Sometimes the devil sounds a lot like Jesus

"Sometimes the devil sounds a lot like Jesus, telling me I'm not enough.
But I don't believe it, but I can feel it, and I need you so. Yes I need you so."
(Ben Rector, "If You Can Hear Me")

My friend Tyler and I have been knee deep in Ben Rector songs lately. His words just seem so fitting in so many ways, and he's a Christian guy who writes Christian songs that aren't...cheesy.

This particular song has been on repeat for me lately. Have you noticed that we like to beat ourselves up so much sometimes, that we even believe God is that voice inside our heads telling us that we aren't enough?

For example: guilt we feel for drinking last night. Shame we feel for going to far with that guy. Worry we feel about that job interview. That thing we did. That mistake we made. That position we don't deserve.

And I think we reason it away with weird sayings like "God is trying to teach me a lesson" or "I guess  this is payback for my years of turning away from God" because it is easier to believe we don't deserve love than to believe anyone, let alone God Himself, could love us unconditionally.

Have you thought about unconditional love lately? We don't understand that. At all. I don't love anyone unconditionally. When someone hurts me, I protect myself from that happening again. Why would I love that person again unconditionally when there is no guarantee that I won't get hurt again? But I am probably the only one that feels this way, right?

The problem is we don't believe what God says about us. And this infects our every day. Our habits, our relationships, our bank accounts, our mirrors, our clothes, our jobs, our choices. Imagine how different you would live, just for today, believing that you are good enough.

I was going to give an update on the shiny new scale I've been using, but this came out instead. So that will happen another day soon. For right now, I think this is enough. Just like you.

I bought a scale.

I am 38 years old and have never owned a scale. We didn't really have one in my house growing up. No, scratch that...my mom had one of those doctor scales in her room when I was growing up, but I never wanted to get on it.

In fact, as I got older, I feared that scale. Since it was JUST like the doctor's office ones, it reminded me of that dreaded event that I had to endure every year. The sentence my mom would utter to me that threw me into a cookie dough panic: it's time for your physical!

I don't remember a time that the scale didn't scare me. But the danger in that thing is that, the more you ignore it, the more power it gets. I mean, I can say all day that the scale doesn't define me, and that it's just a number, and that it's only about how your clothes fit. But clothes stretch, and belts have options, and Taco Bell is so good and before you know it...you're gaining back the weight you fought so hard to lose.

So I bought a scale. And Amazon delivered it. And the box sat, unopened, on my dining room table for a few days. But today I opened it, and I put the batteries in, and I took a deep breath, and I just stepped on it. The number appeared. And it's a sucky number, but it's my indicator. My reminder. My restarting point.

This scale thing is showing me how I let other things and other people and other opinions determine my worth. When I am lonely or struggling through an issue, I turn to my food friends for comfort. And it ultimately makes me more uncomfortable.

Most of you read this and think "Just eat healthy, damn!" To you I say "thank you, but you don't get it." And I would also say...whatever that big struggle has been your whole life - a person, an event, a place, an addiction - replace that with food and welcome to my world.

So I am going to be courageous and use that scale. And I am going to live well today and not worry about tomorrow. Crazy how God knows enough about me to put that in the bible as words to live by.

Hold on to the people that love you and pursue you. And let go of the ones that don't. Don't let people determine your worth. Don't worry, I'm working on it too.

Death to selfie

This morning I heard a really great sermon on narcissism. Defined as an excessive interest in one's self or one's appearance, narcissism has become an epidemic. 

Remember when we used to take pictures with a camera that had film in it? And you had to wait until they were developed to see how you looked? Polaroids were the closest things we had to Instagram. But now, the world is scarier. Instant everything. Excessive interest in ourselves and our appearance.

Instagram reports posting over a million selfies a day. Out of those, 36% admit to retouching their selfies, and 13% admit to retouching every selfie that they post.

Excessive interest in ourselves and our appearance.

I am the queen of narcissism. When you are single without kids and live three states away from your family, it's hard to not be selfish. I only really need to worry about myself. But this focus on me has taken me down many times. And then add that to an excessive interest in my appearance and my weight and before you know it - I am fighting a losing battle with narcissism.

The great news is that our pastor this morning not only highlighted the issue, he offered a solution. If you want to combat selfishness, walk in step with God. Focus on Jesus, not on yourself. Look outward, not inward, for wisdom and knowledge.

I don't know how to do this right. But I do know that I just have to try it. Every day. When I get out of step, I start over. Every day. And I also know that we need to go easy on ourselves. Look outward, not inward. Focus on Jesus, not myself.

And for God's sake, girls, quit making that kissy face. You look better when you just...smile.

Facebook will lie to you.

I had dinner with a friend tonight, a friend that I have known since she was a middle schooler. I love when you walk into a situation and you have no idea the depths of what you are about to experience. Our conversation, while I thought would just be us catching up on each other's lives, became about something far more important.

This particular friend of mine, we'll call her Sally, is in between jobs, school, life change, all of it. I asked Sally what she wants to do with her life. Sally said, in no uncertain terms "I am too screwed up to really know what I want."

