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The Clothes We Wear

05/22/04

The Clothes We Wear

Permalink 09:51:00 am by cassie, Categories: Announcements [A]

I think I've gotten cocky, in some aspects of the word. As a little kid, I was shy, but friendly enough to talk to people and befriend. Somewhere around my eleven-twelve-thirteen years, I because withdrawn and self-conscious, the way that most kids do when they get acne and start tripping over things and have braces and never laugh at the right parts of the movie in a crowded movie theater. My parents were nothing less than amazing during those years, because I know I was no featherweight in the teen angst department - writing bad poetry, reading too much Poe and science fiction, heaping on the eyeliner, and trying not to be afraid to walk outside my house. From the minute I got up in the morning, I didn't waste any time getting into the shower and putting on my makeup before anyone saw me, and I didn't take it off until it was late and I had to go to bed. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I'd wear, what I should have said in some situation, and what people thought about me. Ironically, despite the angst, the depression, and the loneliness that I felt for those years (really not alleviated until I was a late fourteen), those years were some of the "closest" to God that I've ever been. Everything I did and thought was prefaced by a meditation on what God would have wanted me to do or think. Of course I didn't always obey the resulting thought, but that was my muse. My writings from that time in my life were verbose, poetic, and all about God and my own despair. I saw, in my pre-teen desperation, a need for God. He is the reason we all live, but for me, He was the thing that kept me living. For every moment that was pain and struggle, there was the comfort of a maddeningly heavy peace that I knew would come the next time I opened my Bible.

I can't describe those years in a way that would make them seem more real and less generic. Do you remember? When I was in them, every day was obscured in a haze of whatever emotion I felt for that day, and nothing was objective. I was involved in every activity, every volunteer opportunity, every servant?s position I could get within the church and everywhere else, trying to get my fill of the only satisfaction that I found ? serving and God. Mix them together, and, voila, instant soul-appeasement. God was and is everything I had, and He kept me sane, even if my experience of Him was by my own emulation of suffering-while-serving. Through those years, I learned that He loves those who are in turmoil, and to never see someone struggling with something as not ?worthy? of God. The struggle only serves to show that the person cares enough about God to fight back the flesh that is always crawling under the surface of our faith. This was the big-pants impassioned punk stage of my life. Every sin I committed, every confession I gave, every fear, thought, anger, sadness, and loneliness was, at that time, experienced as the pinnacle of emotion and that all these things were seen and done with the utmost of passion, for the better or for the worse.

And yet? after three or four hard years fighting against my own anger and sadness towards myself and nevertheless holding the promises of God dearly in their beauty and clarity towards the church and to Israel (Iwillneverleavetheenorforsakethee, Ihavelovedtheewithaneverlastinglove, YoushallcallmeIshi), God gave light. My faith moved from a spastic and elated rapture of many daily mini-salvations from my everyday flesh and sins, to a more comfortable companionship with God. My years in secular college had passed for that time, and by the time I was studying theology in Bible college, I spent my mornings reading my Bible in the mornings outside in the chill. My Bible, when opened, had every other line underlined in ink and written musings scrawled next to it. I could cry over my Lord?s suffering, and I could rejoice over the triumph of Israel when, in the rare instances, she trusted her God. These were the years I grew. My faith, my worldview, my means of loving those around me; all of these matured by leaps and bounds, and I found a love that I always knew I had but never knew. I wanted to be a servant. I wanted missions, but that wasn?t the point, as I see more and more now as I progress in my faith. Missions is only a means to the chief End of all mankind ? glorifying and serving God. I?ve never wanted to be in the limelight, I?ve never hoped to be well-known, and even when I found a love for missions then, I would have been just as happy washing the dishes of missionaries, because I still had no confidence in myself. Shouldn?t we always be as such? This was when I wore the jeans and a polo shirt ? comfortable, functional, and not bad to look at. On my way to work I?d pray in the car. Every moment was a chance to talk to the Creator. He is mine and I am His. I felt as if every time the Word was opened, I discovered something new and incredible and shocking to my faith. Everything I read was applied to my life, and it changed my worldview. I made commitments to myself to behave in certain ways in certain situations and have kept them since, simply because they make too much sense not to. The people I once saw as needy I now saw with renewed need ? salvation as well as the physical. My arms were branches, and from my roots in the grounds of Hope, I felt like I could touch the world and, perhaps, just maybe, it would even make some sort of a difference.

