Step Sixty-Nine: A Princess Worth Waiting For

Dear Readers,

There is a line at the end of Tangled that I haven't been able to get out of my head. Rapunzel has finally returned home and the story has arrived at it's happy ending. Eugene (Flynn) is narrating the story. He says "At last Rapunzel was home and she finally had a real family. She was a princess worth waiting for, beloved by all, she lead her kingdom with all the grace and wisdom as her parents did before her." There is something in this statement that touches my heart in a way that no "and they lived happily ever after" ever could.

I have a somewhat silly girly confession to make. I desperately want to be a princess. A princess worth waiting for. It's not that I want a kingdom to rule or a prince to marry. In fact those things couldn't matter less. Even the whole castle, family, happy ending thing – though it sounds nice – are just small benefits. No, I want to be a princess because princesses are inherently valuable people. Even the line "she was a princess worth waiting for" implies that she was a princess oozing significance and value. You don't wait for someone you perceive to be of zero worth. You wait for someone of precious value, someone irreplaceable. You wait for for the character who, without, the story would be over.

In Tangled, you don't wait for the second guard on the left. You wait for Rapunzel. Without the guard, another guard will step into place, the story will go on and no one would even realize he was gone (I'm not saying this is right, I'm a fan of noticing the invisible but that's another blog). But who could replace Rapunzel. No one. She is a princess. A one-of-a-kind-story-changing princess.

Without Rapunzel - the King and Queen have no offspring, Gotham continues singing to a flower and hiding it selfishly away, the kingdom has nothing and no one to mourn or celebrate, Flynn stays Flynn a robber and conn until he is hung, Maximus will never be anything more than a horse, and Pascual loses a best friend. Without Rapunzel - the thugs in the snuggly duckling will never remember their dreams, so hooky will never be a concert pianist and goiter will never find love. Without Rapunzel everyone's life in the story, from Hayfever Guard (he wouldn't have been guarding a crown if there was no princess for the crown) to Flynn/Eugene, is going to be radically different. She is of that much worth.

That's the heart of my girly confession. I want to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I am of worth. That my life has changed the lives of those around me. I want to be of worth, of consequence. That is my heart's cry. I want to know that who I am, just as I am, is completely irreplaceable. When I die and go before the Lord, my prayer would be that He says I am "a princess worth waiting for."

The sad truth is, I, like many other young women, don't believe I am. I try so hard to prove my value, prove my worth. Graduate high school - then you'll be of value. Ace college - then you'll be of value. Become a social worker - then you'll be of value. Change the entire social care system - then you'll be of value. Run your own orphanage - then you'll be of value. I continually chase after this idea of worth in actions. And then, when I'm running around in circles chasing an ever escalating false idea of worth, God throws an idea like this in my path. He forces me to stop chasing my own tail by creating a longing in my heart. He asks me to come and sit before Him and ask Him what He sees.

It is basking in His light that he reminds me that Rapunzel just was a princess. She wasn't of worth because her hair could glow. She was significant simply because she was herself. Then He whispers "you are my princess. You are of worth. You are of consequence. You are irreplaceable. You are all that and more because you are you."

So here is a challenge for young women – the next time you pass by the mirror, look at yourself. Remind yourself that you are a princess. You are even a princess worth waiting for because you are you. And then take a moment to celebrate being you. Take a moment to enjoy who you are. Let's build a habit of building up.

Step Sixty-Eight: The Beauty of Anonymity

Dear Readers,

One of the benefits of being a California girl is that I get to spend some of my summer at the beach. Soft warm sand, endless blue ocean, and a bright sky open to possibility. If you haven't ever stood at the edge of the ocean, your toes dipping into the chilly water, realizing how truly small you are, then you need to. There is a certain beauty in feeling small.

