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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The "Mini Marriage Meltdown"


I shamefully admit that I am a Glee fan. Not just a fan, but maybe a bit of a fanatic. I have literally seen every episode, and at one point made a chart to determine my favorite songs from the first and second seasons. I really should do the third season. Anyway, if you are a Glee fan, and you have not seen the latest episode, then you may want to stop reading because there is going to be a spoiler that relates to my point. If you could care less, like I am assuming most of you do, read on.

A couple that has been a fan favorite for Gleeks everywhere was finally getting married this past episode. The bride, however, has OCD and she can get very anxious over things. To make a REALLY long story short, she becomes a runaway bride. She sings a song from the musical Company called “Getting Married Today” as she makes her exit from the church. I had never heard this song, but there was a line that struck me as interesting.

“You know we’ll both of us be losing our identities.”

I recently had a “mini marriage meltdown” as I will call it because it wasn’t too horrendous and I like alliteration. I had spent A LOT of time in prayer recently about trying to find my gifts, personality, and abilities God had given me, and they were answered this past Sunday when I was allowed to go through some exploration to see what they were. I rejoiced, but it ended almost too quickly. When I talked to Grant that afternoon, I went through exploring it with him to see what gifts he had. Then, I realized something: Grant and I are almost the same person.

While some may rejoice that they have found someone that just “gets” them (whatever that means), I started kind of freaking out. I didn’t feel like my own unique self. I was JUST starting to get comfortable in my own skin and liking it, and now I felt like it wasn’t my own. I wondered how Grant and I could effectively serve others if we didn’t balance each other out (I mean for crying out loud ONE of us needs to be more task-oriented and organized). I thought marriage would mean there would be no more “Jordan” just always “Jordan and Grant.”

I’m not sure how it came up (as I am unsure with most of our conversations), but I discussed this whole matter with my brother. My brother and I could not be more different when “comforting” and listening to others. My brother is very blunt and honest. His response? “You’re being selfish.” Uhm, excuse me? I’m in school to be a social worker. I’m volunteering at a homelessness prevention organization. I’m serving at my church. Not to sound full of myself, but I don’t really consider myself selfish.

My brother explained that we have this tendency to be selfish because of human nature. I mean, marriage is about two becoming one, and sometimes we lose track of that. I think maybe our selfish tendencies are why so many marriages don’t last these days. A lot of times we think, “What can this person provide me?” It’s just our nature. Don’t get me wrong, one should be in a relationship where the other contributes and makes us into stronger people, but marrying someone isn’t to be taken lightly. It shouldn’t be just like any other relationship (if so, what’s the point of getting married?). Instead of asking, “What can this person provide me?” we should be asking, “How can I serve this person?” We should love our spouses, or potential spouses, so much that we just want to lift them up and help them out in any way possible.

Our church this past week had a message on service. In this message, our pastor explained a phrase that his son says when he wants his daddy to swing him upside down. This phrase? “More up is down.” Our pastor went on to explain that the more we submit and serve, the more we see improvement in our relationships and situations. In the case of refraining from selfishness in a marriage, more up is down.

As for our identities in marriage, my brother explained that our individual identities would still be in tact. We have a lot in common yes, and that’s what attracted us to the other. However, we still have uniqueness that is our own, even if we act so similar. We have uniqueness in the small things such as the fact that I really enjoy math more than Grant and Grant is better at art than I am. We have uniqueness in the sense that I can serve Grant through my gift of exhortation, while he could serve me through craftsmanship because I am incredibly weak in that compared to him. I think of it like I see the “sand mix thing” at a lot of weddings. The bride will pour one color of sand into a giant jar while the groom pours in a different color. The two colors are mixed together and in one place, but you can still see that they are different colors.

With all of this said, I don’t think I will be a runaway bride like our Glee character. I am willing to stick by Grant and serve him in my own unique ways. I believe we can still serve others, even if some of our gifts are the same. That just means we can work side-by-side with similar goals and tactics to reach others. :)

However, if anyone sees me looking like this on my wedding day, call Ryan Murphy and tell him he has a new cast member.