And now I have become comfortable, but in a different manner. My clothing of faith is of the whatever-I-like comfortable, favorite jeans and tee shirt type. I live in the liberty and the glory of my salvation and the grace of God. I?m not sorry that I have grown, but there is a part of me that misses the turmoil of my late childhood. I have become worn in the faith, saved by grace for so long that sometimes I don?t appreciate it as I should. Sometimes I feel as if the discovery period of finding truth and applying it to my life is gone, though I know it is not, and every day my assumptions are proven wrong, and my faith, in its many years, is proven all the more feeble when it is seen standing naked, small, shivering, in the earth-cloaking shadow of God?s grace and power. I have become confident with myself, as I go to school and work in what they sometimes call, ?The World,? and must every day live a faith that is alive and vibrant and living, the true daily manifestation of the faith that I felt and spoke of when I was thirteen. This is my time to act on it all. I can speak to people without fear or shame or shyness; I can act as I feel I should act, without inhibition of what people might think. I don?t wear all the makeup and dress the part that I felt the need to once, because I feel whole, unfettered by the demons of the world ? self-esteem and self-worth. These things can only be found in God, because they only can become idols when they fall into human hands.

And yet? while I do not miss the struggle of being a child in both the faith and the world, I miss the sincerity. I miss the earnest innocence of finding out truth and of seeing God in everything I touched and saw and everything I couldn?t. He was more real to me then, sometimes, when I could be crying and hate something and I could open my Bible and find Him there and let Him dry my tears. It?s a different faith now. In human terms, it was shallow then, to expect that God cared about my small problems in the light of the so many worse that occur in the lives of Christians everywhere. But I love the fact that however shallow my motives, He cared nonetheless. Nonetheless. Nonetheless ? this is my word for God. No matter what we do, He loves us nonetheless. Despite our foolishness, He is wise nonetheless. However great our sin, He is holy nonetheless.

Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.

