the sweet potato casserole is eaten, the leftover turkey was cooked into a curry and served at the church potluck; the cookies and sweets have been tucked away in the downstairs freezer, and I’m feeling a little extra jiggle around the belly.
Oh well. Meal prep and working out 5 times a week starts again. Get back on track, girl.
I can’t help but look back on this last week and think of it as an ending and beginning. I saw the “Hunt for Red October Man” that I hadn’t seen for 6 months. There was awkward silence and stammering words, but it’s all over now. I prayed to God the morning before I saw him and asked – please – for strength and grace because I couldn’t do it.
That morning, I had wrapped myself in that big, brown, scratchy blanket that forever sits on our living room sofa. I needed to sit alone and read and believe that I was loved and cared for. I needed to see it, to believe it, and to let my soul sing it. I turned to Song of Songs and read these words:
“Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. You are altogether beautiful, my love: there is no flaw in you. You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes.”
You are beautiful, my love. How many times to I struggle inwardly because I don’t FEEL beautiful?
There is no flaw in you. No flaw? No flaw at all? Isn’t this all I see on most days?
You have captivated my heart. I? Captivated His heart? Me?
The feelings aren’t there on most days. Most days, I feel unloved, lonely, flawed, simply sinful. That was today. Today. I do believe God made the most sensitive creature when He made me, I think. Today, I hear the sermon and think what a sinful, flawed, un-Christian Christian I am. Today, I feel the rumblings of envy and jealousy in me and feel flawed. Today, I am tired and quiet and weepy, and I wish I weren’t. Today, I feel strongly the pangs of loneliness and wish I could be good with just me and God. Two peas in a pod. Living the dream. Together. Today, my sisters don’t talk to me; they talk to each other and I feel left out. And I wonder if I’m a good sister; wonder if I’m good enough. Today, I question myself and who I am. I let my voices speak to me.
Do you ever feel like that? Like, you have a thick layer of marshmallow fluff around your middle, you’re lonely, you’re tired, you’re facing a new, busy week; you don’t feel God’s presence. Instead, you feel sinful, flawed, unrighteous and unworthy?
And then you hear: You are beautiful, my love. There is no flaw in you.
And you have to choose to believe that. Even when you don’t feel it.
The Silent Storyteller 