Oh Heavy Heart of Mine

Somali Pirates.

This is what grieves my heart today.

I watched the movie Captain Phillips yesterday and was smacked in the face with the stark reality that there are bad people out there who have no choice but to be bad.

But my soul whispers to me that they're not actually bad.

My soul feels their hidden goodness. It feels their desperation and fear. It so deeply feels their sense of hopelessness.

And then I feel hopeless.

Why do I have so much? I have everything. It is easy for me to be good. I don't have any worries. I have every need met on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's no real sacrifice for me to do good things.

But people with no hope, people with no protection, no livelihood, no money, no job, no family, no LOVE - they have no choice.

Be bad or die.

That's the choice life gives them. Life says go out and steal and hurt and kidnap and destroy and take what is not yours and assert your power and live to make others fear and you'll survive. Otherwise, stay meek and humble and weak and die. Die in desperation and hopelessness.

This is what is seems like life gives them. And it does not seem fair. It seems so wrong. 

And I can't help but wonder why God would allow it to be that way. It's not fair that it's so easy for me to be good and so easy for them to be bad.

If I'm good, people praise me and bless me and love me. If they're good, people take advantage of them, kill them, destroy them.

Where is my God? Is he near to them? Is he close to their broken hearts? Does he hear their helpless cries in the night? Does he have mercy on them?

Does he love them? 

And I find myself praying in desperation that God will just make it known to me that he isn't absent from all of this. I have to know that he has some sort of plan through all of this. I have to know that he loves those people and that his heart breaks the same way mine does when it sees their scared, lonely souls and their acts of wickedness.

I need to see his eyes and see the tears welling and the arms reaching out, trying to save them.

Oh, my God, will you open my blind eyes?

Oh, my God, will you make known to me your love for bad people? Will you make known to me who you are? Will you show me your heart and your face and your eyes?

Oh, my God, where have you gone?

It feels like you've left us here alone. It is so hard to see you anywhere now. All I see is selfishness and ignorance and greed. All I feel is brokenness and helplessness and confusion.

Oh, my God, won't you save us?

Won't you put an end to our suffering and teach us who we should be? Won't you provide for us so that we can serve you? Won't you heal our broken hearts?

Oh Jesus, won't you lift this heavy heart of mine? 

I'm So Clueless

I literally have a zillion thoughts inside of my brain right now so I'm going to do my best to form a somewhat coherent blog post out of this mess.

All aboard the struggle bus.

Um. Where do I begin?

Well, I started reading back through some of my old blog posts and let me tell you, it feels like I'm reading about someone else's life. Because that part of me feels SO FAR GONE. Like, posts from earlier this year feel like they happened decades ago. I read through my thoughts, feelings, dreams, aspirations, beliefs, concerns, hopes, and triumphs and only one thought passed through my mind:



What.


Happened.



Reader, my life is a mess. Please understand that when I say this, I'm not exaggerating. My life is so messy right now, that even Mr. Clean himself could offer me no hope! I guess I'll tell you about it.


Good grief, this is going to be a long post.


Okay, so, several months ago I started seriously examining my life - particularly my faith in God. I learned more about what Jesus Christ of the Bible actually taught and how that should translate into my life and I had a couple of really solid examples of what that looked like. I talked to people and read and searched and I started changing. It started with little things. I stopped wearing make-up because I realized it was a way for me to draw attention to my outward appearance while masking inward filth. I started dressing more modestly because I saw that my wardrobe was full of figure-flattering stumbling blocks for my brothers in the faith. I started loving my family and doing things for them with joy. And then I made a decision that I NEVER thought I'd actually go through with.

I dropped out of school in mid-September. My entire life my identity has been carefully wrapped in my academic achievements. I used to love to google "Lauren Presley Bentonville, AR" and watch as dozens of links popped up announcing different awards and titles I had been given. I especially took pride in my ability to maintain a decent social life while doing all of these "great" things to help humanity. I had lots of friends and all their parents adored me and lots of boys liked me and I was drinking in every ounce of goodness that life had to offer.

It all sounds like vanity, doesn't it? Well, that's what I realized. I realized that I was pretending to follow Jesus Christ but really I was pursuing my own grandeur and recognition. I realized that I had a very "worldly" mindset and that nothing I had achieved would follow me into heaven.

So, naturally, I quit school.

Now, this is where light-hearted me would typically interject with a "my life is a joke" joke. Yeah, normally I would do that, except for the fact that this joke has gone entirely too far.

When I stopped wearing make-up, people stopped telling me that I'm pretty. Boys stopped talking to me. When I stopped doing my hair every day, I felt gross and boys continued to ignore me. When I started dressing modestly my friends told me that I needed to look cuter and well, BOYS DO NOT WANT TO TALK TO ME. All of this is somewhat humorous to me and it doesn't really bother me all that much, it mostly just makes me realize how naive I was to think people were so genuine and liked me for my spirit.

