Sunday, October 17, 2010

Good Out of Disaster

          "But WHY my phone?!"  Was my son's reaction.  His honesty about homework was lacking and my husband, Scott decided that something needed to be done about it.  Austin resolved on the way to school to sulk the whole day.  He promised himself that he was not going to laugh or smile the entire time.  He would revel in anger and misery.  In first period his friend asked why he was upset.  He told her and she made a really good joke.  He really tried not to laugh, but couldn't help it.  Eventually he figured out that God was not going to let him get away with it. "He just was not going to leave me alone! Every 30 minutes or so something funny would happen right in front of me, it was the best day ever." He told me.  Austin felt that God was making him laugh even though he didn't want to.  Austin made a plan, yet God interrupted. Austin didn't ask.  He didn't invite his Creator in.  God just created interruptions and Austin recognized what they were.  God's goodness and existence in that moment was tangible. 
As I would sit in church, I have often wrestled with "am I good or bad."  I understood from our Christian culture that I am not good.  In church I often heard that without God I cannot be good, ever.    I would hear teachers wonder how a good God could love something so terrible as humanity.  How humble we should feel because we are enemies to God.  How can a God who created me want me, a bad thing? I also applied this to mean that I did not deserve good things. A wall of shame was between God and I.  I would spend feverish time with Him in prayer and reading, striving to feel some sort of connection and all I could feel was void.  I would read all of the "good" in the Bible and reflect on how "sin" made me "bad" and untouchable to Him.  If I accepted Jesus, then I could go to Heaven.  I believed as fact that I would only know peace and goodness in Heaven.  This brought me to think, why can't I just go to Heaven now and live in goodness?  What is the purpose to my living?  I lived in this logic for years.
A counselor challenged this concept.  She said when I was born; God looked at me and said, "She is good."  She informed me that what God spoke over the Garden, still referred to me.  How can this be?  I was taught there was only one good. Only God was good.  This way of thinking fed my insecurities.  It nourished my self-condemnation.  It was a promoter of my eating disorder.  It aided in my suicidal thoughts.  Why should I exist if there is no good in me?  The only good possible was when I was in Heaven, so why couldn't I hurry up and get there?  Why was it wrong to want death so badly? 
I first had to address this idea of a Loving Creator who wanted a relationship with me.  I began searching. When God created the world He, "...saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good." (Genesis 1:31)  I looked up the word good from Genesis.  It is the Hebrew word Towb, an adjective, and it means: pleasant, agreeable, joyful, and favorable. God saw what He created and described it as Very Good.  Similar to an artist who looks upon a work and feels satisfied, he says, "It is as it should be." 
I turned to Matthew 19:17. Jesus is answering a man who called him a "good teacher." Jesus replies,  "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God."  In the Greek, this word good means: of good constitution or nature.  This word good is talking about essence, intrinsic nature, being.  God's very core is good.  Think in terms of the sea:  the sea is salty. The core of it is its chemical makeup.  Our idea of perfection is a complete good, something in which there are no faults.  When Jesus says there is only one who is good and that is God, He is saying that God is the standard for good.  He is the origin of good and everything else is His expression.  His goodness is tangible.  In Exodus, God meets Moses on Mount Sinai.  God puts him into the cleft of a rock and passes in front of him.  He tells Moses that, "I will make all my goodness pass before you," (Exodus 33:19) God's goodness is overwhelming.  It is His essence.  Jesus was stating who God is, not describing Him.
In examining all of this, I realized what my counselor said was true.  When I was born, God looked at me and was pleased.  I was created with all of the gifts and talents I needed to add to this world. He described me as good.  Because of the nature of this, He wanted to have a relationship with me, his artistic creation.  He wanted me to know Him.  He wants me to look to Him for my perfection instead of trying to create my own.  He delights in giving me good things, because it creates a joy we can share.  He created me to be happy.  I deserve to embrace this good happiness within me and feel His joy.  I make a choice to see the good that He has created around me and celebrate it. My reason for living has been answered.  He gave me the gift of life and it brings Him joy to see me live it. 

2 comments:

MrsLoomis said...

well done

wolfqueen927 said...

As I think about your life, I have to remind myself of all the grace He's placed there. Grace that Scott was who you went out with. Grace that you and I saw each other at HERC that day. Grace that we know how to play instead of cry sometimes. Awesome piece.