[grace?] #onthemove

this is about grace. i think.

This is about the realization that I am not who I thought I was, and yet everything I could ever imagine. Plagued by the flesh but alive with a savior.

this is about the fact that I'm not really living according to what I just said above on an internet blog page.

Boxed up. Boxed in.

We are a culture of sub-cultures. Born and suited towards tastes and differences and personality traits which automatically separate us from the group which wears dark-rimmed glasses and enjoys the higher fineries of life disguised as simplicities, or attaches us to them. I think this sub-culture is known as Hipsters. (I'm still trying to figure out exactly what a Hipster is.) And they can be cut further down the middle based on religion. Environmental pro-choice hipsters and 21^st century evangelical hipsters are instantly divided. Those quarters can further be cut into eighths based on tattoo convictions, the number of piercings considered healthy or sinful, and whether or not they will formula-feed their infants.

I've been called a lot of things, and I call myself a lot of things. I have been called a hipster, when I'm caught messing around with my nerd glasses or wallpapering my back bedroom wall with hundreds of oxygen-stained book pages. And I have called other people hipsters based on their Instagram pictures or the amount of coffee they consume in a day, as if he consumption of caffeine instantly pegs them into one subculture box or another.

(Caffeine has become a dear friend to me of late. Starbucks and office kitchen Keurig, let me hug you.)

We like boxes. Boxes are dark and warm. Boxes can only fit a few people and those few people don't come in unless invited – which must mean that we want them in there with us. Boxes are handy for hiding in because cardboard has the unmistakable ability to conceal the true colors, shapes and forms of what has been packed within. Boxes are nice. They make moving easy; they make it acceptable to carry awkward, harmful or shameful contents without the fear of discovery or rebuke.

And boxes are safe.

I found a box this week. I found it and I jumped right in and closed the lid, and I think I taped it shut with duck tape and shrapnel. The box was called “Golden Retriever/Beaver.” Also known as the Animal personality test results, taken in the intern office at work. As soon as I discovered I was a Golden Beaver I glared around at the Lion/Otters and Beaver/Otters and Golden/Lions in the room with me and slapped a badge on my chest written in blood and bought with my first-born son.

I AM a Golden Retriever/Beaver: "look on my works ye mighty and despair." Change me not, change me never! 

(I've been known to have this sort of response to personality tests before.)

And day marched into day of me taking test after test, writing up page upon pages of documents entitled “Myra,” filled with all the results and definitions of how my personality should act.

Me. I was defining myself based on some fill-in-the-blank-boxes on the internet, because, obviously, the internet is infallible and omniscient. Obviously. And everyone else taking the tests with me were becoming their name on a document heading as well. They were becoming test-results as I labeled the heck out of my co-workers, my family and my best friends.

I told you this was about grace.

Grace. It is this thing, according to all my personality results, I'm not very good at. Result after result listed my “weaknesses” in similar terms of critical (Beaver,) judgmental (Golden Retriever,) stubborn (Melancholy,) and struggles with close-mindedness (INFJ.) These are the awkward and shameful contents I put into my boxes and hide and carry around in my wounded heart. I'm all about being honest with ourselves and others, I'm all about justice, I'm all about standards.

But what about grace? 

I ask you: "How many times will you pick me up,
When I keep on letting you down?
And each time I will fall short of Your glory,
How far will forgiveness abound?"
And You answer: "My child, I love you.
And as long as you're seeking My face,
You'll walk in the power of My daily sufficient grace."

-Laura Story “Grace”

This is about the fact that I'm not left to my boxes because I've been redeemed by a God who takes those boxes and burns them in the fire of his perfect love. He takes my stained, cardboard, lock-down and gives His free and unmerited favor.

Let's redefine us. What's our true identity? Christian. Child of God. Loved. Redeemed. Chosen. Paid for.

Let's write those in blood, sweat and tears on the doorposts of our hearts and then let's sub-categorize ourselves and be the redeemed hipsters, beavers, INFJs, homeschoolers, mothers, bosses and interns of the world. (Or let's try.)

I'm going to jump from box to box, alternately fighting labels and loving them, because that's life. I'm going to tape things up and hide and I'm also going to embrace the person I was created to be and I'm going to do it all imperfectly. I'm going to believe God knows what he's doing with all the boxes I change like clothes which are stacked by my bed every morning I wake up and role-play.

When God called Jonah, Jonah ran away. Lazarus was dead. The Disciples fell asleep. Zacchaeus was greedy. Paul was ingrained in another religion. Jeremiah was depressed.

We are in good company.

Our boxes can't stop God.

The interns getting their job titles, not their identities (as I have to remind myself.)

Red Bus Project

#onthemovefororphans