(Okay, not everyone responded this way, but a shocking amount, in fact, did.)

But when I dropped out of school because I felt like I wasn't pursuing God's kingdom, I became a disappointment. I became a waster of talent, money, and opportunity. A failure. My perfect little kingdom that I had spent so many years to carefully building up with achievements and successes began to crumble to the ground.

This all stunned me. It made me ask questions I've never thought about and look at things I've always chosen to ignore. It took a foundation away from me that I thought was immovable.

But my faith in God made me feel strong. It gave me peace and assurance and vision. I held fast to it.

Until I realized that it was gone.

It hit me like a semi-truck speeding on I-540. I woke up one day to a question I wish didn't exist. Do I even believe in all of this? Do I actually believe God is real? Do I legitimately think Jesus Christ is calling me to lose my life so that I can find it?

The consensus came in as a resounding I DON'T KNOW.

So this is a great position to be in. I just completely changed pretty much absolutely everything in my life for a God that I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I BELIEVE. For a faith that I don't even know is real. For a man that I. DO. NOT. KNOW.

And what once was a vision of taking up my cross to fervently follow Jesus Christ while serving the widow and orphan and caring for the helpless with a deep, overflowing love for a beautiful savior and Lord quickly became a heaping pile of confused thoughts mixed with a lot of ugly feelings and a broken compass for life. This all started about 6 weeks ago.

And I haven't gotten anywhere.

I'm literally in the exact same place and I've done nothing. I've worked and spent time with friends and have done some good stuff, but I'm just as lost as I was 6 weeks ago. I'm literally wandering out here alone. I don't fit in ANYWHERE and I don't have any sort of foundation to even think about building upon as I move forward in life.

And I can't help but remember some words that I once heard spoken that "God never leads you into the desert to kill you."

And as I can't help but remember those words I also can't help but think that they are completely and totally, absolutely, without a doubt, infinitely and abundantly FALSE. Or at least it feels like it.

Because I once believed that if I could just take one step at a time that things would turn out okay. I once thought that if I could just make it through the night, I could make it through the storm. But here I am and I literally don't even think I have the strength to take one more step. I'm in the driest desert I've ever known and the idea of refreshing waters has become such a foreign concept to me that I have actually ceased to believe in its existence. And so I cannot help but believe that God has led me into this desert, in fact, to absolutely annihilate me.


Because what if I really don't even want to take another step? What if I don't really care if I make it through the storm because it's not like that side of things is gonna be any less confusing and messy?


And really, if the Bible says that God is near to the broken hearted, then why do I feel so abjectly alone and abandoned? Because if the most pleasing sacrifices to God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, then why does he remain so frustratingly silent?

Sometimes I just wish I could go back. I wish I could un-learn everything I've soaked up in the last 6 months and just be stupid again. I wish I could just be a self-glorifying, naive, vain, clueless dummy like I was when I was so captivated by all of life's beauty and glory and lightness. I wish I could wear a pair of skinny jeans and not feel evil or watch a TV show and not think about how terribly I'm wasting my life.

Because sometimes ignorance truly is bliss. Sometimes it's better to be blind and go on believing that life is about being happy and having a grand ol' time and making everyone laugh and stuff. I look back at my blog posts and journal entries and see such an honest love for who I believed God to be. I see such a light-hearted adoration for life itself and such a strong-willed desire to soak up every good thing in life and then pass it on to everyone else around me. And I don't understand why that was taken from me.

I still don't really know anything about life or God or what in the world I think I'm doing. The more I learn, the less I know.

I don't know if God is real or if he listens to my prayers or if He cares that I'm dying. I don't know if He plans on coming to save me at the last second to revive my faith and restore my joy. I don't know if I'll ever make something of myself or if a boy will ever want to marry someone frumpy and unkempt like me. I don't know if Jesus was telling the truth when he said that if I lose my life for His sake, I'll find it.

Because I lost pretty much everything in order to pursue his kingdom and I still feel pretty empty and scared. I still feel pretty alone. So I just don't know what to believe.


But since I always seem to find a way to end my blog posts on a happy note, I'll just add that I like November air. It's crisp and it blows with untamed freedom and passion. I'll also add that if God is real and true, that He is infinitely merciful and patient with my wandering and cluelessness.

And I long to believe that He is true, and that He Loves Us.

Why I Wear Make-up

     

                             


Most people would probably say that it's a little drastic to explain my reasoning behind wearing make-up as my fallen, broken way of attempting to be God.

But really, that is why I wear make-up.

