Get Real

This weekend I am giving a talk about body image at the Get Real women's conference. Thought I'd share an exerpt from this talk:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, but this temple is outwardly wasting away. It’s the inward that is being renewed and it is the part we should pay careful attention to. The inward should direct the outward, not the other way around. Too often, we allow our outward bodies to determine who we are or how we feel. We focus on our imperfections and we allow this to produce:

· self hatred

· self fixation

· lack of confidence

· inability to live out our calling

This should not be! In his amazing book, The Gift of Being Yourself, David Benner says this:

"Unless we spend as much time looking at God as we spend looking at our self, our knowing of self will simply draw us further into an abyss of self-fixation.” I must say, that is the thing that motivates me most to continually work toward overcoming this “thorn” of a poor body image. Because when I am in my most miserable battles with it, I am totally fixated on me. How sinful and selfish of me! God does not call me to be self fixated. The two most important things that Jesus has reiterated are these:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-38

We cannot love God and love others when we are fixated on self flagellation!

So how do we combat this? I would offer two ways:

1. We concentrate on knowing God.

2. We concentrate on knowing what God says about US.

Both of these involve the practice of spiritual disciplines, especially being in God’s word daily. I want to offer you some scriptures that will help you right away today to know what God says about you and how He feels about you.

"The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your Lord." Psalm 45:11

Did you get that? The KING of KINGS and Lord of Lords is enthralled with your beauty! You are a daughter of the King and that is what gives you your worth. Not some shallow expectation from a lost and dying world; a world where the Prince of Darkness runs rampant and has been given full reign to reek havoc. He wants nothing more than to destroy God’s beloved and will use any means available to him. Don’t buy into his schemes.

“The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

“Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm 17:8

Knowing that God, the creator of the universe, takes great delight in me and has me as the apple of His eye overshadows any low opinion I might be tempted to have of myself. God trumps Laurie every day of the week. And He trumps you too.

Junk in my trunk

I was reminded last night of the power in sharing the “junk” of our lives. I was doing some teaching at church, and there’s always a section in this class where I get pretty transparent and share what I’ve come to term “the year of the valley of the shadow of death” in my life. That year included rejection, betrayal, divorce, and death. It was pretty nasty. And as much as I am grateful for what God did in my life and has done since then, it’s not really that pleasant to revisit the pain.

But here’s the thing: I’m convinced that revisiting and sharing this pain is essential to the purpose for which God has called me. Check this out:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

See, during that devastating time, I was truly able to experience the “God of all comfort”. If I never spoke of that pain again, how would I ever be able to comfort anyone else with the comfort I received from Him? I never know who in the crowd might need to hear my story. And there was someone last night who did. It brings great joy to be able to encourage and bring hope to someone who is suffering.

So I will continue to share my junk. Why? Because:

· Sharing our junk makes us real people.

· Sharing our junk empowers others to persevere through theirs.

· Sharing our junk and the healing we’ve received glorifies God.

And each time I share my junk, it becomes a little more like treasure.

Throwin' it off

This has been a rough winter. I moved to Sioux City in 2003 and this is by far the longest, coldest, snowiest and darkest season I’ve experienced. And it’s only February! Since my blog centers around a running theme, and the Hebrews 12:1-2 scripture, I’ve been reflecting on how very much this winter has been hindering me from what I love, running. I’ve allowed the snow piles, cold, ice and darkness in the early a.m. hours to stifle me. So the other day, I decided to throw off all that was hindering and entangling me. I layered up, put on my running spikes and went for it; six miles in the cold and snow covered sidewalks and trails. It was exhilarating! And it made me wonder, “Why have I been allowing this stuff to weigh me down?” I felt a real freedom out there, and determined I’m not letting the elements hold me back any longer.

My life parallels my running. I allow sin and my flesh to stifle me. It weighs me down and keeps me from doing the things I’m called to do. I make excuses, and sure they sound reasonable, but in the end, they are just excuses. And these things hinder me from God’s best; they entangle me and keep me from running the race that has been set before me. So today, I’m throwing it off, confessing it to God and allowing His grace and forgiveness to free me from the wrapped up mess that keeps me from the race.

