katie-dear

[katie-dear]

When You Want to Crawl Out of Your Skin

I saw a quote once that read:

“I never felt the urge to jump off a bridge, but there are times I have wanted to jump out of my life, out of my skin.”

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be strong. And I think maybe, even before I can remember.

I don’t know much about stubborn independence, strength, and willpower, and whether or not those things are only acquired through environment, or if we’re born with dispositions swimming in our blood, “sins of the father” beating in our tiny hearts, ready to manifest as human nature begins to show itself.

But I know that since infancy I have always been pushing, and that in some ways, it runs in my family. Crying, and pushing away from my mother who wanted to cradle her little baby. Let me sleep alone. Pushing away in the pool thinking I could swim on my own, when I could barely even walk. Just let me try. These are things I don’t even remember doing. Things that must have just been ingrained in me.

It seems as though to be strong and independent is the first thing I ever really wanted. To be able to go it alone. I came out defying the truth about myself, about every other human: We have limitations, and we can’t succeed alone.

I never wanted to be a princess growing up, except for the ones who did great things, and had daring adventures. The ones who broke the mold.

I was Mulan, cutting my hair to run away and join the army so I could save the ones I love. Jumping from couch to couch, my very own Chinese palace rooftops, fighting bad guys to save a whole country.

I was a lion, hiding in my lion’s den under the bed, coming out only to roar and hunt.

I was Kayley, the farm-girl on a quest to find Excalibur, befriending dragons and fighting scary creatures, to save my family and become a knight like my father.

I never wanted to be the damsel in distress. There was action in the world, and I wanted to be in it. I wanted to save everyone. I never truly wanted to be ALONE, but I was so idealistic about humanity and it’s boundaries that I didn’t know how to be anything but.

Somewhere along the line, I unconsciously began to view strength as blunt force. Pushing my way out of my confines. Pushing people away when they didn’t fit my ideals, my way of doing things, going out on my own, never needing anybody, pushing forward. Slamming the door in the face of conflict. Burning bridges. If you didn’t appreciate me, I didn’t appreciate you. I fought fire with fire, I fought imperfection with fire. Bruised by verbal sticks and stones, I threw rocks from my own voicebox until I couldn’t see straight, being dragged away from relationship kicking and screaming, by my own sense of self-importance and dreams that humanity could be more than it was. Strength meant fighting, strength meant squirming. It meant unrest. I could save the world, and I thought I could do it alone. I grew up learning that Jesus was the Savior of the world, but if He didn’t need our help, then why was I burdened with such a glorious desire to do something heavenly? And if He was the Savior of the world, why was the world still in so much trouble? If nobody would help me, and nobody would understand me, I would just have to go it alone. I was strong enough to be alone. What a narrow mindset.

I always loved horses as a kid. They had this air of freedom to them that I envied. But something I forgot was that even wild horses run in herds. I was the wild mustang, running free and throwing everyone off my back who dared to touch me, dared to cross me. Because didn’t you know I only wanted to do great things? Didn’t you know that I can’t figure out how to love you if you hurt me, can’t sink my hands into your dirt? Don’t you know my heart doesn’t know how to love another, because I’ve spent forever pushing away from pain, because I don’t want it to be real? Don’t you know that you have to be more than human, because I am always trying to be more than human? How could you know any of this. And why would you want to. These were never things I consciously thought. But they drove my actions and fueled a mindset nonetheless.

There were moments of rest. Moments of peace. But inside was a gnawing dissatisfaction at every turn, every bump in the road. I never could hold my own against the world as much as I wanted to. A human being, especially a young girl, cannot long run away from their need for connection, no matter how stubborn or introverted. The way a baby can die If it’s left alone, without the ability to emotionally bond with others, is the way I died a thousand times inside a prison of my own making. If a baby can’t develop, it can’t survive.

So too, for the rest of the world.

