The Hammer

My most recent relationship, it seems, was quite destructive. I didn't realize it at the time, but now that I'm looking back at it, I see how words and attitudes were harmful to me. God had been healing my heart for a few years before this relationship officially began. Over the months of the relationship, though, my self-esteem was chip-chip-chipped away. When the relationship ended, I found myself in the worst emotional shape that I've been in years. My perspective had been totally altered, and I was essentially dead inside.
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I've started going to a new Bible study on Tuesday nights. It replaces the one that my ex teaches, and it has put me in an entirely new position. I am the oldest attendee, and I've been a Christian the longest. Of the five of us who have been there the last couple of weeks, two are brand new Christians and one might not be saved at all. By default, this puts me in a position of mentoring and discipleship that I've never had before.
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My friend Be is brutally honest. The other day, he yelled at me, "Holy f***, you have the lowest self-esteem in the whole world!"
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The other day, my friend Br asked me a question that got me thinking. See, we chat a lot. Pretty much every day. He noticed that I never started a conversation with him, so he asked. The first thought that came to my mind was that I'm an introvert, but then so is he. And then I said something which changed my life forever: "honestly, I generally don't initiate conversations. Not in person, not on the phone, not on IM. I guess I just don't want to bother people. I always feel like a bother."
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All these events coalesce tonight into the perfect storm of honesty. I believe many lies, and I live a life based on those lies.  And tonight I admit one of the biggest ones, the lie that permeates every corner of my existence: the lie that I am a waste of time. No, don't laugh. I actually believe this.


-It's why I don't ever call you-- you obviously have better things to do.
-It's why I tell you my life is fine-- you don't have time to listen to me.
-It's why I sit in my classroom instead of talking to the other teachers-- they have plenty on their plates already.


Now, you can give me all the classic answers to this low self-esteem. You can tell me I need to realize who I am in Christ. You can give me Bible verses that say things about that. You can give me a guilt trip that would make your mother proud. But all that does is make me feel worse.


Because the Gospel of Jesus should be enough.
Because the love of God should satisfy me.
But it's not enough. The lie is deep. It is grown into my heart, and the only way I can be rid of this lie is to have a total heart transplant.
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Some of the issues engendered by this lie are so rooted in my identity that I can't even separate them anymore.

For instance, I'm now afraid of every being in a relationship again. I don't want to risk my heart. This last time, someone made the judgment that I am not enough, and it ruined me. I don't want to fail.

I'm afraid of building deep relationships with people at work, because I think they'll see through me. They will make the judgment that I'm not enough. I don't want to fail.

I'm extremely motivated to further my education, and not to quit yet another thing because then that will just prove that I don't have what it takes. I don't want to fail.
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I try to do it all on my own, but I can't.
I try to avoid being hurt, but that hurts more.
I stay out of people's lives because I believe I have nothing to offer.


I mean, if I was prettier, skinnier, more spiritual, more homey, a better cook, more demure, more charming, more... just more, J wouldn't have broken up with me and I wouldn't be single right now, would I?


Would I?


I would.


Because it's not J's opinion that matters. Or Be's. Or Br's. Or the Bible Study girls'.
It's God's. and His plan for me is the one I want to pursue.

Tattoos and Faith

Today, a bunch of my students had to write a paper on whether they thought getting a tattoo is a sin or not. I found myself considering the issue deeply, and I believe I've finally formed an opinion on it.

See, the verse in question is Leviticus 19:28, which says “You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD.”

Now, I've heard 2 arguments on this.

1.The Bible clearly says not to tattoo ourselves. Therefore we shouldn't.

2.This was talking about cutting and tattooing as an act of worship to idols. As long as we're not worshiping idols, we're okay.

Both these arguments are faulty. First comes the fact that under the new covenant we are no longer bound by the law. In fact, if you look at the verse immediately preceding 19:28, you'll find a command for men not to trim the sides of their beards. Now, pretty much every guy I know trims the sides of his beard. Even the ones who argue the binding nature of the following verse.

Second, the context of the verse makes clear that this passage refers specifically to practices performed as acts of worship. The beard-trimming, for instance, has to be stipulated because a common cult of the time had side-trimmed beards. In order to keep the Israelites from being confused with those cult members, God established specific rules for appearance like a dress code that keeps students from advertising gang affiliations at school.

