Hard things

"All noble things are difficult."- Oswald Chambers

I hate doing difficult things. I mean I really hate it. I just want life to be a ride of one fun, easy minute to the next. I know that's kind of an immature way to be, but it's how I am. I really resist difficulty in any area of life. I guess in some ways, that comes from a desire for things to be like they're supposed to be. I don't think God intended for life to be difficult. I think pain and difficulty are a result of falling from what we were intended to be, and I can't wait to see what it's like when we're made into who we really are, perfect in Christ and completely whole.

Growing up when I would protest about doing something difficult, I would often say, "Ugh this is hard," or "This is too hard." My dad would always respond with, "Stephanie, you can do hard things." What a blessing of truth from the Lord straight out of my dad's mouth. I don't think God meant for things to be hard for us, but I think He has equipped us to do difficult things. And I think He teaches me the most through struggles.

C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." And I really believe that's true. Moments where I have felt Christ the most have been moments of grief, sorrow or serious wrestling. And when you think about it, God spoke the most through the most difficult thing ever: his son dying on a cross to save every single human being from sin. He must have known that would have to happen when he first created humans and yet he did it anyway. The redemption of his creation was worth sacrificing his son! I just can't wrap my brain around that, especially now that I have a son. It really is mind blowing.

Usually when I get through the hard thing and God has taught me something really valuable, I know it was worth it. And I think for the most part, God allows us to go through difficulty because the pain of it will be worth the purpose he wants to accomplish through it. I have found that to mostly be true in my life.

So when I'm facing pain, sorrow, grief, difficulty I try to look for Christ in the midst of it and I pray I don't miss what He's trying to say to me. Sometimes it's, "I love you." Sometimes it's, "I am with you." And sometimes it's, "Stephanie, with my help, you can do hard things."

More than cravings...

So I was looking around on Facebook and saw this post, which I completely loved, and then clicked around more on her blog and found this post, which I also completely loved and totally identified with.

I need to feel pretty...
I had a really hard time after Sam was born and my body and face didn't look exactly like they had pre-pregnancy. I really mourned the loss of how I used to look and even hated going out in public sometimes because I felt so insecure. It hit me then that I was maybe a little too dependent on feeling thin and pretty.

We all want to feel pretty...
I understand that as women, one of our core desires is to feel beautiful. I think God made us that way. I also think He created us beautifully and we should trust Him that how He made us is enough and stop comparing ourselves with others. Dealing with a more than planned for pregnancy weight gain has helped me wrestle with how I see myself and how much stock I put into what others think. I think I'm still wrestling, but I think there has been progress.

When it's more than cravings...
I have also really wrestled with the fact that during pregnancy, and at other times in my life, I have used food as a coping mechanism. When I was pregnant I was teaching high school. Let me say that again. When I was huge and carrying around a baby, I was also spending 7 hours a day with 200+ teenagers. Ok I can move on now. I love my job, but it's just extra difficult while pregnant. So I got a little tired and a little frustrated and a little ready for it to be over at the end. And then I started drinking way more soda and eating way more candy than is necessary to sustain anyone. Essentially, I used food to get me through the work day every day.

Let's call this what it is...
Towards the end of my pregnancy and afterward especially, the Lord (gently) convicted me of what this really is. Idolatry.

If you could picture the Christian life as an image, we are meant to be looking straight up to Christ for everything we need. When we take our eyes off of Him and bend down into something else to get us through, we are practicing idolatry. And yes I do this with food, music, my husband, make up, my appearance, reality tv oh reality tv. Instead of looking to Christ for what I need, I get my fulfillment (or comfort) from something else. It's not much better than a modern version of the Israelites with a golden cow.

So I'm really working on not using food to make me feel better when I'm struggling. I think that's the key to having a healthy relationship with food. We should be using it for nourishment, not for comfort when we're sad or stressed.

I understand that we have pregnancy cravings, and there is nothing wrong with that, or eating more because you're growing a person. I just went way beyond the cravings and started using food for more than it was intended.

Since then, I've cut way back on the sugar and started to eat because I'm hungry and because I enjoy good food (which I think is ok, why else would we have taste buds?), but when I'm sad, stressed, angry, hurting, I try....I try to take it to the cross and hurt in God's presence instead of hurting with a brownie.

So back to what got me thinking about this, Fresh Faced for 40 Days. I am so inspired by this. I will not be completely fasting from make up because let's be honest. Most days, I'm in yoga pants with no make up anyway, but I did want to share this post and let it encourage others because yes, we should all love what we look like naked.

And here's my naked face

He sees us.

Today at the beginning of our sermon at church our pastor told this story and it got to me, like deep in my core. There were tears rolling down my face. Does that ever happen to anyone else? It's slightly embarrassing, but sometimes God's just talking right to your heart and it's emotional.

