All I Need Is Jesus and a Good Pair of Jeans: The Tired Supergirl's Search for Grace (5 page)

“I don’t need other people to condemn me,” Rene reminded me. “I do a really good job of that myself.”

That’s how it is for a lot of us supergirls. Who needs other people to point out your faults when you do such a good job of it yourself? It slaps you upside the head when you wake up in the morning and runs laps around you when you try to rest at night. You’re not good enough. You fail. You sin . . . a lot. You won’t ever be who you want to be. Just in case you were wondering, that slapping sensation comes from Condemno Boy, who is lobbing stones at you from the sidelines. His throwing power comes from his unbelievable ability to recall your every shortcoming. All of your less-than moments. Your failures. Your mishaps. Your tales of how you have wronged others. Your great mind-numbing gaffs. Your weak, embarrassing, can’t-get-free stories. He throws them back in your face with fantastic speed. Just when you think you are out of his line of fire, just when you start to feel a little grace heading your way, a little mercy freeing up some space in your soul . . . WHAM!

“August 23, 1997 . . . remember how you lied to your boss?”

Then POW!

“November 14, 2004 . . . you went a little too far with boyfriend #3.”

Now you’re down for the count, and here comes his curveball with stunning accuracy . . . ZING!

“This morning, you yelled at your husband, ignored your kids, and ate five chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. Anger, apathy, and gluttony! What a terrific way to start your day. Some Christ follower you are.”

And you are speechless. Because he is right.

Condemno Boy smirks . . . victorious once again. He always wins because he is always right. We supergirls are far from perfect. Even though we know Jesus saved us, we get stuck. Stuck in our sin, our past, our yuckiness.

The thing is . . . sometimes it’s hard to get free. We know in our heads that there is absolute freedom in Christ. But really, what does free look like? And what does free feel like?

I know what condemnation looks like. It looks like a broken woman, wrapped in a robe, being carried through the streets. She is sobbing and embarrassed. The Pharisees found her, naked, amidst her sin, and she knows she is going to die. That’s what happens when you are caught, mid-adultery, in Jesus’s day. You get to die a painful, public death by stoning. Somehow, these men knew where she was and what she was doing, and they are going to take her and Jesus out in one fell swoop. Shame contorts her face as they bring her to him. The Pharisees, good pals of our friend Condemno Boy, trapped her and now they want to see if they can trap Jesus. She is an adulteress . . . what is he going to do about it? It plays out like this:

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, stone her. But let those who have n ever sinned throw the first stones!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to her, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

John 8:7–11

And that’s that. The Pharisees leave. They can’t stone her because they aren’t perfect either. Not one of us supergirls is perfect or ever will be. But Jesus is. He is the one who knows our junk, all the ugly stuff. And Jesus, the perfect one, doesn’t condemn us. He doesn’t excuse our behavior. In fact, he tells the woman, “Go and sin no more.” But I think that could only happen once she encountered Jesus. She could only leave behind who she was, the condemnation of what she had done, her sentence of death, after she came face-toface with Jesus and he set her free. Free. Really free.

Paul puts it like this in Romans:

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death.

8:1–2

Paul should know. He met Jesus on a lonely road and was never the same again. He got free.

I think free feels like your first breath of air after being told you are not going to die. I think it feels like the morning after a really hard rain. It’s a new start. A breaking free from what we were and running toward who we will be. I think free feels like waves of grace and mercy crashing over us and washing away the mud of the past that weighs down our hearts and buries our souls. I think free looks like a broken woman in a robe who has seen the Messiah and will never be the same again. She was being dragged toward her death and meets life on the way. Free looks like the smile that lights her face as she cuts through the crowd, hurrying toward her new life. Free looks like the stones scattered in the dust, the ones that were never thrown. Free looks like the backs of the accusers as they slip away, one by one.

I think free looks like Jesus, the compassion in his eyes and the stoop of his shoulders as he bends down to write in the dust. Because he doesn’t condemn us. Even though we are sinful and the penalty for sin is death. He loves us too much. He couldn’t stand for us to die. So he did it himself. And because of that, we get to feel and smell and hear and taste his freedom. The freedom that we supergirls long for. The freedom of fresh starts and new mercies every morning. The freedom that comes from knowing that when we are standing with Jesus, no one gets to throw any stones.

6

I WANT CHOCOLATE TO
SOLVE MY PROBLEMS

T
here is nothing like chocolate. Especially a piece of rich, dark chocolate broken off from a big fat bar. You truly have to savor each bite. Because it will soon be gone. I know this because I am a connoisseur of chocolate. It is an integral part of my existence.

Chocolate is a legacy in my family. My mom, Ruth, would sneak candy bars to make it through the day with four kids under the age of seven. Her mom, Opal, measured her sadness with Hershey almond bars. After Grandpa died, she ate chocolate bars to stave off the pain. Sometimes it was an eight-bar day. Opal’s mom, Minnie, loved chocolate too. One young man came courting with a box of chocolates, promising to have her home by curfew. When he returned her home late, she took the box and threw it in the fire. She must have really wanted to be on time because chocolate is precious, like brown gold.