Source: Wetpaint

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Anything but Mute (Unfortunately)


I find I’m always asking, “What”
Requiring repeat like I’ve got no choice
My ears are always ringing, but I’m still
clinging  to hear a still, small voice
Now my sight matches the color of my eyes
Speaking of dark, I already couldn’t see at night
My fingers can feel these bumps of life just fine,
and though I can’t see I still find comfort in the Light
Funny how I can always speak so easy,
but, I guess honestly, that really doesn’t help me
You can try to sing praise, but it’s only noise
If your ears can’t hear and your eyes can’t see

Today, I’ll get it with a shot of hazelnut.

My morning commute to my internship used to be a time where I just turned on the radio in hopes of that keeping me somewhat up-to-date on the happenings of life. Without my grandmother, cable television, or a campus community, I have found it hard to stay in touch with what’s going on in the world. It is so bad that my professor told me that the school I intern at was on the news because it was supposedly haunted. I am not sure how I completely missed that, but I did.

Well, since my efforts to use radio to be in the loop of the world were futile, I decided to use my morning commute for silence. This is so unnatural for me. I have never practiced the discipline of silence until recently, and I cannot say I was a huge fan starting out. But I have heard so many people be rewarded by being silent and allowing God to speak that I just had to give it a try.

You see, I have a hard time hearing God speak. I am always trying to figure out if I heard God’s voice or if it was just my own. Sometimes, I am not sure who it is. I am not sure what voice spoke to me when I decided that it would be a really fun idea to go planking in Wal-Mart at 10 o’clock at night. I am pretty sure that wasn’t my voice or God’s voice… probably the voice of caffeine in my system. Anyway, the point is, I have a hard time hearing God’s voice. My whole junior year of college, I prayed for clarity, and I have to admit that must have been the worst year between God and I as I grew frustrated with Him and ended up pushing myself further away because He felt so far away to me. In reality, I probably spent so much time asking for clarity that I never gave Him the chance to speak.

Therefore, silence seemed like the clear choice for me. However, this was bloody difficult (I apologize for the British swearing; I watched The IT Crowd before writing this). I get so distracted that I am sure anyone would be convinced I have ADHD. Then, I start getting distracted by my distractions. I can’t believe I am getting distracted so much that I start praying to focus on God so much that THAT becomes a distraction and I realize I am no longer being silent. This was a frustrating process the first few times I did it. As sad as I am to admit this, usually when something really frustrates me, I end up just walking away from it. However, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. If I felt like God was saying ANYTHING in my “moments of silence” I heard, “Keep trying.”

Today, I was silent while driving, and I thought about how I could not believe I left the house without making coffee. I decided I had to get my usual white mocha, but recently I was so bored with that, and I decided to get a shot of hazelnut flavoring with it. That’s when it hit me.

Suddenly, the verse Psalm 34:8 came to mind. “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh the joys of those who take refuge in Him.” At first, I just kind of laughed at myself and how I thought flavored coffee was God’s reminder of His goodness. Then, I thought that maybe that verse didn’t come from me and that it came from God (because let’s be honest, my thoughts are usually on what size drink I should get). I began to reflect on it, and my mind went off the “taste” part and focused on the “see” part.

My most recent prayer time with God had resulted in me saying, “I am blind. I am deaf. But I am unfortunately, not mute.” I meant this in the fact that I spend so much time wishing I could hear God’s voice or see Him at work, but I can’t shut up long enough to hear Him or see Him. I was praying in this prayer time how glorifying God just seems so empty… like my words aren’t enough, and really they aren’t. But it just seems like I am saying, “God you are so good and mighty” because that’s what I know about God’s character. But I haven’t ALLOWED myself to truly see that He is good and mighty. To see that He is, to hear Him speaking… wouldn’t those things bring more authenticity to my words of praise? Without allowing myself to hear God or to open my eyes to things God has around me, my words are just a “clanging cymbal” and not praise.