I have squirmed and pushed, undeniably. Squirming underneath the iron hands that held me strapped into the seat of a ride I never wanted to be on, never asked to get on in the first place: Life. One doesn’t choose to be born. It is an affliction. I was born as everyone is, without a say. And I was born with a terrible desire to be something more than what I was. I wanted to watch humans, but not be one of them. And I wanted to help them, as if I had any power to. As a child, when I needed everything done for me, I wanted to be old enough, celestial enough, to do it alone. I recall feeling distraught when I was about 3 years old, because I wasn’t strong enough to open the refrigerator by myself. That line of thinking has taken 19 more years to diminish. Nineteen more years to lessen the distress over not being able to do everything alone. I remember crying in my room as a nine year old, because I didn’t understand why humans were so bad to each other. They terrified me, and I didn’t want to be one anymore. But sadly, as C.S. Lewis says, “I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin.” I’m confined to this flesh suit until the day I die, and my disgusting desire to be something more than human (in this life at least) will never come true. And ironically, my desire to be more than human, and to feel like I belonged in another world, might have been the most human thing about me.

It’s taken me almost 22 years to learn that we cannot be anymore than what we were created to be, no matter how much we push and beat on the iron hands of the God who holds us inside of these flesh suits for a purpose, and that the first step to being the best you can be as whatever you are, is to accept the limitations that come with your title. And to accept those limitations in others.

Elisabeth Elliot wrote a lot about limitations. In speaking about womanhood, she says:

“The woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling which bears her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God.”

And in speaking about choosing in marriage, she says:

“To accept limitation requires maturity. The child has not yet learned that it can’t have everything. What it sees it wants. What it cannot have it screams for. It has to grow up to realize that saying Yes to happiness often means saying No to yourself.”  

These things are applicable to all of humanity, not just women and not just marriage.

To be human is to be finite, incomplete, and flawed. It is to have limitations. To be human is to be strong, but not in the tazmanian devil, let-me-out-of-my-skin way in which I always perceived it. Being strong can sometimes mean fighting. It can sometimes involve squirming to be free. But as I grow I’m learning that more often than not, true strength is finding the courage NOT to always try to live unbridled. Not to try to crawl out of your skin. That sometimes true strength is wrapping yourself tight into your skin like a blanket, and saying “I am not strong enough, but I don’t have to be.” Finding the courage not to fight, finding the courage not to isolate yourself, not to pull away and lick your wounds, and finding the courage to ask for help when you need it. Because to be human is to need, and there’s nothing wrong with needing, nor is there anything wrong with being nothing more than human.

I used to think strength was looking into the eyes of someone who has wronged you and letting them know you are independent enough to do things without them. That you can live without them and you can heal without them. And that you can fulfill your purpose without them. But now I think true strength is learning that sometimes the strongest thing you can do, is also the gentlest. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is to look into the eyes of someone who has wronged you, and instead of saving yourself, to put your heart on the line so they can take theirs off of it. Because even though you’ve spent your whole life trying to prove that you don’t need other imperfect people, you do, and they need you too. And even though you’ve spent your whole life trying to defy your own humanity, it’s still in you, and in everyone else, and they all need you to recognize it in them.

Unforgiveness does not make one strong.

Self-isolation does not make one strong.

Trying to crawl out of your own skin doesn’t make you something more than human.

It just makes you a bad human.

I don’t write any of this in self-loathing, or to demonize myself. In fact, I probably loathe myself less since beginning to understand and accept what it really means to be human, the way God intended. The more I come into understanding that being human is not an affliction to fight against, but rather a flawed beauty to embrace, the more content I feel in my own shoes.

It is freeing to find that in accepting humanity, and the limits that it entails, you can tuck the rocks back into your voicebox, and that the dirt you and other people so often show isn’t something to wash your hands of, but rather a place to sink them into, to plant seeds of love, that will one day blossom into something much more celestial than anything trying to crawl out of your skin could ever achieve.

“All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn. Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love –a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek– But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin. Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack. I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking. For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.”

- C.S. Lewis, As the Ruin Falls

[katie-dear]

Sinners and the Lifeboat

“And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, ’Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:15-17, ESV, emphasis added)

This passage makes me contemplate the imperfection that cursed humanity after the Fall. The Pharisees, in all their pompous glory and “wisdom” were simply no match for Jesus, anywhere in all the Gospels. So blinded by their own pride and interpretations of God and the Law were they, that they wouldn’t even see the works of the Messiah right in front of them for what they truly were. In all their religious grandeur, they “preached but did not practice” and put burdens on the shoulders of men. Put emphasis on traditions and left out the most important matters of the Law: justice, mercy, and faith. (Matthew 23) Jesus didn’t come for those who “had their stuff together.” He came for the lost. Those who couldn’t find their way. Those who were “sick.” The imperfect. (Which if we’re honest, is all of us, Pharisees included. Had they repented from their stubbornness, pride, and tendency of finding value in the opinions of men, they could have had redemption in Christ.)

