Lovable? Yes, You Are

"She was loved not because she is lovable but because God is loving"  

Proverbs 23:7 states:  as a man (or woman) thinks in his/her heart, so is he/she.  So if you believe that you are "unlovable" then you will strive and perform and search for the approval of people, especially those in authority, to give you value.

When you believe you aren't lovable, you'll doubt yourself unless you have applause. 

When you believe you aren't lovable, you'll compare yourself to others

and complete for the position of "accepted and valuable"

the coveted prize handed down by the few who set the image standard

When you believe you aren't lovable you'll FEAR all the time

You'll worry you aren't good enough and be

anxious that they'll see your humanness so you'll craft images to hide it.

 And when you fail, you'll believe you're less than others.  

You won't know you're perfect just the way you are and loved because of 

who you are not because of what you do or how you appear (image).

Would a father tell his daughter she isn't lovable?  I can't imagine a good, whole hearted man who would ever tell his daughter she wasn't lovable.

As I read the words in quotes above, my heart twists and grieves for those who buy into such a philosophy. Not so long ago, I fell into that category, the one who doesn't know she is lovable.  The basis of this thinking? God is good but I am not.  God loves me because of who He is not because of who I am.  I am his creation but I'm not lovable...that makes no logical sense.

I'm not sure how this gets all twisted up in our hearts.  Maybe it comes from the idea that we humans are bad, born bad.  Not that we're born human but born bad.  That's not what Genesis says, it says God created and called what he had created good.  And further states that the human he breathed the breath of life into was very good.

Have you ever looked at a baby straight from the womb?  Have you ever just stared intently at the soft pink skin, the tiny fingers and toes and even smaller finger nails and marveled at the goodness of it?  Those tiny humans, they're good, very good.  They are magnificent creatures, born into a world that's all twisted up.  Babies know from whence they've come, that they are "born of love".  It's the adults who have forgotten.  We've forgotten that we are created in love, born in love and always and forever loved fully, completely accepted and valuable.

I've been on a journey back, back to the beginning, back to find my true Self, the one who is made from love, the one created in the image of God.  The image of man is empty.  The images we curate to help us make sense of our world, to keep us safe and in demand, you know the ones.  They're the Fear images.  They show up at gatherings of other humans all spit shined, ready to do all the things that garner approval and please all the other people while neglecting themselves.  They serve on committees and tell the jokes and cook the food and clean the things and keep the children in line and are never tired, seemingly and in need of nothing.  But that's not WHO we are because we've forgotten that we are not what we DO or WEAR or MAKE or HAVE.  Our identity is none of those things.  Our identity is Love.  We've simply forgotten.

But, what we believe in our heart about who we are will definitely play out in our every day.  Believing we're not good enough, not lovable will keep us striving and working, trying to earn instead of resting, abiding with God in the love from which we were created.

There is a shift happening.  The opening of the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf.  Jesus said, He who has ears to hear let him hear.  I don't think we're listening to the right voice.  I know I wasn't.  I had been conditioned since childhood to listen to the voice of a man outside of myself instead of the voice of God IN me.  I trusted the humans outside of myself to tell me what I needed to do and how I should be spending my time and money and living my one life instead of listening to the voice in me.  I was told so many half truths that it's taken a lot of years and some very intensive work in my heart/mind for me to really believe that I am loved and lovable.  The untangling and the opening of my heart to love is an amazing journey with God.

I felt compelled to share my thoughts here, not because I want to debate or try to convince you of anything.  That's not my place, not my calling.  Why? Well, because I'm not God.  I desire to tell a different story and I offer it here.  If it resonates with you, great.  Maybe you will begin to believe that you are lovable, fully and deeply loved as you are.  You don't have to earn anything, you can just BE without DOing a single thing and you are lovable right now.  You delight God to the point that He sings over you.  I'm not sure God would sing over his creation that he didn't consider lovable.

she believed in her heart that she was lovely and she was.

the love radiated from a heart, broken open and put back together again.

she was so filled up with love for herself and all of creation

 that it spilled out onto everyone she came into contact with.

fear and anxiety got out of the way because perfect love casts out fear

the love never ran out and never ran low and she blossomed and bloomed

into a sweet smelling garden of everything she was intended to be from the beginning

we need not compare or compete to be lovely

we need not show up as an image of perfect to be lovable

we need not fear showing our humanness

we need not wear ourselves out with the working

we ARE lovable

just as we are in this moment.