I’ve started allowing myself to see God more in my life. What I do is write down ten things I am grateful for everyday. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now, and writing them down sometimes is just hard (especially on days where I did not feel like I did ANYTHING). But sadly as hard as that is, writing them down is not just enough. I need to move on to recognizing, “Hey, look at these things God has given me!” I need to allow these things to motivate my heart to a sense of more sincere praise.

As for allowing myself to hear God more in my life, I am continuing my moments of silence in the morning. Now, I must be honest, I think I had crazy expectations for my moments of silence. I think I thought God was going to give me this divine direction for my life like, “Jordan! I will take you back to Ohio! And one day, you will leave for Chicago with Grant! This is where you two will purchase your first house! You will wait two years to get that trampoline you want!” Maybe not to that extreme, but some sort of huge direction. It’s funny because I have started reading a book called Greater by Steven Furtick for my connect group at church. I got to a part in the book that honestly annoyed me, but it was a truth I needed to hear:

“While God is detail oriented, He doesn’t handle details or communicate them in the way most of us would prefer. He doesn’t feel obligated to walk us through every contingency or provide us with every possible warranty. He simply tells us to trust Him with the outcome, commanding us to act in faith and obedience.”

With this mindset, my moments of silence have drastically changed. I don’t come expecting to hear the full plan for my life, and I have surprisingly heard so much more. Today, I felt like I needed to send a “hope you feel better” text to my uncle that I don’t really talk to because my grandma said he had a cold. I felt like I needed to see how my future father-in-law was doing. I needed to tell my supervisor that I was proud of her for trying to do better at balancing two schools. I needed to tell a couple of my friends that love hazelnut white mochas that I ordered one and that they were on my mind.

That’s the beauty of it for me. In those moments where I act out in faith obedience, it shows me that I actually was able to listen to God. When I see the results that come from being obedient, I see God. I think this is truly the way to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Screaming at the Mirror (Self-Image)


I think I can consciously remember it all starting at twelve-years-old when I looked into a mirror, but I am not sure why. It should have started way before then. It should have started at day care when I was five-years-old where a boy I didn’t even know pushed me off a bench. It should have started right around fourth or fifth grade, when I heard the other cheerleaders whispering about me and excluding me to the point it carried on to being bullied by their friends who weren’t cheerleaders. It should have started the year before junior high, when a couple of junior high boys mocked me by saying how disgusting it would be to date me. But for whatever reason, it started that day when I was twelve and I stared at myself in the mirror, trying so hard to convince myself I wasn’t how I felt, but failing. It was at age twelve that I looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself, “You are one ugly bitch!”

It’s not easy to write this, just like it wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t know whom to even turn to about this. Honestly, it seemed like either no one had experienced this or they would dismiss it as something all teenagers felt. I kept it all inside, but I knew it had to be obvious what I was feeling.

I was no stranger to the Christian teachings. I had been a Christian for two years at this time, and I could quote back every verse they threw at me about being “wonderfully made in the image of God.” It didn’t do anything. It didn’t help me. I felt more like someone who was hatched. I felt like a huge mistake.

I think people assume that when a girl has a self-esteem issue, she is automatically concerned about her weight. No, there was no concern there with me. No eating disorder. Just an utter break down every time I saw a picture of me. A public protest when I was forced to be in front of a camera. A debate to every compliment. A scream of, “HOW DARE YOU INSULT HER” every time I was told I look just like my mother.

I wish I could say it was just a phase, but it wasn’t. The teasing continued, and now there was something new to mock me about: my lack of athletic ability. My friends seemed to reel in the opposite sex, while I was certain my very existence was a public assault on everyone’s eyes. Even after the braces came off, glasses went away, I found a hairstyle that somehow tamed my lion’s mane, and I enrolled in summer gym so no one would ever have to see my foolishness again, I WAS STILL GETTING TEASED! I didn’t even what know was left. I decided it had to be something about me that I couldn’t change. It was going to be like this forever.

