I've never been the girl who just got it. I remember sitting in class when I was in high school listening to the teacher's lecture, nodding my head and taking like 10 pages of notes, thinking I fully understood everything that was being taught. Then I would get home and find that my notes looked like Chinese and I couldn't recall a darn thing the teacher said for the life of me! Not anything that made sense anyway. My older sister on the other hand could skip class all week, show up on test day and get an A+++++ (that's a little dramatic but you get the point). She is stinkin' smart. I don't think I've ever seen her study for anything. She just gets it. She is wired in a way that allows her to comprehend things well while always being able to communicate those things back to other people in a way that makes complete sense. I on the other hand would spend countless hours studying for a simple science test and walk out of the classroom completely forgetting everything I just tested on. I'm good at memorizing but not good at retaining and certainly not good at trying to repeat it back to someone. Sure I got A's just like my sister but our A's always felt different to me. We achieved the same thing, the same grade, but it didn't feel like it.
This is the first time I've ever admitted this to anyone but my husband. Here it is...I feel stupid, a lot. I seem to be surrounded by 'smart' people because my husband is also one of those people that just gets it. He never had to study for tests or stay late with a teacher or join study groups. In fact, he is now taking high level college math classes and is doing great despite the fact that he doesn't have time to study. God has gifted him with the ability to learn quickly, comprehend well and retain it. Whether it's random facts from the history channel, a news story about global warming, or a math problem that sounds like gibberish to me, he can hear it once and store it away in his brilliant mind. Sometimes quoting it word for word years later. Although I am proud of people like my husband, it sometimes makes me feel small. He doesn't make me feel small but the devil sure does.
My mom recently told me that I had a really hard time learning to tie my shoe laces. She spent a lot of patient hours showing me how to tie them by guiding my hands or even putting on her own shoes to demonstrate for me. I tried and tried with many tears and frustration but I just couldn't seem to get the concept of it. I am 1 of 8 kids so I just have to say, bless my moms heart for taking the time to sit on the floor with one of her 7 little girls spinning shoe laces around and around tenderly training on something that seems so trivial. What a gift she is. I can't recall very many memories from my childhood in the form of vivid images but I remember how I felt in moments like this. It was embarrassing and I felt small and stupid. How could it be that I could sit in the back of our 15 passenger van and tell my cousin, who I only saw twice a year, about how much Jesus loved her and lead her in a salvation prayer but I couldn't tie my own shoe laces? How foolish. How humiliating. How confusing for a little girl. The more I learn to step into the identity that God has given me, the more I begin to see the purpose in the way that he has intentionally woven who I am into His greater story. When He designs us, He makes no design flaws. There is no human error when God is putting pen to paper. He needs no draft or practice run because when He creates us, we are perfect-the first time.
Satan loves to tell me that I am stupid because I didn't get a college degree. He loves to spit words of self hatred in my ear because I am not wired like the 'smart' people I know. In fact, he has even gone so low as to use those people to rub it in my face with harsh words criticizing my intelligence.
I won't deny that academics don't come easy for me. And although I support college education, I am no longer bound by the lie that I am unworthy of being used by God in the places He's called me to because I don't hold a degree saying I am 'smart' and 'educated'. I am finally, at 27 years old, experiencing some clarity and freedom in why I am designed the way I am.
Here are just a few things God is revealing to me about who I am...
*I don't retain book knowledge very well but if you tell me about a trial or painful situation you are facing, I will remember it for years and pray for you earnestly.
*I don't test well but I love studying the Word of God and asking Him to give me opportunities to put it to test in my life.
*I wouldn't get excited to teach a class about American history but if you ask me to teach you about what God is teaching me, I will spend hours answering your questions.
*I'm not jazzed by standing on a stage and debating politics but I recently stood on a stage and gave my testimony in front of a crowd of women, and loved every minute.
I am a big picture person. I see beyond the current circumstances, what's right in front of our faces, to how it might work out for the good. As I recently shared with my Bible study group, God showed me just last week that I see the promised land for peoples lives. My visionary, dreamer heart looks past the hurt, the trials, the sin and sees the grace of God that is calling them and leading them to their promised land. I don't get stuck by the overwhelming challenge of the walls of Jericho because I believe in the prosperous place God has prepared for peoples lives. The place marked with freedom and hope.
One of the girls in my regular study group in high school received Jesus as her Savior shortly after I met her. Maybe I was wired to need massive amounts of studying so that I could play a role of sharing the gospel with her. Or maybe I struggled to figure out how to tie my shoe laces because my heart was preoccupied with God's greater purpose for me. If all I could do was focus on how to lace up shoes I may have missed the opportunity to lace grace into someone's life the way God has laced grace into mine. Sometimes we persevere through the things that don't come natural because we have to but what I'm finally grasping is that we don't need to fight to get better at those things. We need to fight to grow in the areas that God has gifted us the most so that we can walk freely in who we are and be used for His Kingdom purpose the way He wants us to. Not bearing the weight of what we aren't but claiming the freedom of the quirky, unique, sometimes out-of-the-box person we are.
God is for us. The Bible doesn't hide the fact that God desperately loves us with a wild grace that is not bound by chains of who we think we should be. His plans for us are not mapped out based on our insecurities and fears. He deeply, profoundly loves every fiber of us and fully intends on using every piece of who we are, including our past and our future, to bring His love and story of grace to the world.
It makes me think of the 'nose to tail' mentality. I hear of it often in restaurants that want to be good stewards of the meat they buy by being sure not to waste any part of the animal. Although we are not animals, I believe God does not want to waste a single inch of who we are. We are fully beautiful. Not just certain parts of us, but every fiber.
Do you ever wish away certain things about who you are? Do you ever stand in a crowd and compare yourself with other people wondering why you can't be more like them? Do you long to feel confident in your own skin? Do you admire someone to the point that you try to mirror who they are even though it takes away from showing who you really are?
We have all done it. Most of all me. If only we could see ourselves the way God does. Can you imagine what He was thinking when He created you? How the Heavens rejoiced the day you were born! From your hair color to your feet shape and your sense of humor to your sensitive heart, God was overwhelmed with excitement when forming you. You are not meant to look like anyone else. That would mean we serve a boring God and the God I serve is anything but boring.
I pray that you will walk in freedom of how Christ designed you because you my dear, are a masterpiece. And if we can grasp this, our generation will be world changers.
Chels
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:13,14
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