It’s a dumb compulsion, but nice-girls are actually appalled by their own mean thoughts. They seem so counter our lot in life-- the epitome of insincerity.
It’s not surprising that the thing I hate most about me is the inner monster which my smile masks.
- A girl who wants so badly to be loved that she won’t love and risk not being loved in return [because rejection feels like death. ]
- A girl who holds all her pain like treasure… and struggles to forgive.
- A girl who shakes her fist at a God who offers her real love.
But this quest for authenticity is teaching that--- when blindly playing the roles in which society has cast them all humans are monsters.
Just about everybody is frantically running around trying by sheer force of effort to slim down enough to squeeze ourselves into our part in the drama. It doesn’t work well. We feel as though we have become awful parodies of the glory that our spirits were intend to reflect. We are broken and we turn to smaller gods to find relief the pangs of smallness.
And we find ourselves more monstrous than ever
In his book Addiction and Grace Gerald May the universality of this cycle,
I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being. The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things. We are all addicts in every sense of the word. Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies. They enslave us with chains that are of our own making and yet that, paradoxically, are virtually beyond our control. Addiction also makes idolators of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another" (pp. 3-4)..”Every human being on this planet was created to reflect the Divine Image. He is a Big God-- social roles don’t fit us well. They’re just too small. Our lives are meant to expansive and radiant through the power of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence.
The reason for failing to fit your own societal-definition is that you are more than you know:
- Loved more than you know
- Created for more than you know
- Desired more than you know
Story is helping me wrap my heart around Grace. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader C.S. Lewis explores the pain involved in allowing God to restore us to the people we were intended to be, through his character Eustace Scrub.
Because of an enchanted bracelet Eustace was trapped in the body of a dragon for several weeks; then one morning he returns to the camp as a boy again. In confidence Eustace shares the details of his unbelievable restoration with his cousin Edmund,
I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it.”
“You mean it spoke?”
“I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.
“I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.
“I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
“Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.
“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them. After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me –“
“Dressed you. With his paws?”
“Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”
“No. It wasn't a dream,” said Edmund.
“Why not?”
“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been - well, un-dragoned, for another.”
“What do you think it was, then?” asked Eustace.
“I think you've seen Aslan,” said Edmund.The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – Chapter 7
I see myself in Eustace. To be restored I too need to be un-dragoned, undressed and washed in pools of living water. I see it happening slowly…
Tear by tear God is restoring me to find my value as his daughter.
Boy, for a minute, I felt like you were talking about ME. I've still got "nice girl" issues too but just today I have seen how different I am from only a year ago. Now, I like Rose, I like her a whole lot. I want you to like Sarah just as much because she's worth every bit of what God thinks of her.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I LOVE allegories about God. As I read them, I always end up laughing out loud at the sheer delight of Him.