Rally Cry for the Forgotten Girls of my Tribe (Part 2)

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

This is my manifesto to the forgotten girls of my tribe.  This is my call to arms--my rally cry to being alive--because someone somewhere along the line told us that life was a waiting game.  Wait on God. Wait on the right circumstance.  Wait on sex.  Wait on the right moment.  Get a Promise Ring and True Love Waits.  Someone handed us T-shirt slogans to live by instead of living water.  And while we may feel we've done everything right--trimmed up our lamps with extra oil and whatnot--we still feel like the foolish virgins locked out of the feast.

I think all the waiting is wrong.  Or, I think that it sent us all an unconscious message that we were never meant to read.  Wait on God, sure, absolutely.  But let's not just blanket apply that slogan without context--without individual circumstances--because it might reinforce the impression that God is one tardy fellow and that really isn't the impression you get from Jesus in the Bible.  He was always on the move.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post.

So, are we waiting for something God hasn't asked us to wait for?  It's an important question.  One I've almost been afraid to ask because I don't want to know how much time; how many opportunities I let slide by while I waited for an alarm--that had never even been set--to ring.  But I'm facing it now because I've been hemmed in on every side and I think Jesus wants me to deal with all of the psychological and emotional junk I've been hoarding.  Stuff He never asked me to keep--ideas that someone handed me that weren't good for me to learn--that I picked up while I was waiting.  For some time now it has felt like He shut the door on my life with us both inside and is asking me to examine each piece of garbage that I decided to store in my psyche.  He picks it up, hands it to me and we talk about it.  First (and once I acknowledge that He has handed me something) I tell him what I think about it.  He waits until I've exhausted myself talking about me and my problems and why I think things are the way they are and how I think things will be and what I think I would do if I could do anything about it and… After all that rambling and I finally shut my pie hole, He tells me what is true and then holds out His hand for me to hand the junk to Him whereupon He chucks it out the window of my soul with a resounding crash along with all the other discarded lies.

Here are a couple of the broken ideas that I picked up somewhere along the way and kept ahold of until they handicapped me.

1) No one will like you.  Assume it ahead of time so that you don't feel as disappointed and rejected when it happens.

This one was wide-reaching and almost completely crippling.  It applied to everyone.  Strangers, teachers, peers, guys--even family.  (But of course, they just love you because they have to.)   I assumed that no guy would like me ever (rendering me flabbergasted and awkward when some actually did).  I believed I was inconsequential and worse--unlovable.   Jesus has been showing me that this is worse that just utter bullshit. (He didn't exactly use that word, but I knew what He was getting at.) It's toxic poison that someone dumped in the well of my soul at some point.  A malicious lie.  The problem with something this dark is that no one can convince you that it isn't true.  But, boy oh boy, can anyone and everyone confirm it.

Jesus is the only one that can sift through the junk to save the valuables while throwing out the hoard of garbage.  Have you ever noticed that you can lose your valuables in a pile of junk and even if you happen to see them sitting amongst the misshapen curios of your tortured emotional menagerie; it is hard to see their worth?  Things that are worthy of a place of honour in your life; not crammed into a drawer with the odd bits of bobs of things you don't know what else to do with. I have valuables worth  worth clutching close, but you'd never know it sometimes.  Jewel-like truths that I was redeemed for love's sake at the highest price and He's got the scars to prove it.

2) God's will/pleasure is measured by the success or failure of the venture.

Unfortunately, this one was really ingrained and I had no idea how deep it ran.  But when Jesus tossed it to me, I kept trying to put pieces of it back on the shelf as though it was important.  How else am I going to measure if I am on the right track?  How else will I know if God is pleased with me? This stupid misunderstanding of God's personality and character really messes us all up.  It tells us (indirectly) that if we are struggling, we must be outside of God's will.  If we were in God's will, or had heard from Him properly--we wouldn't be in this mess--we wouldn't feel so lousy.   Maybe we'd be married.  Maybe our careers would be thriving.  Maybe those people we've always prayed for would change.  After all, we must be doing something wrong, right?  We know that God doesn't make mistakes and has said stuff about victory and joy like a fountain in our souls.  So…? Inevitably we come to the false conclusion that difficulty and struggle and worn out hopes must mean that it wasn't God's will, right?

Wrong.

Jesus just tossed that one out of the window and looked very satisfied when it shattered on the ground.   He gives a little knowing smile--because when He was doing the Father's will it involved a crucifixion. God's will for Him looked like a whole lot of death before resurrection day came; before the perishable rose up imperishable.  It is anathema to our modern Western worldview that God might send us in to slog away on (what is by all appearances) a hopeless cause. And maybe it will always look hopeless to human eyes on this southern side of Heaven. But do you trust the one who sent you?  Especially when it looks like He sent you to failure?

