If I Were a Hobbitt...

I’ve been pondering Hobbits this morning.  More specifically, I’ve been pondering Frodo.  

Frodo Baggins: ring bearer and heralded hero of Middle Earth.  For all intents and purposes, a great guy… er, Hobbit.  Yet I find myself not all that fond of said great Hobbit.  I don’t like his whininess.  Irritating!  And his “poor little me, I have such a great burden to carry” victim mentality.  I just find myself wanting to say, “Suck it up, Hobbit boy!”  Why can’t he be more like Samwise Gamgee?  Sam:  loyal friend; one who makes moving inspirational speeches; he who does not whine along the journey.  In my opinion, Sam is the true hero of Middle Earth.  If I were a Hobbit, I’d so be Samwise Gamgee.

Were I to be honest, however, I’d have to admit that I do, in fact, have Frodo-like tendencies.  While I’d like to think that after nearly forty years on earth, I’ve mastered the ability to speak in languages other than whine, I can still throw the grandest of adult-style temper tantrums.  When things aren’t too my liking, the spirit of whine can certainly manifest itself in my words and actions whether or not it’s nerve cutting edge is in my voice.  Complaints come forth from my lips, albeit “maturely” dressed up in the robes of “venting” or “stating the facts.”  I can still play the victim with the best of them, although I will often adopt the more grown-up version and become the martyr instead.  Horrors!  I AM Frodo!  And I hate that.  Especially when others applaud some valiancy on my part.  Sure, I enjoy accolades as much as the next guy, but what a fraud I am!  I mean, really!  People telling me, “Well done!  Good job!  Way to go!”  When they have absolutely no idea that, time and again along the way, I blew it.  I whined.  I simultaneously griped about the burden I bore while refusing help offered to bear it.  If they only knew.

But then I notice God himself is at the helm of the cheerleading!  One would think that would cause one to glow with pride.  But I want to yell, “No, God!  Don’t you see?!  I’m so NOT Samwise Gamgee!  I’m Frodo!”  And I feel guilty.  Unworthy.  Much less than heroic.  Perhaps epic, but only as it pertains to failure.

The thing about feelings, though, is that they’re so fickle and shouldn’t be trusted as indicators of truth.  The facts- even when my feelings don’t line up with them- are:

1.             I only fail when I stop.  I stumble and fumble and trip up.  I whine and gripe and mess up.  But when I continue to press on, continue to care, continue to cry out to God with every misstep (and also sing and dance with him when I nail it), I’m not failing.  I’m learning, and I’m changing, and I’m growing.

2.             I am Frodo.  And I am Sam.  Well, actually, I’m Lisa.  And that means that I’m a beautiful, messy, wonderful paradoxical being.  As a friend of Jesus, I exist in that “already but not yet” state.  I’ve already been redeemed, and God already sees me through a “Jesus lens”, as I tell my children.  I’m already made right with God because of Jesus’ demonstration of love.  But unlike God, I live within the boundaries of time.  So I’m living out the “not yet” part of my existence, walking out the “becoming”.  I don’t yet see the complete picture.

So, like Frodo, I won’t always handle my journey with the utmost grace and dignity.  I’ll falter here, trip there, snap at people on occasion and complain about how arduous things are.  But God sees through all that.  He knows that the desire of my heart is to be like Sam, loving and loyal and kind.  Not only does he know that’s my desire, he knows it’s my true, God-created nature that came into existence when I chose life with Jesus.  I’m someone totally brand new!  And my life is an adventure of discovering who that is.  I say, let’s bring it! 

Rejected Treasure

 

To say that I was experiencing emotional agitation would be a gross understatement.  I was crushed.  The logical, grown-up part of me that “knows better” could not override the pain coming from somewhere deep within that was causing my heart to bleed.  This was not an unfamiliar feeling; indeed, I wouldn’t have to try hard to bring to mind instances wherein I’d felt this familiar hurt, and were I to trace its origins, I would discover that the onset had occurred sometime in my very early years.  I was experiencing what has been called the “sting of rejection.”  That term in itself is laughable.  It should be called the “knife in the heart, punch in the gut, ripping off of fingernails pain of rejection.”  The “knowing better” part could see that the people from whom I had perceived rejection hadn’t done anything wrong.  They hadn’t been blatantly mean.  It was more rejection by non-affirmation.

The truth is, this isn’t a feeling uncommon to most.  Every person alive has, at one time or another, in one measure or another, experienced this pain.  It’s innate in us to desire an understanding of our unique place in this world; to know that we’re here for more than just taking up space; to know that we matter.  Ultimately, that desire is met in the arms of a Father who made us and is crazy in love with us.  Ephesians 1:11 tells us, “It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.”  And in Christ, we discover that who we are is the apple of God’s eye; a pearl of great price; the woman in The Last of the Mohicans who is told by the man who loves her, “I will find you!” (Okay, that last one may just be for me.  I’m a romantic at heart, and that’s one of my most favorite lines in any movie!)  The point is, we were created to dance with Jesus!  To live loved.  Each of us is God’s favorite.

Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine. When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end— Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That's how much you mean to me! That's how much I love you! I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.     ~Isaiah 43:1

When we embrace this truth and live out an ever-increasing love relationship with God, we become that message.  We’re transformed.  We can stop looking for things by which we can measure up or present ourselves acceptable or worthwhile, which is what we do in our frantic attempts to avoid rejection, for to be rejected would solidify in our hearts the lie that is perpetuated that says we are, in fact, worthless; not good enough; not as good as; worthy only to be discarded.  Ironically, in our mad scrambling to keep rejection at bay, we do to others the very thing that causes us such heartache when done to us.

Why, then, would it surprise us that the enemy would utilize rejection as a tool of his trade?  He’s intent on our destruction.  It’s an incredible threat to him for us to become the message of love to a world that so desperately needs it.  There are people who have been fed the lie of inferiority for so long that they’ve embraced it as truth and can’t see even a trace of their true, God-created identities; the treasure inside of them.

I want to love like Jesus loved.  Like he still loves.  He was willing to touch those whom society deemed worthless; unclean; those to be avoided.  He saw beyond their exterior to the heart of who he truly knew them to be.  He sees you.  He knows who you truly are- not who you pretend to be, or who you've been told you are.  And he loves what he sees.  He loves who you are.  You're not worthless or one to be avoided, but you're one to be heralded as God's favorite! 

The Dance of the Gracefully Impaired

How I’ve toiled and troubled over this blog entry.  It’s ridiculous, really.  A blog by definition is comprised of the writer’s own experiences or observations or opinions.  I’ve experienced many things, and I’ve observed many more, and opinions are NOT a thing of which I’m in short supply!  Yet my ongoing tussle with perfectionism has served to render me paralyzed.  Or more accurately stated, my tendency to embrace perfectionism is more rightly to blame for my mental paralysis.

I know perfectly well what I wish to convey to anyone who reads my musings.

You matter, and your life has purpose, and your brokenness matters, and it is not a disease, nor is it definition. 

There is not one of us who isn’t broken in one way or another.  But our brokenness has found redemption.  Love made a way, and as only Love can, he holds on to every single shard, sliver, and fragment, and he gloriously calls those pieces into wholeness.  What an amazing, incredible, mystifying dichotomy- being beautifully broken and wholly complete, already but not yet.

This message of hope is what my heart longs to convey.  You are loved.  And while that phrase, unfortunately, has become somewhat trite and cliché and holds no meaning to many who have been offered a brand of “love” that is as far from the real thing as night is from day, there is a true Love who knows all and sees all and looks upon you and says, “You are amazing!  Your beauty captivates me, and my heart longs for you.”

But I want to say all of this the “right” way.  What if the words I choose are somewhat lackluster?  Will I have failed?  I must ask myself, “Fail at what?”  Because if this is about my ability to string words together and construct sentences, then this becomes so much less about the hearts of the broken and my desire to share Love with those to whom have been affixed the labels “Unlovable”; “Undesirable”; “Unwanted”; “Broken”; “Discarded”… and it becomes all about me.  Certainly I’m apt to fail.  Inevitably, I’ll overlook the use of an exceptionally fitting word and use one that doesn’t quite make the statement I’m hoping to make, or I’ll commit some heinous grammatical faux pas.  But my writing savvy or lack thereof is NOT what I desire this be about.  This is about saying yes to a dance.  You see, I’ve been she who has worn the aforementioned labels (and then some), who has longed to be loved and wanted simply because of who I was while fearing to hope that who I was would be enough.  I’ve been broken; I am broken.  But I’m also one who has been swept off her feet and up into the arms of Love himself and invited to dance with him forever.  Part of that dance is discovering who I am as he puts pieces of my life back in place, and in that discovery process, passions are unearthed.  One of mine is seeing broken lives restored and life breathed into parched hearts as people encounter God as he truly is- not one out to condemn them or chastise them or point out every flaw and foible, but one who sees beyond the missteps and fumbles and setbacks and shortcomings to a heart he longs for and labels nothing less than “Beloved.” 

So he smiles at me, holds out his hand, and asks, “Will you dance with me?”  And oh, how my heart leaps!  And I step up to take his hand, and then… I look at my feet.  Huh.  Not too graceful.  My form is all wrong!  I look like I’m doing the Robot when God is clearly dancing a waltz!  Good grief!

But I realize:  God never asked me if I could dance.  He asked me if I would dance.  Maybe he’s perfectly capable of perfectly leading a less than capable dancer such as myself because he could care less about my form.  Perhaps he’s delighted simply with my willingness to take his hand and clumsily move.  Maybe he’ll work on the form as we go along; or maybe he’s especially fond of the “gracefully impaired.”  Whatever the case, he loves me.  He loves you.  And he’s lovingly taking care of all the pieces.