Looking in the Mirror

My sweet Lilly Grace has entered the fabulous and frilly, enchanted world of make-believe.  “Twirl me, Daddy,” comes from an honest place and melts hearts instantly.  Lilly wants to be a Princess.  It started back in the summer when every outfit had to be a dress.  The only princess she even knew of was Cinderella and her brother, Jake, seemed to enjoy watching it more than she did!  But she insisted on a dress… every day.

Her favorite kind of dress is a long one, one that spins and sways, and hovers just above the floor.  Her plastic pink slippers are the finishing touches to her dreamy apparel.  Once completely dressed, she will do two things. 

First, she will always, always, always ask to look in the mirror.  She loves the mirror in her Daddy’s closet because it is a great big, long mirror that shows every inch of her.

Lilly only smiles in the mirror.  She never, ever changes her dress afterwards, because the looking is only part of the thrill.  She only expects to find beauty.  She knows she is elegant.  She believes she is special, important, unique.  Looking at herself in the mirror is like opening a gift.

The next thing Lilly will do after looking in the mirror is quite simple.  She gets out her tea cups and her cookies and throws a party. She is not the guest of honor.  No one serves her.  She serves them- all twenty-six of them sometimes.  She is happy serving her stuffed animal friends, and she knows she is beautiful.
 

When I watch my daughter, I wonder if it will always be that way.  Will she always see what she sees now when she peers at herself in the mirror?  It terrifies me because when I watch her, it seems foreign.  It seems distant.  I struggle to see beauty in the mirror.  I look hard and always find imperfection.  I usually change the dress- a few times.  And I know that when I finally feel semi-confident, I usually want it to be all about me. 

What if I looked at myself and expected to see beauty, not physical beauty but the inside-kind that counts? The kind that comes from Jesus moving in and taking up space in my heart.  The kind of beauty that I have nothing to do with.  What if I believed I was a gift, a precious jewel?  If I was secure in who I am, would it change the way I loved others? Would I see them first, serve them first?  Would it start to be less and less about me?

The other night I was reading in Isaiah.  I was reading a chapter that has become so precious and familiar to me- a place I go when my soul needs to hear I am loved and I have purpose.  I will never know for sure what made me linger on this word, but I have a feeling it was my Creator pouring His love right into my heart.  The word was jewels.  I stopped.  I parked.  I prayed.  Then I looked up this word, because when you are obsessed with words and their meanings that is just what you do.

The Hebrew word for jewels is kĕliy.  My fingers trembled as I clicked the button that allowed me to hear this word spoken out loud.  Kelly.  My name.  Personal, and spoken straight to my forgetful heart.  I am a jewel.  I am beauty.  I am wanted.  I have purpose.  It frightens me and thrills me all at once to say these words as I look into the mirror of my soul.  But when I walk away, I know that I am not the only one who is unique and cherished and beautiful.  You are, too.

You are a vessel, made with a purpose.

You are an instrument in God’s hand.
You are a jewel, reflecting beauty and wonder. 
You are precious and loved and created to bear the image of God. 

And you are a princess, too.  Not the make-believe, fairy tale kind- you are a daughter of the One True King, and He is wildly in love with you.

Now repeat these words in front of your mirror until you believe them completely. 

Then, throw a party and tell your girlfriends that they are beautiful, too!

Empty Hangers

This morning's car ride starts with a question.  Before I can begin to gather my answer together, fold it neatly into a tidy playful paper airplane and send it zipping behind me to the backseat, another shoots forward, and another, and another, like I am suddenly under attack.

Coming face to face with my own inability to adequately answer each one, I call for silence and politely announce, “No more questions,” to my two curious co-pilots. 

In the quiet, I remember my own questions.  The ones that seem silly, the wonder-questions, the what-ifs, and the questions that I cannot even utter. 

Questions are like hangers.  They are meant to be dressed with answers.

Some hangers are made of wire and covered with t-shirts; others are more sophisticated with their sports coats and suits.  Small plastic painted hangers display teeny tiny newborn onesies while padded, elegant hangers hold up long, flowing wedding gowns.

  

Hangers are meant to be covered. 

Questions are meant to be answered.

No one dreams of a closet with rows and rows of empty hangers.  The joy is in the outfit, the possibility, the wonder of selecting and pairing and starting over if it doesn’t work out the first time.  An empty hanger is bare, naked. I do not like empty hangers, and I am terrified of the question that hangs without answer. 

Solutions are safe.  The possibility that there may not be one is risky, even dangerous.  A neatly packaged explanation is comforting; walking away without an answer is so incredibly uncomfortable. 

So what do we do with our empty hangers?
 

I want so badly to drape clothing that covers here. 

I seek beautiful, coordinating layers that balance and complement one another.

I long for accessories that polish the look and seem as if they were made for this. 

I crave a sense of tidiness, put-togetherness, and completion.

I want a solution.

Answers are filled with hope.  But could an empty hanger bring hope as well? 

Jesus hanging on a cross, bloody and bruised, was God’s solution.  The wooden hanger that held God's Solution to the fall of man was spoken of for centuries before the Answer was hung.  God was faithful then.  He is faithful now. 

