Killer Heels

I have some sort of awful disorder that attracts me to the mall every weekend. Fear not, for I do not always purchase something and I tend to not be a compulsive buyer. For me, shopping is a time to get together, talk, have lunch, and walk around for a few hours.

I did, however, buy my first pair of casual heels (and got to wear them the following day to dinner). They're black, cute, and have "Dani" written all over them. While Paige and I were shopping, I stumbled across a revelation: shoes are like sin. I am pretty sure I am not the first female to realize that there are possible negative side effects to shoe shopping, but this intrigued me.

1. It takes a while to get comfortable in a new pair of shoes.

When I was a kid, my momma never let me wear my new school clothes early - except for shoes. My brother and I got to don our new, shiny white kicks around the house the week before classes started, just to "break them in". Sometimes I wonder though if this was nothing more than one of her "mom tactics" to keep my brother and I content and quiet. Either way, the shoes were more comfortable the following week and led to a blister-free Monday. Similarly, sins always become easier and easier to commit. Initially, we are simply tempted to do wrong, but eventually, the acts become habit; we settle into them like an old winter coat - or a dirty pair of Nikes. Soon, we can slip the sneakers on and off without undoing the laces, much like we can lie or steal without second thoughts.

2. We suffer for beauty.

I think I tried on every single heel of mild interest in the mall. At least once. I am a picky girl; in order to make a purchase something, it needs to scream for me to take it home. I tried on some shoes and instantly knowing without fully sticking my foot in that they were not a good choice. Likewise, although all sins are equal, I look at some actions and think "How could anyone ever do that?" I blatantly know that it is not a good choice and have no desire to pursue it; the shoe does not even make it completely on my foot. Other shoes have a slight pain, but are cute; I find myself weighing out the options of whether or not I want bunions or an adorable set of kicks... or if I am willing to handle the guilt and repercussions in exchange for a high school party.

3. Heels kill.

While we are on the topic of painful shoes, let's all agree that heels kill. They're painful. They're wretched. But they're oh-so-cute (and make your calves look fabulous)! It's only a matter of minutes after girls walk into the atrium at Homecoming that they're stripping off their strappy heels, exposing their poor footsies to the bacteria-laden gym floor. If you're like me, you have a terrible phobia of germs and will grimace through the pain for the sake of your mental state of mind. At the end of the night, when you finally have the satisfaction of releasing your imprisoned feet, it is a mixture of both pain and relief. Similarly, sin hurts. No matter how comfortable you are, you will still feel guilt. That nagging Holy Spirit is going to be tugging at your heart strings as much as allowed. When you finally repent though, the feeling is bittersweet. You're left with mixed emotions of both shame and the amazing liberation that only Jesus can bring.

4. Shoes are expensive.

I, as a high school babysitter, cannot justify a $90 pair of shoes, much to the frustration of Paige. I will search high and low to get the best bang for my buck; I will average cost, appearance, and quality to meet my standards and capabilities. You better believe it, they're probably going to be on sale. It's really quite a process to make sure that my feet have a good dose of cuteness attached to them. Sin costs us our life; there is no Black Friday Sale to somehow make the consequences null. Likewise, we rationalize our sin and we go to great efforts to cover it. It is hard work to justify a deed that hammers a hand through a nail; it's not easy to hide a murder. It's a great scavenger hunt of lies to ourself and friends to avoid confrontation with our sin.

5. If the shoes hurt at all in the store, they'll hurt much worse at home.

In the event I am able to justify why I need this expensive or pinching pair of shoes, they will usually end up in the back of my closet or handed off to someone else. I am not sure what goes through my mind every time that tells me that these shoes will be different and will magically change shape. Likewise, sin is sin is sin. There's no grey area. The shoes may be pretty in the store and our sin may be covered up as something great - a charity organization for monetary gain, volunteer work done for attention. However, the sin will be sin and the shoes will still hurt. At some point, you will have to face Jesus when you go home.

