Don't Listen, Then Listen

 I listen too much to what other people say about me and expect from me. 

I've been told so many times that I'm not a baker or that I'm not crafty or that I can't cook. I remember being told that I'm not athletic. Or that I'm messy and disorganized. I heard it, absorbed it, and believed it. I have said those things about myself many times. I even named one of my Pinterest boards, "Yummy Food I Will Never Cook". 

The truth of the matter is that I'm not as good a baker as many people are. There are people I know who are craftier than I am. I don't have high levels of body awareness and athleticism. Etc, etc.

But...

I have discovered that by eschewing those judgments I can achieve things I never dreamed. 

In the past few months I have:

1. learned to bake bread 

2. baked cookies and made pies

3. decorated entire areas beautifully and to other people's delight

4.  allowed myself to try new things

5. created art 

6. organized a huge work area that makes life easier for my co-workers

7. found exercise to be fun

8. made lots of Christmas bows

9. designed and made more than a dozen centerpieces for the holidays

10. begun to learn to not listen to negative voices, whether those voices are in my own head, or in the form of jokes and put downs. 

I don't have to put disclaimers on myself. I don't have to tell anyone. I can just do the things I love and try things I've never tried. Without shame. Without fear of failure. Without worry. I have learned to ask myself, "What do I want?" It is exhilarating and exciting and freeing. Chris has been trying to tell me this for two decades. I'm slow, but I'm catching on.

I'm learning new languages. Trying new recipes. Baking cookies. Painting. Running. Trying new things. It took being very alone for a long time to finally wake up and look around. I truly don't need anything from anybody. I have everything I need in Christ. I have approval (there's no shame here). I have delight (no disappointed looks or put downs). I have the smile of Creator God (why not try something new?). I have his constant presence (I am not rejected.) I have forgiveness and freedom in every area of my life. What have I to fear?

"Don't fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine." Isaiah 43:1

Do I mess up the bread or burn the cookies or misplace the photo backdrop? Yes. When those things happen are they confirmation of all the things said about me? No. Those things cannot touch me. Not the real me. The loved me. I am still broken, screwed up, sinful. But I am so loved. So very, very loved. He has called me by name. By. My. Name. I am his. And his voice is louder and truer and closer and more real than the  others. What have I to fear?

A Snapshot of My Evening

Tonight is the night before Ty's wedding. We spent most of the day at the Bartz's house, putting up the tent, setting out the candles, getting ready. We stayed over for supper of Election Lunch. 

Now we are home. Chris and I prepped thirty potatoes to bake tomorrow. Chris ironed dress shirts for Ty and Zac while I prepped all the brunch food for the wedding morning. Now we are sitting in the living room. Chris leaning on the white couch. John sitting on the white couch. Ty in one wing back, me in the other. Zac and Gracie are on the orange couch and we're watching the SEC Championship game (Alabama vs Florida). Well, we're actually chatting while keeping up with the game. Every time someone says something funny, Brody laughs from his room where he's playing video games and "participating" with us. Zac says it's like a having a laugh track. 

It's a sweet night. Only missing Mags and Scott. 

Tomorrow The Boy gets married. What a sweetness.

A Day in the Shady Sunshine with My Friend

Today started as a bad day. A hard day. A day that tears kept leaking out against the will. Today started as a sad day. But today, this afternoon, I sat in the shade of lovely trees and the scent of flowers and held the hand of a gentle and kind elderly woman who misses her family and was also having a hard day. Today, we walked outside, sat in metal chairs (me with a cushion, blue, and her without a cushion at all) underneath an oak tree and held hands. It was perfectly silent. Perfectly peaceful. We looked at the clouds, with my friend pointing occasionally to a particularly fluffy one and we smiled at each other when the wind would pick up and cool us off. Today started as a bad day, but today ended on a peaceful, hushed note of perfect soul communion and I was reminded of my Savior looking down at me and smiling because I am His and He is mine. 

Faithlessness and Faithfulness

I've been thinking a lot during this quarantine about faithfulness...

