Beautiful Scars

Every women dreads the mirrors and lighting in a dressing room...well maybe not if you are a fitness model. No, actually, I'm pretty sure they even find flaws they don't like under those conditions. But there I stood, taking in my reflection - buck naked, and what I saw made me want to cry.

I need to be completely transparent here... my physical appearance was always very important to me. I think it had a lot to do with insecurities I pick-up in elementary school. There were times when I was told something about me was ugly. This only furthered my already excruciating timidity, causing me to feel nearly invisible on the playground. I thought I wasn't special enough to get the kind of attention other girls in my class got. We girls all wanted to be their BFFs and all the guys wanted to be their boyfriends.

Fast forward a few years past braces and satellite bangs and I discovered just how significant being physically attractive can make you feel. Suddenly I became that one of "those" girls and it felt amazing. When I would go out, I could even get stuff for free if a guy was working the register. It made me feel valuable, powerful and the kind of "special" I had always hoped to be. Needless to say, this lead to hyper self-focus and actually multiplied my deepest insecurities. It became all about me.

Super fast forward once again to the dressing room. I was now a mom of 4. This was no longer the girl who could turn heads at the beach staring back at me. Gone were toned, tight abs now. No more picture-perky hiney.  I glanced down to the skin on my stomach which looked like the folds of an accordion...and that was only if I was sucking in...hard. The cha-cha's? Now "socks and rocks". The stretch marks, the cellulite, the c-section scar. They were all scars. I wasn't what I used to be and never would be again. Why Lord, why?" I whined in my self pity. For someone who found so much of their value in how they look, this moment was about to be devastating. Until, He spoke these words into my heart...

"You see, your body bares the scars of giving life...
and so does mine." 

Whoa...Wait a minute. What? Did He just say that?

I never looked at it that way. Now I have no excuse! I can no longer whine or complain. I can not look in the mirror with dread and disgust. I can only see these scars as beautiful reminders! If there was ever anything in life worth the price of these scars, it was my own precious children's lives. I would die for these little people just like He did for me! These scars represent death to self and life to others! Reminders that Jesus loved us so much that He was willing to die for us, and He bares the scars to prove it!  Could there ever be anything more beautiful? 

"Her children arise and call her blessed; 
her husband also, and he praises her: 
'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.' 
Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; 
but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised." Prov. 31:30

Finding Freedom

It's been 4 years since my last post. That's a long time in blog years but a lot longer still in Teresa years. Those years were, hands down, the hardest of my life. I had lost my desire to write, to create, to even think really. Honestly it was the least of my concerns because I almost lost it all. Not in a physical sense, but in one far more important...

I didn't know how I became unrecognizable when I looked in the mirror. I almost feel a little dramatic stating it that way, but if I'm going to be real, that's really where I was. I felt like a phony...a fraud. Like I had it all together on the outside but was falling apart at the seams on the inside and no one knew. Not even my own husband knew what was really happening in my heart.

There was a constant heaviness. I felt cold and indifferent. I had lost my joy and to the heart of a worshipper, that alone was devastating. I was being tempted in ways completely foreign to my nature and that scared me to the core. It wasn't over night, it was a very slow chipping away that left me open to attack on all sides. I was close to giving up my marriage and worst of all, totally turning away in total defeat from my faith. If this is where years of working for God leaves you, then I'm out. 

I've since learned that in certain situations, the enemy will use the best in you against you. I now see where this happened time and time again. It's a painful feeling to know that in the wrong hands, your own loyalty, trust, service, mercy and love can be used to destroy you. But that's what happened and that's where it left me. Totally bound up by the evil one and completely unaware that I was bound.

What is wrong with you? You are not only a Christian but a leader in the church! You're an example! I was supposed to be full of the hope and joy of Jesus but there was none and I couldn't fake a smile anymore. I was as a total failure, a royal train wreck. Then it came...

Reluctantly, and late - as usual, we entered the classroom at Gateway Church in Frisco. We knew it all, had read the whole Bible cover to cover, had heard teaching after teaching, years and years of church under our belts. I mean what could we possibly hear that we didn't already know? Our teach that day, Bob Hamp, starting telling a tale - a parable, as he called it - about a man who lost his identity through the circumstances of an ordinary life. As he shared the parable in his captivating way, I began to see myself.