Our pastor said he was watching the movie The Joy Luck Club with his wife in the movie theater. I've never seen it, but the movie is about (I think) three Chinese women who move to the U.S. and have three daughters and the clash between their two generations. In this really poignant scene, one of the daughters is expressing that she feels like her mom doesn't see her and the things she goes through and the mother wraps her hands around her face and looks in her eyes and says, "I see you. I see you." And our pastor said when he saw that he started weeping and put his head in his wife's lap because he felt like for the first time, he really saw his wife, her heart, her character, everything wonderful and God given about her.

And I lost it. I think because I want to be seen. I think because I want to know that God sees me and I think I lost it right there in the middle of church because He was telling me that when I feel unseen by everyone else around me and when I feel alone in whatever my daily struggle or stress is, He sees me. He sees us. He sees our hearts and our fears and our good intentions and our good, God given qualities and that we're doing the best we can to live out the life He gave us to live. And He loves us.

And then tonight I saw this. I know that everything in the world is not orchestrated around me, but sometimes God uses other things our there to minister to us, and this definitely did.

Psalm 33:18 “But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.”

Our Sweet Father

Probably a year or two ago when God really started to refine some emotional healing in me (also around the time I thought He was through with that and I was close to a finished product, HA!) I realized what a lack of sense of self I had and how many and how large my insecurities were. I asked God to show me who I was in Him. I asked him to give me a clear definition or picture or sense of who He created me to be because in all of the sin and experiences of myself, my life and this world I had lost that and I needed Him to give it back to me and in some ways re-create it. I can remember begging for that as I felt I was bleeding with insecurities and there are days I still feel so rawly insecure in that way, BUT over the past two years there have been milestones where I have really felt and seen God moving to answer this prayer. There are specific ways He has answered it in my life as well.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I have a high stress job where I am surrounded by teenagers every day and where I have to spend about 7 hours in front of these teenagers with some assurance of who I am and what I'm doing in order to accomplish what needs to be accomplished for things to get done. I also have to command their respect and stand up for myself when it's not given to me or other students.

 This has been life changing for someone who 5 years ago didn't have much of a will or backbone when dealing with other people. Throughout my three years of teaching I have prayed for and watched as God has strengthened my will, and all of those true masculine qualities in me (you know, the commanding qualities that a teacher or someone in charge needs to have). And it's crazy now to me when I hear kids talk about being intimidated by me when my first year I would have done almost anything for that! I don't want to scare or intimidate them, but I'm thankful for a healthy level of respect. It's abundantly clear that He's used my job as a tool to form a stronger sense of who I am in Him.

I also don't think it's a coincidence that in my marriage God has brought us through some serious issues where I've had to call out and confront some things. Again, over and over, God has strengthened my will and assured me that I can do it and He is with me even when other people look at me like I'm a crazy person for confronting my husband for some behavior that needs to be dealt with.

And in the last few months I've watched as God has shown me again professionally how He was giving me back or re-creating my identity in Him. For a little background info, I think I've spent most of my life trying to be the better version of someone else. I've always been emulating other people and until the last few years, haven't been the person God made me to be. I've always sought out attributes in others that I loved and added all those together to make one person in me that I liked. Well that's just a composite of a bunch of other people and that's not what God wanted when He made me. And in teaching the last two years, I have been copying what other teachers were doing for various reasons (lack of instruction, overwhelmed, trying to keep up, lack of creativity, wanting to do the best thing), but I recently discovered how miserable I was just trying to do what someone else was doing all the time and having no ownership in my own lessons. So after some processing, I talked it over with some people and I'm going to try to be creative in my own lesson planning again.

Ok, I know that sounds like, so what, big deal. But for me this was more than just taking back ownership of planning what I do every day in my room. It was like taking back part of my identity as a teacher and as a person. And I know that sounds melodramatic and it probably is, but it was a HUGE emotional shift for me professionally and personally. After I made this switch, it was like a giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I could breathe again because I wasn't stifled anymore.

It just feels great to know God is still working on a prayer I prayed or begged him for 2 years ago. He is so faithful.

Another lesson God has taught me over the last two years in finding my identity in Him is I have to keep my eyes on Him. When I focus too much on myself or others, I lose it. I lose my focus, period. That was huge for me. My mom was telling me today that she was reading a book about insecurity and that the way you get over insecurity and deal with it is to find your passion. I agree that doing something you're passionate about can really help in finding your true identity. It really has helped with me. It has been the pathway God has used to teach me a lot of stuff, but I think the key to letting go of insecurity and finding who you really are in Christ is to take your eyes off of yourself and everyone else and to put them on Him. And while you're focused on Him, stop trying to be a better version of everyone else, stop striving period. Just be. Just let Him guide you, love you and form you into the person He created you to be and He'll lead you where you're supposed to go.

Isn't it wonderful to know that our God heals our insecurities? It feels so good to know that because I know that so many women struggle with so many insecurities and fears about themselves. I love that the God that formed the roaring oceans and the billions of stars cares about my little heart and wants me to feel beautiful and that He'll keep working with me until I do. How sweet is He?