I asked Sally what she meant and she began to tell me how she is more screwed up than anyone else she knows. That she has body image issues, is emotionally unstable, and the list went on and on.

You see, Sally is feeling how a lot of us feel. We have a rough day. We come home to an empty room because we are too tired to be social. We hop on social media and we look at photos and instagrams and tweets about how great someone looks, how much fun they are having, how clever they can be, how much...better they are than we are.

Sally is believing the lie that we all believe. That Facebook sells to us.

This is the lie: everyone else is doing great. You're the only one that is this messed up.

See, this lie cripples most of us. I have believed it for years. In my loneliness, recently, I have reached out to some friends with open hands and got nothing in return. I thought that the depths of my pain would be received by people that knew me the best. But the truth was, some of us are so afraid to open our fists to grab on to each other because we aren't willing to be rejected. And that fear of being who we really are isolates us and before we know it, we are alone. In a room. Believing the Facebook lie.

Here's the truth: I'm not doing that great. But tonight I got to connect with an old friend and tell her that, and that took away the power that isolation had on her, even for a moment. Can we be strong enough to admit that we are weak? Can we be brave enough to say that we're scared?

Some people will receive from you and some won't. I have been surprised both negatively and positively by that this week. But the friends that haven't grabbed my open hands can't be my focus. I have to fight for those that are willing to fight with me.

Don't let Facebook lie to you anymore. Let someone in so you can hear the truth: you are not the only one that's messed up. Welcome to our messy neighborhood.

What I learned from the ALS ice bucket challenge.

A few weeks ago, it started to show up on my Facebook newsfeed. And then it flooded my Facebook news feed. And then the thing happened that always happens when things get popular:

The backlash.

I thought I would make it through without having to be a part of this.

Wrong. Here's a sampling of what I saw on social media this week:

"Am I the only one who is totally tired of the ice bucket challenge ? Save the time and water and write a check people." (as of this post, 53 people "liked" this)

if you do the #IceBucketChallenge but don't actually explain ALS, I don't know if it counts as raising awareness..." via my twitter news feed

And this one, which is truly one of the most tasteless jokes I've seen in a long, long time:

"Robin Williams died doing what he loved, the ice bucket challenge." Posted by a friend of mine that I won't embarrass now by identifying.

And me...my internal monologue while seeing this: "UGH. No one better make me do this. I don't even get how this will raise money. This is dumb. People don't even know what ALS is." And on and on and on.

Ok, so here's the thing: does it matter? Does it matter why people are trying to do good? Does it matter how accurate and how educated and how perfectly responsible a good deed is? Why can't we just see people trying to do good things and support it, instead of making jokes, judging, critiquing, or grading them from the other side of an anonymous computer monitor?

Sometimes I am shocked at how judgmental I can be. And this time it moved me enough to confess it publicly, and to call it out. Side note: this stupid little social media experiment worked. Really, really well.

Whenever you try to change the world, you will have haters. In fact, I would say that if you don't have haters, you're not doing it right.

Play on, players.

Retweet this to your followers? Yes. Yes I think I will.

Make "how are you" a question instead of a greeting.

What do you do when the thing that relieves you is the thing that causes you pain?

I am recovering from neck surgery, which was on July 31st. My mom came down to visit, THANK GOD, and took amazing care of me.

What they took out, and what they
put in. This is the best operation room
photo they would take for me.

She left on Saturday and since then, I have been in a dark place, honestly. When you have someone here that loves you so much, and they are caring for you, and are around you all the time, and then they leave...it leaves a noticeable hole that you try to fill with other things.

Does anyone want to guess how I tried to fill that hole? Well, in the same ways I have been trying to fill voids my entire life...food.

Food is the thing that relieves me. Food is the thing that causes me pain.

So in the midst of loneliness and depression, historically, I have turned to food. And with the move to a new town, those emotions have been knocking on my door, and I have let them in by turning to food. Food is the acceptable drug of choice in our country. No kidding, there are over 20 fast food spots within 5 miles of my house. For a food addict like me, that's like having a bar on every corner, or a dealer that lives in the house across the street.

Everywhere. Temptation to withdrawal further.

I wish I could say that I have found the answer to all this after two years of openly working through it. But I haven't. The closest answer I have found is this: to let people know me, and to make myself available to know others. The more I practice this specifically, the more I see the dark clouds of depression lifting.

For example, this afternoon I rode the spin bike for the first time since surgery and my friend Allison came to work out too. She went out of her way to pull a bike over to me and I was honest about how lonely I've been feeling in this new town. And she received me. And we made plans to work out together more consistently. And she invited me to dinner. And I invited myself to her son's t-ball games. And she checked in with me about church. But most important...we took time to be real with each other.

When my mom was here, she mentioned the concept of "How are you?" and how it has become a greeting, not a question. If I ask you how you are, do I really want to know the answer? "How are you? No, really. How are you? I want to know. And I have time to sit and listen, because I have a feeling you need that. Because I'm not doing so great either."

Surgery selfie. And hopefully the only
selfie I'll ever take.

I'm willing to blow up this blog with some real stuff if you're willing to get on this ship with me. I don't know about you, but I'm getting exhausted by small talk. Can we make "how are you" a question instead of a greeting?