Neither does this one.

God can turn a corner on your life whenever He wants to.  But I think I have discovered that He usually wants to see something from you first.  For me, most recently, this involved me sending a couple of text messages.  More than that--it was swallowing my pride--it was an action to not be ruled by my fear of someone else making an incorrect assumption about me.  It wasn't like I awoke in the night with a strong impression from the Holy Spirit--it was something that I just sort of wanted to do but was afraid of what the consequences of it might be.  I did it, though.  And, the aftermath was intense--fierce--and maybe just a little bit horrible.  But when it was over, it was truly over.  And I knew it. I was free.  The pain and the thoughts that had shackled me were finally gone.

The coin toss of success or failure is a big issue for me because I am always on the look out for vindication.  For everyone to see how justified I was in making the choices that I have made.  Many of them have been rather unconventional for a fairly traditionally-minded kind of gal.  The problem with seeking vindication is that it is all about my pride. And, it seems to me that Jesus doesn't appreciate being crowded in my soul by my overinflated pride.  Too much me (artificial, projected, pseudo-me) and not enough Him, as it were.  But I still want human success because success on God's terms is impossible to measure at this point in the space-time continuum. I want to be proud of myself and I want others to be impressed.  This is the smallness of who I really am.

So Jesus has been patiently waiting while I whine and wail and cling to my pride in my personal success (or putting my hope in it and yearning for it).  I get the sense He's examining His fingernails while He's waiting.  And boy, He's been waiting a good long while. I am exhausted from all my temper tantrum-ing about wanting to keep it. But if I am truthful; my soul is starting to look like a much nicer place to hang out without all this extra junk.  So, I sigh and hand my saviour my pride in my own success and watch as He long bombs it out the window with gusto.

But what does all this personal house cleaning have to do with my fellow Amazon warriors?  Those tough broads and classy dames, who despite their best efforts don't fit snugly into Christian culture, those wild girls who are about to run free, who I am pleased to count myself among? Everything.  When I realized that Jesus wasn't going to let me out of my psychological/emotional/spiritual Hoarder's Paradise until we dealt with some of my junk; when I realized I was completely stuck and couldn't advance my cause in any direction--I began to see His fingerprints on everything.  So rather than rail against the Great I AM, I thought it was time to step up to the table and let Jesus sort through my stuff with me.

Now, I am not saying that all the single ladies out there are exactly like me and have the same hoarded crap in their psyche--but I am certain that there are a couple of touchstones.  Maybe you feel judged about sex from without and within.  The world says your choice is weird and a waste.  You occasionally wonder if they aren't right.  Christian Culture doesn't know what to do with you either.  You were supposed to go to Bridal School (sorry, *Bible School*) and pick up a husband when you were nineteen.  Now no one knows what to do with you.  Chances are, whatever you have done or not done, you feel kind of messed up about it.

Maybe you feel hurt.  Like God forgot about you or abandoned you. He wrote everyone else a story, but forgot to finish yours.  Or maybe you have moved even further down the isolating path.  You are disillusioned and a little bitter because you did your best to do everything He told you to, and Christian Culture told you to, but it has only seemed to handicap you while all those other girls who didn't live quite so particularly and did exactly what they wanted now have their kids and husbands and, gee, they just seem so fulfilled while none of their bad choices resulted in any discernible consequences.

So, what's the deal, God?

All of the above are crappy things to feel.  You certainly aren't alone in feeling them.  And why does it seem like Jesus is so silent on this thing--this major thing--when He is plenty noisy on other stuff?

I'm afraid, dear sisters, that we may be focusing our attention on the wrong thing.  I don't think it is a question of the availability of stand up Christian dudes. (There may have been a war.  They may require our aid.  But it isn't something Jesus is talking about so until then…we're really only wasting our own precious time.) It is time to ask ourselves.  What does Jesus want to talk about? What does He want you to hand Him so that He can throw it out of the window of your life forever.  There may be a whole bunch of things.  The fact that God isn't talking about the availability of potential husbands may be a sign that there is something more pressing He wants to discuss.  And, take it from me, He can wait you out.

I'm not saying that even if you let Him work through your emotional hoard with you that you won't still hope for the right relationship to come along.  You probably will.  But I'm willing to bet that the desire won't be a deflection--that it wouldn't be an effort to self-medicate with a relationship.  It would just be a nice thing, like going to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier again.   You don't have to, it won't ruin your life if you don't.  It would just be a nice way to spend the evening.

Because-- Chris Evans.