Badly Done.

“Badly done, Emma! Badly done.”

These words are the crescendo of Jane Austen’s classic novel, Emma. And while my name is not quite Emma it might as well be.

During my overnight last night I randomly choose to watch the 1996 film adaptation of Austen’s novel. This is a movie I have seen probably close to a dozen times in my growing up years as it’s one of my mom’s favorites and, I have to admit, I love it too. It had been a while since I’d seen it and since it was one of the only decent movies on hulu+, I went ahead and started it.

I’m always amazed at how God weaves things together. And last night was no different.  In Emma we see the story of young woman (in her early twenties) who is forced to do some growing up which means looking at some of her own shortcomings. Ironically, I recently have been faced with the same thing.

The above quote is said by one of Emma’s closest friends, Mr. Knightly, after she makes a rude, snobbish comment to an older lady in front of a group people. Mr. Knightly seeing how offended the old lady is confronts Emma later and basically tells her to grow up. Emma is defensive at first but the scene ends with her in tears as she realizes how uncharitable she has acted. Because of this event, Emma is able to recognize that her words have had destructive powers not only in this situation but in other ones as well and sets off to improve herself in this regard. 

This is a theme in Austin’s novels – this self- realization that is all too often unpleasant as her heroines are forced to examine some disagreeable character flaw. In a recent book I have been reading, Unseduced and Unshaken: The Place of Dignity in a Young Woman’s Choice, the author spends a chapter discussing this very thing.  The chapter entitled Longing: From Disparity to Desire, speaks of this self-discovery especially discovery of those things that may be unsavory about oneself. She uses another one of Austin’s classic heroines, Elizabeth Bennet, to depict this concept. The author chronicles the scene after Mr.Darcy proposes and delivers to Lizzy a note explaining “the charges laid at my door”. In this letter Elizabeth is forced to look at her own pride and realize she herself had been blinded by prejudice. She is faced with learning something unpleasant about herself she didn’t even realize was a struggle.

So here am I, reading this book (Unseduced and Undignified) and watching Emma on hula+ with little understanding that the Lord was about to use both of these things to teach me a very big lesson. See earlier this week an issue arose at work and God used this issue coupled with the book, the movie, and His Word to stretch me and grow me.

 Several months ago, a co-worker and myself were complaining about another co-worker who has had significant issues with performing his required duties at work. We were upset because we felt that he was a liability to us (I have a potentially dangerous job and we need to have stable people backing us up) and we often had to cover our own butts by redoing is poorly done paperwork.  While I believe our frustrations were not in any way inappropriate the way we went about expressing those frustrations were. Some very uncharitable things came out of my mouth and I realize they did not reflect Christ at all.

Now if we had just complained to each other and moved on it would’ve been one thing but unfortunately, one of our clients overheard us and decided to use this information to her advantage.  She continued to spread what she had heard me say until is reached my superiors and while I was never confronted personally we were given a stern lecture (by my otherwise very un-stern boss) in our weekly meeting about the dangers and unprofessionalism of talking about each other at work.

As we sat in this meeting and my boss went on and on I could tell everyone knew what specifically he was talking about it and knew that I was one of those involved in the issue that had prompted this lecture. It was mortifying. I realized that not only had my unkind words made their way back to the co-worker I was speaking about, I had tainted my reputation by turning myself into a gossip and a backstabber.

This was my “ah-ha” moment. The point where I was forced to realize something about myself that I had never considered myself before and I didn’t like it. As a Christian, I strive to let Christ shine through me and I never felt failure in that like I did this week. I realized that my words not only hurt someone but that they had given me an unsavory reputation with my co-workers and my supervisors. Ouch.

But the Lord was gracious to me. As I dumbfoundedly tried to come to terms with who I had become in this regard, he sent me several sources to encourage me. He lovingly showed me through Emma  and Unseduced that I was not alone in this struggle and that in fact, coming face to face with oneself was a chance for great growth and not discouragement necessarily.

He then gave me Psalm 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation on my heart be acceptable in you sight, O LORD, my rock, and my redeemer. God showed me that I wasn’t just to change the words that came out of my mouth but that I was to manage the “meditation of my heart” as well. I needed to be “transformed by the renewal of my mind”. It wasn’t just my behavior but my heart as well that needed to be changed.  