In the book “Searching for God Knows What”, Donald Miller explains our post-Fall human system as being something of a lifeboat scenario. He recounts a time in elementary school when a teacher asked his class this question: “If there were a lifeboat adrift at sea, and in the lifeboat were a male lawyer, a female doctor, a crippled child, a stay-at-home mom, and a garbageman, and one person had to be thrown overboard to save the others, which person would we choose?" He claims he doesn’t remember exactly who the class picked to be the unlucky one thrown off the boat, but he remembers that they"didn’t hesitate in deciding who had value and who didn’t." Miller links the Lifeboat Theory to our every human downfall. Every move we make is to determine that we are someone of value, the one who will be exempt from being thrown from the boat because we are somehow better than our fellow man. He spends a whole chapter going over and over this idea, but you get the gist. We were designed to find our worth in God, but after the Fall we were born with a hole to fill, and we seek to fill it in all other places but the One who can truly fill it, in constant competition with each other to be one of the ones left on the boat. We measure our worth against other human beings, against our made-up standards, instead of believing who God says we are in Christ. 

Something else I’m reminded of, similar to the analogy of the lifeboat, is a scenario that happened in my own life as a child. When I was five years old, myself and a little friend of mine were swimming in the backyard pool. We weren’t allowed in the deep end, but for the moment, parents weren’t looking and kids are always going for the forbidden fruit. (There’s that curse again.) So we made our way into the deep end. I don’t remember how it happened, but suddenly I was deep underwater with a foot on my face. I pushed my way back to the surface only to be dunked back down again by my friend, both of us grabbing at each other for leverage to get to the surface, gasping at the top and getting pushed back under, climbing each other like trees. In reality it was probably only a few seconds, but a few seconds feel like forever when you’re pretty sure you’re dying. Finally, an adult saw what was going on, jumped in, pulled us out and saved the day. My little friend choked out water and I realized I was probably the stronger of us two, and she had probably gotten the worse end of the deal. And I felt terrible. In a desperate struggle to survive, we had turned on each other to save our own skins. Stepping on each other to be the one that got to breathe again. Granted, we were five and frantic, not intentionally hurting one another. But had we not been fished out the outcome would have been the same regardless of intention. It’s very similar in the lifeboat. Maybe we don’t mean to hurt anyone. We just want to be the one who ends up on top. Surely that’s where we will find our worth. Our survival. But we are wrong. The Pharisees sought their worth in their "wisdom.” In their knowledge of the Law and their traditions and closed their minds to Christ. But when we find our worth in Jesus we are free to quit struggling at the detriment of ourselves and our brothers and sisters. We are free to quit comparing our worth with theirs, in a perpetual state of striving to one-up them. Free to stop climbing that ladder that has no end. Free to stop trying to be smarter, stronger, better, the right race, the right sex, have the right career, in order to stay on the lifeboat. In God’s lifeboat we are all equal. He came for all of us, the sinners. And we can rest in the knowledge of that equality. 

This should give us so much hope. And speak volumes to us about the heart of Jesus and the true meaning of Christianity. When I read that bolded verse up there I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Because I am undoubtedly a sinner. Born of depravity. I have compared myself to others, I have hurt myself and them at times when I wasn’t comfortable with my worth in Christ. Grasped for reasons I should be one of the ones left on the boat. I’ve been a Pharisee, sure that my knowledge and my “lesser” sins in comparison to others would secure for me righteousness in God’s eyes. But Jesus came for me, not to condemn me for my imperfection but to save me from the consequences of it. In Jesus, there is breathing room. He asks not for our absolute perfection but simply for our hearts. This truth allows me not only to have grace on myself in my failures but also on others. There is room for imperfection in my relationships. In the people I love. If I’m not actively loving them through those imperfections then I’m not extending the love of Christ. I don’t have to expect any friend or family member or stranger to be sinless. The love of Jesus should be the filter for every action that’s done to us and every word that’s said to us. He had mercy on us. So should we extend it to others. We were all filthy until He cleansed us. And even as His children we remain imperfect. When met with human depravity, be it our own, or someone else’s, we have the ability through Christ to forgive it. In fact, we have the obligation to. This doesn’t mean we are free from the need to obey and live righteously. Only that, in Him, we are free from the obligation to be perfect. When we fall, there is grace to pick us back up and set us back on track. All of this was finished when He gave His life on the cross. When He provided a way for us out from under the consequences of our sickness. A way to stay in the lifeboat, without destroying ourselves and everyone else. We need simply find our worth in who He says we are, rather than what the world says we are. When we are secure in our identity, we can be secure in the identity of others as God’s children and love them well. We need not measure ourselves against the rest of God’s children, for we’re equal in His sight.

