This morning I looked in the mirror. I was horrified to find that, despite my best efforts, to find two more blemishes on my face. To make it even worse, the two on my upper lip were bigger than yesterday. Right out there for the world to see. I thought about make up. But I didn't leave myself enough time for that this morning. So, I tried to find the best way to angle my face. That way I could lessen their effect when I talked to people for the rest of the day.
As I did this, I thought about what these ridiculous blemishes said about me. I wanted to tell people that I really do wash my face twice a day. I wanted to tell them that I had gotten all the way through high school with hardly a blemish to speak of. I wanted to wear a sign that said, "I do everything I am suppose to where the cleansing of my face is concerned. I don't understand why these things are happening to me."
I finally walked away from the mirror dissatisfied with my attempts to cover up these intruders. I know they have something to do with the stress of my impeding divorce and all that comes with it. I just wished that the evidence didn't have to be so out there for everyone to see. And then, I wondered why. Other people have blemishes. Other people have stresses. I am not the center of everyone elses' thoughts.
As the day progressed, I did forget about them. I talked with the mechanic about my car. I talked with my counselor. I talked to my friends when I picked up my daughter. I didn't think about them. Amazingly no one stared at them or spoke word one about them. It occurs to me that we, if I may so humbly speak for others who have shared similar thoughts with me, don't want others to see blemishes because of what they might think or do in response to them. Will they be repulsed if we turn out not to be Atlas or Aphrodite? What if they find out that I fail at things sometimes? Surely they will just walk away. Some have had this confirmed in their life more than others. Still, does this justify cover up?
There is a Jennifer Knapp song that has resonated with me since I heard it at Northwestern in 2002 called "Martyrs and Thieves." In the lyrics, Knapp ponders this. "There's a place in the darkness that I used to cling to/ It presses harsh hope against time/... Though I'm a king I'm king on my knees/...There are ghosts from my past who've owned more of my soul/Then I thought I had given away/They linger in closets and under my bed/And in pictures less proudly displayed" So many things haunt us. And we give them the power to do so. We may think that we are in control, but they have us.
And what do we do with this? "Well I've never been much for the baring of soul/In the presence of any man./I'd rather keep to myself all safe and secure/ In the arms of the sinner I am." Now when I say we, I want to step out on the limb and say that I chiefly am talking about myself. Though I believe, from conversations and the existence of this song, that I am not alone in this. How often I have done this I cannot say, but I have. Fear used to have such a hold on me. I preferred to give people what they wanted. I tried like everything to have friends while carefully covering up anything they might find lacking. At the same time, I excused other things they did see. I couldn't bring myself to trust that they could love me even in my errors. I lost some people that way.
"Could it be that my worth should depend/ By the crimson stained grace on a hand?" Here is the key, at last. No matter how many times I hear a speaker, pastor, or writer give an exposition on this very topic, I forget eventually. That is the crux of it though. Our worth has been set at the very life blood of the Son of God. Everything else is a poor, sad measure for any man. So, in that glorious revelation we should go forth open to our Savior as He knows it all already. "So turn on the light and reveal all the glory/I am not afraid/ To bare all my weakness knowing in meekness/ I have a kingdom to gain." What do we have to lose? The chains of fear. What do we have to gain? The love of God and all that he promises to us.
Yet this still is a struggle. On my walkabout, I have found that God is eager to give the kind of unconditional love I have hungered for my entire life. If I could just get out of the way and give up these chains, then I could begin the biggest romantic adventure of my life. I am beginning to. Fortunately for me, God is patient.
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