All I Need Is Jesus and a Good Pair of Jeans: The Tired Supergirl's Search for Grace (3 page)

Drip.
“Look at that girl. Her figure is perfect. If only you could be more like her.”

Drop.
“If only you could lose five pounds and have cheekbones like Frieda.”

Drip.
“It would be nice if you were a little taller like Daphne. You wouldn’t look so squatty.”

Drop.
“You wouldn’t need that fancy hair product with fifteen proteins and the oil of the rare purple kumquat if your hair was thicker like Sheila’s.”

Drip. Drop.
“Why can’t you look amazing every day of your life like other people? You’ll never measure up.”

Rarely do we say these things out loud to ourselves, but the pitter-patter of comparison in our minds leaves us awash in a flood of discontentment. All the magazines, commercials, books, and talk shows we subject ourselves to say that to be admired and powerful, to be loved and happy, we need to be beautiful. I need to be beautiful . . . like __________. (Fill in the name of your favorite celebrity or prettiest co-worker.)

A lot of my happiness seems to be based on how I stack up against the next girl. Guys seem to be a little more balanced in this area. I have never seen my husband look at a magazine cover and say, “Why can’t I look like him? . . . I wonder what hair product he uses to get that natural wave?”

That would be disturbing. But . . . I think things like that.

In a magazine interview, Rachel Hunter, the supermodel, said she eats healthily, exercises, and has a great life, but there are still a few things she would like to change about herself. Who is she comparing
herself
to? Let’s just say that Compare-a-girl has inspired a lot of cosmetic surgery. One sixty-five-year-old lady in New York keeps trying to get her eyes to look like they did when she was twentythree. She now has her eyebrows pulled back to her ears. It’s not pretty.

I color my hair. I use teeth-whitening toothpaste. When I have a few minutes, I pluck my eyebrows. Due to my Eastern European descent, I have three sets: the ones that grow over my eyebrows, the ones that grow under my eyebrows, and my actual eyebrows. I try to look put together. I’m beginning to moisturize. I do a bit of stretching. I don lip gloss.

I go for the “cool young mom, hey, I run after three little boys all day” look. My sister Erica throws the “I’m hip and my teenage daughter’s friends are impressed with my style” look. My sister Jenny hits it with the “I’m classy, sassy, and I wear Italian leather pointy boots” look. The pointy boot look would not work for me, as I am often knee-deep in sand or clinging to play structures and would impale small children on them while going down the slide. At the core, we three supersisters are saying the same thing. I want to be beautiful. I want to be admired. I want to be loved.

The quest for beauty is a timeless issue. I bet Eve thought,
I was so much hotter before I sinned and got kicked out of the
garden
. The apostle Paul actually addressed the women in the church regarding their style, saying,

And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.

1 Timothy 2:9–10

How funny is that? Funny, because in two thousand years, we have not changed. I like to think there were some women in that church sporting gold-laced beehives and hot pink to gas. And I think a few of them were probably catty.

“Did you see her sandals? They are so 28 BC.”

Or, “Bless her heart, doesn’t she know they only wear their hair like that in Athens? Let’s pray for her.”

When I’m feeling a bit insecure, I tend to notice and celebrate the imperfections of others. It draws attention away from my own inadequacies. Compare-a-girl likes to work it that way too. If you are feeling bad about yourself, she’ll encourage you to find someone who looks a little worse off than you and point out all their flaws. She’s a winner all the way around.

I don’t think Paul is saying you need to be a plain Jane. We were made to enjoy beauty. God values beauty. He created us to enjoy the loveliness, the magnificence of his creation, people included. I think Paul is reminding these women to refocus their attention on real beauty.

Real beauty is not so much how we look but who we are. We were created in God’s image, to reflect his glory. What we supergirls really want is not to be America’s next top model but to be women who attract people to Jesus. The image we portray draws attention to ourselves. The way we act, the way we love, the attitudes we embrace, have the ability to draw attention to God. And while there is nothing wrong with taking care of our appearance, our ultimate goal is to use our lives to point others toward Christ. That is what Paul is reminding us of.

Those words of comfort, the grace and mercy we pour out, the acceptance of any person regardless of hairstyle, is so beautiful. So attractive. The way we love Jesus and do things that we wouldn’t normally do, like forgive our enemies and share our chocolate, that is true beauty, and people are drawn to it. Then by some amazing, breathtaking miracle, they see Jesus in us and are drawn to him. They are drawn to God, the designer of the universe, because we are lovely on the inside.

If we can figure out a way to get beyond our own need to be physically beautiful and focus on who God is, what he has done for us, and the grace that he has lavished on us, we can learn about being content. Contentment. It’s the weapon that takes Compare-a-girl out at the knees. She rushes in to backhand you with your lack of style, and you say, “Aha!” Block! Kick! Crunch! “Did you forget, Compare-a-girl, oh evil spandex-loving one, that God loves me and I’m good with my eighties hair?” Body block! High kick! Karate chop!

“Aaaaaargh! I’m sinking into the abyss of contentedness!” she shrieks.

Good riddance. Paul knew that he could be content with little or much because his focus wasn’t on what he had or how he looked or even who he was. His focus, his life, was about pointing others Christ-ward. Using his life to reflect God’s glory. And even us supergirls, whether we are just entering the beauty race, rounding the last bend, or hanging up our track shoes and donning our orthopedic footwear, can still do that. Because in all his mercy and forgiveness, in his all-encompassing love of us, Christ is the most lovely. When we soak up who Christ is, when we emulate his love and grace and reflect his glory, we, too, are truly beautiful. Take that, Compare-a-girl. Hi-yah!