The truth is I get so caught up in myself. In my thoughts, my feelings, my problems. It is easy to lose myself in the details of my life. When I stand at the edge of the ocean, when I know that the waves crashing in around me have traveled the planet, when I let myself be small, I get the opportunity to worship the Lord in a unique way. I get to worship him from a place of anonymity. This isn't to say that we become forgotten or unknown to the Lord but rather to ourselves. We cease to lose ourselves in the fabric of our own lives but in the grand tapestry of creation. It is only at the top of a mountain, or standing at the edge of the sea that I see some glimmer of the "big picture."

Standing at ocean's edge, it's so much easier to keep perspective. To celebrate the beauty in being small, in not bearing the weight of the world or even the ocean. It is from this small shore-stuck perspective I get to see God. Not just Father God but God. A powerful, awe-inspiring God. A big God. A God capable of seeing me with my toes just barely caressing wet sand without losing sight of the coral reef flourishing below. A God capable of fitting into the deepest and darkest places of my heart and a God big enough to fill the darkest crevices of the ocean floor.

This is my challenge to you: let yourself feel small today. Not insignificant. If we mean more than sparrows, we also must mean more than starfish. Just feel small. Put yourself on your mental beach, take in the vastness of life and celebrate. Celebrate a big God. Be awe-inspired. Make your way out of the fabric of your life and join in with this tapestry of creation.

Step Sixty-Seven: Take A Minute

Dear Readers,

I will be spending a lot of time this summer with a three year old boy. Like most boys, he has an occasional temper tantrum. Not having truly worked with three year olds in 2+ years, my patience has significantly decreased. It may seem silly, but I forgot the reasoning capabilities of a 3 year old. So we have spent the last few days acclimating to the other's communication style. In this acclimation, I stumbled across this wonderful phrase. At a certain point in this boy's temper tantrum, he ceases to hear what is actually being said because he is "really upset." That is when I told him to take a minute to calm down. He stopped whining and calmed himself down, this opened the door to more communication (still limited, after all he is a three year old, but more). Sometimes we had to take several minutes, sometimes just knowing he was heard was enough. As I thought about this phrase this afternoon, I wonder if I take a minute for myself.

As an adult with reasoning capabilities relatively greater than that of an average three year old, I often find myself skipping the transition phase and jumping into fix it mode. I admit it, I am a fix-it kind of girl. The sink is broken, give me google, a screwdriver, and a little time. This fix-it mode comes in handy with sinks but it doesn't work with deep wounds.

I need to take a minute and process. I need to give it the validity and grief it deserves. The reality is there isn't always a fix. When I turn to my earthly father and feel the heart broken disappointment, my immediate response is to fill that hole. Find someone or something to make it feel better. I bounce around incapable of understanding what God is saying to me because I am "really upset". I have to admit that in reflection, my emotional self acts far more like a three year old than a nine-teen year old. I wonder if God is asking me to take a minute. To calm myself down. To stop blindly stumbling along, upset and hurting, and instead process.

I'm not under the illusion that taking a minute will make the wound better. Sometimes there is still plenty to be upset about, sometimes the tantrums don't end there. However, my prayer in life is that as I grow and mature I am constantly seeking to be able to communicate more with God. I'm not always going to like his answer, but maybe, after taking a minute, my dialogue with God would open even the slightest bit.

So the challenge is are you taking a minute? Should you be?

Step Sixty-Six: Polishing the Pebble

Dear Readers,

Recently I have come up with a metaphor to describe how I feel, how I have felt most of my life. I feel like a pebble in a basket full of jewels. I look around me and I can see my peers, my mentors, my friends, my elders all sparkling with a certain radiance. I can see so much of who they reflect in them. I am surrounded by people who shine, who embody this idea of radiance. I can see them, see their value, see their substance. There is truly no taking for granted the amazing people around me, the people who bring me to my knees in awe of creation. The problem is, I'm not one of them. Not in my eyes.

