All I Need Is Jesus and a Good Pair of Jeans: The Tired Supergirl's Search for Grace (16 page)

Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly.” Not a fake hold-it-in-don’t-shed-a-tear life but a real-vulnerable-sharing-yourself-with-Jesus-and-others abundant life. He is about tearing down walls, about living truth and being himself. He is about lending his strength to those who are weary and crying with those who are crying. So if you feel a good hard cry coming on, grab your tissue, tired supergirl, and know that you are not alone. Jesus, the author of the universe and lover of your soul, is about living life with you. He loves when you are being real with him, no matter what that “real” looks like at the moment. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Even when you have the after-crying shudders.

20

I COVET THINGS . . .
LOTS OF THEM

I
f we tired supergirls must talk about the deep, dark secrets in our souls, and we must, it must be said that I am a coveter of the first order. This isn’t a recent development. Thinking back to when this deep longing for other people’s things began, I realized it started in preschool. Being a pastor’s kid, I grew up in church. Our church nursery had some fantastic toys. My downfall was a pink-and-white-striped jump rope I spotted tucked into one of the preschool cubbies. It was a lovely piece of handiwork, and I knew in my little sullied baby soul that I must have it. I told one of my Sunday school teachers it was mine.

Now let’s step back and review what coveting is. It is a strange word for us supergirls. It is not an everyday sinning word like
lying
or
stealing
. I can’t think of the last time I heard anyone say, “Oh, I really covet that” or revealed to a close friend, “My main struggle in life is covetousness.”

It could be because the word
covet
is a bit King James-ish. But I think it is also because our culture thinks it’s okay to want things that belong to other people. Whether it’s a lamp from Pottery Barn or someone else’s boyfriend, if you really, really want it and you absolutely know it will make you happy, our society seems to think you have a right to try to go out and get that thing. Which brings me to the other point of coveting. Coveting spawns other sins. It is the slippery foundation to which we add layers of lying, stealing, scheming, and all other things unholy and very unsupergirl-like.

Back to the pink jump rope. When I brought it to the car after children’s church, my mom asked me what I had in the bag. (Being the smarty pants that I was, I had hidden it in a paper bag.) I told mom the children’s church coordinator had given it to me. Then my Mom got all excited, thinking it was perhaps a banana cream pie, because this person was famous for baking fantastic banana cream pies. But, no, it was not a banana cream pie. And when my mom thanked this person for giving me a jump rope, the jig was up. Obviously, I was not yet smarty pants enough to realize how everything would go down once the truth was out. I lost out on the pretty jump rope. I was punished. I think the Sunday school coordinator was distraught that I had woven him into my web of deceit, as was the Sunday school teacher. I think even my parents were surprised to see how many adults I had involved in my jump rope highjacking.

Now the good news is, in my case, I don’t steal anymore. I think I have battened down the hatches on lying. But the coveting seems to be part of the fabric of who I am. I am so wrapped in it, I don’t even recognize it. And Miss You-Deserve-It? She’s my best buddy. Everything I see that I want or feel that I should have, she thinks I need and deserve too. She constantly suggests things that would make my life more pleasant. She really is all sweetness and light. She just wants my life to be the best that it can be. Funny thing is that she usually strikes when I have not a penny to my name. It is often after the paycheck has been spent on bills and doctor visits that she beckons me to Target and shows me the wide array of wares that are on sale. Because the Miss You-Deserve-It that lives in my head is a bargain shopper and she is out to save me money.

Scott has talked to me about my bargain mentality, but I just can’t seem to grasp the fact that there will
always
be a sale. That word
sale
and its cousins
clearance
and
75 percent
off
are my love language. I tell myself that sea blue votive candleholder marked down to $6.98 will make my mantel stunning. My mantel is fine, but not fabulous; it’s just missing that little pop. We all need a little pop in our lives, don’t we? And Miss You-Deserve-It pipes up, “It’s been a tough week. You deserve it. Put it on the credit card. You can pay it back the next time you get paid.”

See, Miss You-Deserve-It and I are all very thrifty and rational in my head. But I realized the other day that while I thought they were gone, the lying and stealing are still there. They have just taken on a new form. Although, I would like to think I will pay off the credit card, it rarely happens. Some other bill always comes up. What is really happening in those moments of internal discussion is that instead of lying to a Sunday school teacher and stealing from some innocent preschooler, I am lying to myself and stealing from my future. From my family. Because I am adding to our debt. In this light, that votive doesn’t seem quite so beautiful. It could be burned up before it’s paid off. And I won’t really enjoy it as much as I should because things just aren’t as pleasant when they aren’t come by honestly. Every time I look at my mantel and see that votive, I think of my big fat credit card bill. And that’s not so fun. It makes the pop fizzle.

Some supergirls covet votives. Some covet cars. Some covet jobs or promotions. Some supergirls covet relationships or other people’s husbands. Some covet houses or family life. Some supergirls covet their friend’s ministry or their gift of communication. Some covet cash, some covet security. Some covet friendships and some covet education. There is no limit to our coveting. We supergirls all want more than we have been given.