So there it is, Paige, the parallels between shoes and sin. Happy shopping (:

New Threats to Freedom Essay Scholarship

Strength comes from struggles. I have matured more during high school than my entire life combined. When my mother left, I became “mini-mom”, forced to develop necessary skills. After my father left and I was sent to live with another family, I had to wrestle through those emotions. I grew up, I became responsible. I would not wish that suffering on my worst enemy, but I would not trade, either. It created Dani – living, smiling, and mature.

I am part of Fuel Student Leadership Team. We are given the opportunity to not only succeed with excellence, but also to fail and feel defeat. While we are provided with guidance, our team is also given freedom to make mistakes – and learn accordingly. The taste of setbacks makes the victory much sweeter; reflection of all the obstacles that had to be overcome to achieve our goals makes us that much more grateful. Our greatest success comes from the meetings that begin with arguing and end in negotiation. Our leadership skills are developed when we are faced with real-world opposition; I can read about great leaders and gain little, but am able to apply and strengthen principles like “Leaders face opposition with integrity” when I am challenged with rebounding from a mistake.

I firmly believe that our greatest growth comes through suffering. While I do not think we should purposefully create conflict, it is only when I am faced with opposition that I decide what is important. Extreme situations bring out truth and movement in people. If Wilfred Owen had never suffered war, he would have never produced raw poetry. When we are faced with our demons, we learn how to fight them. Too often though, we are enabled; we are sheltered from anything negative, which ironically cripples us rather than protects us. I grew up in a home where nothing was asked of me; I found myself at fourteen completely ignorant to domestic work. Nobody had ever argued with me to clean the bathroom or patiently rebuked me until I was proficient with a stove.

Michael Goodwin argues in his video that our culture is inflicted with “entitlement mania”; we have a mindset that tells us that we are not responsible for our actions. This is incredibly dangerous. Invincibility or the “Superhero Complex” causes people to behave rashly; the thought process shifts to “Ready? Fire! Aim.” I believe that overprotection can at times be worse than vulnerability. It pains a parent for them to watch their child struggle, but experience is also the best lesson. People almost always rise to their expectations. It is when we demand too little and give too much that people become ungrateful, manipulative, and fail to thrive.

My Jesus tells me that we are to “count it all joy”; suffering is merely developing perseverance (James 1:2-5). Pain is our greatest teacher. It is only in the midst of opposition that we find what we are truly made of. That’s freedom – to be and to find the true “you”.

Vanity Affair

There's an Old Lie that floats around in everybody's head. It says that you're worthless, incompetent; it robs you of the hope and future that God promised. Satan starts by simply whispering it into our ears, but if permitted, he'll scream at you until the Lie is beating against the walls of our heads.

I watched the new The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week - I strongly recommend that you head run to your nearest theatre with all of your friends in tow and see it. The plot dealt with the presence and consequences of temptation in our lives. All of the characters had at least one obvious sin that they struggled with, ranging from laziness to lust.

I usually watch movies impersonally; I don't connect with characters or get emotional, but in this film, I definitely identified with Lucy. Typically, she's the image of child-like faith, appropriately appointed for her young age; she's usually the first of the siblings to remind the group to remember Aslan and press on in their search for Him. The setting intercepts with Lucy's coming of age, providing a shift from the child content with herself to the young woman insecure with her appearance and abilities (dynamic character!). For the first time, we see her interested in males and making obvious gestures that insult both her intelligence and physical attributes. Lucy makes it clear to the audience, and eventually to her friends, that she feels inferior to her successful and gorgeous sister, Susan.

Lucy, like me, is an explorer and a bit naive. After being abducted by some odd creatures who desperately want to be cured from a curse, she agrees to help them reverse the spell by entering a strange mansion in the middle of nowhere. She finds the Book of Incantations, and begins flipping through it, attempting to find the rhyme that will cure the creatures of their disorder. She decides to test the waters, and makes the library snow. Delighted, she decides to further push her boundaries with danger (oh, how we're never satisfied). It begins innocently enough, but all the while, green fog representing sin is sneaking into the room as she is completely distracted with her new delight.