“Grace is the face that love wears when it meets imperfection.” -Joseph R. Cooke

Jesus’ interaction with sinners set the bar for the way we interact with sinners, ourselves included. And His sacrifice allows us to extend the same mercy He extended to us. The burdens the “righteous” Pharisees placed on men… The burdens the world tries to place on us… in Christ, those are lifted. Don’t listen to the voice that tells you to compare your life with the lives of others. That voice that tells you that’s where you find your worth. Your worth is already secure, and it rests in Jesus’ hands. His yoke is easy.

[katie-dear]

Contrast

The contrast is this:

Imagine the first inhalation of the first human lungs. Purer than a newborn’s first fluid-filled gasp. When the imago Dei stood for the first time, and let the breath of God that gave him life escape his nostrils, how clean that breath must have been. The most fulfilling oxygen ever breathed, as God Himself enveloped each air sac. The wind that brushed his new-formed skin nothing short of invigorating. 

Imagine (or perhaps you don’t have to) stacks of chemicals and pollutants. Carcinogens and free radicals, masquerading as cumulus. We breathe in smoke for business and for pleasure to cough out cancer from our throats. Swallow back filth and choke out a stroke. Toiling endlessly at the expense of our world and our bodies in the hopes of advancing our world and our bodies. We wage wars spreading radiation for miles. Atomic bombs. Hiroshima babies peeling precious flesh straight from their bones. Industrious things we are. Industrious and insolent. “Preservation” our excuse. But pride and vanity the driving force. We play our own gods and then say there’s no such thing. Unholy ghosts fallen of smoke and mirrors. 

The contrast is this: 

Imagine “naked and unashamed”. What it must have been like for every inch of skin to feel the sun. The undefiled glances that passed between the world’s first two lovers, never having known the heat of a blush. No embarrassed downcast stare, no arms crossing over to hide the beauty of creation. No shame in God’s likeness. 

Imagine (but I know you don’t have to) a world where a young girl’s worth is measured with her waist and boys are told their manliness only extends as far as their “manhood” down a ruler, and oh, God-forbid you don’t put that six-inch ruler to shame. God-forbid you, girl, wrap more than 25 inches of measuring tape around your middle, and if the softness of your chest meant to nourish your babies doesn’t rival that of a porn star’s, cut open your chest and implant foreign objects “worthy” of the leering of every boy in school, of every man on the street. Add something else to the list of fake and unsubstantial objects of human lust. Yet another alteration of reality that could never satisfy for long. Our men quit being men because the world whispers they’ll never be “man” enough to earn respect or win a heart. Our women quit being women because we whisper they’ll never be lovely enough to love; never enough and always too much. Never enough and always too much. Be more. More than what you were created to be and more than humanly possible. So you will be worthy of love and respect. How do we survive this?

The contrast is this:

Imagine the astonishment. When humans were shiny and new and simply captivated by one another. How full of wonder their eyes, how timid and gentle their touch. When there was respect and humble appreciation for the human soul and body. The beauty of each color in creation must have pieced their heart with such adoration for their Creator. The uninhibited freedom felt together, climbing green hills and splashing through crystal water. Unaware that they could ever need protection. The elements were on their side. And God was in their midst. Pure and unadulterated love for all creation. 