3

I HAVE PRIDE ISSUES

W
ith all of my faults, my weaknesses, my craziness, my low self-esteem, you would think that I wouldn’t have a lot of room for pride. That’s what you would think. But surprisingly, it flourishes, with great abundance. At least it did . . . until this year. Shall we call it the year of humbling?

The problem is that pride comes so naturally to us supergirls. Pride is simply this: I am better than you. We know how good it feels to be better than someone else. Our whole culture revolves around pride. Superstars! Business moguls! Power geeks! Who doesn’t want to be number one?

Back to my humbling. I vaguely recall hearing the phrase “Pride goes before a fall.”

My problem was that I was oblivious to how prideful I was. I’ve never thought of myself in those terms. But I do like to be right. I don’t want people to teach me. I don’t like to fail, so if I’m not good at something, I avoid it. Meet Mrs. Prideful. She wreaks havoc in the lives of unsuspecting supergirls. The problem is that we don’t recognize how powerful she is. She hangs onto the backs of our earrings and whispers lies in our ears.

“You’ve got this one. Don’t ask for help. You can do it on your own.”

Or . . . “Hmm . . . I’m not really sure if you should hang out with her . . . I’ve heard that she is needy. You should be around people who are healthy and wholesome . . . like yourself.”

Lucky for us, we supergirls are pretty capable of handling anything thrown our way. We just avoid doing anything that exposes our weaknesses. And we know how to get around problem people. Since Jesus wants us to be loving, we’ll be extra nice but aloof. We don’t want to get involved with anyone who’s too messy. If these needy people could reach our level of maturity, then we would love to have coffee, but until then, “Buh-bye!”

I’m pretty sure that I have just described a Pharisee . . . you know, one of those religious guys that Jesus called sweet names like, “Oh you brood of vipers.” This loosely translated means: “Oh you big group of really poisonous snakes.”

What is more obnoxious than a nice aloof person who thinks she is better than you? We have all met her; we just didn’t realize we were her. Supergirl alert! Pride is sneaky and mean. (Footnote: you aren’t better than anyone else.)

Oh, the pain of it. But back to my humbling. Did I mention that this year has been downright ugly? In January, my husband and I started a church plant in Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University, which could be the birthplace of pride. It is full of pretty, smart, number-one kind of people who go off to do small things like invent Yahoo and run countries, which seems to add to the irony of my situation.

We were aching to get at this thing and do it right. Mostly, Scott was aching and I was terrified—in an aching kind of way. Pastoring is his passion. But church planting calls for all to be involved. We all wear many hats. One of my jobs is to lead worship. I have always sung backup, but leading worship, I think, is a calling. For a person who reveres the appearance of being in control, there was a general uprising by Mrs. Prideful.

I believe “Heavenly daystars, no!” was her outcry.

I like to be calm. And comfortable. I prefer accolades to pity. I would rather have someone think that I have it all together than realize I am falling apart. I like to keep up appearances.

For four consecutive months, I experienced nausea, diarrhea, and intense anxiety every Sunday morning. I couldn’t think of things to say in between songs. My voice shook. Sometimes I cried, usually before the service, so I was nice and splotchy for worship time. Let me weave you some woeful tales of worship leading.

There was the Sunday when we didn’t have childcare and I tried to hold my eighteen-month-old while leading worship. The body bends, the arching of the back, and the general screaming of Will led no one into God’s presence.

Then there was the Sunday a bunch of Stanford students visited. The entire first song was accompanied by a highpitched screeching from our monitors. Not one of them has returned.

Then there was Memorial Day Sunday. We sang for fifteen minutes. With no one there. Except Jesus. I’m hoping he liked it, because it felt a bit awkward to me.

The crowning glory of humblings was the singing of “It Is Well with My Soul.” I told our group the story behind the hymn.

The hymn writer loses his only son to scarlet fever, then his financial holdings in the Great Chicago fire. His wife and four daughters sail to England for a respite, and the ship goes down. Only his wife survives. As he sails to join his griefstricken wife, the captain calls him up to the bridge to show him where his daughters’ ship went down. He returns to his cabin and writes “It Is Well with My Soul.”

As I finished the story, we were all moved, ready to sing this anthem to God. Lo and behold, I couldn’t find the note to start the song. Three times, I started to lead the congregation in a hideous off-key rendition of “It Is Well with My Soul.” I was about to throw myself to the ground in shame when Anthony, on guitar, hummed the note in my ear. God bless him! We went on to sing the full hymn, somewhat haphazardly. I recall Mrs. Prideful fleeing the building in hysterics.

These are just a few examples of how God has led me down the “get over yourself” path, through the valley of “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” toward the “I need you like never before” mountains. I think that God takes pride very seriously, because when we are full of ourselves, there is no room left for him to occupy.

Pride lets you lie to yourself about who you are. Being full of pride, I could tell myself I have it together. I can lead worship. I don’t need to ask for help or to be taught. Glen, a campus ministry leader at Stanford, gave a talk at our church about humility around the same time I was grappling with all my worship woes. One of his points really stuck with me: humility lets you recognize yourself for who you are. In my case, humility meant saying I am scared. I don’t know how to do this. There are people who do this better than I do. I need God to fill me up because I can’t possibly do it on my own.

Jesus was so over people who pretended they had it all together. Every time he would come up against pride, he would squash it. He was the Savior of the world, and he was the most humble. In humility, he recognized himself for who he truly was. Emmanuel. God with us. The most accepting. The most loving. He hung out with losers. Fishermen and tax collectors, left-wing zealots and shifty-eyed sellouts. He forgave prostitutes. He partied with the masses. And the prideful, the law keepers, the Pharisees, he drove them nuts.