God is more than loving, God IS Love and we are created in HIS image.

1 John 4

Perfect? Not Even Close

Piano lessons - I had years of them.  I remember walking the six blocks after school to Mrs. Bennett's little brown house across the way from the little league field for my weekly piano lesson.  I tried to hide my plain brown zippered pouch as I waited for the girl who carried the beautiful blue and green clear plastic tote with the mod flowers to finish her lesson.  The piano seemed to play itself as she laid her fingers on the keys.

As I sat nervously waiting for my lesson to commence, the angst in my heart grew.  I knew I wasn't prepared for my lesson, I hadn't practiced very much the week before. For a little girl who desired to be perfect I didn't seem to grasp the "practice makes perfect" mantra preached by mother each week, at least not when it came to piano lessons.  The Dozen A Day book didn't get more than a dozen a week and Mrs. Bennett's scowl and red pencil dates strewn across the top of the page indicated the unpleasant task of repeating the previous weeks' assignments and my little heart registered "still not good enough".  Oh, how I desired to play beautiful music on the piano.  I just made too many mistakes.  I couldn't play perfectly the first time, it felt impossible to my 4th grade self and so I gave up trying.  I gave up piano.  It never seemed good enough and it was definitely never going to be perfect.

As I read The Nesting Place 40 years later, along with the author's tag line "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful", something began a shift in my thinking.  For the very first time, it seemed another woman was pulling for me.  She was suggesting a new way.  I didn't immediately love it, although I wanted to.  It wasn't familiar to me, it was a strange and different concept, other worldly even.  No other women that I knew had ever lived out to me that something less than perfect could be good and acceptable, let alone beautiful.  But that truth dumped buckets of refreshing cool water on every dry and thirsty place in my middle-aged, weary soul.

And so I pick up my writing practice again after long months of procrastination and attempt what I wrongly perceive others can accomplish effortlessly.  The good work of practice, continuing on, making mistakes, learning as I go.  What a lovely thing.  My heart still desires perfect, as it was made to by my Father, but the permission I give myself to try, knowing Jesus was perfect so I don't have to be, is a beautiful way to live.

Small = Insignificant {don't believe the lie}

I pulled up this little space on the internet to once again speak about what was in my heart, which I felt was important to speak, for myself and possibly for others.  My thoughts were related to being small, not despising the small, that God came small.  He comes to the poor in Spirit.  He comes to the outcast and always to the broken.

And then my eyes landed on this post written by a man I sometimes read but not always and my focus was turned, at least I thought my focus was turned.  It's all kind of related really, very subtly related.

After reading through My Wife's Plea to Christian Men I recognized a tendency that has developed in the church, the tendency to want to cut off the fruit without addressing the root.  Could there be something that has been forgotten or overlooked?  Maybe the forgotten, the small is really significant and not the other way around.  You see sin, no matter what it looks like, is a big deal and it is always an issue of the heart.

The Gospel is and always has been an issue of the heart.  Every sin we commit, is not simply a fruit that needs to be lopped off, it is an issue IN OUR HEART.  But here's one problem, we don't want to look into our hearts to see the depth of who we really are, to acknowledge the broken places that need attention and need healing.  We don't want to bring the small things of our heart, the secret things of the heart that seem insignificant, out into the light with our spouse or a trusted mentor BEFORE they manifest themselves into the BIG things.  

Two side comments on that last statement:

1.  There is no BIG sin, little sin...she's right when she states:

"This isn't a special sin, it is just sin:  

God-belittling, Christ-mocking, Spirit-despising sin"

That statement applies to ALL our sin...we've just forgotten or maybe we just don't want to remember or admit that our misuse of food or off-hand snarky comment to our friend or selfishness is really sin.  We don't want to pull out our anger issue, or discontentment because we have been deceived into believing that it so small what we really need to do is just cover it with a band-aid so no one can see it until it goes away.  We don't see our desperate need of rescue until our heart manifests itself in some more obvious way.  What we need is not a band-aid but radical surgery, even in regard to the seemingly smaller. less obvious issues in our hidden heart, and not just one time, EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!!