Mark 9.24

16 comments

Comment from: Minxling [Visitor]
MinxlingHi, Cassie. You probably have virtually no idea who I am (I'm nice sometimes, and I think we have some mutual friends), but I've been reading your blog for four months and enjoying it at every occasion. Anyway . . . I came out of lurkdom to say that I greatly appreciated this post and identify very strongly with it. You (consistently, but especially here) have a clarity when discussing your childhood that I (still) lack, and yeah . . . I do remember years like those you describe. Thank you for the insight.
05/23/04 @ 12:21
Comment from: Cassie [Visitor]
CassieOf course I know who you are, Minxy. :) And yes, we have some very nice mutual friends, if I would be so honored by them to refer to them as such. :) Thank you for the readership and for the thoughts. I really love to hear that people actually can find something familiar in the things I write. They're so intrinsically personal, yet at the same time, to hear someone say that they could identify with anything - even the smallest of things - makes me feel all the more connected with the people around me, and especially when it's from someone whose own writing I can identify with (as is the case with you), I find it all the more pleasing and comforting to think that I am not a completely independent and isolated human on such a huge earth. I love people, and I love comments. Thanks, Minxy. You have made my day. :)
05/23/04 @ 18:32
Comment from: Minxling [Visitor]
MinxlingSo glad, Cassie, so glad!!! Nope, not isolated. Just unique (like the rest of us). Which is good.
05/24/04 @ 06:51
Comment from: [Visitor]
There is nothing new under the sun.
05/24/04 @ 14:30
Comment from: Cassie [Visitor]
CassieTruer words were never spoken, my friend. This is largely due to the fact that they were spoken out of the Bible. :)
05/24/04 @ 15:47
Comment from: Crystal [Visitor]
CrystalI'd like to echo Minx and say that this post really "got" me, Cass. In fact, it inspired me to do some introspection/reflection of my own, as soon as the inner cooperates enough to do so and I'm not exhausted from long, hot days of work. (Of course, exhaustion has been known to do interesting things to my writing...) At any rate, thank you. You spoke more deeply than you know.
05/24/04 @ 18:56
Comment from: Crystal [Visitor]
CrystalAhem. Ignore my HTML faux pas.
05/24/04 @ 18:57
Comment from: Martini [Visitor]
MartiniI'm still in the emotional turmoil of my childhood, I guess. I still see every day as either fresh and inviting, or strange and terrifying (except work days. they're all the same. yigh.). I meet new people, and immediately decide I will love them, or I will hate them. (It's true! It is a daily struggle for me now to find that inbetween, but I tend toward the extremes in this still.) I'm passionate on many issues, and yet don't care about others. I see things as very clear or very confusing, and bob up and down on a tidal wave of emotion every other day. Now, I'm generally very good at concealing my emotions, but my opinions are another matter. I'm a professional verbal assassin. Anyone out there hiring? "I've noticed that you tend to see things as being very black or white, Martha," said Val, slightly frustrated, last night when we were discussing immigration. "I was like you when I was your age, too," she added. Hrmph. I'll catch up to you ladies some day, perhaps, but there is one thing I never want to lose (and my guess is you don't, either): I never want to cease seeing each day as another chance to discover something new in life. I never want to be indifferent about anything, yet I want to be consistent. :) Planted firmly on the Rock, yes, but lethargic, never. I'm still, quite obviously, stuck in the teen years. ;)
05/25/04 @ 15:23
Comment from: Cass [Visitor]
CassI don't know, Marti. For a tumultous teen, you have me continually fooled. You have more wisdom than most of the adults I work with and come into contact with daily. :) My 'teen years' were... short. Very short. This was through no "fault" of anyone, and I guess in a way, I'm happy that they happened so quickly, even if they were rocky. Whose teen years, really, aren't rocky? I've never had a problem loving/hating people from first impressions. I usually have first impressions of people, but I generally find that, over time, they prove to be largely true. And they aren't visceral. They're just my observations of character, and I usually don't "feel" anything about them. I'm a pretty laid-back person, so people really have to be enormous, gargantuan, terrible conscious jerks for them to make me feel any negativish emotion towards them. Sometimes I wish I could be more decisive on people though. It sounds stupid, but when you never can make yourself seem provokable, most people just float around and occasionally bump into you for some conversation and then float away. That, or they assume that you would really enjoy listening to them complain about someone else you know because you're an easy target who doesn't bother to agree and/or disagree with them. I get a lot of the, "I can't stand that girl over there. She's rude." And I'm just like, "eh. whatever. be nice. she's not that bad." Then I end up talking to the person being burned and they say the same thing about the other person. Sometimes I wish I could take sides a little more definitively. I mean, I do in my own personal opinions, but at the same time, since I see the valid points to others' arguments, I have a hard time bringing myself to loudly declaring my disagreement. This earns me friendly smiles from pretty much everyone I meet, from people on the sidewalks, to the supermarket cashier, to the elders in my church, to old acquaintances newly re-met. But it also makes me worry that perhaps I'm not clear about what I think sometimes. It's an uneasy balance at times. All I know is that I'll never master the art of debating. I'm too laid-back. My writing is my outlet. In reality, very few people hear me speak the way I do when I write anything - the count (besides my family), I would venture to be a mere five people. So, anyways. Bunny trail. But the point is that it's obviously not a matter of 'catching up,' Marti. :) If I could have the passion that you have...
05/25/04 @ 17:12
Comment from: Crystal [Visitor]
CrystalGood grief. I could have written those two paragraphs, Cass. Not as well, of course, but still. I know precisely what you're talking about.
05/27/04 @ 14:28
Comment from: Martha [Visitor]
Martha*laughs* I'm too rabid and emotional to comprehend how you ladies can be so beautifully laid back! I'll trade this [uncontrollable] passion for your calmness any day... if not forever, just for a week or so, so I can rest up and relax enough to begin again. ;) If I could just dam up all this energy and funnel it in a worthwhile direction! Instead of burning everyone around me, start helping people. I'm still kicking myself for blowing it with a potential friend at church. >>>>other story<<<<
05/27/04 @ 15:51
Comment from: Anonymous Informant [Visitor]
Anonymous InformantWell, when she has a bad day at school, is late for work, and has a car leaking gas/oil/power-steering flud, she isn't quite the cool cucumber that she claims to be. (Andrew, get out of my way, I didn't even have breakfast yet! Andrew, get out of the bathroom, you've spent all of 2.53 minutes in there! Andrew, stop fouling the air!)
05/30/04 @ 21:12
Comment from: *rubs two fingers together* [Visitor]
*rubs two fingers together*I'm playin the world's smallest violin for ye, boy.
05/31/04 @ 05:21
Comment from: Court [Visitor]
Court*snicker* anonymous informants are always handy to have...
05/31/04 @ 10:41
Comment from: [Visitor]
This is true
05/31/04 @ 14:03
Comment from: martini [Visitor]
martiniYeah, but I really get the feeling the informer was Andrew. I don't know why... just a feeling I get.
05/31/04 @ 21:13
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I like to multi-task: wife, writer, nurse, Christian, ne'er do well. I do all with equal gusto.

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