I've been thinking about this a lot. I got pretty upset one day when one of my friends said something about how girls would be better without makeup. I wasn't sure why it upset me so deeply, so I prayed and asked God to reveal to me the deeper, hidden places of my own heart - the inner workings and brokenness that manifest themselves through tears that I don't understand.

My Father spoke truth into my heart that day.

There's something in me that desires to be loved. Most would say that's a pretty innocent and natural longing - but not so much, really. Because I don't JUST desire to be loved. I desire to be adored. Still don't think that's bad?

Okay. I desire to be worshipped.

This is what I realized. I refuse to go out without makeup because I refuse to go out without someone saying, "Wow, you have beautiful eye lashes!" I refuse to go out without being made up because it would be an injustice for someone to think I wasn't pretty.

What if someone realized that I am not God?

Oh wait.....

I'm not.

Okay, I know at this point you're probably raising your eyebrows going, "Whoa, now! You're taking this to a completely ridiculous level." And maybe I am. But I realized something terrifying inside myself that day - something dark and dirty, and something very broken. I realized an inward tendency to gain approval in the sight of men (and women) based on the visual aesthetics of my face. I realized that I wanted to cover up every "flaw" so that people would think I'm perfect. And the Bible makes clear that what manifests itself on the outside is what's really taking place on the inside (Luke 6:45). So if I'm trying to cover up my flaws on the outside, there's probably a good dose of trying to ignore my flaws inwardly. There is a part of me that will not accept the truth that I am not worthy of worship. I see my own plainness and try to trick myself into thinking that I'm actually supernaturally extraordinary and perfect.

Let's cut the act.

I have pimples. So do you. My pore are the size of Mount Rushmore and I have the deepest crows feet wrinkles you've ever seen on a 19-year-old. My eyebrows have a mind of their own and my top lip isn't big enough. This is who I am. When I cover these things up, it's in an attempt to HIDE them from people. I want you to believe that I never break out because I'm calm, cool, and collected and have perfect skin complexion. I groom my eyebrows, cover my eyelashes with mascara, and plop some plumper on that top lip so that you look at me and think, "Wow, God blessed her and adorned her with beauty."

It. Is. Fake. Literally, it is so fake! I AM SO FLAWED. I have pimples and wrinkles and thick eyebrows. So why am I trying to make you believe that I don't? And why do we practically demand others to cover up their flaws as well? As if it is a disgrace to humanity to uncover our imperfections. Who are we kidding? None of us have a perfect face, but honestly, I think that makes us even more beautiful.

Stop wearing makeup for a while. Stop freaking out and just try it, okay? After a while, you'll get used to the look of your face without make-up and start to recognize the natural beauty that lies underneath all that foundation. Unaltered skin has a sort of glow to it. No, not the sun-kissed, bronzed glow. But a warm, inviting glow that lends honesty and truth. Yes, there's a sort of beauty to a made-up face, but it's the kind of beauty that's hard to look at, to be quite honest. The kind of beauty that makes you feel uncomfortable and like you're missing a mark. But then there is a natural, unaltered beauty of a face just the way God created it. The kind of beauty that's easy to look upon. It doesn't mean that your face is nice and clear and symmetrical. It means there's a certain undeniable joy and honest goodness overflowing that comes from a contended heart in Christ.

Stop believing the lies of this world, Daughter of God.

Stop buying into the deception of the fashion industry, oh Child of the Most High.

For jewels, fine clothing, and make-up cannot match the great beauty of the spirit that God has placed inside of you. He has created you to embody the "imperishable beauty of a quite and gentle spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). And that is "VERY PRECIOUS IN THE EYES OF GOD" (1Peter 3:4).

Very rarely in the Bible does it directly say that something is precious to God. But look at this. WHAT TREASURE WE HAVE FOUND IN CHRIST. We don't need worldly beauty - in fact, we shouldn't want it! Because in Christ, we put on the adornment of mercy and grace. We wear the jewels of forgiveness and humility. We paint on the make-up of kindness and servanthood. Worldly beauty is nothing but deception to us, for it is a cover. We can freely reveal who we truly are because we don't need the praises of men. We don't seek the worship of strangers who think we're beautiful. We don't strive for the attention of passers-by. For the King and Creator of this Universe has named us as very precious in his sight because of our GODLY CHARACTER.

What freedom we have found in our Maker! What love we have discovered from our Father! Yes, you may seem plain next to painted faces and fashion queens, but your spirit is what attracts others to you - and that is NOT plain! Forget the chase after fading beauty and pursue the unfading beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit! Your Father has created you to have that spirit and He finds it PRECIOUS.

Oh, how the Father sees past the imperfections of our flesh. Oh, how he adorns us with grace! Oh my soul, How He Loves.