Imperfection...??

You're worth so much, it'll never be enough to see what you have to give, how beautiful you are, yet seem so far from everything you're wanting to be. Tears falling down again, tears falling down. You mean so much that heaven would touch the face of humankind for you. How special you are, revel in your day. You're fearfully and wonderfully made. You're wonderfully made. Tears falling down again, come let the healing begin. You're worth so much, so easily crushed, wanna be like everyone else, no one escapes. Every breath we take, dealing with our own skeletons. You fall to your knees, you beg, you plead, "Can I be somebody else for all the times I hate myself?" Your failures devour your heart in every hour, you're drowning in your imperfection. Won't you believe all the things I see in you? You're not the only one drowning in imperfection.
--Skillet, "Imperfection"

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."--Psalm 139:14

Well, I know it full now...

Most of my life, I had a hard time believing that I was worth anything. I've been over the story before, so I'm sure you know my situation, you know what the environment was, and you know what I dealt with... and it got me good. In fact, I'll spare you the story for now, but it almost got me dead. But ya know what... it didn't have to. I didn't ever have to believe, even for a minute, that I was worthless if I'd have only remembered what God had to say about it... well, the gears in my head are grinding again...

I think we've all been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. There has to have been at least one point in all of our lives when we believed that we were imperfect, inadequate, useless, lesser, etc. We all have insecurities... we all have weaknesses... and such things are a huge neon target to the devil. Don't even try to tell me you never had any... if you didn't, then you're not human. That's just human nature. That's that sin nature that we're supposed to have let go of when we declared Jesus as our Lord and Savior and let Him take away when we gave our lives over to Him.

I can't help getting a little on the cheeze-bucket side with this line, but hey, it's the truth... God made you the way you are for a reason. He made you with a purpose in mind, and he built you especially to carry out that purpose that only you can... you were custom-made to fulfill the calling He specially placed on you, only you, and no one else in the universe... sitting around hating what and who you are and wanting to be someone else is nothing less than you rejecting the perfect plan and will God set in motion for you from the very first moment of your life... it's no less than accusing God of not knowing what He's doing... so where do we humans get off thinking we know better than Him?

Ya know what, here... let me make an example of myself. Somehow, I have a feeling this is gonna make certain people feel a lot better. I'm gonna tell on one of my issues... I can't talk straight. Regardless of the fact that I speak 3 languages, I have huge issues with speaking. I mispronounce everything in some of the stupidest ways. If you see me in person on any sort of regular basis, you know how I sound. I have a tuba for vocal cords, and my tongue is just tied in so many knots... and I have a tendency to be deathly embarassed of how I sound when I speak. Half the time, when my mouth opens to say something... especially when I know it's important for me to speak coherently... my nerves take over, and the unfortunate recipient of my blabberings ends up giving me a look that makes me wonder if they even realize I'm speaking English. You have no idea how many times I think about taking a Sharpie and writing across my forehead, "I can't talk straight, but you know what I mean," since I end up having to say it so much. The problem is not with my words... as you can see by my extensively written blogs, I have no problem getting words from my brain to you when they're channeled through my hands typing on the keyboard... but when that channel is my mouth, enormous vocal cords, and twisted tongue, whether or not you're gonna hear the intended sentence is anybody's guess.

One quite embarassing example of what my speech-o-phobia gets me into just happened a couple of days ago. I called a friend of mine from the break room at work to ask her a question. I called her on her cell phone. Unfortunately, there was another employee in the break room at the time... there was no other place for me to go, as there were too many ears everywhere else, so I didn't have a choice but to stay there, and try to be as cryptic as I could with the question so as not to blab my business to this other employee. Well, when she answered the phone, I tried... I really wasn't sure how to word it so that this other employee wouldn't know what I was talking about, but my friend would... and as I'm sure you might guess, by my previous description of my speech when it counts, the only thing that came out was a handful of choppy, misplaced syllables with too many spaces in between. Wanna know what my friend said to me? This was so embarassing... she said, "Ya know what, I think my cell phone is cutting out, wait a second... I'm only hearing part of what you're saying... maybe you should call me on my land line so I can hear you better." I know what it sounds like when someone's cell phone is cutting out on the other end of the line, and that's not what I heard... and I had full signal... neither call was cutting out... it was my tongue that was cutting out. I spoke so badly that I actually made her think her call was dropping. That was so completely embarrassing that I could feel my face flushing, then turning red... there was NO way I was about to tell her that it wasn't a loss of signal, but rather a loss of my cohesiveness... so I simply said, "Oh, OK... I'll call you back in a second." As I hung up and dialed her home phone number, I had to sit there and take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves before trying to speak again. How would you like to have that happen to you on a regular basis?