I feel a run coming on.

Recently I've been reading lots of Old Testament. Ok, I'll admit it, it's been a requirement in one of my seminary classes. Just today I read 1 and 2 Chronicles in one sitting. I gotta say, reading such a large passage at once gives me a whole new perspective, and God really has been speaking to me through this process.

One of the things that really stood out to me today is in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Jehoshaphat (Judah's king) is being confronted with war from the Moabite and the Ammonites. Alarmed at the vast army that is coming against them, he is “resolved to inquire of the Lord” and “he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.”

After really looking at this passage, I observed five things that Jehoshaphat did in response to this threat:
1. He resolved to inquire of the Lord (verse 3)
2. He called a corporate fast (verse 3)
3. He acknowledges God’s sovereignty (verses 6-9)
4. He admitted their powerlessness and turned their eyes upon God (verse 12)
5. Worshipped and praised the Lord (verses 18-19)

It seems to me that this response is one that we can take to heart and glean much wisdom from when we are facing insurmountable odds in our own lives.

God has truly been speaking to my heart much in the last 30 days about fasting, and the fact that, generally speaking, as Christians we don’t often inquire of the Lord with fasting, especially corporately. Why is this? As I've been reading through the OT passages, the number of times that fasting is mentioned just leaps from the pages. It’s not that I haven’t practiced the discipline of fasting in my own life at times, but fasting for God’s people was a regular accompaniment of prayer, particularly in matters of great importance.

So what’s keeping us from this seemingly lost discipline? Anyone?

The Return of the Not-So-Prodigal Son

It’s amazing how God will use the most unusual things to speak truth into my life. I just finished a reflection paper for seminary on “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Henri Nouwen. In this particular assignment we were to reflect on the story from the perspective of the elder son. I had no idea what an impact this reading/reflection would have on me. Following is an excerpt:

In these chapters on the elder son, Nouwen reflects that Rembrandt presents him with the “inner drama of the soul”. For, the elder son has come to a crossroads; one very much like the crossroads the younger son has already faced. Will he embrace the love of the Father, or will he alienate himself from that love? At some point, we are each faced with that inner drama, and often it is in the most unexpected ways.

As the eldest daughter, the plight of the elder son is my own. I have been obedient and dutiful, hard-working and diligent, desiring more than anything to please. My greatest fear has been to be a disappointment; to my parents, God, or to anyone for that matter. And increasingly, this has caused a great oppression in my life. I can all too easily relate to Nouwen’s words: “There was always a conscious effort to avoid the pitfalls of sin and the constant fear of giving in to temptation. But with all of that there came seriousness, a moralistic intensity- and even a touch of fanaticism.” And ultimately it breeds resentment and inner anger.

This has been my greatest struggle, and has reared its ugly head in these more recent years of my life. Anger cannot remain hidden indefinitely; at some point it will be exposed. The return of the prodigal was the catalyst for the elder son’s inner exposure. The catalyst for me has been a growing ministry and furthering my education. I often remind myself that Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”. (Matthew 11:30) If so, why do I feel so weighed down? Quickly, I realize it is of my own doing, for resentment has manifested itself in my life as perfectionism. And “Perfectionism Gone Wild” might be the caption for my year. Indeed, it is a heavy yoke. And as Nouwen says, “it is far more pernicious: something that has attached itself to the underside of my virtue.”

I am quite grateful for this reading at this time. As I recently reflected on this past year in my journal, I had a realization of what an angry person I have become; how void of joy I seem to be, which is not at all who I have been most of my life. As I considered the source of this anger, and why it has been so prevalent, I promptly identified perfectionism, self condemnation, and constant pressure I put on myself. Upon reading this portrayal of the elder son, I suddenly realize my own poverty, my own need to “come home”. I am facing my own inner drama; will I embrace the love of the Father, or will I alienate myself from that love?

Frankly, I am weary of the heavy yoke. I realize however, that as Nouwen says, “By myself cannot leave the land of my anger.” And so I will be still. I will wave my little white flag. I will trust and be grateful, disown my self rejecting voice, and I will listen to my Father. And I will embrace His love for me.

It feels lighter already.