 Ironically, Emma also struggled with controlling her tongue and it was what got her into trouble as well. James, the brother of Jesus, tells us that “The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile an sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being came tame the tongue.”

  I can remember my dad making me read James as a young girl, cautioning me all the way back then that my mouth would one day get me into trouble. Since then, I have brushed off any real conviction of watching my tongue, but God in his greatness is showing me that my words are powerful and that with them I can build up or destroy. My hope and prayer is that this week’s revelation would be a new start for me one where I will be more conscious of the words I speak and where my heart is.

For me it was my words. For you it will probably be something different. The point is we all have blind spots in our lives. Things we don’t want to admit we’ve become. And while looking into the mirror and accepting these flaws in our character are extremely difficult they are necessary if we wish to grow. Awareness should (hopefully) bring about change. So let us be people that pray for awareness, especially self-awareness that we may be people who are growing more and more to look like Christ.

So although the words, “Badly done, Emily! Badly done.” are still ringing in my ears; I am thankful there is forgiveness and from this experience I can look a little bit more like Him.

Thru My Cottage Door: My Mother In Law: Kay

Thru My Cottage Door: My Mother In Law: Kay: My mother-in-law passed away a year ago today.   Oh how she loved our children, they were so blessed by her at every turn.  Her Generosity ...

Grandma Kay

Four years ago I lost someone very special to me. I wrote a two page blog about everything I felt that day and my anger surrounding her death and funeral, but it's not here. I realized that however therapeutic it was for me to write all of that out, it didn't need to end up on here. So today I just want to say I miss you Grandma Kay.

 I miss your stuffed artichokes and meatballs. I miss your practical jokes and making me laugh. I miss the way you thought everything was a conspiracy: “I swear Jewel and Dominick's get together and put the same stuff on sale each week!”  

I miss your flowers and the way you kept the house so spotless. I miss the way you pretended to hate the dogs but then would secretly feed them ice cream in private. I miss the way you always said, “oh c’mon!” every time we would tease you. 

I miss the way you would yell at the Cubs players on TV even though I’m pretty sure you knew nothing about baseball. I miss you stopping to talk to EVERYONE in the store. I miss going to Caputos with you and listening to you speak Italian with the butcher. 

I miss your giving spirit. I miss how much you cared about our family.  

I miss you.  I love you. 

Finding Myself

"You can run to the end of the highway and not find what you’re looking for

And you can search to the end of highway and come back no better than before

But to find yourself you, you've got to start right here"

So many of my posts have these deep theological bases as I explore different topics that arise in my day to day life. Theology and philosophy have always come easy to me. My parents taught me to think critically and well about the issues around me. My whole life people have always told me how impressed they are with my thoughtfulness when it comes to these types of issues. However, while I may be gifted in articulating the things of above, I often use it to hide behind my real issues. If I can speak eloquently about the doctrine of God’s love or of the best way to handle issues of poverty then I can effortlessly direct people’s attention away from my own major flaws.

A few years ago, at the start of my junior year, I was on a student leadership retreat with Trinity and on opening night our speaker talked to us about fear. He encouraged us to identify our fears and then face them so that in the upcoming year our fears would not hold us back in our ministries. I knew instantly what I was afraid of: I was afraid of letting people know that I was afraid. Afraid of failure. Afraid of not being perfect. I wrote this prayer in response to those feelings and thoughts that night:

So tonight we talked about fear. And I am afraid. Afraid of my sin. Of how people would react if they knew. Afraid of failing. Afraid of being judged. Afraid of losing my status, my leadership, my influence, my identity. 

I am the perfect one. The one who has the answer. Who knows it all. The mature one. The educated one. The one who everyone thinks, “Wow! She knows her stuff – she must really love God!”

 While some of that may be true I am also something else. I am the one who messes up. But won’t admit it. The  one who sometimes doesn't understand – but knows enough to fake her way through. The one who can’t be real. The one who doesn't feel good enough. The one who can’t accept God’s grace.  