I always hated that about myself. I couldn't stand it that I had to stop and take a few minutes to plan out my words as if I was writing a script in my head every time I needed to speak... and the harder I tried, the harder it was. I wished so much that I could just open my mouth and have such coherent, eloquent words come out like so many of the people I know. It was one of those things that made me feel less than everyone else. I know it, and you know it, that's all the devil needs to hear... that you feel like you're not as good as someone else. That's when he's gonna start whispering in your ear that you really aren't... that you're not worth as much... that you're no good for anything... that you're a loser. That's a gate you don't wanna open because it leads down a slippery slope into destruction. I was always finding myself nit-picking me, comparing the mistakes of my weak points to the accomplishments of others who were strong in those points... and I was finding myself wondering, "Why can't I be like that? Am I supposed to, but I'm just not good enough to? I must not be good enough to. I wish I could be like that... sif." Once again, I was drowning in my imperfections, trying to base my worth on what I'm not... forgetting to consult God about it... so He consulted me...

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You really gotta knock that off.

W... whah?

Looking down on yourself. You need to knock that off.

(barely realizing I'd been doing it... kinda letting that one sink a little) You're right, I should... but it's just... I just... I dunno... (getting lost for words)

You are the way you are for a reason. I made you good at what you're good at for a reason. I have a plan and a purpose for your life, and I made you the way you are so you can fulfill it. Just because you don't have the same strengths as others doesn't mean you're worth any less than they are. They have strengths according to their calling, you have strengths according to yours. To wish you were like someone else is to deny who I made you to be. To wish you were something different is to deny My perfect will for your life. You are not worthless. You are worth My life that I sacrificed for you... so when you believe you're worthless, you're calling My sacrifice for you worthless.

(that just hit me like a concrete slab) Wow. I never thought about it that way before. I would NEVER call You worthless. You're beyond everything to me. You own me. I don't ever even want to exist without You. It hurts to think that I might've done something that would even imply something like that.

Don't forget that My Spirit is in you... your worth comes from My Spirit in you... when you call yourself worthless, you call Me worthless.

(my heart is sinking into my feet...) That's... oh wow... I am SO sorry. I'm so sorry I ever let that thought into my head. I can't even explain how sorry I am. I didn't mean to hurt You. I'm so sorry. Please, Father, please forgive me for letting myself go there. Please help me never to go there again. Don't ever let me do that again. I know You know my heart. You know my heart is to listen to You and never do that again... if I ever start to slip, please stop me.

I forgive you. It's OK. Don't worry about it, but put it behind you, and don't look back. Learn from it, and we'll move on.

I'll do everything I can to never look back. I promise.
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So we have a few flaws... so what? Who doesn't? Though we may not all be the same, we're all alike. We're all humans living in human bodies that are not perfect. We all have problems. But when you hand them over to Him, and give Him control of it, you just watch what happens. My speech? He's working on me to let go of it, stop trying to make it better myself, and let Him handle what gets said... when I find myself having to speak His words, it seriously surprises me how clearly, perfectly, and intelligibly I can say them. Kinda like Moses... "experts" theorize that he may have had a speech impediment... or he might have just been like me... but God used him to confront and talk down the Pharoah, and through Moses' words, God took down the most powerful country on the planet at the time and freed the Hebrew slaves. He used Moses despite his weakness. He's used me and my words despite my weakness. He can use you in your weaknesses as well as in your strengths. You are priceless to Him... precious enough to die for.

What right do we have to deny any of that? What right do we have to say that's not good enough? What right do we have to hate ourselves for what we are and to wish we're something we're not? Just to be with us, He did everything. There's no price He didn't pay. Just to be with us, He gave everything. He gave His life away. He died for us. He conquered death and rose from the grave just so He could be with us. We are worth the very life of the only Holy, Almighty God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe... just as we are...

