A professor, a priest, a Kratzer and a king.

I spent this morning sleeping off the weariness of last weekend. As I slept, I dreamed:

It was near midnight and I was driving home from work. Instead of turning on Main Street like I normally do, I drove through the stop and kept going. Nothing was wrong with the car; I was just too tired to press on the brake. Shaken, I decided I would just take 81 bypass home and go straight to bed. I whispered under my breath, “God help me get home in one piece.” Suddenly the 81 bypass merged into a one lane, one-way I had never seen before, and I was going the wrong direction. I was trying to pull over when I hit another car head on

Both cars where totaled. I was emotionally amping, but I could see the other driver getting out of the car. “Thank God he’s alright,” I thought at the same time I thought, “Sarah, this is all your fault. You are a pathetic excuse for a human being. You have screwed up royally this time…” And my with every beat heart was asking, “How will anyone ever forgive me for this?” Though my physical injuries were minimal the emotional trauma of the experience paralyzed me. I remain transfixed in my seat, unable to move to safety.

As the other driver approached my car I recognized him as Dr. Robert Wolcott, my advisor in college. I looked down, so ashamed.
This man had performed the marriage ceremony for my husband and me. If there was anybody’s approval I longed for, it was his. I respect him so much, and my stupidity had threatened his life and destroyed his car. When I looked back up I could see the recognition in his eyes, but more shocking were the tears. Not of anger, but of compassion. He looked straight into my eyes. While he was still too far off for me to hear I could see his mouth forming the words, “Sarah, it’s okay. I still love you,” and he ran to help me.

Then I woke up.

I sat paralyzed in bed, still connecting with the dream emotionally. A shudder ran through my spin as I wondered what the real-world Dr. Wolcott would do if the accident had actually happened. I became deeply convicted that he would have reacted exactly as I dreamed it.

Showing compassion. Offering mercy. Demonstrating love… in the face of all my brokenness…

Christ with skin on.

The dream hit me deeply on many levels:

(1) I felt warned, “ Life can suck life out of you if you don’t take the time to rest.” Burnout can come out of nowhere.

(2)I remembered how this social anxiety was keeping me from meaningful relationship with people I dearly love. [I live in the same community as the Wolcotts, but have not seen either of them since graduation. ]

(3) I felt the words, “Sarah, it’s okay. I still love you,” were the words of Christ to me. The dream was His way of illustrating His promise, “Sarah you will fail and I will forgive.” I felt His Spirit plea in me, “it’s okay. Please don’t reject yourself for the failure,” and I saw how in it all his main interest was that I would be secure in this forgiving love.

Recently I have been meditating on a quote from Henri Nouwen which I am sure planted an idea that gave to this birth dream,

I have come to realize now that the greatest trap of our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap however is self-rejection… Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

A renowned author, priest, and professor; Nouwen found himself while working among the disabled. Since beginning at Disability Supports I have begun to seek out his later works to provide a framework for describing the way serving is working on my heart.

My work with disabled women gives me a context to connect with Nouwen’s warning regarding self rejection, and has awakened in me a realization that I too must learn to see myself as the Beloved of God.

I believe that one of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is to truly accept who they are because the human heart was created with a longing to be loved. The disabled have a greater felt need for this love because they are often relationally marginalized in a world that is too busy to listen. Therefore creating an atmosphere of love and acceptance is a primary goal for anyone who longs to see the way the disabled are treated in their community change for the better.

But how can I extend true acceptance to someone else, if I cannot to myself? Can I really choose to see the value in the fact that someone else is created in the Image of God without extending the same mercy to me? In other words, can I value you for who you are, and value me for what I do?

No.

I tried.

It was hollow and fake.

I kept finding myself feeling subtly superior when in my mind I was doing a “good enough job,” or more often, feeling like trash because nothing I could ever do could make up for the ways that I have hurt others.

So desire to offer sincere acceptance became the catalyst for me to pray the desperate prayers of King David that God would:

-give me a way bringing the prayers of my heart to the surface of my mind throughout the day,

-teach me to walk the path of deliverance, and

-completely, finally transform the sick ways I think about myself.

Father,

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (psalm 51)

A first step. for this season, I am fasting make-up completely. The fast was not spurred by moral conviction. I have no religious vendetta against lipstick or mascara. Almost all my friends wear make-up and I see it as artistic--- another form of self-expression. But for me make-up has always been about covering up, and as I pray for God to teach me to accept His love, I want it to be for who I am underneath.

Right now I can see acutely how for me wearing make-up has always been rooted in a subtle rejection of my face-- my skin, lips, and eyes. As a young girl I learned through observation that women paint—foundation, lipstick, mascara--- over flaws to make them better. In my teens I began to mimic this cultural art, but felt unsuccessful. No matter how much attention and time I devoted to my face, I was never satisfied with my “made-up” appearance. I could still see the flaws in my bathroom. All this self-evaluation made me insecure in my own beauty—all I could see was how other girls were prettier. It made me envious because the richer girls had better products and clothes. If I had as much money as they do, I could be one of the beautiful people,” I thought… and my heart began to harden against the way God designed me, because “His dis-generosity made me feel ugly.”

Of course this is a totally skewed way of thinking. I recognize this, but

even as a twenty-four year old [happily] married woman I fall into its destructive grasp time and again.

It’s a daily battle to accept who I God made me to be. Not wearing make-up is a tangible beginning for me. But I dream of the day where I can look in the mirror and not feel “less beautiful.” I dream of the day where I look in the mirror and know that God began weaving his beautiful image into the fabric of my being the day I was born. I want to see my life through the lens of meta-narrative, I long for the vision to see myself as a single yet intergral thread in the tapestry of human redemption.

So my heart may believe every step in Christ’s redemption of my soul has been lovely,

every season of my life has been beautiful in its time.

I was a junior in high school when I left home. Two weeks after I started boarding school I attended a small group led by Shelli Kratzer. It was a season of lostness mingled with desperate hope. I wore long sleeves to cover my scars back then. Shelli read us a devotional about seeing ourselves as daughters made in the image of God. Then she past around a mirror and asked us to look at ourselves and say, “I am made in the image of God.”

I could not bring myself to utter those words that night… but now I know I was. I was lonely. I had dark secrets. I had gained 50 lbs trying to stuff the pain in me, but…

I was beautiful to God. Because of his goodness, His image shined through my brokenness.

and it does.

and it will.