I saw how life had convinced me that I was someone I was not. How my eyes had been blinded by bad doctrine and good intentions. How my wings had been clipped by the knowledge of good and evil. How my hands had been shackled by the spirit of religion. But most of all, I saw how Jesus didn't come to change my behavior but to make Himself my source of life (Acts 17:28). I saw how Jesus didn't come to convince me of how sinful I was, but to convict me of righteousness (2 Cor 5:21).  I saw how Jesus came not to make me His slave but to free me to be a daughter of God (John 15:15). I saw for the first time. I saw.

By the end of those 5 classes I had a whole new understanding of who I was, who God is, who I am to God. Everything changed. Everything. Gone was the burden of religious expectations for I no longer had to "do" anything to "be" right with God. I didn't have to earn anything because I've been given everything. I finally realized that working for God was a lie and that only by allowing His Spirit to work through me would His purpose be accomplished. For the first time in my 32 years of being a Believer, I was free!

Now fully restored, I'm eternally grateful for God's redeeming love. He turned this self-righteous pharisee into a gracious daughter who now fully understands how to truly set the captives free!

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Gal 5:1

If you would like experience Gateway's Freedom Ministry, you can watch the full 5 classes online here.

The Kid in Me

It's 12:35am. I fall into my bed with bones so weary and muscles so sore I could swear I must have been hit by a Mac truck. No, it was just another day filled with the pleasure and pain of parenthood. I never got around to putting the clothes in the dryer or picking up the ones still lying on my bathroom floor from a weeks worth of baths and showers. Some things just have to take a back seat to diaper changes, tummy time and seemingly endless one sided conversation on the Thomas the Train telephone. Blaze is finally asleep in his bassinet beside me. Arrow is probably zonked out in his toddler bed with his sippy cup still clenched tightly in his hand and his ball cap still on his head backwards. As I lie here, trying to clear my mind of the day's clutter, I'm my thoughts drift back to the beginning of it all.

Is that a line? Does that mean positive? I ask myself as I read and re-read the instructions on the pregnancy test again. The realization that my life, as I knew it, would never be the same again sent waves of adrenaline and nausea rushing through me. I really didn't know what to do, say or think. I just stood there staring at the stick. It was quite a surprise and one I wasn't ready for.

Everyone was thrilled when we finally shared the news about a month later on Christmas eve. A few weeks later, my sister-in-law gave me a book that was written by a Christian singer. She wrote it during her first pregnancy. It was a cute little book filled with songs, stories and letters to her future little one. The lyrics to one song gave voice to the unspoken feelings I was struggling with. It started with the lines: "I'm not the least bit ready for you, but come, come anyway - I’m not the least bit worthy of you, but come, come anyway ". As I read the words, tears started streaming down my face. I looked over at the sonogram photo on the dresser and repeated the words to the little one growing inside me. I was excited about the baby but was honestly scared to death.

I had never been much of a "kid person". It didn't really matter to me whether I had them or not. I remember telling my sister that I felt like I was on a roller coaster that was moving slowly up the first steep hill about to reach the top where I would drop of the cliff, never to get off the ride again. Life was about to change forever. Little did I know just how all encompassing that change would be, even less did I know how much I would change - for the better.

Motherhood has given me the courage and confidence to sing with more passion, work with more motivation, play with more abandonment, feel with more depth, love with more intensity, live with more purpose. I never fully understood life until I gave birth to it. I never fully understood love until I held it in my arms and saw, not only my reflection, but that of God. The way a mother feels about her children is not describable with words, no matter how you mix the 36 letters together. It pushes you to the end of yourself and self-sufficiency. Reliance on God is the only way to survive because it literally hurts to love someone so much.

So, almost three weeks after I started this post, I'm ending it. As it goes - life happened and it ends as it started...it's late, my back is aching, the laundry is waiting and my eyes are closing...but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Link: Lyrics to "Come Anyway"