We want more money, more space, more time, more muscles, more friends, more shiny lip gloss with lip plumper for this season’s bee-stung look. Is there anything wrong with that? There are so many things that other people have that we would like to have for ourselves. And we are just trying to be resourceful and meet our own needs. We know that God has created us for more than we are and more than we have at present. And the things that we long for are usually good things. But the not-so-good thing about coveting is that it embraces a lifestyle that is the exact opposite of the lifestyle God would have us tired supergirls embrace. He wants us to love. And coveting is the opposite of loving. There are two great commandments that Jesus tells us to live by:

To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And the loving part sums it all up. Paul talks about it like this,

Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others. You can never finish paying that! If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill all the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments against adultery and murder and stealing and coveting—and any other commandment—are all summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to anyone, so love satisfies all of God’s requirements.

Romans 13:8–10

Now the adultery, the murder, the stealing, those we get. We tired supergirls understand that you can’t really love someone if you are cheating on them, killing them, or taking their stuff. But Paul includes coveting in that group too. You can’t love someone if you are pining for what is theirs. You can’t be full of love if you are desperate for someone else’s boyfriend or their Coach bag. You can’t be full of compassion if you are dying over the fact that your co-worker got a promotion and you didn’t. And most importantly, you can’t love God if you are hurting one of his kids.

Now this I get because I am a mom. When I see someone being mean to one of my kids, I would like to knock them sixty ways from Sunday. It is that she-bear mentality that lurks just under the surface of every mother. Touch my kid and you are going down. That is just how it plays out. Now if my own kids hurt each other, that is doubly painful because I have this great love for both the hurt-er and the hurt-ee. I want my boys to love and care for each other, to see the value in each other and respect each other. And God is our heavenly Father. He has all these kids that he loves day in and day out, and more than anything, he wants us to play nice.

And here’s the thing. It is in us supergirls to want things that are not ours, things that don’t belong to us, even things that will do us no good whatsoever. We want these things because we have sullied souls. But we also have a God who loves us and has offered us an alternative to getting all tied up in knots over having what is not ours. Later in that same passage of Scripture in Romans, Paul reminds the believers,

But let the Lord Jesus Christ take control of you, and don’t think of ways to indulge your evil desires.

Romans 13:14

Because if we tired supergirls must talk about our evil desires, and we must, we also have to talk about the fact that we have a choice. We have the choice to indulge our evil desires or to indulge Jesus. When we can’t control ourselves, we can ask for Jesus to take control of us. We can stand in front of that lovely sparkly blue votive that is seductively whispering our name and say, “Jesus, I am having a crisis here. I am very likely to indulge two or three evil desires, and I need your presence right here in the middle of Target. I need you to control me. And I also need you to control me as I pass by the sweaters that are half off and the chocolate bonbons in the market section.”

And with Miss You-Deserve-It screeching in your ear, you may not believe it to be so, but Jesus will give you the strength and fortitude to step away from the votive. He might even go so far as to put a little thought in your head that you would do well to step away from Target altogether, say for two or three weeks. And you might also have the thought that it would be a good idea to share with a friend or sister or husband that you are struggling with said blue votive, that you don’t know if your life can be complete without the blue votive and its sparkly goodness, but you think Jesus has other plans for you besides the blue votive and you could use a little backup, a little accountability, when it comes to driving down the street that Target is on because your car could end up pulling into the parking lot of its own accord.

We tired supergirls like to keep our evil desires on the down low. But when we bring our coveting out into the open, share it with a trusted friend, bring it before the most high God, it begins to lose its hold. When we are able to tell another supergirl, “I think Lulu’s boyfriend is hot and I’m really embarrassed about it, but I can’t stop thinking about him.”

Or, “I only have three people in my Sunday school class that I am teaching, and Erma Rosencrantz has forty-two, and I am thinking of sabotaging her coffee carafe next Sunday so that some of her people will be afraid of her beverages and come to my class instead. Could you pray with me?”

God can begin to do in us that thing which he longs to do. He can calm the chatter of Miss You-Deserve-It so that you can give her what she deserves . . . a good swift supergirl kick. He can fill us up with love for others. He can help us take care of his other kids instead of hurting them. And when we are out of control, he can take control of us and our evil desires. Even ones for pink jump ropes and blue votives.

21

I AM NOT GREAT AT
SHARING MY FAITH

I
n first grade, I polled my class to see who went to church. I was shocked to find out some kids didn’t go at all. Being a preacher’s kid, I found this incomprehensible. I reported my findings to my teacher, Mrs. Hendricks. I think she was a little tickled and with some prodding admitted to being a Baptist. If Mrs. Hendricks believed in Jesus, wasn’t that proof enough that everyone should? That was probably the last time I felt totally comfortable talking about my faith, unabashed and without qualms.

I asked Jesus into my heart when I was five at a Vacation Bible School. I followed a funny puppet in saying the sinner’s prayer. It all seemed very black and white back then. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” What could be simpler than that? But by the time I was in high school, I was mostly paralyzed by my inability to talk to someone about what Jesus meant to me. I was struck dumb by fear. By the fear of sounding stupid. Of not having answers to the hard questions. By the thought of what my peers would think of me.