Blursings

The "Curse" of Our Gifts

This morning on facebook a relative posted a short video about the spiritual application of a pizza box. It's a two minute clip about how we as believers are vessels of Christ. Keep it in mind as you read this post because, as I'm sure you know, we cannot take credit for our gifts. James 1:17 reminds us that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
  A few years ago at church we all took a spiritual gifts test. The goal was to identify our strengths so we can utilize them for service. I found it super-interesting. A couple of people were asked to speak briefly about their results and they said something that resonated with me and I'm guessing you get it, too.
They said that they know it's a blessing, and they are thankful for their gifts, but sometimes their blessing felt like a curse. That's why I sometimes refer to these things, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, as "blursings" because they feel like a combination of a blessing and a curse.
My friend has the gift of administration and she's amazing. Creative and organized, she is a master at making everything beautiful. Dozens of times I've heard people (myself included) say they wish they could just let her do whatever she wanted to makeover their homes. She likes things clean and organized and she's very very good at it.
But, for her, there's a downside. Disorder and mess bug her. Some people could overlook a messy bookshelf, but for my friend it would probably stress her out a little.
Then there's another lady. She spoke about one of her main gifts. The gift of mercy. Oh boy. When she said that this blessing sometimes felt like a curse I knew exactly where she was coming from because I have that one, too.
Compassion.
Several years ago I played "Truvy" in a stage production of "Steel Magnolias". When Shelby, regretting asking Truvy for a short haircut, begins to tear up, Truvy begs her to stop. "Oh sweetheart don't. Please don't cry or I will too. I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence."
Yep. I may not actually cry, but no one suffers in solitude if I'm around.
I'm glad I'm a compassionate person. But being compassionate means that there are times when my heart aches because of valleys I'm not actually walking through. If you are in the valley and need someone to hold your hand awhile, I'm your girl.
Don't misunderstand, I'm thankful for my gifts. Along with mercy, a couple of my other gifts are discernment and wisdom. I'm so grateful for them. I think if I had had a choice I would have picked those gifts.
But here's my point. I think that there's a reason there's some pain in the gift. What good is mercy all by myself, kept hidden? What good is wisdom if I don't share it?
Is a gift really a gift without some amount of sacrifice? Is it really worth anything if we don't grow, develop, and use it to bless others?
These gifts are meant to be manifold. Paul said in Acts "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "
Haven't you noticed that sometimes the best way to lift your own spirit is to bless someone else?
Let's embrace the sacrifice. Like Tom Hanks said in A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."
Like when you knit, bake, clean, create, write, craft, or just give your time. When you sit and listen and let your presence chase away loneliness. The time you spend. The risk you take in being vulnerable, the inevitable hurt we invite when we love one another. It makes it sweeter, and richer, and more. The sacrifice of our "blursings"'is all part of the gift.

All My Friends Are Gorgeous

I don't think I ever even learned the girl's name. Not sure if it was the camp where I was visiting my friend Debi or one of the places we visited for my Models of Youth Ministry class, but I remember the beautiful girl.
She was frowning. Mopping up a wet kid who had encountered some sort of mishap. I can't remember that either, what happened to the boy to get him wet, I mean. What I do remember are her words as she reprimanded the others who were laughing at him. "It's not cool to make other people feel embarrassed." Such simple words but so powerful. So heroic. She was a nice-looking girl anyway, but in that moment she was absolutely beautiful.
Then there was the time that the VBS teacher went around the room to every kid in the class to make a personal connection with them. She asked each of them their name. It sounded something like this: "Hannah? My granddaughter's name is Hannah. Ben? My son's name is Ben! Mary? That's my name." No kidding. She found a personal connection with each and every child because of their names. It was beautiful.
Another time it was one of my roommates. I walked though the front door of our apartment and they could tell by the look on my face that I had just had my heart broken. She wasn't the cuddly type. Not sappy like me. But she just looked at me and then said four words. "Come sit by me." She put her arm around me and let me cry. Beautiful.
But you went to high school with the other kind of girl, too, didn't you? Cute as a button and mean as a snake? I wonder if the government issues them to each school along with their state standards.
They seem to be everywhere we go.

Proverbs 31:30 says "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

You've heard that verse before, I know, but let's look closely. Charm is deceitful. Attractiveness, lure, glamour, all pretty easily manufactured and therefore nothing but hot air. Sure some people are charming because they're genuinely endearing, but there's no way of knowing if it's real without looking deeper than mere personality.
And beauty is even less reliable as a signifier of what someone is really like. For the most part we don't get to choose what we look like. We all age. Youth is temporary. That girl you went to high school with had golden flowing locks and sparkly eyes but her cruelty cancelled it out, didn't it? She may have gotten attention but I bet you felt sorry for her just like I did.
Because pretty is as pretty does. Beautiful comes from the inside out. Like the ladies I just mentioned. They were luminous with Christ's love.
My photographer friend who called me one morning because I was having a bad day. My writer friend who when I read her work, I feel like she's sitting right by me cradling her coffee and speaking healing right to the hearts of her readers. Another writer friend who amazes me with how she breathes life into her stories. My friend who always treats everyone with kindness and the one who seems to greet every day with patient, assured strength. All of them are stunning. Not because of what they look like, though they are beautiful, but because they use their gifts to bless others. Their beauty will never fade because it radiates from the inside out.

It's Not What it Looks Like

I have a small scrape on the heel of my right hand. It's tiny. If I showed it to you and told you that it hurt, you would look at me like I was crazy and think that I'm a whiner. You would think I was just exaggerating unless I explained to you how I got the little mark on my hand.

