More Pink

A few weeks ago, I went to a women's conference with my beautiful mother. This conference was about telling our life stories through symbolism. The symbolism we used were pieces of fabric on a rope, thus the conference was called "Story Rope." Each piece of fabric represented a certain season of life, a person that hurt or inspired us, a childhood memory...anything we desired or deemed that piece of fabric to be.

I spoke with one of the amazing women at the conference whom I had just met that morning. She told us her life story fabric by fabric...torn and beautiful all at once. I watched as tears filled her eyes when at last she reached the soft piece of pink fabric. By looking at this woman you would not think that she was very "girly" by the way she dressed. Her hair was in a pony tail, she was wearing all black, and it was rainy outside so of course she was dressed as comfortably as possible. As we gently asked why the pink fabric meant so much to her... she confessed these words:

"I have decided that I need more pink in my life." 

This confession was huge for her. Her testimony was incredible in the way that it had unfolded through each fabric... but this one... this one was the most beautiful of all. This fabric represented the discovery of her true identity. She had found that she was a princess, a daughter of the Great King. She admitted that she had a hard time allowing herself to wear pink. Her whole life she wanted to hide who she was... this sweet, precious yet vulnerable little girl. She had put up walls against everyone around her and was afraid of anyone seeing her true heart. She admitted there were days all she wanted to be was a boy.
Then she laughed softly and blushed as she confessed that when she wore pink... she could not hide who she was anymore. All at once it was frightening and yet thrilling. She was finally free.

This is beautiful. This is why I am writing this blog.

It's true, revealing your identity is so scary... but this is what we were born to do. This is why we are here in the first place.

You are not an accident and neither am I.
Be unashamed of your identity in Christ and shout it to the clouds. Together we can move mountains.

Wear pink!

The Non-Existent God Card

You know the excuses.

The phrases that have pointlessly ended so many relationships. 

The "God Card" as some would like to call it. 

"I can't date you because I'm not close to the Lord right now."

"I can't be with you because I don't read my Bible or pray every day." 

"I am making our friendship into an idol that I worship more than God... we have to end this." 

"I would ruin your relationship with God because I'm not as close to Him as you are." 

I have been meaning to have my own little soap box about this subject for a while now... so here it goes. . . 

What in the world made us get to the point where we believe that cutting off close relationships in our lives will make us get closer to God? 

And if that's really not the case.. if you are just using that as an excuse to break up with someone because you're annoyed by them... where did we get the idea that it was okay to use God as an excuse to end a relationship? Wouldn't that be kind of blasphemous? 

I mean... really? Could you do the same thing if you married that person? Did God tell you to make a lifetime commitment to that person and then tell you to cut it off? Is that how it works? 

Of course not. If you were married.. you would at least TRY to work it out with that person and to grow closer to the Lord first before choosing any other option...right? Wouldn't that be the right thing to do? 

Now... I know marriage is a little bit of a different scenario... but this is the truth that I am getting at: It is completely and absolutely possible to grow closer to the Lord and to not make your relationship an idol while still maintaining a healthy relationship with that person. 

If that person is encouraging you to stray away from the Lord deliberately.. then of course that is a different story. But if that person isn't trying to harm your relationship with God in any way..and actually encourages it.. then why are you telling that person you can't be with them? Seriously?

I decided to write a post about this because I have seen so many friends (myself included) get caught in this trap. They have either been deeply hurt by this or have said it to someone themselves. 

And it makes me angry every time. 

This morning, I was reminded of 1 John 4:20-21:

"If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

I knew I had to write a blog post about this after reading that scripture. 

Because here is the thing...

The "God Card" is just a pathetic excuse. The "God Card" does not exist. You might disagree, but I don't think anyone who has said "I need to get closer to God..we need to break up" only broke up with that person because they needed to get closer to God. 

I mean... that might be one reason. But it certainly is almost never the ONLY reason. 

The truth is, if they truly loved that person like they said they did...they would have figured it out. God does not ruin love. He restores love. 

In my opinion, by using this excuse you are being lazy in your honesty and just being a jerk. You aren't showing any love at all to the person who was involved. In fact, you are making that person feel like crap because they feel like it's THEIR fault for driving you away from your relationship with God. How dare they care about you and invest in your life? Shame on them. It's not about you taking ownership of your own life... but everyone is out to get you. So of course you would push them away. Yes. That makes so much sense. 

Actually if you have done this to someone.. then yes, you are proving all the more that you aren't in a right relationship with God. Read 1 John 4:20-21 again. Loving God and ditching your friend...parent...girlfriend...husband...etc just doesn't work. That's why the "God Card" doesn't exist. Meanwhile you have successfully proven that you don't care about the other person's feelings by saying you spread your love too thin between them and God. You have proven that you don't love that person OR God.

The "God Card" just isn't a thing, people. 

I am so tired of blaming our own decisions on the idea that we "think God might have told us something because we get a weird feeling about it." So it suddenly isn't our fault anymore and the people involved aren't allowed to have any say in the matter. 

When are we going to take responsibility for our actions? 

When are we going to actually be honest with people that we love instead of blaming it on something God did? 

Why can't we just say, "Look...I genuinely don't have the strength to care for you like I should right now. Can we work through this together?" 

If we actually have to end something, can we still show love to that person by being honest about why we need to end it? 

Or even better... why can't we just stick things out even though they are hard because love is worth it? 

Do me a favor... don't pull the "God Card." Just be real with the people you said you loved. They deserve that much.