Sigh. I've crawled back into my corner. I feel like a four year old again. I can feel my arms locked around my legs, feel my bony knees protrude into my chest, feel the tears swell in my eyes. I am here quite often. I don't say this to gain your sympathy but out of frustration. I don't get it. Why am I afraid of everything? Why do I spend so much time crying? Why do I hurt so bad? The only answer I can come up with is this: I am un-building.

Many people have been blessed to have had families that have established healthy foundations. They have had parent's who encourage and bless. They grow up with the knowledge that all is well, they are taken care of, and the world is a relatively safe place. (They aren't perfect, I don't believe in perfect earthly parents, but they're pretty darn good). I and several of my readers did not. In fact, our foundation was built on the knowledge that nothing and no one is safe, you are on your own. If you haven't experienced this, if you don't know what it is like, I cannot explain it to you. I cannot even touch on how radical the impact is. Again, I do not say this to earn pity, but to explain. I don't have a strong foundation. In fact, I am digging into the core of me and destroying what was. I'm serious. I am having to strip myself down to nothing. In many ways, this stripping process hurts more than the original lies did. I'm not erasing memories (though I wish I could) I am building on scar tissue. I am afraid of everything because of the multitude of lies I grew up believing. I hurt so bad and cry so much because I am in the process of becoming nothing. The good thing about becoming nothing is that I get to choose who this someone is. I get to lay down my foundation.

Life hurts right now. Perhaps I ought to be more discreet in saying this. But it does. It hurts. Not just a temporary way. Not just a I-had-a-bad-week kind of way. In a constant gouging aching way. In a this-is-gonna-hurt-for-a-while kind of way. Why? Because I am being polished. I see a pebble amongst the jewels because I have had the dirt and gravel of the world encased around me. Slowly, chip by chip, rag by rag, I am being polished up. I am being returned. I can't see it. I can't even recognize it most of the time, but it is happening. We are chipping away the dirt to reveal the diamond underneath.

And so I rejoice. I abhor the pain. I loathe the feeling of being in this corner again. But I rejoice because the ashes are falling around me. The story of what was is burning and from these ashes beauty will rise. I rejoice. I rejoice and I wait for the pebble to become a jewel.

Step Sixty-Five: Forgiving Isn't Easy

Dear Readers,

I both love and hate my psychology classes because they challenge me. They force me to grow and stretch and sometimes it hurts! Recently we've been talking about relational wounds. It also just so happens that God is talking to me about my wounds. To make a long story short: in this last month I have come face to face with a few of my very deep, very ugly wounds. I don't like facing my wounds. It requires I own up to a few things, a few scary things.

It requires I own up to the fact that something is not right. I don't know if you have ever dealt with your body or life breaking down, if you have ever realized in sheer terror, that something is wrong and you have absolutely no control over it. The realization that something is wrong with your heart and soul, with the very core of you, is horrifying.

It also requires that I face the wound-er. This is hard no matter what... but when the wound-er is still very present in your life it is even scarier, especially when the wound-er is not repentant in the slightest. In this instance it feels like I am saying "go ahead, hurt me again." What I have to remind myself of is the fact that forgiving is not forgetting. It is freeing them from captivity, it is relinquishing the hurt they caused to be healed by God, but it is not inviting them to do it again. In no way is saying "I forgive you" similar to "do it again." Actually, they are polar opposites.

Forgiving someone requires one very important thing: living within the realization that you have worth in His eyes. Saying "do it again" is living in the belief that you have no worth. In order to have the confidence to say "I forgive you" we have to live within the confidence of who God has created us to be. We have to recognize that we have been hurt, we have been wronged and we have to relinquish ourselves from that hurt. In this confidence we grow a new ability, an ability to say one life defining word: "no." When we are operating out of the knowledge that our life has meaning and purpose it enables us to set boundaries. We get to say "I mean more than this and you cannot treat me this way."