I like the use of green fog to symbolize sin for several reasons. One, the fog sneaks into the settings unknown by the characters. Satan never comes in through our front doors; Peter compares him to a lion, sneaking around in the shadows (1 Peter 5:8). Secondly, I like that Lewis used fog. We can see through fog like we can see through sin. No matter how hard we try, our sin will always eventually become evident to others, and no matter how awful we are, Jesus will always see the true You. I also love the fact that the color green was used; green is typically associated with goodness, happiness, and acceptance or permission to continue. It shows the illusion that sin presents to us during temptation. Like sin, fog is also short lived; all it takes is a little heat, a little perseverance and a little Jesus, to melt away the clouds.

While the fog is seeping into the library, Lucy stumbles across a page of incantations that promises to make her the most beautiful woman in all the land. She begins to recite the spell, and watches her face morph into the shape of her darling sister's. The room shakes; she knows she's done wrong, and becomes fearful - but the pleasure is too great. She decides to rip out the page and save it for later, continuing to search for the appropriate spell to help her new friends outside.

Later comes a scene that really hit me - it's one of maybe three that have ever made my eyes well up out of all the movies I've ever seen. Lucy lies in bed, wrestling with her demons alone in the dark; next to her is a little girl, completely unaware of the struggle Lucy is facing. Lucy pulls the paper from the spell book out of her night gown and climbs out of bed, tip-toeing in the dark so that nobody will catch her. She's obviously aware that her actions are inappropriate and would be disapproved of; she doesn't care though, and will go to extents to hide her intentions. She arrives to the mirror and whispers the incantation to herself, then waits as her body again morphs into the figure of her sister. I think at this point she felt some anxiety; the green fog enters through the cracks in the walls, the setting is spooky, but I think the potential benefits of this spell outweighed any risks she was assessing at the time.

Suddenly, in a whirlwind, she is whisked away into another time. She is elegantly dressed as her sister at a party; the crowd moves for her, complimenting her appearance. A photographer asks to take her picture; she's absolutely delighted and pleased with herself. Her brothers arrive, excited to take a picture of the "three children" for their mother. One of them refers to her as Susan; she laughs at them and says her name is Lucy. The brothers laugh back and say she's crazy - they don't know a Lucy, her name is Susan. She suddenly becomes aware that she no longer exists. Panicking, she cries out to be returned to the ship, to become Lucy again. The real Lucy is gone. She has been given exactly what she wanted, to become her sister. She's beautiful now, but at the expense of her life and her character.

Lucy returns to real time and finds Aslan staring back at her in the mirror. The two people she can't hide from are staring her back in the face simultaneously - God and herself. This is the most crucial moment of the scene. For me, this would be the point where my emotions would have shifted from panic to shame. Here Jesus is, standing next to me, facing me and my sin. Essentially, Lucy inadvertently said to God "You and Your Creation is not enough for me," and now she has either two choices - to say it to His face, or to admit her fault and address it accordingly. I can't and don't want to count the number of times I've communicated this to God. I, like Lucy, realized that my actions were wrong. The Holy Spirit yelled at me, but it felt like the Old Lie was screaming louder; at the time, the benefits outweighed the costs. When we give in to temptation, everything is upside down; nothing is sound.

Sobbing, Lucy cries out to Aslan, pleading for Him to make everything alright. Innocently, she claims she never wanted things to end up that way - she simply wanted to be beautiful. How often do we find ourselves in this position - desperate to be freed, finding the only way out to be in the hands of God. Aslan tells her that in order to be something she's not, Lucy must sell herself; essentially, she has to die for her sin. He gently admonishes her, saying "Don't doubt your value; don't run from who you are." Through this, He reminds Lucy that she is everything He ever wanted her to be. The Old Lie is just that - a lie. He never saw her as inadequate. He never saw her as ugly. He saw her as "wonderfully and fearfully made," a creation from His hands (Psalm 139:14). She's valuable - He has a purpose for her, perfectly complimentary to her design. He soothes her, as any good Father would, and sends her to bed, though she is unable to sleep. Whenever we are faced with our sin though, we are still faced with some guilt and shame for a short time; we have to deal with our emotions and work through forgiveness of the most difficult person - ourselves. Lucy gave up a few moments of her life to become what she thought was perfection. I gave up a lot more.