I even heard some students defend the idea of tattooing by mentioning the “mark” on Jesus' thigh in Revelation as a tattoo.

But these arguments miss the point. First of all, we are in fact not bound to the law, but that does not mean we can live like heathens. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:23, “Everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful.”

Secondly, we cannot deny the specific commands of God as to how we should live. He has directly requested that His followers not cut or mark ourselves as an act of worship as the heathens did, and in some cultures still do. God's also requested that we not engage in sex outside of marriage, and I don't hear anyone debating that in the church. Besides, if we'd been able to find a way out of the abstinence policy, I think we would have by now.

I think the biggest lesson that we can learn from this request is that God's request for us is that we do not make physical marks of devotion, because our faith is not gained nor maintained through physical mutilation of our own bodies. This is why we no longer circumcise. (Incidentally, circumcision may have had more health than spiritual reasons anyway, but that's another discussion entirely.)

The only marks created by our redemption should be those on the body of Jesus Christ. And those who say that they wish to tattoo themselves for the sake of their witness do as much good to the Gospel as an alcoholic saying he gets drunk for Jesus.

And in referring to tattoos which are not religious in nature, we must then ask ourselves if the act of tattooing our bodies is glorifying to God, since we know that as Christians everything we do must necessarily pass through this filter: is it edifying, does it give glory to God alone?

So, is tattooing a sin?
In a word, no.

But it does indicate a dangerous lack of foresight and formidably bad judgment.

StrengthsFinder

My friend D is taking a class on the StrengthsFinder book/concept. She listed her strengths on her blog and I thought I'd do the same here. When you take the assessment, you come up with 5 strengths. These are mine:

1. Intellection
I love to think! A great deep conversation is my favorite for stretching my mental muscles, but I also love to just sit and contemplate the mysteries of the universe. I do my best thinking when I'm alone- in my car or on a hike. I'm introspective. The StrengthsFinder book says it best: "In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound." The truth is, if you were to place microphones in my house, car, or classroom and listen to me, you'd often hear me talking to myself, having full-fledged conversations with people who are not there, practicing what I might say in certain situations. The mental hum is one of the constants of my life.

2. Input
I collect things. Ideas. Information. Books. Facts. Mine is the kind of mind that find many different kinds of things fascinating. The world is exciting because of its infinite variety and complexity. I am constantly adding information to my mental archives, to be recalled at a later time. I hoard information jealously in the faith that it will become useful someday. And all that "useless" knowledge I compile never gets tiring because it keeps my mind fresh and ready for more.

3. Learner
This Strength almost seems redundant in light of the first two. I like to learn. Subject matter rarely, er..., matters but I will always be drawn to the process of learning. I am happiest when taking a class or involved in a study where I am learning new things and being challenged to new ways of thinking. I am energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. And because of this, I have a hard time with people who don't like to learn, or who are happy in their ignorance. An incompetent boss irritates to me to no end. I love a work environment where I am asked to take on short projects and am expected to learn a lot about a subject in a short amount of time. I throw myself whole-heartedly into learning something new and the outsome of the learning is less significant than the process itself.

Now I need to pause and mention something. When I took the StrengthsFinder assessment, I was rather disappointed at these first three because they seem so impractical. Boring, even. In fact, when I told one of my students what my first three are, she said, "You're a nerd, Miss Morales." It's true.  And it's incurable. But then I look at my other two strengths, which don't seem to match in line with the first three. And that excites me.

4. Connectedness
Things happen for a reason, and I'm sure of it.  I have a strong faith and I am certain of the connectedness of all things.  I am a defender of the weak because I know that when we harm others, we are ultimately harming ourselves. This awareness of the connected nature of the world creates my strong sense of values. I am culturally sensitive. I have confidence that we are a part of something larger, and we aren't all on our own trying to make it in a big, mean world. My faith is strong. It sustains me and my close friends in the face of life's mysteries.

5. Responsibility
In classic oldest-child fashion, I take psychological ownership for anything I commit to, large or small. I feel emotionally, morally, and relationally bound to follow through. My good name depends on it! Excuses and rationalizations are not enough to make up for a failure, no matter how small.  I have to make total restitution. I'm extremely conscientious, almost obsessed with doing things right, and I have a strong sense of ethics. I'll get it done, and do it well. I love to volunteer for things, but am wary of signing myself on too much because everything has its cost, and I will not sacrifice my reputation to something which is doomed to failure.