A week ago I was trying to smash some trash down into the trashcan when I felt a biting pain. Earlier that day my husband had been doing some work in the hallway and thrown out the mess in the trash. I had pressed my hand down right onto a nail. The tiny mark on my hand is not a scrape, it's a puncture.
What looks like a tiny mark was a very painful wound. My whole hand hurt. Even now, it's almost healed on the surface, but really it's still very tender.You can't tell just by looking that it goes deeper.
And it makes me think about assumptions we make. A few days ago I wrote about judgement. I stand by what I said before, people use the "don't judge me" excuse to justify their bad decisions. That "don't judge me because I sin differently than you" statement I see all the time really rubs me the wrong way. Another way of saying that, in my opinion, is "I know I'm being foolish but I don't want anyone to think less of me for it. Other people are foolish too!"  We can't expect people not to lose respect for us if we admittedly do what we know is wrong.
But today I'm talking about something a little different. Sometimes people judge each other, not about right actions and wrong actions, but on the superficial. I'm talking about compassion.
 That clingy child was tiresome, but it turns out she was in foster care and was starving for affection. That girl who keeps to herself that everyone thought was a conceited snob is actually painfully shy. The person behind the counter seemed rude but really he's still stinging because his boss just yelled at him.
We just can't always know what someone else is going though. So let's be guided by what Paul said in his letter to the Galatians:

  1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4 Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, 5 for each one should carry their own load. 6 Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor. Galatians 6:1-6

All kinds of good stuff in there. Notice that he advises us to get over ourselves and help each other out? At first it may seem contradictory that he says we should carry each other's burdens but everyone has to shoulder their own load.
My pastor explained it in a really great sermon once: A burden is more than one person can handle on their own. Something that's too much for one person. We should pitch in and help. A load is someone's personal responsibility. Something like a backpack. Even children have their own loads that they should be able to take on without help.
If we're too focused on our own loads we won't notice when someone is being crushed by a burden.
We should all go around wearing compassion colored glasses.
Check out this short video made by Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock Arkansas.  It's a powerful representation of seeing others with empathy and compassion instead of selfishness. Because sometimes what looks like a scrape is really a puncture. Sometimes we have to ask to find out that what looks like a load is really a burden.

Judgmental

I do not think it means what you think it means

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     Is it just me or is our culture obsessed with judgement?  Apparently, one of the worst things a person can possibly be is judgmental. It's everywhere. Did you catch it in the Disney movie "Frozen" while your kids were watching it a zillion times? Kristoff sees a whole castle made of ice and confesses he might cry. What does Anna say? "Go ahead. I won't judge".  
    So maybe we shouldn't make fun of people for their preferences,  but it's gone way beyond that. We've gotten to the place where any sort of disagreement at all is categorized as disapproval, arrogance, or even hate. Many who like to throw around the word judge often do so by citing the Bible. Sort of. 
    "Whoever is without sin can cast the first stone. Don't judge." 
    Yep. Jesus did say that. The stone throwing part, anyway. But let's back up and look at the actual passage because context is everything. 

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,”Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

When Jesus told them they couldn't throw stones unless they were sinless He was talking about actual rocks they were going to literally throw at her actual head. Jesus didn't tell them not to say she had done something wrong.  He wasn't being metaphorical when He was talking about throwing stones.  He wasn't talking about hurting the woman's feelings. He didn't say they were hateful for disagreeing with her choices.  He reminded them that they were all sinners, too, and were not qualified to have the authority to decide her fate. Jesus told her He didn't condemn her (though He was and is without sin) and then He said something that I believe our culture would call judgmental: "Go now and leave your life of sin." 

When He tells us not to condemn it does not mean that we shouldn't ever deem someone's actions unwise, it means that we are not to set ourselves up in superiority over them. Those two things are just not the same. It comes down to a heart issue. 
Jesus also said in Matthew chapter 7 "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." So I'm not saying it's okay to think we're superior to someone because we think we're "less bad" by comparison.  But when Jesus tells us not to judge He's not giving anyone a get-out-of-jail-free card. It does mean we need to be patient with one another, but it does not mean there's no such thing as accountability. 

It's Not About the Nail

It Really Isn’t About the Nail. Really

      There's a rather satiric video floating around the internet of a couple having a conversation. The woman has a nail sticking out of her forehead. Have you seen it? She's telling her husband how the nail makes her feel and he tries tentatively suggesting that she remove it. She immediately shuts him down. She doesn't want him to tell her what to do, she just wants him to listen to her talk about her feelings. To be honest, when I saw this it really rubbed me the wrong way. I was actually a little surprised that a woman was willing to make such a video. If her solution were really that obvious she would know what to do to solve her problem. No offense, guys, really. I'm not trying to make a statement about men vs women. I want to say something about compassion.
Back when I saw the video I'd been reading Kay Warren's book about joy. One chapter was about nurturing joy in others. She pointed out that we feel frustrated when we don't feel heard. Have you ever tried to tell someone about a problem and they minimized the issue instead of acknowledging how you feel about it? I'm not saying people should be able to whine and complain all the time, I just think that we should be empathetic before offering a lot of “well, if you would just...” instructions and then walking away.
The main reason I think that this is true is because it's what Jesus did. Here's just one example: Jesus knew Lazarus was going to die. He waited until the man was already gone before He made His way over to Bethany where Lazarus had lived with his sisters and  found the family grieving. They asked him why He hadn't come sooner. They cried. He cried. Jesus didn't tell them to calm down. That He had a plan all along, or why didn't they just trust Him in the first place. He knew that He was going to restore Lazarus to them, but before He did, he acknowledged their sadness and took it onto Himself as well. Why wait? Why not just jump in and fix it? Why would He have done such a thing as weep with them unless it really mattered? Jesus didn't lecture or scold. He validated their pain, even though He knew He was about to heal it.