But forgiving isn't easy and thats okay. This might seem silly, but being a perfectionist, I get frustrated when I haven't forgiven someone. I get frustrated going through the process. I would prefer the process of forgiving was a one and done kind of thing. But perhaps this is what Jesus means when he says we're to forgive 70 times 7. It isn't that we're supposed to continually throw ourselves under the bus, it isn't that we are supposed to get hurt repeatedly. Perhaps what Jesus meant was that it is a process. It is a daily process of relinquishing. A process we will have to do 70 times 7 over again. It isn't easy. It isn't one and done. And that's okay. Instead of continually berating myself for how I feel like I've accomplished, I ought to celebrate the work I have done. As a hatching butterfly, I often get frustrated with the idea that I am not breaking my cocoon fast enough and I forget to rejoice in the metamorphosis that God is taking me through.

Step Sixty-Four: Why don't we talk to them?

Dear Readers,

Last night, I was listening to one of my peers talk about her experiences in Cambodia. Some of you may well know this, but Cambodia is one of the top countries involved in sex trafficking, especially children sex trafficking. In fact, in one small village Soltek, the entire economy is rooted in sex trafficking. As my peer was talking about these precious little girls, I was moved. These were real pictures or real children, children who came back beaten, raped, and hurting. Or to quote my friend "these aren't pictures of little girls like those being trafficked, these are the little girls being trafficked." She went on to explain that trafficking exists because of the demand for it and how this demand is fueled primarily by foreign men, primarily rich white men.This got me thinking. Then she mentioned how at night, they would be at a restaurant and at the next table was a white man and all she could think was "I know why you are here, I know what you're doing at night." She then said she didn't know what to do with that. That is when this wretched thought entered into my mind: why don't we talk to them? I hate this thought. It requires that I publicly say that we need to love pedophiles.... yet, truth is truth. We are called to the cause of orphans. We are called to love those sweet children who have been violated in ways that are not okay. But they are easy to love. Anyone can feel the child's plight and everyone should. But for as many sexually abused children get rescued out of that world, for as many as we "save" from that life, there is another parent eager to sell their bodies, another customer ready to buy, another child in need of saving. The sad reality is that we cannot just address the children in sex trafficking. We need to start addressing the violators, to start addressing the parents who are selling their children.

It would be so easy to urge you all to donate money, to take missions trips, to open your hearts and your arms to those sweet girls. Yet, within my own heart, there is a tightening when I mention opening your hearts and arms to those men. My stomach churns at the thought. How can I ask this of you? How can I ask this of myself? Yet, here I am. We need to love these men. In no way am I suggesting we justify their actions. No number of excuses will justify these men's choices to violate those sweet smiling faces. That will never be okay. But consider this: the majority of those pedophiles were sexually abused. Once upon a time, they were those sweet smiling faces. When did their smiles morph from being a child's broken innocence into a monster's leer? When they ceased to be small? When they grew up? When they first acted out their wounds on someone else? The answer is never. They are human. Yes, a broken and flawed human, but also a needy and terrified human. A human doing what they were taught. If we want to stop sex trafficking, we have to stop the demand. Paul reminds us that it is easy to love our friends and hard to love our enemies but here is the harsh reality of our call today: it is easy to love those children and it is hard to love those pedophiles but we are called to love both.

I'm not sure what to do with this thought. I'm not. Should I fly to Cambodia, hang out in the brothels, walk the streets of Soltek at night? I don't know. But my question to you, my question for my friend, and most importantly my question for myself is if I meet that man, if I am at the table beside his, why don't I talk to him?

Step Sixty-Three: He is Simple

Dear Readers,

I like to make God complicated. I do. He is never just who He says He is. It isn't that I think He is lying... it is that I don't trust Him (yeah, I know it is the same thing). But God is God. His being may be extraordinarily complex, but He is simple. When He says "I love you" He means "I love you." He is constant and unchanging. He does not change his mind, He does not have regrets. He just is. I like this about Him...

The youtube video that acted as background music and partial inspiration. I just thought it was super powerful...