Beautiful to Whom

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Rebecca St. James. I like her stuff because our ranges are similar and I don't have to strain myself at either end of the register when I sing her music.

Some of you know that I had an adjustable gastric band (Lap-Band) surgery in October. It wasn't a matter of my wanting to be thin. It was a matter of wanting to keep my own knees more than 5 years. After Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Physician's Weight Loss, Atkins, the cabbage soup diet - failures one and all - it was time for something drastic. While this isn't as drastic as a gastric bypass, it was surgery and had radically changed my life. I've lost 34 lbs since October, my knees aren't killing me at the end of the day, and my life is different.

I still have 75 lbs to go. I can walk down a flight of stairs without feeling like my knees are going to buckle. And I can cross my legs. I'm wearing makeup again, and I'm doing too much shopping. I probably should find the nearest chapter of Shoes Anonymous and admit that I have a problem before I fall off my new stillettos and break my ankle. And for the first time in a very long time, I feel pretty.

I have to admit that my sudden interest in my own appearance is a bit disconcerting. After all, I'm the one who refuses to color my grey hair as my own feminist protest against the media images that devalue American Woman over the age of 25. And I still refuse to wear makeup if I have to work the 6AM shift because I'm NOT getting up before 5AM just to paint myself. That's just silly.

But what really bothers me about this obsession with whether or not that gloss actually makes my lips plumper is the possibility that it is distracting me from the transformation that God wants. He wants me to be beautiful but being beautiful to God is something that happens on the inside.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.


In verse 1, he talks about us offering up our physical selves as an act of worship to God. But in verse 2, he tells the Roman believers that they are to allow themselves to have their minds transformed by God.

We are not to spend our time making us look like the world (conforming), but we are to give ourselves over to the spiritual disciplines that change us into something completely new (transforming our minds).

O Lord, transform me into anything but a typical person. Make me pleasing in your eyes.


Mirror by Rebecca St. James

May the words of my mouth please You, dear God
May the thoughts of my heart say to You
That all that I desire is to be with You forever
Lord I pray, I pray that You
-
Take me, make me
Beautiful to you
Create me so I mirror you
Take me, make me
An Image of you
Cause Lord I want to mirror you.

God's kids

I have wonderful kids. They are both smart, funny, respectful children who adults enjoy being around. They both enjoy school and scouting. They are almost always to be found with a book in their hands. They share the same jokes and word games. They both have a strong faith in God and have trusted Christ for their salvation. They are alike in many ways. And some of those things are because they are growing up in the same house with the same parents and the same rules.

But they are also very different. David is more reserved. His Scout leaders tease him that he only uses about 500 words a day because he's so quiet. When he says something, it is usually worth hearing. David's friends are usually from his Boy Scout troop or kids that are in his Honors classes at school. He avoids conflict at all costs (except with his sister). Rachel is the outgoing social butterfly. She has never met a stranger. She is a champion for the underdog and doesn't like to see other kids treated badly (unless they are boys who are still "tofu-covered goobers"). She's on the closed-circuit TV news crew at school. She gets a constant stream of e-mails from friends. Life for Rachel is one social engagement after another: parties, Girl Scouts, karate, 4H BB Team.... David prefers to sit quietly at church and occasionally posts anonymously to the church's blog. Rachel is an acolyte and sings with the choir. David wants to write books when he grows up and is already working on a couple of them. When Rachel was 4, she wanted to be the Queen of the World. Now at 10, the Mistress of the Loophole wants to be a lawyer. Sometimes we to tell her to stop talking. David would rather go without than have a conversation with someone new. Rachel has absolutely no difficulty respectfully telling anyone exactly what she wants and expects from them.

As God's kids we are the same way. He gave us a list of ways that we should be alike. The Apostle Paul called them the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). They are attributes that we should have because we are God's kids and we should act like Him. And indeed with the Holy Spirit in us, guiding us, and correcting us, if we listen we will live these things. They are things that we learn and hear because we're in God's house.

And as God's kids we are also different. There are Baptist kids, and Catholic kids, and Methodist kids, and Charismatic kids and lots and lots of other labels that we have stuck on ourselves. God has kids who like it loud and enthusiastic and other kids who like to be still and contemplative. Within the Episcopal church there are 1928 Prayer Book kids and 1979 Prayer Book kids. And those differences are OK as long as we understand that we are still all brothers and sisters in Christ and can see past the label to the Fruit of the Spirit in all God's kids.

Beneath the Surface

As kids, we always played pretend. I was really, really good at it. You see, I'm a Baptist pastor's daughter. I learned early to treat everyone with fairly regardless of how I felt on the inside. It was my job to set the example for my peers of how to love the unlovely and welcome the unwelcome into my Sunday School classes, and then into the youth group. God loves everyone and welcomes everyone into His family is a message I learned very early, and I was determined not to be the one who drove someone away from the church with my rudeness.

