And then came junior high. Acne and uncontrollable hair snuffed out my dreams of being a beautiful princess. What had I been thinking? I was more like the ugly stepsister! So into the garage went the twirly dresses and pretty shoes. Out came big baggy sweatshirts, ponytails, and anything I could get my hands on to cover up the fact that I was not a princess after all. My goal became to be "the invisible girl". The dramatic saga of junior high friendships and who-is-friends-with-who today was the last straw. I knew it, I was ugly, unloved, and worthless.
High school came along and with it the awareness that wearing less clothes meant more attention from the fellas. My fragile ego slowly began to shrug off the baggy sweatshirts and replace them with provocative and way-too-revealing clothing (should those really be in the shorts section...I think maybe they are supposed to go in the underwear section...there can't be enough material there to be considered shorts!) The new wardrobe appeared to work...I had the eye of several males--but quickly learned that having their eye was not having their heart, and my heart was not what they were looking at!
The young girl who had been a beautiful and confident princess had been lost. Where was she? Who was she? She had been loved and worthy of love. She had been beautiful and full of life. She had known who she was and, even though she didn't know anything about God at the time, she had, in a way, had a sense of WHO'S she was as well. She knew that she was worth something. And then, along the way, somehow...she forgot. Just as many women forget, and live a lifetime of trying to either earn love or hide from it.
But the truth of who I was, under all of this hiding or flaunting, did not change. The truth is that I was made in the image of God. The truth is that He created me and knit me together while I was still in the womb! Think of those knitting club members--they put hours and hours of work into creating a masterpiece of color and craftsmanship...just as our God has put His time and energy into creating each one of us, His masterpiece. So many many times us women live like we are scrap material, worthy of being thrown in the trash, or at best maybe we could be thrown in the scrap pile until some use might be found for us. Daughters of God, this is not so! Our destiny does not lie in worthlessness, nor does it lie in being used for somebody else's gain. Our destiny is far closer to what we used to believe about ourselves. That we are princesses. That we are royalty.
"All glorious is the princess within her chamber; her gown is interwoven with gold. In embroidered garments she is led to the king...led in with joy and gladness"(Psalm 45:13, 14a, 15a) This princess is you! She is me! She is each one of us hand-crafted and beautiful women who is being led toward her King--toward her God. Imagine a bride on her wedding day, glowing and radiant--she is the reason everybody stands when the wedding march starts, and her Lover is the one who awaits her at the alter. Your lover awaits you at the alter as well. Your God stands longingly, seeing your beauty and gloriousness--you are His bride!
We may know this in our minds, but so often this truth does not make the journey into the depths of our hearts. We can hear that we are valued, loved, and sought by our God...but sometimes we don't see it playing out in our lives quite the way we imagined it. Hurtful things are said or done by those who were supposed to protect us, grief and loss smack us across the face when we least expect it and we are left with numbness and pain. The day-to-day sameness of life and stressors of just trying to survive overwhelm our sense of purpose and identity...and we are lost at sea with amnesia. We don't remember that we are princesses, we may even roll our eyes and scoff at the idea, we just need to get through the day!
Even so, our God waits. Scattered throughout the Old Testament, God asks His people, "How long?" Through Moses, God asks Pharoah, "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?" (Exodus 10:3) To Moses God asks, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions?" (Exodus 16:28) In Numbers 14:27 God asks, "How long will this wicked community grumble against me?" And in Joshua, God lays it on the young man's heart to ask the people how long they will wait before they enter the land that God has given them. There are numerous other accounts of God waiting on His people and hoping that they will choose Him over their own fears, anxieties, or selfish agenda.
The question then is, will you? Will you choose Him even though you cannot see beyond the hour and do not know what your day will hold? Will you choose Him and believe that you are more than you believe about yourself? Will you choose Him and begin to live as the princess you were created to be? I must confess that I have many days I still forget whose I am--in fact, sometimes months go by and I feel much more like a dust-covered peasant woman than anything resembling royalty. And sometimes life gets so overwhelming that I would much rather wear a big baggy sweatshirt and tuck my head in it like a turtle than hold my head high and choose to believe that God will get me through the storm. It is a journey, learning to believe that we are daughters of the King. It is an adventure, seeking out God's truth in the chaos of our lives and believing in spite of all that we see, that God is not holding out on us and that we are being sought after.
Our Jesus' love is so intense for us, that He gave His very life so we could become His bride. His love was as strong as death, His love conquers anything that we can throw at it--whether it be infidelity, self-protection, pride, our own gain, or apathy. Our God's love burns like a blazing fire and nothing can put it out. No storm can drown it and no monsoon can wash it away. Nothing can overcome and nothing can compare to the love that is in Christ Jesus, to the love that God desires to pour on you as His bride. So may we drop our fears and failure, drop our "wish I could be more..." and our "why is life so hard" and accept the hand of our Jesus. He is waiting.
"Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned." ~Song of Songs 8:6-7
Summer, this is beautiful and sad at the same time.
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