Studies have shown that chocolate can release chemicals in the brain similar to those of being in love. One study shows that pregnant women who eat chocolate are happier and have happier babies. I know this because I ate chocolate while I was pregnant and I was happy. Baby #3, who could be very serene, did flips like a dolphin when it hit his bloodstream. Chocolate is good.

Chocolate is also comforting. When life feels crazy, I know that a brownie can soothe me. Or when the bills come, I reach for anything remotely chocolaty . . . even a chalky protein bar. I, too, gage my grief by the amount of chocolate inhaled. I assuage my anger, my anxiety, and my loneliness with chocolate. The reason? Because if I am eating chocolate, I can focus on the pleasure of the moment and escape from whatever angst is at hand. My name is Susanna, and I am an emotional chocoholic.

By now, you probably pity me for the cocoa-loving freak that I am. Let me introduce you to Mr. Substitution. He keeps me in steady supply. He specializes in plying supergirls with whatever they use to keep their minds off whatever troubles them. He has a wide variety of diversions to offer us supergirls, such as food, relationships, shopping sprees, sex, exercise, knitting, archeology, sunbathing, alcohol, scrapbooking, spa treatments, movies, church functions, cross-country skiing, swing dancing, the office—you name it, he’s got it. We all have our drug of choice. And he has cornered the market on chocolate.

Mr. Substitution is pleasant, always helping us supergirls get our minds off of things. He’s not against plying supergirls with different options. If you can no longer button your jeans, why not buy some new pants? Your job is holding you hostage? Why not plan a trip to Honolulu? That nice Christian guy you are pining for hasn’t made eye contact? Why not go out one last time with your selfish, cheating ex-boyfriend? At least he calls.

Of course, Mr. Substitution is always in hiding whenever you discover the newest patch of cellulite your latest chocolate binge has produced. He is also unavailable whenever the credit card bill arrives. Or when you are hung over after the big soiree he encouraged you to go to. Or drowning in the emotional ravages of another failed relationship he lured you into. He’s always absent when you ask God for forgiveness or feel haunted by your weakness. He’s on hiatus when you try to search for your answers in God’s grace.

Mr. Substitution is tricky. He can never truly alleviate the crushing emptiness within us supergirls. He can only offer us cheap filler. He looks at a hard situation and offers us easy, do-it-yourself solutions. Need comfort? Here’s some ice cream. Want love? Have a noncommitted make-out buddy whenever you’re lonely. Long for acceptance? Wear the latest styles and watch people gaze at you enviously. Wish for peace? Go to a yoga class and stretch to your heart’s content.

The tricky part is that these things we long for are Godgiven desires. Who doesn’t need comfort, love, acceptance, and peace? And usually the substitutions, in and of themselves, aren’t bad. Food, intimacy, clothes, and exercise are all good. Here’s the catch: Mr. Substitution analyzes our desires and offers us . . . less. Less than what we need.Less than what we long for. Less than what we deserve as supergirls, yearning to follow the Savior of the universe.
He offers a quick fix to a lifelong struggle. And we take the fix, over and over, because it’s easy. But let’s face it, it never lasts.

The chocolate bar ends. The clothes go out of style. The thrill of winning passes. The good-night kiss lingers only so long. The knit one, purl two afghan is finished. The appletini buzz never lasts. And then what? Why, hello, Mr. Substitution! Fancy meeting you here again.

It is like the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well. She has this need inside of her that she believes only a man can fill. So she tried one. And then two. And then five. After all, marriage is hard to get right. She longs for intimacy. She eats, breathes, and sleeps it. And inside she’s dying, because she can’t find this guy. The one. The one who knows her, meets her every need, fills the desire, and makes her feel whole. There is always something missing. Luckily, Mr. Substitution is on hand. She’ll make the rounds of the whole town if he has his way.

That is, until she meets the Man. It is a hot day. The streets are dusty, and she can taste the dust on her teeth. The rest of the town is inside waiting out the heat. She makes her way to the well, maybe because she knows no one will be there to turn away from her or look at her with disgust. But he is there. And he doesn’t turn away. And when he speaks, grace floods over her. He asks her to get a drink for him, but really he has come to quench her unquenchable thirst. He looks into the well, eyeing the water.

Jesus replied, “People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to haul water.”

John 4:13–15

(Just think. If she doesn’t have to go to the well, she can avoid the rejection of the townspeople who know how she lives.)

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.”

John 4:16–18

Jesus lays it out for her. He knows her inside and out. Her weakness. Her desire. Her scandal. Her deep unmet need. And he is still talking with her. Acknowledging her. Not running from her. “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet” (John 4:19).

Jesus goes on to explain. Not a prophet. Not a man. Not a Jew. Not a teacher. He reveals himself to her. He is the Messiah. The Savior. And he would just like to sit here with her and chat. He rocks her world. A surge of hope fills her. In that moment, she has an epiphany. A taste of God. A kernel of truth pierces her soul. He is the one. This man is the man she’s been looking for all of her life. All that searching, the quest for intimacy, the longing for real relationship—it ends here. And it isn’t about sex or another marriage or another failed affair; it is about the Christ. He’s come to quench her thirst.

All of the sudden, she is swept away by this revelation and she is running. Because she is full. For the first time in her life, she is full to running over. The Bible says,

The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” So the people came streaming from the village to see him.

John 4:28–30