Now imagine bruises. Black eyes. And self-inflicted wounds. Teary-eyed teenagers with razor blades and guns. The thought of tearing at your own skin as if you could pour all the bad in your head, all the bad in the world, out in your blood. Imagine a world where daddies don’t protect their daughters and tell their sons they’re worthless souls. Hold them by their necks against a wall. Insecure women who struggle to control their fates and their families and leave them breathless and mute, without an opinion, trailing behind. Precious girls whose priceless innocence is stolen, no price to be paid by it’s thief that could ever be enough to piece a fragile heart back together. A world where little boys grow up believing they’re “cooler” if their dad could beat up another dad, crush his ego, or pass him up by two, three rungs on the corporate ladder. Where girls search for the answers to “Am I beautiful? Do you value me?” and are met with manipulation and abuse, and the answer their soul is hearing is “No. No one could ever die for you.” And the boys too hear “No. No one could ever die for you. And you do not measure up.” We dropped that breathless sense of wonder for creation and broke it with the Fall. 

But baby girls and baby boys, with your tiny hands and feet.. Even as you grow your arms will never stretch wide enough to cover all the hurt in the world, and your fists will never be large enough to beat out all the sadness. But there is One whose bloody outstretched arms will one day bring kingdoms to their knees. He gave His life to give life back to you. "No one could die for you." But Someone already has. We were created among perfection, but we sold it for a lie. Now born into brokenness, but it was defeated with the cry

"It is finished." 

And there is a God who loves us despite ourselves.

This.

This is contrast.

[katie-dear]

Photo adventure with my dear friend Chase.

Texas will always be beautiful.

[katie-dear]

What's the Deal With the Prosperity Gospel?

   Popular these days among many in the Christian community is the wide-spread teaching of the “prosperity gospel.” This teaching insinuates (if not outright says) that God will bless us in tangible ways for our obedience to Him. It says that if we obey His word and just believe enough He will provide for us material things and physical health because He doesn’t want us to be sick, or poor, or to be a victim, or to have to struggle through life; a misleading interpretation of the will of God and the depth of the blessings He has for us. 

   I often hear phrases like “I’m ‘believing’ God for (insert desired miracle here)” and “I declare that the Holy Spirit will move in (insert name of some community here)” and “I have spoken (insert something positive here) over my life.” And I have to wonder how it is we have come to such a misunderstanding of God. I have no doubt in my mind that many people who say these things and believe that God only wants good things for us have the purest of intentions, but they have mixed up having faith in God’s will with claiming to know God’s will based on personal desires and a misunderstanding of Scripture. These “positive confessions” have no bearing on whether or not God does something in our lives. Does saying out-loud that we believe God will provide for us wealth obligate God to bring us wealth? Or health? Or ease from anxiety? Or even a sandwich? No. Not even a little bit. Why do we essentially command God to do things in our lives, instead of humbly asking? When we believe that we can have control over God and His will with our mouths or in any way, we’ve created Him as a concept. Since when do we know better what we need than Him? James 4:13-16 says “Look here, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.’ How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.’  Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.” If we aren’t even guaranteed a tomorrow, how can we claim that God is obligated to bless our future?

   I’m aware that the defense would be that we can ‘believe’ God for certain things in our lives because He’s laid out promises for us in the Bible that tell us we will have those things if we have faith in Him. But many of those verses are taken largely out of context. For instance, a popularly used verse to motivate Christians to give monetarily is Luke 6:38. “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” But that verse comes from a passage of scripture in which Jesus is telling us how to live in harmony with other people in accordance to God’s will. The verse directly before that one says “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” I’m not a Bible scholar, and I don’t claim to be. But I know that many things can be given besides money. Time, talent, kindness, etc. Could God not reward us in whatever way He chooses for our giving of whatever it is we gave? If the context doesn’t specify money, why do we use the verse to motivate people to give money only? And has everyone who has ever tithed or given money for a good cause been monetarily and materially compensated as a result and set for life? Have they been denied struggle? Not at all.

   God certainly does “cause everything to work together for the good of those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28) But is our definition of “good” the same as His definition of good? Does “our good” mean our earthly comfort? I’m not entirely convinced of that. In 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 Paul explains that he was given “a thorn in the flesh” : “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And then Paul boasted in His weaknesses. Took pride in them. Because they revealed the perfection of God’s power. I may have never experienced exactly what Paul did, but I have had a literal thorn in my physical flesh, and I can say it felt anything but prosperous.