You see, I like to think that I'm good at making conscious efforts to treat all people with dignity and respect and treat them in a nonjudgemental way. Growing up a PK and then 18 years as an RN mean that I've usually got pretty good brakes on my mouth and a well-practiced poker face.

But that's all just show, isn't it? God knows what's inside. He knows my heart and my motives. He knows who drives me batty and who I secretly would like to shove in front of a bus. And if I have to make a conscious effort not to roll my eyes at people or keep the unkind remark silent, He knows. And He knows how much pride I have in myself when I think I've been successful with the show and treated an untouchable well.

And I know I'm not the only Christian with an enormous capacity for self-delusion.

But the lesson for today isn't that we're all big phonies. We all know that. The lesson is that even though we are, God still loves us. He knows what's inside us - and still loves us. He loves us enough to try to correct us over and over again even when we don't catch on. We can't earn that kind of love no matter how good a show we put on. We just have to be surrender to being changed on the inside so that what is on the outside is an extension of the inside and not just a cover-up.


anything but typical

Psalm 139 by Rebecca St. James

You search me
You know me
You see my every move
There's nothing I could ever do
To hide myself from You
You know my thoughts
My fears and hurts
My weaknesses and pride
You know what I am going through
And how I feel inside
But even though You know
You will always love me
Even though You know
You'll never let me go
I don't deserve Your love
But you give it freely,
You will always love me
Even though You know
You will always love me
Even though you know

Baptism by dishwasher

I must have had baptisms on the brain this morning when I was emptying the dishwasher. I was taking the glasses out of the top rack and as usual, and they were beautiful except for grainy sludge spots where the water pooled. I'm not sure what dishwasher yuck is made of. It doesn't look like anything that went in the dishwasher, and even though it's nasty-looking, it went through the same cycle with the same detergents and hot water that the sparklingly clean surfaces endured. So theoretically, it's just as clean as the rest, too, but I still have to work on the glasses to get it off before I put them away.

Anyway, as I was rinsing the clean yuck off the clean glasses, it occurred to me that our lives are a lot like the glasses on the top rack. While we've been washed clean by the water and the Word, we've still got yuck inside that the Holy Spirit shows us needs to come off. Sometimes there's more of it than others. Sometimes it's obvious right away to be cleaned up, and sometimes you don't see it until you've finished your glass of tea and find it staring back at you from the inside of the glass. And like the dishwasher yuck, we could say it's clean enough or we can allow the Holy Spirit to continue to clean and polish us and make us into the vessel God intends.

O Holy Spirit, show me the yuck.

anything but typical

What's in a name?

Dear Readers,

So my "handle" is "anything but typical", but this will probably be a pretty typical blog - you know, one person blathering on about whatever. So here's where I got the name for this blog. I am by nature a musician and music speaks to me when I can otherwise be pretty dim. Frequently, I am overwhelmed by a line or theme from a piece. Lately, it's been the line from Keep On Shining by Third Day. One of the stanzas is as follows:

Having faith in the long run is easier said than done
Its hard to live out in the light of day
You're bruised and you're battered, Your dreams have been shattered
Your best laid plans scattered over the place

Despite all your tendencies, God sees it differently
Your struggle's a time to grow
And you, you're a miracle, anything but typical
Its time for the whole wide world to know....

I like the thought that God loves me just as I am - that He doesn't think of me as just another of one of those people He made. The relationship between God the Father and me - his sometimes obedient, sometimes disobedient daughter - is personal. And any time you get past a person's outer mask and get to know the person beneath you learn that no one is typical. God loves us all and made each of us. Each of us, including you, dear reader, is a miracle; we are here in our world for a particular reason, to serve God and others in a way that only we as individuals can. Our trials and triumphs mold us and the outcome is that we are a huge collection of atypical people. We are not cookie press people. We are all quirky. We are all different. And we are in this journey together.

We are all,

anything but typical

Welcome to My World

Well, Dear Readers,

Welcome to my little corner of the world. For the most part, my world is a happy place, although occasionally unhappy things sneak in while I'm off trying to have fun. As a friend once said, "Just when you think everything is planned out, life happens." Fortunately, life happens frequently enough to keep my short attention span..... now what was I saying.

Oh, I've been thinking a lot lately about how people perceive each other and use stereotypes to make it through the day. We rarely actually interact with a person. It's usually our veneer interacting with their veneers. It's that thin polished shell that covers the structural bits and makes us Purty.

So here's my list of seeming inconsistent descriptions of myself that peek beneath my veneer. (And for all the Frasier fans, you should be on your third drink by now.)

Radical Conservative Feminist
Mercenary Nurse
Evangelical Episcopalian
Republican Environmentalist
Fine Southern Lady

How would you describe what's under your veneer? (Veneer!!)


Visit periodically and perhaps you may be blessed and amused, or confused and bewildered by my musings and rambling thoughts.

It's guaranteed to be,

anything but typical