All I Need Is Jesus and a Good Pair of Jeans: The Tired Supergirl's Search for Grace (11 page)

13

I AM SELFISH

I
am saying it loud and clear, people. I am selfish. While I would like to deny it, it is the truth. I am a self pleaser. Now, I’m not saying it proudly. That would be like saying with great jubilation, “I have corns.”

That just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Corns are no good. Just the fact that they are located on your feet and are called “corns” makes me feel a little nauseous. Things named after vegetables and one’s feet should not be allowed to mingle. The same could be said about selfishness and the tired supergirl. Selfish is the very last thing on earth I wish to be. Or at least it is the very last thing on earth I want others to think about me. I want to be seen as generous, loving, and hospitable. I definitely don’t want to be viewed as selfish. Self-ish. Consumed with one’s self. Loving one’s self over all others. Taking care of one’s person before casting a thought toward anyone else. And yet, that is what I do most days. Think a whole lot about myself. In fact, this whole book is about myself. See how very selfish I am? So very full of myself. It’s sickening, I know. Every day when I get up, I think about myself. What should I wear? What should I eat? What should I do? How can I get through my to-do list? Do you see it? Me? Myself? I? A whole lot of thinking being done about myself.

Now mind you, being a mother, I don’t get to be as selfish as I want. I have to start thinking about the boys almost as soon as my eyes open.
What will they wear? What will they
eat? How can I get Jack to stop wiping syrup on his pants before
he goes to school?
As a parent, I am forced to be unselfish. But it’s not because I awaken with thoughts of how I long to care to the best of my ability for those small humans God has entrusted to me. The whole unselfish thing goes against my nature. Selfishness comes so easily to me. I would much rather sit down for a cup of coffee than whip up little boys’ breakfasts and comb down cowlicky hair and change diapers. I can’t lie. I do like the good-morning kisses. But then again, we are back to thinking about my own likes and dislikes. So those kisses fit in quite nicely with my selfish self. Kisses for me. Coffee for me. Time for me. Oh, how I love me.

Selfishness is the Achilles’ heel of tired supergirls everywhere. We just can’t stop thinking about ourselves. The world does tend to revolve around ourselves. We view everything through a me-colored lens. How will this affect me? Need I remind you, this is the very type of thinking that got Eve in heaps of trouble? Here she was in a garden of perfection, her every whim and need met, and she started thinking,
Why
doesn’t God want
me
to eat that apple? What harm could
it do
me
for goodness’ sake?

Then the Snake came along and encouraged her to follow her inner diva. He encouraged her to ignore the instructions God gave her and treat herself to that gorgeous apple. Because what she wanted was more important than anything else, right? And so began the long, arduous journey of the first tired supergirl. Poor Eve. Or should I say, poor us? Because just like Eve, it is our daily struggle to cast aside the loud voice of the Diva. Her convincing words often overshadow the words of the One who can show us who to be and fill us with who he is. The Diva’s voice, for some reason, sounds exactly like my voice. Go figure. That is why I listen to her so often. She is so very smart and only wants what is best for, you got it, me. She is never lacking in opinions and makes a whole lot of sense almost all of the time. I really love the Diva a whole lot. That is why it is so very hard to fight against her. Because I feel like I am slugging it out with myself. Which, of course, I am.

So many tired supergirls get tripped up by the Diva because she is so persuasive. She even likes to put words in God’s mouth and say things like, “God wouldn’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. He really wouldn’t. You need to think of yourself.”

Or, “Once you take care of your own needs, you will be better equipped to take care of others. You really need to put yourself first.”

The Diva coined the phrase “me time.” I’m not really sure, but I think that phrase may be as nauseating to God as the word
corns
is to me. Because the phrase “me time” places you at the center of the universe and requires everything else to orbit around you. This is not what we are designed for. I have a sneaking hunch that celebrity, for all of its glory and perks, was the brainchild of the Diva. And we tired supergirls (those of us who read inappropriate gossip magazines while waiting to buy our groceries) know what celebrity is good for. Nothing. A whole lot of problems occur when the world revolves around the whims of a rock star or a child actor or a novelist hopped up on fame. And those crazy paparazzi—they can’t be helping matters any. Reality is skewed for celebrities. They think the world lives and breathes for them. And they suffer for it, even if they don’t realize it. They may not see it. But we tired supergirls do. We can easily recognize the destructiveness of the Diva in others. But somehow it is harder to recognize it in ourselves. The desire of the supergirl heart to follow after Jesus is at direct odds with the natural state of the heart, which is to listen to the Diva. We see this so clearly when Jesus talked to his disciples about his impending death.

From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that he had to go to Jerusalem, and he told them what would happen to him there. He would suffer at the hands of the leaders and the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, and he would be raised on the third day.

But Peter took him aside and corrected him. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”

Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God’s.”