Tell it.

You may not know this, but when I was a toddler, my mom gave me up for adoption. She was in the middle of talks with those who would facilitate the process when her brother stepped in. He had just gotten married and he and his wife said that they would raise me. My mom was in a pretty lousy place in her life, as you can imagine. She figured she wasn't fit to be a mother and anyone else could do a better job. And if her brother took me, she thought, at least she could still have a part in my life.

I never really heard this story from my mother in its entirety until this weekend. She was asked to speak at a women's conference and decided to give her testimony. In the midst of 50 women, I heard the story from her, watched her tell it. As she unfolded her tale over the course of an hour, women teared up at different stages. Some, when they learned of her struggles as a young girl avoiding femininity. Some, when they heard of her broken relationship with her own mother. Still others as she told of her parents' divorce when she was eighteen. By the end of the story, as she ran in the freezing rain back to the army chapel where she'd just heard the gospel for the first time, not a dry eye was left in the room.

Four days later she met the man who would become her husband and within six months she had taken me back from my uncle and we were a new family on our way to the US.

This is the end of my mother's testimony.
But it's just the beginning of mine.

This weekend as I heard her tell it, I learned that each of our stories is everyone's story. The details vary, sometimes so much that we can't seem to understand each other. But at the root, we are all lost, lonely people being drawn to Jesus.

In order to attain the level of closeness that a family offers, though, we have to be vulnerable to each other. We have to open up. Some people are better at this than others. Some will break your heart when you open up to them, as recently happened to me. I gave someone all that I had to give; I opened up in a way I never had before. And he rejected it. He took my gift, small and frail, and threw it back at me. As I pick up the pieces, I wonder if I will ever be able to open up to someone like that again. But I must do it.

We must. My story is not over yet. But every step along the way is a story in itself, and if I don't share it then I do myself the injustice of disallowing familiarity with the people of God.

My story is one of a little girl with attachment disorder and severe separation anxiety paired with a desperate need for approval which has all manifested as severe low self-esteem. If I'm good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, talented enough, fast enough, maybe they won't leave me. Maybe they will love me enough to keep me around. When people do leave, naturally it's because I wasn't enough.

Jesus is taking this little girl and stitching her wounds back together. That's my story.

What's yours?

You're a Good Man

One piece of classic Americana is the Charles Schulz comic strip "Peanuts" of which the main character is Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown is an average kid, gullible, mediocre, and unremarkable. Perhaps this is part of his charm. While the other kids all excel in something (Lucy in her business ventures, Peppermint Patty at sports, Schroeder at music, etc.) and even the dog seems to have a taste of success, Charlie Brown remains "normal" in every sense of the word.  When he grows up, we can quite easily imagine him becoming some sort of middle manager.

Which is to say, Charlie Brown is a loser.

Perhaps the most poignant example of Charlie Brown's temperament is his constant to-and-fro with Lucy, who constantly offers to hold the football for him to kick and without fail yanks it out just before he reaches it, sending him hurling toward the ground with unspent momentum. Every time Lucy offers to hold the football dear old Charlie Brown questions her sincerity, but she always convinces him that she won't trick him this time. And she always does.

Charlie Brown is trusting and sweet, but naïve in every way. And of course we all recognize the greatest sign of this as his unrequited love for the elusive "little red-haired girl", whom we never see.  In fact, other characters rarely even acknowledge her existence. 

Charlie Brown doesn't recognize the good thing he has going with the girl who is actually in love with him, and even more importantly, knows he's alive: Peppermint Patty.

Dear, poor Patty.  We feel for her.  She has always loved Charlie Brown, but he barely notices her.  She has a cool nickname for him that no one else uses.  She's always trying to include him, to help him.  But of course, he's only interested in her "friendship".  She grants him this, but only because she hopes that one day he'll come around and realize that she's perfect for him.

But Charlie Brown would rather pine after the unobtainable and possibly nonexistant red-haired girl than actually work it out with a girl who would make him very happy.

In all this, however, we still have nothing bad to say about Charlie Brown because we all identify with him to some extent.  He's the penultimate loser, the naïve child, the insatiable dreamer in all of us.  And that's why all we have to say as he trips over Lucy's trickery, stumbles around the red-haired girl, fumbles through a baseball game, is this:

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

I was not prepared.

