Tonight's chapter was on shame. Wow, could I relate! I have lived most of my life in shame, believing that unless I could perform perfectly, I was worthless. And so I performed, and boy did I look good!
I was both a pastor's kid and a missionary kid. I started the first Bible Study at our High School. I graduated as Salutatorian in High School, and helped lead youth group during college. I spent a summer on a mission's trip in the inner city of Philadelphia, and lead short term mission trips to Mexico and Toppenish (an indian reservation). I worked in a lock down treatment center for juvenile sex offenders. I graduated with honors from a Christian college with an international studies degree so I could go to the mission field. I started and lead a meals ministry at a large church, and headed up the clothing ministry for a large homeless ministry. I looked GOOD, actually not just on paper. I had also worked hard to lose fifty pounds and looked and felt really good. I was at the top of my game, looking good to any church member I wanted to impress. Then my world fell apart.
Everything that I put my value in was gone. I was stripped bare, and one thing after another broke me more and more and more until I realized that I had nothing left. I lost friends, dignity, ministries, health, both physical and mental. I was truly broken, shattered with nothing left to show off to the world. I titled this blog "This treasure in a jar of clay" but even then, I had no idea what I was talking about. I still saw my jar of clay as a bright red, smooth, varnished jar of clay, but now I realize that my jar is actually brown and lumpy and crooked. The lid doesn't even fit on right. But inside that jar sits the most beautiful treasure you will ever see!
I won't tell you the whole story of my demise. Let's just say that for two years my squeaky clean self went from bad to worse. I toyed with sin, trying to get as close as possible to the line without getting burned. I questioned my faith and nearly turned my back on God. I almost lost my marriage. I used and hurt people I called friends. I literally lost my mind, spent time in a mental hospital and now have official paperwork proving that I am mentally ill. Not only did I lose my mental health, but I lost my physical health as well. I lost my ministry, my friends and all the things that made me feel like I had value. I was no longer squeaky clean. As a matter of fact, I wasn't clean at all! When I got my breast cancer diagnosis, I was a filthy mess, broken, sick, rejected and rotten.
We started attending a new church, where people showed us the unconditional love of Christ. The staff knew most of the garbage that had brought me to where we were and they loved me anyway. They embraced our entire family with open arms and started helping us heal. People from all over sent cards and gifts of encouragement and I began to call my cancer the cancer that healed me.
When my chemo ended, I hit the road running again. I was determined to be worth something again, to prove that my life mattered. I started handing out waters at West Side Park and I would push myself on those hot days to reach out and make my life count. I NEEDED to matter. I had to prove that I was worth something, that the world needed me. What I didn't realize is that I was still focusing on MY life. I wasn't focusing on HIM. My focus was not on making sure that He was shining through me. It was on making sure that I was shining. Through all of the muck I had gone through, I had learned a lot about where my value comes from and what grace and redemption mean, but I still hadn't quite gotten what my life needed to be all about, and then I got sick again.
This time I was mad. Really mad. I was ready to make my life count again and here I was, so drugged up because of my mysterious spasms that I could barely spend time with my kids, let alone anything else. I was worthless. I had to cancel every ministry I had involved myself in. It was worse than when I was on chemo. I had literally nothing to offer.
Tonight, as I read through Sheila Walsh's chapter on shame, and on how hard we try to impress others to make up for how little we think of ourselves, I realized that my pride had kicked in again.
I am God's masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10), fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), adopted as God's child (Romans 14:16). Andy Stanley, one of my favorite preachers, said in one of his sermons: "Who has the right to label you? Only the one who made you and the one who owns you. No one else." So what are my labels? Redeemed, Beloved, Forgiven, Valued, and these have NOTHING to do with what I have done or haven't done. They have to do with who made me me and who owns me.
So yeah. I'm a wreck. Not worth much on paper these days and won't be chalking up many deeds for the Kingdom while I lay in bed, doped up, trying to find out what is physically going on with my body. But that's ok, because He loves me still, just as much as if I were delivering waters to the homeless or building houses in Mexico. I don't have to earn His love. I already have it.
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