I like how this scene deals with multiple sins at once, and then concludes with love and forgiveness (but that's another blog for another day). God tells us very specifically that we are not to dabble in witchcraft of any kind (Galatians 5:19-21). Secondly, vanity leads to a whole slew of sins. It leads to pride and self worship, self condemnation and self deception. God addresses the concept of beauty several times in the Bible; I'm not sure that Jesus ever felt that He wasn't skinny enough or His boobs were too small, but He does know that it's a hot topic among His daughters and I'm sure there had to be a point where He felt some sort of inadequacy.

God tells us that appearance doesn't matter - it's short lived. Rather, fearing God is worthy of admiration (Proverbs 31:30).

He says that those who bring peace, the Gospel, and goodness are beautiful (Isaiah 52:7).

He tells us exactly how we are to dress - modestly and adorning ourself with good deeds, worshiping God, not our bodies (1 Timothy 2:9-10).

It didn't take long for Lucy to recognize her sin and respond to the Holy Spirit. For the first portion of the movie, she let Satan whisper the Old Lie into her ears. She didn't catch it immediately, and soon, it penetrated her heart. She allowed Satan to scream louder than God - possibly the most dangerous action any of us can make. Thankfully, we all have an Aslan to look us in the eye and speak truth into our lives.

When God Gets Sassy

A good friend of mine, Kaitlin, described Taylor Swift's new album, Speak Now, as being sassy towards her ex-boyfriends.

A student in my English class, Rami, argued that Shakespeare's Hamlet is a sassy character towards his whore mother and selfish murderer of a father / uncle (because it's not a good Shakespeare tragedy without some death, incest, complicated romantic relationships, and political overthrow).

This is probably one of my favorite yet neglected adjectives. Sassiness implies an element of attitude, some comic relief, and boldness. I think sassy comments essentially say "It may not be politically correct for me to say this to you... It may not even be nice... But I've got all these emotions running around, and I'm going to tell you exactly what I think." Although it can be used in a negative context, I think it also requires a degree of honesty. It necessitates that the speaker confidently states his claim without hesitation.

We like to describe God by warm adjectives - loving, caring, merciful. Sometimes we get daring and address His stern attributes - just, jealous, angry, fearful. I often see (and am slightly annoyed by) lofty terms that are ambiguous (perhaps fittingly, considering God cannot be understood) like "God is amazing, huge, awesome". But I think there's another series of controversial characteristics that we see displayed and yet we don't seem to approach very often. My God is clever. He has quite the sense of humor. And yes - He's even sassy.

I think we see this happen more than once in Scripture. In John 4, we see the woman at the well. When Jesus tells her to bring her husband back (Daddy always wants to meet his daughter's new boy, right?), she claims that she has no husband. In verse 17-18 He replies with "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not our husband. What you have just said is quite true."

What do you do with that response? A strange man you just met moments ago is telling you not just your life story, but your deepest secrets - and you have nothing to deny it with. Oh, and by the way, it's the Messiah. You know, God-man, man-God, three-in-one, one-in-three. I imagine Him saying it with a very straight face, a matter-of-fact tone, and a little head nod at the end. I think her response is even funnier - she proceeds to claim that he must be a prophet and gives him a lesson in worship. Oh sweetie, dream big - if only you knew. I imagine her saying all of this as confidently as she can, despite the fact that she's about to wet herself. I think she would be tugging on her dress or twirling her hair, maybe frantically trying to find a way out of there. If I was the woman, I'd probably drop my jaw and want to cry, completely speechless.