When I left the house at 5:30 pm today to head over to an event, I wasn't expecting much. Shadow Mountain's women's ministries had planned a "Girls' Nite Out" for the women in the church, and my friend D and a few other girls were going, but one girl pulled out at the last minute, so D invited me to come.  I was reluctant at first, but decided to go. I needed to get out of the house and have some fellowship.

When I got there, the place was decked out in true SMCC style. Giant paper flowers on huge foam boards that were vaguely the shape of the US. Gerbera daisies on the tables. Pink everywhere and a beautiful catered salad dinner. We prayed, we ate, we laughed, we payed close attention to the raffle numbers being called.

And then Tammy Trent came onto the stage. She was older than her photo made her look. She started to sing a few songs, and I wrote her off in my head as one of those shallow Christians that's all happiness and no sorrow. Cheerful rainbows and flowers and sunshine. What Jan Meyer, author of my favorite book ever, calls "saccharine Christianity".  But what does Miss Tammy Trent know? I want me a good raw Christian singer. Someone who's known real pain. Someone who knows what I feel like in the dark moments.

She began to tell her story. First a funny tale of how Keith Urban lived across the street from her and she had some bizarre almost-meeting encounters. But then the tale of how God brought someone into her life- a man. She met him at the age of 15 and they dated for 7 years. Then they married, she started becoming well-known in Christian circles, and he went on tour with her. But after eleven years of blissful albeit challenging marriage, her husband died in a freak diving accident off the coast of Jamaica.

She recounted the moments when she stood at the edge of the water, knowing her husband was somewhere in that lagoon, knowing that she was alone.  Because the afternoon that it happened was September 10, 2001 and when she made the calls to her family, she had no idea that every one of them would be grounded in airports across the US the next morning.  The only one who made it through was her father-in-law, who'd caught a red-eye the night before.  As he handled the details, she found herself utterly alone, with no one to cry out to but Jesus.

As Tammy told her story, I knew it was for me.  I don't pretend to liken my heartache to what must be the searing pain of losing a spouse.  But with the burn of broken promises and shattered dreams still fresh in my heart, I spend much of my time in quiet desperation, hoping I will wake up.  Today I indulged in a little daydream where the whole breakup was just a really ill-conceived April Fool's Joke gone horribly awry.

I feel made of ash, the burnt refuse of a person, unfit for anything but sweeping up and throwing out.
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Years ago, I worked at the Creation and Earth History Museum. I sat at the reception desk and waited for people to come into the museum. I greeted them and talked occasionally. There was one man who was a regular-- came in about once a month.

Every time he came in, he told me about Mount Saint Helens. He lived in Idaho in 1980 when the volcano blew its top, and he saw the ash cloud from miles away. The cloud drifted east, propelled by sea breezes from the Pacific and all that ash settled onto northern Idaho.

Every time this man told me the story, he would say, "And do you know, for the next ten years, we had the best apples in Idaho that we'd ever had."  He said this over and over. But if he hadn't, it wouldn't have stuck in my head.

Tonight, I made the connection.

See, ash is a great fertilizer. In fact, one of the best. I've told this story again and again, usually to my students to show them that even catastrophes have positive consequences. But I never believed it to be figuratively true as well as literally.

The ashes of my life, the charred remains of my hopes and dreams, are fertilizer for something better. Something more beautiful. Something useful. Tonight, for the first time in two months, something green is sprouting out of the ashes settled in the floor of my heart.

Hope.

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Note: D also blogged about this event.  Click here for her deep and encouraging words.

Love Life

I think that at some point in her life, every single woman has to make a very big decision.  This decision is about priorities.  She has to decide what the first priority in her life is going to be.  Is she going to concentrate on finding a husband and preparing herself to start a family, or is she going to pursue her more unromantic passions?

Please understand that I'm not saying you can't have both.  Sure, I know some women who love their careers and who have very happy marriages.  Not many, but there are a few.

No, no, I'm talking about primary pursuit.  And you do have to choose, because how you organize your life will depend on which choice you make.

If you choose a finding a husband, you might place yourself in more areas where suitable men turn up.  You might get more involved there.  You might take certain classes to prepare you for marriage or to keep a home.

If you choose the career path, then maybe you'll pursue a higher degree, or work longer hours toward a promotion.  Maybe you will volunteer more in the field you love.  All this prepares you to get a truly rewarding job that you love.

