Content when not Comfortable

There was a time in my teen years when I decided to become a professional actress. I spent every Sunday for two years taking a three hour acting workshop. I drove two and a half hours to L.A once a week for auditions and two and a half hours back the next day for call-backs. I practiced the same monologues twenty times a day and watched movies with sub-titles so I could read them like scripts.

Thankfully, God turned me in a different direction before my career could really take off, but there are a few things I retained from my tireless hours of training. One of which is the anatomy of the commercial.

The way the advertisement works is it first presents a problem, then it explains the solution to that problem. Then it presents you with a thing that will lead to the solution of the problem. You’re hungry and in a hurry. You need food quickly. Nuke a Hotpocket and get in the car. You are ugly so nobody loves you. You need to be pretty to be loved. Buy acne burning acid solution.

If you consider that there are approximately six commercials every fifteen minutes during a standard television program, and if you consider how much TV the average person watches, our culture really is drowning in a constant bombardment of the idea that we lack, we want, we get. Contentment would mean people would be satisfied with things as they are. Contentment would be the downfall of the economy.

Commercials aren’t the only army battling our contentment. Weather you like TV, film, books, theater, fashion magazines, or scenic drives through fancy neighborhoods, you are also being willingly assaulted with nearly impossible scenarios to which we compare our lives and come out again lacking, wanting, but this time, not quite getting. Because we are so immersed though in the idea of being able to purchase our solutions and fast-fixes to happiness, there is a very strong idea at work that things should be good. Things should be what we would call fair. We should have the American Dream. We should never want without receiving. And that is simply not realistic. When we compare our lives to the advertised ideal, the happy ending, or the post-solution scenario, we will come up short. Which is when we start questioning the bit God has given us to work with and when we become uncomfortable. 

Lately I am struggling with contentment. This is odd for me because, usually, I am a pretty satisfied lady. I have a loving and godly husband, which is more than most women will ever have. I have beautiful little boy. I have true and loyal friends. I have pretty much what I always wanted. Pretty much, but not exactly.

Obedience to God has lead my husband and I to some less-than-ideal circumstances. They are less than secure. Less than comfortable.  You see, most of the time, I can look at where we are and see what God is doing in our lives, what he is teaching us, and how it is causing us to grow. Most of the time I can see how he has provided perfectly for us and how relying on him has worked out.

That’s most of the time. But that’s not today. Today I have the virus of comparison which is making me uncomfortable. I see people around me at the dawn of their marriages, parenthood, college years, and I think “what if we had done things like that?”. I imagine the steps we took that didn’t make sense, that lead us to a place that was uncomfortable, the steps that were unquestionably what God meant for us to do, and my discomfort begins to decay into discontentment.

Paul wrote to the Philippians that he knew how to be content in all circumstances. He had been rich and he had been poor, but it didn’t matter. The secret to contentment, he wrote, was Christ who gave him strength to do ALL things.

My situation isn’t comfortable. In fact, it’s downright uncomfortable. It’s frustrating and painful and occasionally depressing. But, for some reason, God has not called my husband and I to comfort. He has, however, called us to contentment. Because, honestly, we could have the house in the suburbs with the pool and the big oak tree. We could have family vacations to Disneyland every year and eat sushi prepared by a private chef every night. And there would still be something to tell me that my life isn’t good enough. God hardly ever calls us to be comfortable because, really, comfort is just an illusion, something we chase after but never really reach. This is still a fallen world. Pain and fear will never stop being realities so, unfortunately, the best we can hold on to is contentment.

Maybe soon my husband and I will have a little house of our own, and maybe money and basic necessities won’t require so much thought. Maybe he will have a job that he loves and I will be able to raise the kids and write without feeling like I should be doing something more productive. But maybe not. Maybe the reward for our obedience will come in the next life and not this one. Maybe the choices God has made for me will not make sense until I can get to Heaven and ask him what the heck he was thinking. Does that mean that I will sacrifice my joy to the comparisons wishing I had it differently? I could choose that option, certainly. But how miserable an existence.

Christ has equipped me with the strength to do all things. To endure all that he has called me to and set before me. I have the strength. I just need to use it. I need to listen to him when he whispers “you’re doing just fine” while a million other voices are screaming all the things they think I need in order to be happy. It’s not necessary for me to be in comfortable circumstances. But it is necessary for me, and for my husband and son, that I be content. Christ promises that I have all I need. I’ll choose to believe him even if Cover Girl, JC Penny, Jenny Craig, and “Leave it to Beaver” insist otherwise. 

Overcomeing the World

I find it hard to sleep again tonight due to a wrestling match in which I have yet again engaged. Not so much with the problem of evil, (though I have a lot more to write on that subject at a later date) but rather I have a problem of empathy. I feel intense unrest when I hear a story of suffering, and tonight, I find myself going, once again, through a prayerful process of regaining peace. Writing it out helps the process seem more concrete and perhaps someone else can benefit from it as well. To fully explain the process I must tell you the story of how it came about.

A few days after my son was born, I was sitting up in bed late at night browsing the internet while he slept beside me. I came across a news article about a baby boy who had died of neglect. I won't share the details, but my mind, swimming with newly acquired maternal instinct, began to grieve and panic for this child. I wanted to run to this other baby, the one beyond helping, and comfort him. I imagined a hundred times the boy's last days and hours and minutes. Felt for him the pain and fear. Looking at my beautiful little boy sleeping so soundly curled up against my warmth, it was just so sickeningly unfair and I just couldn't handle it.