Matthew 16:21–23

Now those are some harsh words for our good friend Peter. After all, he loves Jesus a whole lot. Peter recently revealed he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God. So, it is a little bit comical that he takes Jesus aside to correct him. But for this moment, he thinks he may know a thing or two more than the one who fashioned the world and galaxies with a word. Which is basically what we supergirls do each time we decide to follow our own path. It’s not that we don’t love Jesus; we really do. We appreciate what he has done on our behalf, but obviously he is not quite up to speed on our situation, and we would like to help him out, take things in our own hands, and work things out in a way that will benefit ourselves. Peter does not want Jesus going anywhere.

He really likes having him around.

As for Jesus, he responds in the only way he can. He recognizes that voice caught up in the midst of Peter’s words that tempts him, saying, “Think only of yourself.” The voice that calls us to turn away from God’s plan and seek our own plan. The voice that seduced Eve in the garden. That is the voice of the Snake, Satan himself. And he recognizes that voice because, for goodness’ sake, Satan tormented him for forty days in the desert, and as God’s eternal Son, he was there the day that Satan was thrown out of heaven and witnessed him tripping up Eve in the garden. If he didn’t give in to that voice in the desert, he isn’t about to be trapped by it now. He is obeying God. He is centering himself around God. He is denying himself. Surely Jesus does not want to die on the cross, but he is going forward in the belief that the plan God has for him is the one and only plan that matters. He goes on to address the disciples.

If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?

Matthew 16:24–26

Losing your soul. This is the destructiveness of the Diva that we supergirls recognize so readily in others. The Diva would like to destroy any chance we have at real living. When we turn from God and follow after that voice—the one that is so alluring, the one that seems so logical and right, that snaky voice in the garden—we lose our souls. It is as simple as that. It is only when we put aside our selfish ambition and follow Jesus that we get our life back. We were created to be centered around God. For intimacy with him. For following after him. We don’t really fancy taking up a cross. It sounds uncomfortable and difficult. That’s not really our idea of a good time. And that is what the Diva is counting on. She is hoping that we supergirls will want to keep our lives for ourselves. She is hoping we won’t realize that the cost of following God’s plan is worth it. She doesn’t want us to recognize that the cross symbolizes freedom. It symbolizes the burying of our sin and the promise of new life. Taking up the cross and following after Jesus, no matter how difficult it may be at times, far outweighs any momentary satisfaction we may have putting ourselves first.

It is in that moment when we choose to give up our lives that the Diva just can’t stand to be around anymore. The moment when we say no to our selfish nature and say yes to being a disciple, the Snake’s voice begins to fade and the Diva goes into hiding. And we can begin to live. Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. I think we should take him up on it.

14

I AM LONELY

I
have three children. Three very small children. Three very small children who love me very much. If they could, they would Velcro themselves to my legs and go everywhere with me. I rarely have a moment to myself. I often sleep with one or two of them wedged under my arms or breathing into my neck. They love to find me by myself so they can get a little one-on-one time with me. They eat with me, dress with me, play with me, cry with me, and laugh with me. I often leave the door unlocked to the bathroom, in case somehow, in the brief time that it takes me to use the facilities, one of them were to maim themselves or lose a limb, they would be able to get access to me quickly. They have taken this as an open invitation to come sit down and have a chat. If it wasn’t forbidden, they would bring snacks. I shouldn’t be lonely with 24/7, around-the-clock sweet boys who can’t seem to get enough of me. But I am.

I used to think the pit of loneliness that yawned within could only be filled with romance. I was forever looking for
the one
. And then I found
the one
. And no doubt about it, Scott is absolutely fantastic. He’s funny. He’s cute. He loves Jesus. And best of all, Scott’s mine. For so many years, I searched for someone to be mine. Finally, here is someone who is not anyone else’s. Someone who longs for time with me. Someone who gets me. Who laughs and cries with me. Someone who sees all the messes I have made in my life and still loves me. That is no small thing. I should not be lonely with a man like this. But I am.

I remember my mom telling me a story about her and my dad. They got married and three weeks later left family and friends in sunny California for grad school and the golden cornfields of Illinois. She said they cried all the way there. Even though they were head over heels in love and couldn’t get enough of each other. She said she would have gone to the ends of the earth for him. And she did. The Midwest is very far from California. Then she told me that in one of her loneliest moments, she said to my dad, “I thought you would be enough for me . . . but you’re not.” I think it came as a surprise. When you are deeply in love with someone, you think,
This is it. The pit is gone. I’ll never be lonely again.

But then there it is again. Begging to be filled, for goodness’ sake.

Some of us tired supergirls are lonely for good solid girlfriends. We crave the laughter, the sisterhood, the understanding. Some of us hanker after sweethearts. We long for intimacy and male affirmation. We want to take care of someone and to be taken care of. Some of us simply cannot wait to wrap our arms around a baby. We are lonely for a little one of our own. Some of us tired supergirls would kill for a somewhat normal family. A parent who checked in on us, was proud of us, and knew us inside and out. Some of us would love to find someone to mentor us. We are lonely for wisdom and empathy and comradeship. Some of us would just like to find
one
person.
Any
person in all the many persons in this world who would truly get us, inside and out. We are worn out by loneliness, and we will do whatever we need to do to fill that growing chasm within.