Wide awake and dreaming

I had your heart, I healed it, I filled it with hopes and dreams.  Then you took it back.

Because you were breaking it!

You’re breaking mine.

Do you love me Jacob?

I don’t know.

Do you love her?

A pause.  Yes.

Would you give her your heart?

Another pause.  Yes.

Then give it to me.

 

They will call on my name, and I will answer them.  I will say, “These are my people”, and they will say, “The Lord is our God.” – Zechariah 13:9

You have planted much, but harvested little.  You eat but are not satisfied.  You drink but are still thirsty.  You put on clothes but cannot keep warm.  Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! – Haggai 1:6

That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is still time.  Give me your hearts.  Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.  Don’t tear your clothes in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.”  – Joel 2:12-13a

Battling Normal (a series of thoughts)

Act normal.

Look normal.

Be normal.

What is normal?

Conforming to a set of generally accepted standards and ideals.

Am I normal?

I hope not.

What is a normal person supposed to look like, act like, talk like, be like?

Can I run away from the media?

I do not like their concept of normal.  I do not like the woman they wish me to be.

“By narrowing to the extreme at the ankle, they made curvy women look like upside down gourds. Hideous. Instead, opt for pants with a straight leg from the thighs to the feet or a slight flair at the bottom. This will actually balance your hips and make you look sexy and normal.”¹

sexy and normal != gourd?

Poor gourd.  Hurt feelings.

Sex sells, but it doesn’t have to.

Normal.  I am not normal.

Hideous.  Yes.  Hideous I am.

Unloved and unlovely.

Yes.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Look again.

Look beyond the world.

Look into the eyes of the mirror.

You do not define me.

You do not define me.

You do not define me.

You do not define me.

Beautiful.

Yes.

Beautiful.

If I told you I spent the first eighteen years of my life believing that I was unlovely and unlovable, what would you think, how would you respond?

Eighteen years is a long time.

What if it had been thirty?

Or forty?

What if I had lived my whole life believing it?

Conform to this image, to this ideal, and you will be beautiful.

No.

It is merely another mask.

There is no easy fix.  No quick solution.

How I wish there was.

Everyone deserves to know how precious and how beautiful they are.  Everyone deserves to be loved and to know that they are loved.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”  (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

“You make everything glorious… What does that make me?”  (Everything Glorious – David Crowder Band)

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¹Shine (emphasis mine)

Weird

When did my love life become so interesting?  Heck, when did I even get a love life?  I was never even asked out until I was eighteen.  That relationship lasted two years, ending just this past May (in reality, my half of it ended almost a year before that).  Now he wants me to make the promise that if he’ll do his best to change, I’ll give him a second chance come Christmas.  A compromise.  I don’t compromise issues of the heart.  I’m happier and healthier without him.  I started my job the last week of May, where I became friends with a co-worker who offered to set me up on a blind double date with one of his friends.  The friend is a wrestler and Texan, with all of the manners and charm one would expect.  To say that there is chemistry and a mutual interest would be to put it lightly.  A week and a half ago I received an e-mail from a young man with whom I have done some theatre work.  Out of the blue.  Or, as he put it, out of left field.  He wants to hang out and get to know me better.  And is rather determined.  He may well be interested in nothing more than friendship, but that’s not been the truth of my experience.

May I have my old “buddy and study help” status back please?

Can you spot the irony?

Americans go on diets while the third world countries starve.

More Americans are becoming obese.  More Ethiopians are starving to death.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Welcome to [True] Wifedom

As I was browsing DeviantART this morning, a photo caught my eye.  It was of a man in a tuxedo standing amongst the wreckage of a ruined home.  In his arms he carried the limp body of his new bride.  Intrigued, I visited the artist’s web page to find out more about the piece.  There I discovered the title of the piece and a journal entry by the same title, Welcome to Wifedom, explaining the meaning conveyed in the photograph.  It is an interesting read from the “negative” side of marriage.  Yet it made me sad to read it.  The piece was well researched and well thought out, yet I am sure that the artist has never experienced marriage for themselves.  However, I could be very wrong.  I myself have never experienced marriage, yet I have a very different view on the subject, at the same time understanding their point of view. 

“The loss of her identity by taking on the mans last name. The ring on her finger, indicating that she is the property of the man, everything that she owns from this day forth belongs to him and she no longer has much of a say as to what she does with her life…  I wanted to pose this idea of marriage being the downfall of life, where everything just seems to go wrong for a relationship, leading all surroundings to fall apart…  This is where I pose the fact that the bride is naive and innocent, a victim maybe, she was unaware of what she really was getting herself into…  The wonderful life of wifedom doesn’t stop here, with the woman as the bride, what comes next? The housewife, the nag, the mother, the working woman, the old bag, the mid life crisis, the sexually unsatisfied wife, the cheating husband, the other woman. A whole wonderful world of complex relationships to explore.”

-Welcome to Wifedom

  Unfortunately, the picture painted here is all too frequently found in real-life marriages.  Just take a look at any of the married couples in your life, and I’m sure you can find one or more that fits at least a part of this description.  It is a reality.  And a sorrowful one at that.  I am convinced that this was not how God intended marriage.  I believe He meant it to be a partnership founded on love between man and woman.  I believe He meant it to be an earthly reflection of our relationship with Himself.  I believe that marriage was never meant to conceal a woman’s identity, but to allow the identity of both man and woman to combine and flourish in and through the identity of the other.  I believe that they were meant to compliment each other, to be one body, to love and care for each other as members of the same body.  I believe that marriage was meant to be the pinnacle of life, not the downfall. 

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:18

help·er /ˈhɛlpər/ [hel-per]

–noun

1. a person or thing that helps or gives assistance, support, etc.

2. an extra locomotive attached to a train at the front, middle, or rear, esp. to provide extra power for climbing a steep grade.

Woman was meant to be a helper to man.  She was meant to provide support for her husband.  Perhaps the train definition is less flattering, but I think that it accurately describes her role.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Colossians 3:19

At the same time, husbands are to love their wives. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

If husbands love their wives by the aforementioned definition of love, the wives will be just as supported and loved as ever the husband was.   

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5:25-33

Oh, that marriage could follow this passage!  Then women would have no cause to complain about the state of marriage.  Marriage would be seen as a wonderful and mysterious estate to be attained.

As for the the statement that “the bride is naive and innocent, a victim maybe, she was unaware of what she really was getting herself into”, I have this to say.  Does anyone truly know what they are getting themselves into when they decided to wed?  I think not.  As Martin Luther once commented, if we knew what lay in store for us, we probably would not get married.  Yet he also said that marriage is a glimpse of what the lost Eden must have been like. 

Sing a new song

He did what I couldn’t do
Went to the cross so I could be forgiven.
He spent three days in the grave,
To make my life worth living.
And the wonder of salvation is
I could never be good enough.
He did what I couldn’t do.

- He Did What I Couldn’t Do- NewSong

It used to be that the words “He did what I couldn’t do” were the ones that “got” me in this song. They still get me, but now there’s more. To make my life worth living. My life. Mine. Worth living. Cause there’s some days when I wonder if life is really worth it, I wonder why I’m here. But He’s been showing me two things, the first being that life is worth it, and the second being that my purpose in life is to worship. Life is worth it because He created it, died for it, and redeemed it for Himself. For it, He deserves all my love and praise. All my worship. It’s what we were created to do. I wasn’t created to be a music teacher or computer programmer or what have you. I was created to worship. To worship through the tasks of everyday life, whether those be found in chords and choruses or code and software. Life has a path. The path of worship. Life has a destination. God.

Think On It …

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

- Colossians 3:1-17 The Message