| Dear
One,
She sat quietly in her car.
She watched as friend and acquaintance alike walked through the
front door of the house across the street from where she was parked.
She wasn’t ready for anyone to see her...not just yet.
She fidgeted with the hem of her short,
lightweight summer skirt as she thought about her options.
Do I leave now and call my regrets into the hostess in the
morning or do I open the car door and commit myself to going to this
party? She looked down at
the floral print of her skirt. The
bright colors made her smile. She
really wanted to go to the party.
This party had been something that she
had been looking forward to for weeks.
All her friends would be there.
There would be great music, lighthearted conversation, and tasty
morsels of every kind. Surely
everyone who chose to attend would have a fun time.
There was the keyword phrase – chose to attend.
So, was she going or not?
She looked up into the rearview mirror.
There were those ugly, thick eyeglasses staring back at her.
She felt so unattractive! She
had lost the contact to her right eye the night before and now had to
wear her glasses until the contact could be replaced.
She couldn’t go to the party without her glasses because she
was as blind as a bat. Everyone
and everything would be a complete and total blur.
UGH!!!
Tears formed in her eyes as she
continued to sit motionless. She
knew that she was being silly. Surely
it didn’t matter to her friends what she looked like.
She was pretty confident that they liked her because of who she
was, not how she looked. She
knew that she was giving into her emotions and she didn’t want that to
happen. But more
importantly, she was aware that she was not only giving into the
emotions that she was feeling at that particular moment but also to
emotions that were all too familiar from her past.
Rrrrring.
Rrrring. “Honey,
the telephone is for you.” As
the little girl picked up the telephone receiver, she wondered who in
the world was calling her on a Friday night.
She said hello and then heard a voice say, “Do you like
Scott?” She was
embarrassed. Scott was a
cute redheaded boy in her class. “Who
is this?” she asked. She
heard giggling in the background as the voice said, “This is Scott and
I wanted to see if you like me.”
She knew it wasn’t Scott because it was a girl’s voice.
It was becoming pretty clear to this little girl that someone was
playing a prank on her. She
sheepishly replied, “I know this isn’t Scott. I need to go now.”
But before she could hang up the telephone, the voice at the end of the
receiver said this, “Scott doesn’t even like you.
He thinks you look ugly in your stupid, blue glasses!”
She heard a roar of laughter as she quickly hung up the phone.
Her heart sank down into her stomach and her eyes filled with
tears. Tear after tear
landed on the lenses of her blue glasses and overflowed onto her lap.
How those words stung! She
would never forget...
And, here she was thirty years later.
Those same tears were overflowing from the lenses of her
tortoiseshell glasses and onto her short, lightweight summer skirt.
Yes, she was all grown up now.
Yes, this circumstance was very different.
But somehow the hurt of that childhood incident percolated to the
surface as she considered walking into the party with her glasses on.
Some how she just didn't look right.
“We don’t like you. We
think you look ugly in your stupid, tortoiseshell glasses.”
She had not forgotten.
Not one single day of her life.
And, she was absolutely miserable and absolutely stuck.
Can you possibly relate? I
can. For years I tried to
“right” my past. You
know, I thought that if I could use my adult smarts to figure out why I
responded to the things in my past the way that I did, then I would be
able to leave my past in the past.
You see I, too, had things that I would not forget...
But then came these two little words,
“But God.” Yep, those
words summed it all up for me. Every
thing, every person, every event that has happened in my life can be
followed by these two words, “But God”.
Why? Because He is
the final answer - when all else fails (and it will) He alone has always
been my only Hope. My only
Hope for right standing.
No earthly person, place or thing was
ever meant to provide me with the right standing that I have always
wanted as mine. It just
isn’t possible. And, the
solution isn’t that we should motivate the persons, places or things
of our lives to work better or provide more satisfaction.
And, certainly the answer isn’t “righting” our pasts or
“analyzing” our failures so they won’t happen again.
He alone is the Provider of our right
standing. Why?
Because He created you and me with that need.
I need to be right. And,
I’m not talking about a need to be right in an argument or being on
the right side of the street. I
mean THE need. A need
from-the-top-my-head- all-the-way-down-to-my-toes that says I’m okay;
I have been found not guilty; I am approved.
And, you know what?
The greatest of all news is that He not only created the need but
He has filled it as well. Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the
transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those
who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will
reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
Because of His finished work on the cross, I have been made
right! I can now enjoy the
benefits of my righteous inheritance.
(Also see Romans 5:17-19; 9:30-32: 10:1-4: 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2
Corinthians 5:21 and Philippians 1:9-11)
The right standing that I sought to gain from my sixth grade art
class has been found in Him. The
right standing that you may have always struggled to find from your
parents is found in Him. The
right standing that you long to receive from your spouse is found in
Him. And, the right
standing that our spectacled friend is searching for through her
appearance can be fulfilled in Him...alone.
And that’s exactly where she sat.
Alone. The seconds
grew to minutes and the minutes to an hour.
Finally, she put her key in the ignition and started the car.
Before she put the car in drive, she glanced up at herself in the
rearview mirror and sighed. She
just didn’t look right. So,
she slipped down slightly in her seat and began to drive slowly by the
brightly lit front porch. She
couldn’t afford the possibility of being noticed.
She wasn’t ready for anyone to see her...not just yet.
“But God demonstrates His own love
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
I love you,
Marcy
marcy@gospelfortoday.org
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