What faithfulness means and what it looks like. The faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of friends.

I think faithfulness and loyalty often get muddled up together. Someone can be disloyal with a single action or careless word, but it takes time to determine if they are no longer faithful. (I'm referring to friendship and not marriage - I can be disloyal to Chris without being unfaithful.) We all have broken, fallen moments of unkindness, of turning away from someone's pain for whatever reason, of saying something thoughtlessly. But those moments do not have to define the relationship. Not necessarily. The true test is if you ever go back, ever re-enter into the mess, whether it's of your own making or not.

Some of the synonyms for faithful are: dependable, devoted, loving, constant, resolute, steadfast, true...

The faithfulness of God is mixed up with loyalty as well. But God is never going to be loyal to me. He is loyal to himself and his own glory. It's the only thing in the universe worth being loyal to. BUT he is always, always, always faithful to me. He will always love me and resolutely, steadfastly lead me onto a path that leads me to himself.

What this looks like most of the time is that my heart gets broken, my knuckles get bruised, my faith gets shaken... because I think I know what is going to happen and then it doesn't. Or I think I'm trusting God, but then he takes something away that feels vital and I don't know what to do. I recognize his disloyalty to my desires and it's so confusing. Until I realize that his disloyalty IS his faithfulness.

Confusing, right?

I still don't understand why people I love and respect are the ones to break my heart. Maybe it's their sin, or just their weakness. Maybe they weren't intentionally trying to be evil. But God uses evil for my good and his glory. So what have I to fear, really? As God wounds, he also heals.

More than ever before I do not understand the Father. I don't understand his path or his means. I don't understand why it hurts SO MUCH, but I suspect I was trusting in the wrong thing all along. I also don't understand where my own fault may lie. Evil whispers in my ear through the harsh words of others, and sometimes by their silence and averted eyes, that I am useless and I've brought it on myself. But the words of Scripture, and faithful friends, and a wise therapist say otherwise. Christ bore the brunt. Their reproaches have fallen on Christ (PS 69:9). There is no condemnation for me (Rom 8:1). When others, people, friends, treat me faithlessly He will never forsake me (Heb 13:5). Others will fail me, my own strength will betray me, but I have a faithful High Priest who never cease advocating for me (Heb 2:17).

One thing I do understand as never before: my weakness. My faithlessness and unbelief. My fear. I am afflicted. I am perplexed. I am struck down. But I am not, and will never be, crushed, despairing, forsaken, or destroyed (2 Cor 4:8). I have never felt more unsure of myself, except maybe when I was about eleven and my whole world had fallen apart. I don't know how to talk. What to say. What to do. How to relate. How to return to a normal that no longer exists.

But one thing I do know: Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2-3).

He took my sins and pride and unbelief and failings on himself on the cross. And there, my sins died with him (Rom 6:11). I am no longer identified by them. I have a new spiritual DNA. No matter the condemnation and accusations thrown at me, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). It doesn't matter who tells me otherwise, Paul says "whether angel from heaven", they're wrong. 

The Father is steadfast in the midst of the storm. He is my hiding place (Ps 32:7). My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Ps 73:26). And even though I am faithless, to him and to others, He is always faithful.

"if we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself." 2 Timothy 2:13 - that's beautiful.

It is because of this that "we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed" (Heb 10:39). Immediately following that verse is a chapter on faith, more specifically, the faith of our forefathers. It is because of God's great love, loving-kindness, faithfulness, that we are not afraid or destroyed or put down. We see only his kind face, only his approval, only his delight in us (Zeph 3:17). No matter what is happening around us or to us.

In the end, my prayer is that I can more quickly distinguish between God's faithfulness and loyalty. And that I will accept whatever comes from his hand. And that I will forgive others faithlessness to me as He forgives my faithlessness to him. I pray that my heart will be tender for the right reasons and not for selfish ones. I am so glad he never gives up on me and that he pursues me relentlessly. What a mercy.