This Diva and Jesus
If you’ve come here, chances are you fit into one of two categories. Either you are a fellow chronic illness sufferer looking for someone who just gets it. Or, you are who I was 10 years ago, a busy mama running. Always running. Perhaps you are both of these at the same time. If you don’t fit into these not-so-neat boxes, fantastic. There is room for all.
I know you realize you are busy. What woman isn’t? We try to cram more into a day than our kids do M & Ms into their mouths when we aren’t looking. And I imagine God looking at us the same way we do our kids and thinking, How many times do I have to tell you?! That isn’t good for you.
I suppose we know cognitively that the rushing, running, franticness of our lives isn’t healthy. I mean, physically we know it isn’t healthy. We know this because we are tired and over time we don’t sleep well and we get more headaches. But do we realize it isn’t good for any other part of us?
Sometimes I am more aware than others of how this frantic lifestyle causes my relationships to suffer. I guess my kids may not mind when I scream, “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!” But something tells me it bothers them at least a little. And I seriously think my husband MUST find my sarcastic comebacks cute, whether he wants to admit it or not. However, I must confess, not all I say to him could be classified as a relationship builder.
We may recognize our to-do list needs to be cut down to size, but we rarely, if ever, do anything about it. And do we even realize the list of ways we try to prove ourselves, prove our worth, is longer than our actual to-do list?
About a decade ago, I didn’t drink coffee. I know, right? You are seriously impressed, I’m sure. But hold the phone, because you haven’t heard the whole story. I had three kids AND I didn’t drink coffee. That alone should have proved my worth as a mother! Why did I feel the need to prove my worth? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m an Enneagram Two. Or is it a One? Or a Nine? All I know is that when I read about Nine, I was convinced I was a Nine. Then I read about One and yup, definitely a One. But last night I read about Two … so now I’m a Two. Is there a number based solely on indecisiveness? Or getting easily off topic in your writing? Because if so, then I think I might be that number … but I could be wrong.
Anywho, I was proud of the fact I didn’t drink coffee. I prided myself on being very low maintenance. I didn’t want to depend on anything regularly. I wasn’t going to be some diva! (You know, cause obviously drinking coffee makes you a diva.) There was nothing I needed besides, of course, food and water.
Then my husband went away on a conference for a week. And all three kids got sick … two of them with fevers of 104. In the middle of the night, I had to pick and choose which screaming baby to comfort! I’ve never prayed so hard for the Lord to come. God and I got pretty tight that week—so there’s that. But I also drank more coffee that week than I had in my prior 30 years combined … and I never looked back.
I was officially a high maintenance diva.
Ten years later, I am truly high maintenance. Oh, the things I need every day due to my health now! I had no clue what high maintenance was before.
The strange thing is, in some ways, even being tied down to meds and equipment and totally dependent on the weather, I am freer now than I was then. I no longer have to prove I can do it all. I don’t have to reflect some image of a carefree, multitasking, working and homemaking mama. What is the most freeing about this is it has opened me up to receive—AND BELIEVE—in God’s love for me.
I knew He loved me. But trying to prove something to others and to myself somehow subconsciously cheapened His gift of the cross.
I had heard this line of reasoning before—that feeling the need to prove ourselves takes away from His gift. But I knew it simply didn’t apply to me. See, I was involved in ministry and volunteer work. In fact, one of those 104-degree-screaming-babies was a foster son. But I was doing those things out of love for God and others. I wasn’t doing them to prove anything to anyone. I wasn’t taking away from God’s perfect, free gift by trying to add to it.
Except I was.
I was taking away from it because I still felt the need to prove myself. I was efficient, determined, low-maintenance, dependable, the caretaker, physically fit, energetic …. There was so much I needed to show others and mostly show myself. Oh course, I understand our bosses need to know we are dependable. There are reasons to show our qualities. But most of the time, if we are honest, we just want to show them to feel our own value. But there is one simple problem with that.
Our value was already determined 2000 years ago.
It can’t be added to or taken away from. I have the same value on the days when taking a shower completely wears me out as I did the week I took care of three sick boys and a household all by myself.
I said before, if we are honest, we just want to show others in order to feel our own value. So, if I am honest, this perfectly describes me the last couple of weeks. I’m in a funk of feeling hormonal and sensitive and extra exhausted and it seems nothing I do works out. So, I’ve been pushing myself harder and making myself feel even worse. I’m trying to show my family—who never said I needed to or asked me to—that I contribute things of value.
And I realize ultimately, I’m trying to show myself I’m valuable. In the process, I chip away at my perception of God’s perfect grace. His grace can cover everything. Even my divaness. What I do or don’t do doesn’t change what He did at Calvary. It doesn’t change the fact that when God looks at me, He sees Jesus’s perfection covering me.
You can relax your grip on perfection because your value has nothing to do with how productive you are, how much coffee you need or whether or not you held your cool when your two-year-old threw your Fitbit in the toilet. It has everything to do with Jesus’s grace and perfection covering you.
Lucky for us, He’s no diva. He doesn’t even need coffee to be perfect. And He never changes.
P.S.
If any of you know the Enneagram, feel free to chime in and give me a clue here. Let me know what number you are too!