I called my husband upstairs and tried to explain but he couldn't quite understand why I was so upset when nothing like that could possibly happen to our son. The problem wasn't that I was worried about my baby. The problem was that I had only just then gained the capability of understanding just how terrible an infant's suffering was and I couldn't get over it. I didn't want to get over it. I began to pray and realized I didn't want distraction, didn't want to forget that little boy or any detail of what he went through. I needed a way to cope with a level of tragedy I had never before had the capacity to experience.

After a while, I could hear God's voice calmly work its way into my desperate thoughts. "I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

I didn't need to fix what I knew. I didn't need to forget or justify. I needed to remember that all of the horror and tragedy and pain in this world is not the end of the story.

The world is full of sin, tragedy, pain, and fear. Christ has overcome the world.

I don't mean these things callously and I hope they will not come across that way, but what I saw that night was that the sufferings in this world lose their power in eternity. No human justice can make things like that child's death right. But in the eternal Kingdom, Satan has already been defeated. Tragedy has already been eradicated. Justice has already been established for all of the injustice we find here.

In the world you will have trouble. Terrible things will happen. You can't forget them or ignore them. They are unavoidable truths. But take heart. Be at peace. Because this world will fade. Because darkness and suffering have been defeated at the foot of the cross and at the open door of the empty tomb. The weak and innocent will have justice. Pain will no longer be remembered. And we will finally understand all of the things that we are simply too small to be able to make sense of now.

The work of the world has already been overcome, but it still seems unfair, still makes me sad. I'm still too small to understand a lot of things. I'm still too small for an eternal way of thinking to come easily. But I strive to trust God who is quite a bit bigger than I am. So I’m going to try and to get some sleep now remembering that this world has been overcome and these burdens are light in the hands of God.

Mirrors Don't Always Tell the Truth

Does being a Christian change the way we women (and men) think when we look in the mirror? I’m not talking about the people we are or who we want to see looking back at us, I mean the real, vain, body-conscious thoughts that go through our minds when we wonder if the number on the scale has gone down yet or if our hair is doing that thing again. It is my experience that Christian or not, when someone is approached with the subject of how they look, everyone (with rare exception) has a opinion about themselves and that opinion is rarely positive.

I hypothesize that this problem of body-hating is fairly inclusive of all cultures over all time periods. If there is any group of people who should remain immune to the plague it should be us, but it’s not. That icky yeast of our culture and society and generations and generations of style and fashion have shaped us all into critics of God’s work. And that’s not okay. But what the heck can we do about it?

It is also my hypothesis that the ideal with which we compare ourselves is only influenced and not established by our culture. We alone choose what we want to look like, who we want to look like, and what perfection is to us. Without going too far into philosophy, I believe that the elusive perfection that we seek exists outside of our belief of what that perfection is. When I look at myself in the mirror, yes, there is a particular way that I would like to morph what I see before me to match what I believe is perfect. But, what is TRULY perfect is what God intended me to look like, which is basically how I look.

Some people have insecurities about natural features. Your arms are too short. Your eyes are lopsided. Your ears stick out. Your skin has freckles. Other people are concerned about things that are under their control. You ate too much and now you’re fat. You opted for a nose job that went wrong. You got a bad haircut. The people in the latter group have a much different solution to their problems than those in the former. One group has to deal with forgiving themselves and possibly trying to remedy what occurred unnaturally. The other group has to contend only with God and weather or not they think he made a mistake.

I believe God has intention for how all of us should look, and as difficult as the process is, he wants us to look like that. Why is that so hard? Why are half of the TV commercials for makeup, anti-aging, and weight loss products? Why do little girls starve themselves? Why do I dye my hair?

The Bible doesn’t have much to say about physical appearance and it is my opinion that its omission of the subject just expresses how unimportant the way we look is in the bigger picture. Peter mentions briefly that effort in appearance isn’t nearly as important as effort in character (1 Peter 3:3). I do believe though that because we have such an image-obsessed culture, submitting to God’s standard is important to keep us healthy spiritually and can also be a ministry to others. If we give into the hype, how can we tell others that they are fearfully and wonderfully made?

I feel I need to explain that I’m not saying any and all forms of modification are wrong or evil, I’m just saying that I think a lot of us have the wrong idea. A little makeup and styled hair can be necessary in the professional world. Reconstruction after accident or injury makes perfect sense to me. I strongly encourage basic hygiene and looking proper for the occasion. The only universal statement I can make on the subject is that we all need to pray about how we look, if we look the way we should and if there is something that we should do to change to fit HIS standard of perfect, not ours. Maybe he will tell you to put down the lipstick, to gain a little weight, to skip the next Botox treatment. Maybe he will show you what he intended you to look like so you can get there. Maybe he will say you just have to see yourself as beautiful the way that he does. Maybe you will see that your motives for wanting to look a certain way are not what they should be. Maybe you haven’t cared enough about the impression you make on others with your appearance. Maybe nothing needs to be said at all.

I confess to having it wrong most of the time. I whine about the way I look just like the rest of the world. I look in the mirror and sometimes don’t have anything to say other than “why?”. Well, I finally really truly asked God that question and really the only answer I got was, “Why don’t you blog about it?” and what I’m getting out of this is a reminder that God has a reason for doing things. I trust him with other things, so I should trust him with this too. If he had a reason then it must be a good one. I should feel joy to have been blessed with God’s decision for me that was intentionally made, just like I was. That is how I want to see myself, but I don’t. I want to. I aspire to. But right now, I can only walk away from the mirror.