Still wanna be someone else?

For the Moments I Feel Faint

Am I at the point of no improvement? What of the death I still dwell in? I try to excel, but I feel no movement. Can I be free of this unreleasable sin? I throw up my hands, "Oh, the impossibilities!!" Frustrated and tired, where do I go from here? Now I'm searching for the confidence I've lost so willingly. Overcoming these obstacles is overcoming my fear. I think I can't, I think I can't, But I think You can, I think You can gather my insufficiencies and place them in Your hands. Never underestimate my Jesus. You're telling me that there's no hope, I'm telling you you're wrong. Never underestimate my Jesus. When the world around you crumbles, He will be strong. He will be strong. You will be strong. --Relient K, "For the Moments I Feel Faint"

There seems to be two running themes to my current situation: trust and wait. Those, apparently, are the two roughest things for me because they've been the two things that, when I had to do them in the past, have gotten me the most hurt, the most pain, the most heartbreak, and the most disaster. But the past was without God. This current situation now requires me to do both... but this time, with God. Trusting Him, and waiting on Him. I'm doing my best, I really am. Though I admit I've messed up a few times along the way, He reminds me that He doesn't expect us to never make a mistake, but rather to learn from the mistakes that are made and move on.

I also have to admit that it's been a rather frustrating process. I'm only human, and I've had my moments of thinking that this problem is just too big, that just too much has gone wrong, and that there's no possible way I see that it can ever be repaired. But... it was in one of those moments that He told me some things that really made me look at the situation in a whole new light. It's just remembering to keep looking at it in that light that's gonna take some work.

And apparently there's someone out there... you know who you are... who needs to hear it, too. There's someone who's gonna read this that has a rough situation going on that God is using to teach the same things as He's teaching me with my situation. What He said to me applies to this someone's situation, too. He wants someone to be looking at their situation in this same new light.

So, to this someone who knows exactly who they are, here's what was said... may it shine the same new light on your own situation... and may we both always remember that when He said this, He meant it, so may we never look at our situations in the light of our past ever again, but rather in the light of the promises He gave us of our future...

(You can click those Scripture references. I made them links cuz it's easier that way... read them cuz they're a BIG part of what's being said...)
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Matthew 14:22-33... this is Jesus showing them, "I'm bigger than this storm, and I'm on your side, so trust Me." Looking around at the situation is only going to overwhelm you. The situation looks awful, it looks hopeless, it looks like there's no way out, and it looks like you're going to sink and drown... it may look like it's destroyed beyond repair, and it may look like it's never going to be fixed... but since when have I ever cared about appearances? I'm bigger than this storm, and I'm on your side, so stop looking around and trust Me. Ecclesiastes 3:11... Remember that expression you heard that you like so much, "Soon come?" That means that it'll happen soon, so don't worry. Remember what you heard because it's true. If waiting is hard for you, then you're going to have to wait, otherwise how will you ever learn to do it? 1 Timothy 6:11... James 1:3-4... Wait on Me, and I will come through for you. In the past, what happened in your life taught you that things either happen now, or they don't happen at all. But that's not what I say. Your past taught you that if something didn't happen immediately, if you were made to wait, then there must be some problem with you. I never said that. Your past taught you that waiting meant you wouldn't get what I promised you until you "shaped up," or that you were sinning, or not listening, or doing things wrong. That's a lie. Those are all lies. Waiting has nothing to do with you. Waiting means the perfect time hasn't come yet. Waiting means the situation isn't just right yet. Waiting means I'm building your strength up so you'll be strong enough to handle it when it gets here. Waiting is not about punishment. Your past may have taught you that it is, but I'm telling you it's not. A fighter can't step into a boxing ring without having taken the proper time for training and conditioning... neither can you step into what's coming next without letting Me take the proper time for training and conditioning you. Right now, waiting only means that I want you in top form, in the best shape, while I set the situation right so that everything and everyone will be ready to move on to the next step. Like the fighter, if you step into the ring untrained and not ready, you will fail, with dire consequences. So wait on Me while I make you and the situation ready so that there will be victory.