   So does this mean I doubt God’s love for His children or doubt that He wants the best for them? Nope. But I believe sometimes the “best” comes to us through struggle. And it’s not always what we expect. We can’t possibly pretend that we know what’s best for us better than God does. He does delight in blessing us financially, physically, and materially. It’s not that He never works through those things. But I think a change in attitude is essential; an understanding that we aren’t owed these things. And we aren’t promised them. John the Baptist wore camel’s hair clothes and ate locusts, and after all of the humble work he did paving the way for Jesus, at the end of his life was beheaded. Paul wrote four books of the New Testament in prison. Jesus Himself lived a humble life as a carpenter. He experienced anxiety. He sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane. He was poor, victimized, persecuted, looked down on, spit on, treated like dirt, and hung naked on a cross. And guess what? We’re told to “take up our cross and follow Him.” (Matthew 16:24-26) Uh oh. That means we might get dirty too. All the sudden WE might have trouble. We might get spit on, kicked around, hated. We might be poor. But we have the spirit of the living God inside of us. So we are victorious in the spiritual realm. Regardless of the physical.

   God doesn’t owe us anything. Never has. He already gave the ultimate sacrifice for us by sending His son to save us from our sins and bridge the gap between us and Himself. Because He loves us even though we don’t deserve it. How can we point our grubby little fingers at a God like that and say “I deserve more���? How can we look at a God so big and unfathomable that He holds the universe in the palm of His hand and say we know exactly what He will do for us according to our own wants and desires? Maybe God is bigger than our idea of what’s best for us. He’s bigger than our “declarations” and “positive confessions.” The mind IS a powerful thing. The tongue is a powerful thing. The Bible even tells us so. Having a positive attitude is important for psychological health. And it’s important to think about and speak positive things. But it’s not a magic formula to get us what we want from God.

   God is infinitely bigger than what we can imagine. We know this. I have often wondered (curious about this idea that insinuated God owed me blessing) why, if I was serving and loving Him, did He not bless me in return? If this “prosperity gospel” was true why wasn’t I being blessed the way people said I would be? “I prayed, those people at church prayed and believed; They declared. Why, God, didn’t you make it happen?” But if we could look at time and our lives the way God does… If we could fathom His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience… I think we would see how unbelievably silly it is for us to expect God to come through for us in the ways we expect. Does God heal? Sure He does. Does God bless us? Absolutely. But we are not guaranteed a hassle free life, and we need always remember He doesn’t exist to fulfill our desires. We exist to fulfill His. He’s the Creator, we are the created.

   See, prosperity gospel presents God (however unintentionally) as a tool that we can use to stay afloat or get ahead. The true gospel presents US as tools for God to use. Unworthy (but loved), sinful (but covered by grace), willing vessels for Him to work through however He sees fit. We need to retire the attitude that says if we just believe hard enough, just serve long enough, that God will bless us with everything we desire. He may very well give us the desires of our heart.  But only so far as they align with HIS heart. God’s ways are higher than our ways. (Isaiah 55:8-9) I know, from personal experience, that what I desired sometimes turned out to be the worst thing that could happen to me. Let’s stop pretending that what we want is what God wants and begin to trust that whatever He has for us is truly the best. 

[katie-dear]

How You Heal

1. Revisit your old journals. Your old notebooks. Laugh at the notes you and your best friend passed in middle school. Smile at the way you thought the world would end when you were fifteen and experienced heartbreak, and how you couldn’t see beyond that day, but here you are, 1460 days later.

2. Look in the mirror. Try not to see yourself negatively. Begin to appreciate your eyes for how they help you see your world, not how dark and hollow-looking they become when you’ve lost sleep or you’ve been crying. And your legs for their sturdiness and how they hold you up and keep you walking, not how they touch at your thighs. Realize one day someone will probably see all the things you dislike about your body as beautiful, and even if no one else ever does, it doesn’t mean they aren’t.

3. Treat yourself to something. Frozen yogurt with extra chocolate chips this time. That outfit you passed in the window at the mall. Don’t let your treats become habits or they won’t be treats anymore.

4. Take up photography. Digital or analog. Learn some new Photoshop skills or dark room processing. Grab some friends and set out to take their photos. Have strangers take photos of you along the way. Talk to them until they’re no longer strangers. When they tell you they’ve lost their job or their daughter passed away last year or 20 years ago, pray for them. Take photos of them to remember. Hang their photos in your room and pray for them everytime you notice.