But if you're truly marriage-minded, chances are that you're already in the mindset that your job is temporary and eventually you'll transition into the greatly rewarding career that is motherhood.

On the other hand, if you're more the career woman, you have trouble imagining where a husband and family would fit in with your dreams in the future.  Sure, it could happen someday, but you're not actively seeking.

My dreams are great.  And I feel a strong pull toward following them.

So, with a bit of a heavy heart, this announcement: I choose the career.

Special Announcement

Not wanting to clog up this site with lots of pictures, and having decided to take my attempts at photography a bit more seriously, I have transferred the pictures that I already posted here onto my brand new shiny photo blog!  YAY!

If you want to see my pictures and get a taste of what kind of work I do, head on over to KayennePhoto!

Firsts and Maurice

D and I went dancing last night, for the first time in quite a while.  I wore a new salsa dress which was shorter than I'm used to, but turned out to work really well.  D wore a new dress, too, and off we went, feeling the need to dance again after our hiatus.

The night started out with several firsts:
-Two guys at the bar bought us drinks.  That was a first for both of us, and was a good feeling even though the men were a little creepy and weird.  We accepted the gift and smiled at each other, knowing we'd get a story out of the experience.
-One of the really good dancers asked me if I'd like to join a performing group.  I told him I'd love to, but it costs money.  Which I don't have.
-Another pro asked me if I ever competed.  Again, I said no, but it was amazing to be asked.

D and I are at the level now where we can be a little snobby about the men we will or won't dance with.  There are regulars at the Marriott that recognize us and reserve us for dances later in the evening.  We take the beginner part of the class just so that we can "preview" the men and see how it looks that particular night.

Which brings me to my hero of the evening: Maurice.
I hadn't seen him at the Marriott before but he knew Serena the salsa teacher.  He and I messed around a bit during the lesson and had some laughs.  Then, when the music started and the floor opened up I danced a few with one of the regulars and then Maurice grabbed me.

Now, when I say grabbed, I do mean grabbed but not in a creepy or demanding way.  No, he just took my hand and gave me a tug, with a look in his eye that said, "I must dance with you."  We started with a rather slow and sultry salsa.  I was surprised at how smooth his movements were, and how confident he was.  I didn't make any mistakes, because he gave me all the right signals.

When the song ended, I started to drift away, but he grabbed my hand again.  "Oh, you're not getting away that easy," he said.  I grinned.  The next song was a merengue, which can be very sexy or detached fun.  For Maurice, it was a chance to see how far into the dancing realm I would follow him.  But he was such a good leader, that I didn't notice.  Let me tell you, though, that world is a nice one.

When the merengue ended, I started drifting off again, and Maurice took off his glasses.  "Oh, you've earned a bachata," he murmured as the beat of the next song became obvious.  I danced once more with him, and was surprised at how good I was getting.  How bold.  How smooth.

D danced with Maurice too, and we both agreed that he was amazing.  As I reflected on it later, I realized that he exemplified on the dance floor exactly what women look for in a man.  So pay attention, guys!  Here's what we want:
1) He was strong.  Yes, women want a man who can push them around a little bit.  Not that he does.  But that he can.  Maurice showed his strength by his gentle but firm hand gestures and placements.  When I was shyly staring at the ground, he firmly lifted my chin until my eyes met his.
2) He had a plan.  Okay, so maybe Maurice didn't know when we went out onto the floor exactly what patterns he was going to do.  But he had some patterns in mind and he communicated them to me as they came along.  He didn't give me a list or a time frame when we went out there.  He didn't bog me down with too much information.  But when it was time, he told me what he wanted me to do, and I did it.
3) He was gentle.  Some dancers are rough on your hands.  They push you around and you feel flung about the dancefloor like a ragdoll.  Maurice did no such thing.  He had good tension in his arms and body, and he didn't overuse his strength.  It was power under control that made him such a great partner.
4) He was attentive.  Now, this one might be the most important.  Both D and I noticed that when we danced with Maurice, it was as if we were the only women on the floor -nay-  in the world.  His eyes were on me the whole time.  He pressed his forehead, his cheek, to mine.  He made me feel desired, alive, sexy.  I haven't felt that way in probably three years.

So there it is... what women want....(Except, of course, the spiritual issues, which go without saying).  Someday I'll give you my 3 concise points on how to make a woman happy.  But that's for another lesson.