I am the one who has to be right. Who has to be on top. The one who needs to have the answers. The one who always seems confident. This is my identity. And admitting that I sometimes don’t know is what I am afraid of.

My junior year was one of enlightenment. I began to understand where my identity lay and how to change it to reflect Christ and nothing more. But as with most things, old habits die hard. And lately I have found myself once again confused about who I am.

I have been inside the “bubble” for practically my whole life. Until last January that is. For those who don’t know what the bubble is let me put it this way, I was home-schooled my whole life, spent most of time growing up either at church or at the ministry where my parents worked, in high school all my friends were friends from church, and then I went to a very small, somewhat conservative, Christian college – the bubble. In the bubble I flourished – I always knew the right thing to say, the right way to act, the perfect way to put some else down (in a “godly” way mind you), the right way to elevate myself without coming across as arrogant. In short, I knew how to play the game and I played it pretty darn well!

But then, I left the bubble. And all of sudden the game was completely changed. I tried quickly to adapt to the new game but it was so counter-cultural to the one that I grew up playing that I gave up. I figured if you can’t beat them – join them. And within a matter of weeks I became a totally different person. The way I acted at work, the things that came out my mouth were so opposite of how I was raised or how I had behaved for my whole life.

Someone at church once said to me, “What a great ministry you must have at your work!” and as I nodded my head I thought dismally, “If you only knew how I acted at work.”  Because the fact was that as soon as I set foot into my work place, I left behind everything that would show someone I was Christ follower. I even delayed adding my co-workers on Facebook because I didn't want them to have to see my “Christian” status’ in fear that maybe they wouldn't want to be friends with me anymore. But the thought of disappointing everyone who thought of me as the good little Christian girl, pushed me to continue adding thoughtful spiritual posts. 

I realize now that I am chameleon. I am a chameleon because of my insecurities. I have always been insecure in who I am. I realize that I have a powerful personality and because of that there are times when it makes me unpopular. I was a very awkward child and never felt like I fit in anywhere. Even among my best friends I always was unsure if they really liked me or not. As well, I have always been very insecure with my looks. Struggling with my weight, acne, and stick-straight hair since high school have always weighed heavily on my mind. I never liked to show it and always put an ultra-confident face on even though most of the time I wasn't.

So I am a chameleon, while in the bubble I blended in there and while in the world, I blended in there as well. The problem is I that while I was so busy being a chameleon in the Christian bubble something happened, I actually began to fall in love with God. It got to the point where I didn't do things just to impress people but because I actually wanted to serve God. Unfortunately though, I was still a chameleon so as soon as my surrounding changed so did I. but it was hard. I didn't want to change. I tried justifying my change as “I don’t want to be one of those Christians who’s so stuck up that no one wants to be around them” but really all this did was justify my sin. But I’m sick of it.

I don’t want to be a chameleon anymore.  I want to live for Christ. Not because it is the cool thing to do among my Christian friends but because I love Him. Nor do I want to be the girl who seems unapproachable to her co-workers because she is so high on her horse. But I do want them to see Christ. I want them to see Christ in how I love others and talk kindly about people. How I am there for them and will listen to there problems and never judge them yet without condoning their sin. I don’t want to be afraid for them to see my “spiritual” posts and neither do I want to make such posts just for the sake of gaining brownie points with the other bubble people.

So I am done. Done with being camouflaged to my surroundings. I am done with being afraid. I am ready to live in the light and be secure in who Christ made me to be and who I am in him.  So I’m writing this post to the people who know me from inside the bubble and those who know me from outside. I want those inside to know that I am not perfect (which you may have already guessed) and I’m sorry that I have not always been authentic with you. I am completely flawed and broken but through Christ I am being reconciled and renewed. And for those who I know from outside the bubble – this is who I really am. A follower of Christ. I love him and I want my life to be a testament of his love and mercy to all. And to you I apologize that I haven't been a better example of Christ to you. 

I don’t want to be afraid anymore. This is who I am: an imperfect, broken, sinner being sanctified by a loving savior.  

My goal now is to live for Christ and Christ alone. 

 "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

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