I don’t share all of this for a pity party or a showering of compliments to make me feel better because trust me, it won’t. I say all of this because it is a real struggle. A real struggle that is still part of my life. Sure, high school is over, but this stuff still follows me. I, to this day, run and hide every time somebody wants me to play any kind of sport. Even in college, I sometimes found myself leaving the room, only to stand outside of the door to see if anyone was talking about me (thankfully, this ended my sophomore year once it was proven that I have some pretty great friends that wouldn’t do that).

There is good news though. I’m getting better. I don’t know how. Maybe it’s prayer… other people’s prayers, I should say. I didn’t even think I could present this kind of thing to God, but I did my best to follow Him. I have done my best to convince myself that God is going to do a good thing in me. I struggled a lot with not being a certain way or having certain talents. For a while (and honestly, sometimes I still do), I honestly believed I didn’t have any talents. People would tell me that the way I talk and connect with people is a talent, and I would be so willing to dismiss it as something everybody could do. Recently, I have learned that the more time I spend around people, not everyone has the ability to connect and be empathetic. For me, it has been prayer, but also trying to get out there in life and experience it. I mean, it could be so easy for me to lock myself up away from everyone for fear of what they say. But I am never going to see the good God do through me if I don’t try to chase after the heart of God, and one big thing in life that I have learned is that excluding yourself from others, excludes you from the heart of God. After all, like I said, I can quote those verses back to you, and people were made in the image of God.

It is still difficult though. Putting myself around others though makes it so easy for my insecurity to arise. “Oh, my spiritual walk is not as good as hers.” “He is so good at praying. I could never be that good.” “I could never hear God like her.” “Wow, look how many people come to her and appreciate her. I wish I could be that well-liked.” It’s crazy. It’s dumb. I’m actually a really outgoing person, but I can revert to a state of complete shyness once I feel inadequate. I even had to call a dear friend on the way back from my connect group tonight to ask for prayer because I felt the insecurity creeping up. I didn’t tell him that, but the funny thing is, in his prayer, I could tell he knew.

I guess you can tell by the above paragraph that my insecurity is starting to shift from physical traits to character traits. That doesn’t mean I got over the physical insecurity. I can’t look in the mirror and say I look pretty. BUT I also can’t look in the mirror and say I look ugly. I have a shirt I bought myself that says, “I am wonderfully made” to help encourage me, but it is a rare occasion that I wear it outside of my apartment. Yes, the physical struggle is still there, and it actually FEEDS my character struggle. I have this constant need to prove myself in my achievements and what I do because I can’t prove myself physically.

So where do I go from here? Well, I think my first step is to break down my pride. What? A person who struggles with self-esteem is asking God to break down her pride? Yes, actually. My need to prove myself to others… to myself by doing things MY way. Not being okay with what God has dictated in my life as sufficient and good and… BETTER. I think that sounds like pride. And I don’t think it is going to be easy to break down. In fact, I think it is going to be painful and it’s going to suck. It’s not something that will just happen; it will be an ongoing process. As stupid as this sounds, it is hard to leave this state of insecurity because it is all I have known for ten years. It is going to require others praying; it is going to require me to FINALLY suck it up and talk to God about this insecurity even though I have been too insecure to talk to God about it. I know it is God’s way that will get me through because no matter what others think or I think, He still thinks (to use one of those Christian clichés) that I am to die for.

This wasn’t to say I have overcome something. It’s to say I still struggle. My struggle is real, and it is the number one thing that I fight. This was to say, it is something I am working on and to say, “It’s okay to still be working on something.” I think so often, we have to have it put together and it has to be fixed. In reality, I don’t know if this is something that gets “fixed” as much as it is something we do everyday. God’s mercies are new everyday, and how can we experience “fresh mercy” everyday if we are just fixed?

I think, through the strength of God, maybe one day, I will sing the chorus of “Born this Way” in front of my mirror and smile because I believe it instead of smiling because Lady Gaga is ridiculous.