5. Plan a trip. Even if you don’t have the money right now. Pick a far away destination, a state away or an ocean away. Go to the bookstore and pick up every book on the place you can find. Learn it’s history, it’s culture, it’s tourist attractions. Promise to visit it before you turn 30. Keep the books stashed under your bed. They’ll gather dust, but your dream won’t. Keep your promise.

6. Keep a record of all the poems and Bible verses that have opened your eyes. Plan to name your first-born baby after your favorite poet: Auden. Plan to tell her about the Jesus that touched your heart.

7. Have a sleepover with your best friend. Reminisce on old plans and old crushes. Set new plans and wonder about future loves. Bake cookies. Spend the night watching Skins and New Girl on Netflix (for a balance of tears and laughs) and waste a whole pack of film on Polaroids of your unmade faces and bedhead and superhero PJs. Marvel at how beautiful you both look when you’re raw and not trying. When you’re just having fun.

8. Go to your favorite coffee shop alone with a notebook and a Bible or an old book to re-read. Sit in your favorite spot. Realize it’s still your favorite spot even though there are people in your past who will never sit there with you again. Order something besides coffee. Get the vegetarian sandwich even though you’ve always eaten meat. Observe the people. Find something positive to write down about every single one of them.

9. Make new friends who share your spark. You’ll know them by the way their eyes light up, speck by speck, when they speak. The charge that fuels their passion will make their hair stand on end. These are the people who change things. These are the people you get close to. Together you will color the world.

10. Change your style. Cut your hair (or let it grow.) Understand that regardless of what changes on the outside, you are still the same soul. Understand that you are a soul who owns a body. Not the other way around.

11. Remember that someone once told you you could go anywhere. That you could slam the front door with a backpack on and go wherever you pleased. Realize how true that is. But don’t do it. Not yet. There are people who still need you.

12. Hold a globe in both your hands. Trace its lines and memorize its words. Imagine that you love it so deeply you would die for it. Think that you’d probably never sacrifice for something so incapable of repaying you. Suddenly understand God. Set down the globe and feel small, but the good kind of small.The kind that fits in loving hands.

13. Begin to understand that not everyone feels as deeply as you do. Release them of the expectation that they should. Forgive them for the wounds they inflicted. They probably will never know just how deep they were. And they do not need to. Remember the famous words “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”

14. Cease to silently ask for love. Cease to expect it. Begin to just give it. It is more fulfilling anyway, and there is only One who can love you the way you want.

15. Swallow the lump in your throat that arises when you see young love, engagement announcements, and precious pudgy babies being born. You are still young. You still have time. There were people who un-loved you, but there will be people who won’t. You have a life better than anything you can imagine ahead of you.

You still have time. And this is how you heal.

— How You Heal, Katie Floyd

[katie-dear]

Grave

i. We were five; eyes were bright and cheeks were flushed; young life’s blood unable to contain

it’s excitement.

We ran through the graveyard because we couldn’t feel the death under our feet,

anymore than our mothers and fathers could feel our freedom.

There were butterflies on my fingers, sugarplums in his head, and monsters under her bed.

    ii. We were fifteen; eyes were always kohl-smeared and lips pouty; weighed down by “angst” and the want to be wanted.

We no longer ran through the graveyard because my mother said it’s disrespectful,

so we watched the frost settle over the headstones and felt our bare feet go numb, nerves and uncertainty tumbling around our baby-teen guts.

There were ink stains on my fingers, white noise in his head, and old toys stashed under her bed.

    iii. We are nineteen; eyes are blurry and hearts are sometimes too heavy for our rib-cages to carry without cracking.

We can’t go to the graveyard anymore,

because now we recognize the names and feel the weight of “unfair” pressing into the soles of our feet and the souls of our souls.

There is nothing but time slipping like water through my fingers, desperate prayers in his head, and a bottle of pills under her bed.

    iv. I want to stop the clock and rewind;

Put another hand between my fingers.

Whisper soft hope into his prayers.

Drown her pills while she’s asleep.

v. There is a light beyond the headstones in our heads,

the water in our eyes,

and the gravel in our voices.

We are not tainted.

Our blood still waits eagerly beneath our skin

for a life to

begin.