 
Every question’s answer is Jesus.  He is the Answer the world waited for, not attractive or neat or tidy, but every bit perfect and complete.  God’s solution gave us Life.  God’s answer rescued us from darkness.  God explained Himself to us through Jesus, and He granted us peace through Jesus’ blood.  There was no other answer- only this perfect solution. 

If this was God’s most profound answer, might we find Hope here?  Instead of fearing the empty hanger, might we trust God, the Answer-Giver?   

Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah... 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments,
And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Isaiah 61:10

 
The empty hanger is necessary.  Jesus is God’s solution who hung there.  He is the Answer, the One who holds all things together.  No matter what the question may be, Jesus is enough.  The question may linger for years, for days, or mere seconds.   

God can handle the questions that hang unanswered- your curious questions as well as the questions that knot together in the deepest parts of your soul.  Hand them over to the Answer-Giver who came up with the perfect solution.  Then inhale Peace and grab onto Hope and be filled with Joy, knowing that Jesus covers you completely and perfectly.  The hanger may be empty, but you are dressed in Life, in Freedom, and in Beauty.

Dust Buster

He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust.  Isaiah 26:5

Lately, I’ve felt as though I am wrestling with God- trying to wrap my mind around this certain thing, seeking clear insight which I know can only come from Him.  And, quite honestly, it’s exhausting.  I’m tired.  I’m done- ready to quit.  I want to walk away- not from God, but from my own lack of understanding.

That’s when I remembered a man who might know how I feel.  A man I never met, but a man I feel as if I know very well.  A man who wrestled with God.  A man named Jacob.  Reading this story in Genesis 32, I am slowly beginning to see that Jacob had a lot of struggles. 

He struggled with the truth, and wound up deceiving others to get his way.
He struggled with pride, and had a bad habit of putting himself first. 
He struggled with fear, and though he could see angels all around him, Jacob did not trust God.

I have read this story dozens of times.  My grandfather’s name was Jacob, and my son carries that name as well.  I’ve scoured the pages of my bible, eager to learn more about this man blessed by God.  But today, God made some things pretty clear.  It was a lesson that changed my thinking and pierced my heart.

Jacob did not wrestle with God.  God wrestled with Jacob. 

The word wrestle means “to grapple or get dusty.”  This was a face-to-face, close encounter with Jesus.  And Jacob got dusty.  I have this sneaky suspicion that Jacob did not want to get down in the dirt, but God brought him low.  I bet Jacob thought with all of his pride and all of his strength and all of his conniving schemes that he just might win. 

The more and more I thought about it, I realized that this was not just a wrestling match.  This was God sculpting Jacob.  And though God was victorious, He was merciful as well.  Genesis 2 speaks of another close, face-to-face encounter between man and God:

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.    Genesis 2:7

God, in His great love, knew that there were huge pieces of stone that had to be removed.  So, the great Artist, holding a chisel in His hand, set to work on the very man He created from the dust. Little by little, the unwanted stone is removed, and then the Artist bends down and blows the dust away, leaving something valuable and beautiful in its place… new life.

It is a remarkable process to watch a sculptor at work, but I can only imagine a very different perspective from the stone the Artist has seized.  Jacob had surrendered all he owned, yet he had not surrendered the very thing God was after- his heart.  He sent his family and all of his possessions on ahead of him as he waited to see what his fate would be when his brother Esau met him in the morning.  God knew Jacob needed to be alone so that He could chisel away his pride, his selfish motives, and his unbelief. And in that wrestling match of God trying to get Jacob to let go, he found himself holding on to God- only God- and in that moment he surrendered himself completely.  After that encounter, God changed Jacob’s name to Israel which means, “God rules.”  Psalm 103 explains why it is such a beautiful thing to let God rule over our lives.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.    Psalm 103:13-14

God knew that for Jacob to become Israel, sculpting had to happen.  Getting dusty reminds us of our position and establishes God in His right position- above us.  But God, in His love and compassion, did not leave Jacob dusty, He came face-to-face with him and blew all the dust away.  Jacob’s words after his night of wrestling with God reveal God’s deeper work.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”   Genesis 32:30

No one could see God and live, and Jacob knew he had seen the face of God.  Some translations read “yet my life was preserved,” or “delivered,” suggesting that God rescued Jacob from his fate.  And God most certainly did rescue Jacob.  But a closer look reveals a deeper truth.  This word in the Hebrew language means “to take away or strip off something.”  Jacob needed a new name, because God removed the parts of the old man that kept him from being who God created him to be.  Without those pieces of stone, Jacob was free to walk in God’s purpose for his life, a new and changed man.  And the name God chose was a reminder to Jacob who ruled his life. 

I am beginning to see that this wrestling is not really wrestling at all.  It’s holding, . . . chiseling, . . . stripping.  It’s face-to-face personal.  And as any artist knows, sculpting takes time. 

Though there were many areas of his life that God had to remove, Jacob did this one thing really, really well.  He prayed.  He was afraid, and he struggled to trust God, but he prayed.  Not only did he pray when his fear overwhelmed him, he prayed God’s word.  He remembered the promise God made to him many years before, and when it got personal and he got dusty, he clung to the Promise-maker, understanding that sculpting was part of God’s plan in bringing that promise to fruition. 

“I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.  I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.  All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.  I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  Genesis 28:13-15