If I was watching, I'd probably laugh and be glad that wasn't me. The thing is though, it often is Dani standing at the well with a bucket of sin on her hip, sputtering and making excuses. Sometimes (okay, more realistically, often), God needs to call me out on my junk. I know I can't deceive God, but I often lie to myself - I'm not only a persuasive person, but also rather gullible, which makes for an awful mix. I come up with all sorts of misconstrued logic chains in a pitiful attempt to justify my sin - but it always ends up the same. The Holy Spirit will whisper to me at first that I've done wrong and need to deal with it accordingly. Then as my demons become louder, the Holy Spirit will start screaming at me to listen and respond. I think conviction is a good thing, because at the end of the day, when I'm lying in my bed, I need to know what I've done and the subsequent consequences. I need to be aware of and believe truth. I know there's nothing I can do to retract my actions or my thoughts; although I may be able to hide my transgressions from man, I will always address to the only One who sees right through my invalid arguments and false self-witnessing.

Super Zeus? (:

I was reading Judges 10 the other day, and began to laugh to myself when I tried to picture the situation happening.

So here are the Israelites, again having forsaken their God (the repetitive theme of the Old Testament - and yet He continues to reach out to us over and over again... sacrificing His Son... saving us... but that's another blog for another day). I'm not sure what they saw in these Pagan gods; but then again, sometimes I am no more faithful and find myself surrounded by idols that I have put in priority. Maybe God didn't answer their prayers in the way they wanted or anticipated and they lost faith or became bitter. Maybe they felt inadequate or ashamed. Maybe they saw something else shining in the corner and got distracted. Maybe they believed the Old Lie and let Satan get the best of them. I like how Revelation 2:4 accuses us of having forsaken our first love - we forget time and time again all of the great things Yahweh has done for us. We love Him, yes, but we still leave Him anyway. Why do we do what we do? But I'm digressing...

Anyway, back to the story. So the Israelites deny God yet again and become idolaters. God knows (time tested and approved) that His people always come running back when the going gets rough. When we think we can do it all we lose our neediness and our trust - how ignorant of us to believe ourselves to be more powerful? God knows that when we are weakest there are two truths: First, that He is strong and we will admire that power. Or secondly, that we are in need of a Saviour and need help. Either way, we will come running back with humbled, receptive hearts. God becomes angry with the Israelites (although by this time, I wouldn't blame Him if He got a bit annoyed, too) and decides to show them who's boss and that they aren't as strong as they perceive themselves to be by feeding them into the hands of their enemies.

This is the point where I wonder "Will we ever learn?" and "I wonder how many times the Bible tells this same plot?" I'm guessing that it's of some importance.

As we all do, the Israelites came crying back to God, begging at His feet to rescue them. I do think that they were legitimately terrified, and I wonder how desperate they were before they mustered the nerve to return to the same One they had insulted so many times before. It's no different than screaming at your boss, teacher, the associate over the phone, whoever, that they are worthless and have no clue what they are talking about when they warn you against an action that could severely maim your life - then the consequences being fulfilled, and you having to return with the request of a pardon and help fixing it. That takes some guts. God owed them no favors, however, and apparently didn't think they had learned their lesson.

This is my favorite part, where God essentially tells them "Let me know you how much of a fool you are." As the Israelites are begging to be rescued, God states (if it were me, I'd be rather sarcastic and wear a smirk) "When your enemies were beating on you and you asked me to help, did I not save you before (paraphrased)? But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen! Let them save you when you are in trouble!"

First of all, that's a rough line to hear on the receiving end. God's ticked. He's annoyed. He's fed up with the Israelites and their games. It's never a good day when the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth is irritated with you and your shenanigans. Secondly, those lines just make me laugh; God just got sassy with the Israelites. He told them what's up and who's boss. God essentially says "You want it your way? Okay. Have it!" He's not interested in playing games anymore - at some point, they will realize that there is no way they can win.