2.  Let's admit what is not happening consistently in the local church ~ there is very little heart to heart, painfully honest, sin confessing, burden bearing, on our knees grieving, side by side mentoring happening in the church at large.  I'm not saying it is NOT happening at all, it is.  It's happening small and secret and God is in those places accomplishing purposes for his kingdom that no one ever sees.  And that's how it has been from the beginning!!!  God came small, to a manger, to the poor and He showed his glory to a few, insignificant, dirty stinky shepherds!!  And He still works the same way!

There is HOPE and POWER in the Gospel.  It's found when we sit with our friends in the more obvious places of brokenness like adultery and porn addition and it's found when we sit with our 4-year old in the midst of her temper tantrum that only a few are aware of.  In both situations there is a HEART issue and the rescue needed in every situation we face, big or small, is provided by the HOPE and POWER of the Gospel through the Spirit of Truth that is alive within us.

If we aren't willing to look to the small issues, there will always be bigger issues eventually.  The infection of sin just sits there underneath the band-aid of secrecy and shame until it festers into something more obvious.  The ONLY way to stop the BIG (more obvious) manifestations of sin is to rip off the band-aid and start confessing your small, seemingly insignificant heart issues to God first, (obviously he already knows your heart anyway), and then to a REAL LIVE PERSON!!!  There is no other way.  We were created for community and relationship and it looks a lot different than just showing up at Bible study on Tuesday morning or Wednesday evening small group or even Thursday Men's prayer time.  If there's not more going on between the men and women in these times of gathering together than discussing the truth of scripture or praying for the needs of the people around you, then we're missing the boat, and we're missing it BIG!!  Keeping the little foxes hidden in the secret depths of our heart is only going to create more of what we see already happening in our easy access, at your fingertips, hidden in the palm of your hand, self gratifying culture of individualism and secrecy.  How WILL it stop?  Well, not by just stopping, that's for sure.  After the infection of sin has grown to the obvious, then sure, you need to stop but what else?  Where do you go from there?  What's the real remedy to the malady of sin and addiction? 

Simple answer? Look in your own heart.  Ask the Spirit to reveal your sin and then confess it, repent and believe the TRUTH about who you are and who God is!!  Live life every day with the understanding that what Tim Keller says is true:

"The gospel is this:  We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope."

And enter into relationship with a trusted human who is sinful just like you and sees their need of Jesus in the small, insignificant, less obvious manifestations of sin in their own life.  After listening to this interview with Tullian Tchividjian I'm tempted to think he might agree with this prescription!

The churning that started my thoughts in regard to what this post turned out to be look quite different than what I first envisioned.  The culmination of this post is birthed out of what is graciously being worked in my own heart that was prompted after interacting with some very special women over the past few weeks.  Women who sit in bedrooms on Sunday afternoon for 2 hours pouring out the small. gut level honest, hard truth about the struggles in her heart.  Women who come and eat and chat till past midnight about what is happening in her heart and life after working a 12 hour shift.  Women who admit that their lives are hard and chaotic and desperately lonely!  Women who love me in my mess and who send me text messages that read:

 "This was encouraging to me--'rather than resenting my weakness,
I believe Jesus is asking me to confess my weakness.  Being poor in spirit doesn't mean despising self but releasing self from the expectation of being anything but poor. Small. Helpless. Worn.'"  (emphasis mine)

 credit Simply Tuesday.  

This nurturing of life doesn't just happen in the lives of women around me, although it seems that women are more accustomed to this type of relating.  It's not impossible for men to move from their head to their heart and be honest with themselves and one another about what's really going on deep down where we forget to look.  But it takes intention, time and an understanding that this little thing is kind of a big thing, that confessing sin and bearing one another's burdens needs to begin with the seemingly small, insignificant sin in our heart.  Small does not equal insignificant.  Maybe seeing that the small is necessary and significant and beneficial and preventative is a beginning to understanding how we got here in the first place.

My heart grieves too over the brokenness I see, not only in the headlines and around me but within my own heart.  Let's preach the Gospel to ourselves over and over and live every day knowing that we are small, needy sinners in need of rescue by a BIG God.