kick plates and birds and silly, silly girls

 For the past two weeks, we've had a little bird come and knock at our door.

She perches on the step, as close to the brass kick plate as she can get and she pecks away.

Carter has taken up his father's response. Throws his arms up in the air and runs toward the door to shoo the bird away.

She doesn't bother me.

Silly is all she is. Pecking away at her own reflection. Not knowing that there is nothing on the other side, just an image of one pecking back. Some kind of illusion of company, I guess. The kick plate is strong--aged and brassy, came with the door, with the house. The only damage I fear is that of her own brain stuff.

So I shoo her away too.

I think of the times I perched in front of my own mirror and all I could do was peck. I saw this flaw and this didn't measure up and this certainly didn't look like the girls in the magazines. Jesus stood in the window, curtain pulled back, head shaking at the sight of my silliness. He, too, feared for my brain stuff and tried to shoo me away from my mirrors, from the condemning voices inside.

Together, Jesus and I unsubscribed to Delia's (a superskinny tween catalog I got back in the 90's) and we talked of real beauty. I read a [Christian] book or two that told me I Was Really Beautiful and used scripture to prove it. I stopped pretending to be a vegetarian for the socially acceptable excuse it lent me to eat only a bowl of rice for dinner. I started eating red meat. I asked Jesus to make me feel beautiful.

And I think he appreciated those efforts, just as I'm relieved when my silly bird flies away.

But then she comes back. And I would come back, too. To the image, to the question of beauty, to the insatiable longing to know if I had measured up.

I think the cause of my insanity is the mirror I have been choosing. I've continued to place myself at the threshold of Me, to test whether I measure up to Me and My Standards. I've used Jesus and his merciful healing, my husband's adoration, the warmth of community and the value gained from blessing others all to serve as answers to My Own Selfish Quest.

I was never meant to stand before myself. I was not given the capacity to contain the answers to my own questions of identity. The first and only place for me is before a Broken King.

When I stand before Jesus, my ugliness is apparent. Concerns over acne or weight or fashionable clothes fade to gray when my self centeredness and rebellious pride present themselves.

Before Jesus, I fail miserably. No amount of pity or worldly rationale can remove the deficit.

And before Jesus, I'm declared loved and worthy and highly esteemed. No amount of good makeup or expensive jeans or worldly praise can contribute to this revelation.

So the answer, then, is not to stand before my own mirror and chant, "I'm beautiful. I'm beautiful." There has to be a fundamental change. There has to be more of him and less of me, an exchange of standards and value systems and definitions.
 
Jesus needs to be my Mirror.

I want to look upon him and love him. I want to look upon him and be changed. I want to look upon him and lose myself in him, no longer condemning myself but also not trusting in my own esteem.

This silly girl needs to fly away home. The kick plate has lost its luster and the heart aches for something more secure, more complete. 

Jesus, you and you alone are Beauty. Let me lose myself in you.

envy looks back

They were all lined up on her bookcase. Dozens and dozens of them, their pudgy little bodies forever solidifying Sarah's stance in my eyes as cool. Each one of them boasted of its own experience--a meal of coveted chicken nuggets, or a plastiky cheeseburger, with fries and maybe even a Coke.

Sarah's mom is so cool, my five-year-old mind thought.

She's got 34 McNugget Buddies to prove it.

Here began my relationship with Envy, a friend with something to say about everything. 

Fourth grade lunches were had under a pathetic sapling, striving to be something greater, where Kelly, Nicole, Dana and I circled and sat. As we unpacked our statements of status, my familiar friend Envy polarized my thoughts. I glanced at Dana's fruit snacks, those rubbery, sweet things that were supposed to taste like the flavors their fruit shapes held.

Poor you, Envy whispered, you just have real fruit. And my apple slices were browning.

Envy pointed out Nicole's white bread and then my oatmeal-dusted wheat bread. There were Juicy Juice boxes, compared to my water bottle, and Lunchables compared to my peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Envy continued her parade in my thoughts, usually unchecked.

In fifth grade, I noticed how Marisa's clothes were store-bought, and mine were sewn by Mom. Yes, we had fun going to JoAnn's, thumbing through giant books of patterns, choosing the fabrics and prints, and then watching the clothes come together, piece by piece, over days of cutting and pinning and sewing. But those tags on Marisa's clothes.  

Those tags were cool.

I'm a mom now. And I'm starting to prepare lunches and clothe my children and choose which experiences we'll share and those we won't.

And I'm just a little angry with my friend Envy because the things she whispered, the feelings she imparted, weren't based in truth. Envy did not have my best interest in mind.

But Mom did.

While Sarah was busy collecting her McNugget Buddies, my mom was at home, making home-made cheese sauce for her version of mac n' cheese, sparing us kids the TBHQ and dimethylpolysiloxane.

While Dana's mom was buying her Lunchables and fruit snacks, mine was preparing sandwiches with real protein and fiber, believing that fruit should taste like fruit and not reconstituted corn syrup. 

And while Marisa’s mom took her on shopping trips, trips that Mom and I would eventually have, my mom and I spent hours and hours creating those tagless clothes together, memories I wouldn’t trade even now for a pair of Seven jeans.

Envy tries to whisper to me now, even though I should be way past this childish covetousness and pettiness. She points out brands and status symbols and LeCruset cookingware. I’m trying to recognize her voice a little bit faster, and dismantle her influence a little more frequently. She’s never loved me, like my mom and my husband and my God. Why I’ve given her this power over my thoughts, I’m not sure; it’s probably just the way of human nature.

I’m happy to say, though, that she looks different. She’s no longer a welcomed presence in my life, holding my trust in hand because she lets me know what’s cool, sparing me rejection. Envy represents the ugly parts of me and I want nothing to do with her now.

I’d like to be the kind of mom that packs less-than-cool lunches, with snacks that don't have their own commercials, and that probably won't get traded, because I care for my kids. 

And I’d like to be the kind of daughter who can receive the goodness of life that her Father God gives, from whole wheat bread to off-brand sneakers, from authentic friendships to security in a husband's love, without leaning in to listen when Envy comes around and whispers.