What I love even more though, is the next few lines. I would be disgustingly ashamed at this point, but the Israelites continue to beg. Either they're seriously desperate or they're excessively bold. They again admit they have sinned - except this time they relinquish control to God. They tell Him that He can do whatever He wants to with them. That's an intimidating offer that requires mass quantities of trust. God knows what He's doing and He knows the heart of the matter despite what our words say. Had they not totally given up control before? Were they just waiting for God to free them so they could go back to their pagan lifestyle? If that's the case, then I don't think they could be classified as being "desperate"... perhaps "tired" is a better word.

After they had confessed their sin and given control rightfully back to God, the Israelites then removed the sin from their lives. They stripped away all of the pagan idols. After they had cleaned themselves up, they began to serve the Lord before He even began to act. That's trust. They realized they were wrong. They gave up control and asked for help. They removed their temptations. They served God. And then "... He could bear Israel's misery no longer."

Let that marinate for a minute.

How desperate the Israelites must have been to achieve all of this. It was only until after they had completed all of those steps that God decided to step in, that they were serious enough. I love how God displays His compassion here; the pain the Israelite's felt also radiated through their Creator. The One that formed the sun and the moon and the stars with His own breath and never once was weakened by temptation felt empathy towards a group of simple people that couldn't make it more than a few minutes without insulting Him. He never forsakes His people - but rather, leaves us alone for a time to face our demons until we're ready to fully commit to a change.

I'm pretty sure God's got it all figured out.

Thornland

I can't keep plants alive to safe my life (pun!). I tried to start a balcony garden when I lived at the condo; within a couple of weeks, I was forced to close the curtains when people came over to shelter myself from the embarrassment of pots of mud and brown crumbly foliage. I had a cactus when I was younger, and it's been my only successful plant to date.

With that said, I have become acutely aware of the consequences of sin and the destructive force that it has in all of the facets of our being. A little sin goes a long way like yeast in a loaf of bread or a stain on a favorite sweater... or weeds in a garden.

I found this chart online (so it must be accurate) and was amazed at the power weeds have on other plants. Weeds are interspecific exploitation competitors to the native species. For all you kids out there that didn't choose to take three sciences in one year, that means that weeds limit the resources of and are a completely different species from the ones they compete with. A rosebush doesn't have enough mineral ions or water because there's thistles sucking up all the nutrients. An oak seedling can't grow because there's a giant dandelion casting a shadow on its photoreceptors. Vines wrap around a bed of sunflowers and choke them, prohibiting the movement of material through xylem and phloem. Vegetables can be over 1700% more bountiful when they are weeded. When somebody takes the time to invest in their growth, the plants explode in produce. It takes effort, but the benefits are evident and amazing.

I don't think I am unlike a garden; God compares us and our relationship to it often. I think it's undeniable the extent of the connection that we have to it. Gardens are a symbol of creation; they're constantly growing and producing. They suffer times of drought or dormancy but always return with new life in the spring. They are diverse and unique; no two gardens are exactly alike. Sometimes, life is created for the first time (primary succession) and sometimes, life returns after a period of destruction (secondary succession). We see the self-containment of gardens expressed through terrariums; the environment is self-sustaining and needs nothing more than itself to flourish. God first put us in a garden so that we would prosper and promises the return of one.

We all know that plants typically thrive if four main things are present: water, sunlight, air, and dirt.

A plant without water will not survive, but Jesus is the living water to sustain us (John 4:14).

God breathed into man, giving them life (Genesis 1:7).

We come from dirt (Genesis 1:7), made to cultivate the land for His use and His purpose (Genesis 2:5, John 15:8).

Jesus is the light that gives us life (John 1:4).

Plants can't function if they lack even one of these resources (with the exception of dirt in some cases - but that's quite the explanation). Interestingly, all of these factors point back to God... No matter which element is missing, it will always create a gap between you and God and strip you of life. Your garden will not flourish. It won't even bloom.

He also teaches us that He is the gardener, constantly pruning us and tending to our needy selves (James 1:2-5, John 15:1-2). He points out that we have no chance of producing fruit unless we remain in Him (John 15:5, 8).

