"I'm always late because
I'm a procrastinator and I procrastinate because I'm overwhelmed and
I'm overwhelmed because I'm a perfectionist and I'm a perfectionist
because I need affirmation and I need affirmation because I feel
unworthy and I feel unworthy because somewhere, sometime, something
in me cracked and the
idea that I am lovable leaked out... I broke."
I've been thinking today about this passage from a recent post by Jamie the Very Worst Missionary.
I've shared it with many of my women friends, especially many of my single mom friends, and it resonates with every one. Many have messaged me back to thank me for sharing, to say how it went straight to the heart of their own fear, anxiety, and struggle. I want to ask us all today--why is that? Why do we all feel so unworthy? Why do we believe we are unlovable, unacceptable? I think back to a long-ago conversation with a beloved friend, one of those people who makes the world better just by being in it. His life was filled with good deeds, and his heart with nothing but kindness and good will for other people, specifically, and humanity, generally. But he spoke that night on the phone about a nagging feeling of incompleteness. Somehow, these things could not make him enough. No matter how good you are, how hard you try, nothing you do on your own can ever make you good enough. You cannot make yourself lovable, acceptable, beloved.
Religious people will tell you they have the answer to this conundrum. "That's why we need Jesus," they will say--"because we can't do it on our own."
Raise your hand if you just heard me say, "That's why we need Jesus--because Jesus can help us be good enough."
Yep. That's what I thought.
Why is this so hard? Why must we insist on making ourselves good enough? On seeing even Jesus as simply a system of self-help so that we can finally accomplish it? Why is it that, as my friend Bill said recently, "We're Midwesterners! We have to EARN our grace!" My pastor, Randy Boltinghouse, just finished preaching through the New Testament's parables of grace, and a few Sundays ago he spoke about the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In the story, the tax collector asks God for forgiveness, and goes away accepted, but the Pharisee simply thanks God that he is already so righteous. The Pharisee doesn't ask for anything, Randy said, because he doesn't think he needs it. I guess that might be right. But I suspect the Pharisee does know. I suspect he knows, and is afraid to admit it, even to himself. Especially to himself. We are all afraid to admit that we are in need of grace. Why? Because we think Jesus will be horrified at how much fixing up he has to do. In fact, maybe our worst fears about ourselves will be realized, and he will even declare us unfixable. Jesus himself will confirm what we have always known, deep down--we are unlovable. Unacceptable. Even he cannot do anything with us.
But grace is not about fixing us up and making us good enough. Grace is about accepting us as we are. Randy spells it out for us this way: "Through Christ's sacrifice, we are accepted before we start. He will refine us later, yes. But he qualifies us first."
Grace is not there in spite of the mess-ups. Grace, as Jamie the Very Worst so beautifully puts it, is there FOR the mess-ups.
I've written in an earlier post about Henri Nouwen's claim that being God's Beloved is the core truth of our existence, and how truly possessing that knowledge will affect every relationship in our lives. But it not only touches our relationships--it is realized in our every individual action. The procrastination, the perfectionism. The way we see ourselves when we look in the mirror. Behind everything we do, we find we are carrying that aching emptiness, in the space where we should be holding tightly to the consciousness of being the Beloved. But there is hope for us. We can realize our true identity, if we are willing. It can happen, and, as Jamie the Very Worst says, when it does....
"...Jesus finds me like that, leaky and late, and He scoops up the
pieces and makes me new. I'll probably break again tomorrow, or in
like five minutes, but He'll keep scooping, again and again, until
the day I finally get it, until the day I learn that I was created
to be loved. And that day, that glorious day, the angels will
sing in Heaven and, by God, I. will. be. on. time."
