: If what you're hearing is..."You're bad...stay over there and stay away from me...here's what's bad about you"...That's not the heart of the Father. That's not something that comes from him. No accusation comes from the Father. None. He might convict of sin because he's headed toward righteousness. But he wouldn't do it with shame attached to it. Well, that was timely!!! So as it became clear that all these condemning messages were a load of crap from the Enemy, I started arguing with HIM instead of myself. I started saying, "Look here, spirit of accusation, you're wrong! I AM beautiful! I DON'T deserve condemnation! I DO measure up!" (But honestly, that just wasn't working...because the whole time I was arguing with him, there was a part of me that was saying, "Actually, Jill, you DON'T measure up. Let me show you the evidence.")

AN ARGUMENT THAT WORKED

So I was feeling really stuck inside my shame and hopelessness and anger and indignation and disbelief. None of my arguments were working and I didn't know how to get out, so I just cried out to Jesus..."Save me!"

That's when I heard the next thing the speaker said on the mp3. He read Colossians 1:22, which says:

Once you were alienated...but now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation...

And suddenly I realized this:

Yeah, it might be true that I haven't measured up to the world's standards (that alienation has been REAL), but I've frickin' been FORGIVEN for that! 

So I don't have to live under the accusation, shame and guilt of that anymore because I've been forgiven for ALL the ways I don't measure up! It's over with. Finished. I've been absolved from needing to pay the penalty for that. The debt I owe for blemishing the world's landscape has been PAID. And I am certainly not going to keep living under this cloud of condemnation, continuing to pay a debt that's already been reconciled! I'm forgiven!

And let me tell you, that feels like freedom. That feels like joy. That feels like life and peace.

Actually most of all, that makes me feel like this entire topic is a moot point about which I don't need to waste any more time obsessing. (Or to quote Joey, a "moo point.")

I may be pretty; I may not be pretty...it really doesn't matter because for every point where I didn't measure up, I'VE BEEN FORGIVEN. What a relief. :)


ONE MORE QUESTION
So the only question left is...how the heck did I end up in this unblemished condition? How did I get made beautiful?

That's when I suddenly remembered Isaiah 53:2-6.

There was nothing attractive about him,
  nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
  a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
  We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
  our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.

Geez Louise, that gives me chills...because the description here sounds awfully familiar - someone who is unattractive and is therefore looked down on, passed over, and deemed unworthy of attention; someone who is labeled scum. That is EXACTLY how I've felt throughout my life. But the crazy thing is...this isn't a description of me; it's a description of Jesus.

What??? Why in the world would the beautiful and worthy King of the Universe be seen as unattractive and undesirable? Why would Jesus let himself be dismissed as scum?

Well, the crazy thing this passage tells me is that HE DID IT FOR ME. Jesus took on all my disfigurement, all the things wrong with me, all the ways I didn't measure up. He took on my identity of unattractiveness and undesirability...so that I could take on his identity and be made whole. He took on my blemishes so I could take on his perfection. He became scum so I could be chosen. He was punished for my inability to measure up - so that I WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE.

And that's why I refuse to receive that condemnation any longer. Pretty; shmetty; I don't care. I'm a treasure to God, and that's all that matters.