God makes it perfectly clear what our "fruits" are and what our weeds are (Gal 4:19-23).

Sexual immorality Hatred Dissensions

Impurity Discord Factions

Debauchery Jealousy Envy

Idolatry Fits of rage Drunkenness

Witchcraft Selfish ambition Orgies

Love Patience Faithfulness

Joy Kindness Gentleness

Peace Goodness Self-control

It's worthy of noting how many more weeds there are than fruits; it's so much easier to be evil. Temptation is abundant and bad seeds are going to land in our garden, but it's a question of whether or not we are going to let them take us over. It takes so much less effort to not prune away or sin or fertilize our lives. I can easily leave my bible in my car for a week; reading it actually takes action. It's convenient to leave homework until Sunday or to go to sleep without praying. It takes no extra effort. It's easy to give in to temptation; it doesn't require a fight. When we allow habitual sin into our lives, we essentially are saying to Satan "Go ahead. Steal my nutrients. Choke me. Cast shadows over me. Kill my garden. Destroy my fruits." The Gardener is willing to cut off our dead leaves, tie our weak branches to crutches, and till our soil; the process can be painful, but the bounty is good.

Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between weed flower and fruitful flower. Sin seeps into our lives; dandelion seeds gently float into our soil and take hold, quickly reproducing. From my own experiences, having a healthy desire exercise more can quickly turn into a disorder. A generous heart can lead to comparing oneself to others. Opportunities can morph into pride. We must immediately nip the problem in the bud; it takes time and effort to nurture each individual flower.

All good botanists know that one single weed can destroy an entire environment. It can completely take over the area (competition!). I don't think I'm guilty of all of the transgressions on the list. I'm not a fan of orgies or drunkenness, but I do know that there are some definite things in my life that are choking me. Jealousy? Dissension? Even fits of rage? Yep, I'm guilty of temper tantrums, coveting relationships, and arguing. Being made in the image of and filled with Jesus, I know that I can't be completely void of goodness, though. I'm faithful to my beliefs and the people I love. I'm working on my self control (aka "filtering"). But even the tallest, most beautiful lily becomes worthless when it's choked by a vine. I find it hard to love others because I am choked with anger and bitterness. I struggle with trust because anxiety is sapping me of my energy. Sometimes I can't find it within me to be kind or gentle because I'm having a hissy fit or being impatient. One weed kills the whole garden. Not only is my anger going to tear apart my ability to love, but also every other aspect of my life. Encouragement is awkward, faith is shrouded, trust is non-existent, and goodness is not seen when I'm filled with anger or rage. It sucks me of my life and my ability to create. How much more fruit could I produce if I weeded my garden? How much more could I serve God and serve His people? How much farther along would the Kingdom be if the Church cultivated their land more than once a week?

“This garden is your soul. This mess is you! Together, you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart. And it is wild and beautiful and perfectly in process. To you it seems like a mess, but I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive – a living fractal.”

The Shack W. P Young

Young agrees that we are a garden and yet a beautiful disaster. It's a slow cultivation to go from a seed without festering life to a manipulable sapling to an enduring redwood. It takes years of patience and hard work to expand from a single rose bush to an entire greenhouse of diverse species. From a distance, a garden can look like a mess of shapes and colors. I think some of the most beautiful landscapes aren't the ones that have every plant in a neat row, perfectly sculpted into an exact shape. Instead, the plants are wild and free to grow whenever nature takes them, while still being pruned into a coherent pattern. In a fractal, the pattern is the same at any magnification; the image is repeating over and over again, and when you step back the overall picture is again beautiful in another dimension. Is love, joy, or peace apparent in every facet of my life? Is it significantly prominent anywhere? Can people look at my life as a whole and see a complete mosaic of Jesus?

I love the idea of my life, my garden, always evolving and emerging. I love that I can be beautiful today and be beautiful tomorrow, and yet be different. I love even more that even though I may see myself as an absolute failure, Jesus tells me that I'm everything He ever wanted and yet still encourages me to become so much more.