Day 347

Flee from temptation, right?  Right.

So when Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream would find its way onto my radio, I would change the station.  A girl like me with a past like mine need not hear such words or be led to think such thoughts.

I'm a get your heart racing

In my skin-tight jeans

Be your teenage dream tonight

Let you put your hands on me

In my skin-tight jeans

Be your teenage dream tonight

See?  See?!  Vivid imagination at work!  I do remember what it was like to be a teenager, Katy Perry, but I’m desperately trying not to remember.

For months, I’ve continuously clicked off the song...except for today when God laid on my heart Song of Solomon.

He made me think of context.  It depends on context. You can take those love ballads of Song of Solomon and place them between a man and a wife without being married, and it portrays a very different picture than that of two in covenant with God.

And I think that was why her song was so hard to hear when it initially came out, because of the context I had wrapped it in.  It made me think of my past, my recklessness, what I’ve given away and won’t have to give my future husband—all my hurt, from where it stemmed.

But thinking of Teenage Dream within the context of marriage, suddenly my entire perception of the song has changed.  Instead of imagining irresponsible, adulterous lovers, I see two committed people who have vowed to spend the rest of their lives together.  Try it.  Read it as if it’s a girl who’s dreaming about her husband…

You think I'm pretty

Without any makeup on What girl doesn’t want this?

You think I'm funny

When I tell the punchline wrong I especially need this guy!

I know you get me

So I let my walls come down, down Yup, ready for this guy.

Now every February

You'll be my Valentine, Valentine If I get married, I have a permanent Valentine.  Wow.

My heart stops

When you look at me Ready for this feeling, too.

Now baby I believe

This is real Waiting for the real deal.

We drove to Cali One day he’ll meet the ‘rents.

Got a motel and

Built a fort out of sheets Someone I can be a crazy kid with even when we’re old.

I finally found you

My missing puzzle piece That day when we find each other…

I'm complete Complete in a different way.

Let's go all the way tonight

No regrets, just love

The truest love is the love found in God, from Christ.  And that’s what I crave so desperately.  And I truly believe that if one does not know the love of Christ that he cannot know true love.

People give themselves away for love.  That’s why there are regrets.  People end relationships after having given the most intimate part of themselves to a person who wasn’t supposed to have it.

I know the next time it happens, if there is a next time, that it’s going to be something of beauty, and something out of true love.  Not just a hook-up.  Not just a way of validation.  If our love is Christ-centered, if we’ve kept God at the center of our hearts through our friendship, our courtship, our engagement…I don’t see there being regrets.

...for once, I don’t see there being regrets.  Which will be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

I think there’s a little bit of gospel in everything.  Now, this ain’t no Anthony Hamilton, but still, there’s a message in it.  God just sometimes has to focus our peripheral vision to see it.

We can dance, until we die

You and I, will be young forever

Day 325

In my few years of being saved, there is one sermon of which I am continuously reminded.  My dear friend introduced me to Matt Chandler long ago and I immediately fell in love with him fell in love with God’s character through him.

Christians have a tendency to give each other too much grace—a grace that causes more pain than healing, because sanctification is lost.  Love is arguably overshadowed in an over-giving of grace.  (Pastor Bryan Loritts sums up well the matter of loving your neighbor outweighing loving God in his book, A Cross-Shaped Gospel, pg. 33-34.)

I’ve learned much over the last few years, and I’ve learned that as much as it hurts, the people who care enough to say something about my behaviors or actions or words are showing me a love that is incomparable—priceless.  Unlike any other love.

And as we all have the duty to do such—edifying each other—I am always reminded of this part of Chandler’s sermon, appropriately titled Coffee with Granddaddy.  Solomon (btw, Solomon is a pretty gnarly dude!) sits down with us, wise man that he is, and covers us with the wisdom that only Solomon can, and reveals this (zoom 36 minutes into the sermon—it’s hilarious and worth the listen):

There’s a lot of wisdom in this next one.  It’s also one of the most painful to hear.  Verse 6, “For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.”

Solomon, as he sips down the last bit of coffee, looks across the room right at our face and says, “Wise people don’t laugh when they’re on fire, they scream, ‘Oh my God, I’m on fire!!!’”  He says, “You want to know a fool?  A fool will sit there, burning alive going, ‘Ha ha ha, what’s up?’”  “You’re on fire.”  “That’s alright.”  “What’s that smell?” “It’s my flesh.”  Wise people, they don’t giggle when they’re on fire, they scream at the top of their lungs that they’re on fire.

And it’s this one, more than anything else Solomon, our grandfather who has lived so deeply, wants to impart to us today. He’s going, “Listen, quit giggling while your world burns down.” Okay, I think the most destructive force in the universe is pride.  I do.  I know some of you are like, “What about the atomic bomb?” Okay, but if that ever gets used, I can bet you that pride is somewhere in the ranks. Now, I want you to follow me here, because here’s how I want to unpack this crackling pot, giggle thing. Do you know how many marriages could have been saved if early on, somebody would have screamed “fire” instead of giggling? So, what happens is, they grow apart and they grow apart and they grow apart and start smelling smoke. And they grow apart and they grow apart and they grow apart, and all of a sudden, this one’s mind is wandering, this one’s heart’s wandering. There’s coldness, but there’s commitment. There’s coldness, and then it’s another step apart. And now, the flames poof up. And they’re further apart and further apart. And the whole time, they pretend that everything’s alright. The whole time they chuckle like everything’s going well, and the whole thing is going up in smoke, burning right before their eyes.  And no one wants to scream “fire.”  Do you know how many people are constantly stuck in these devastating cycles of secret sin where they’re being owned by their lust or these behavior patterns that they can’t get out of?  And they just hide it and giggle like nothing’s wrong while all the while, their life, their world, their spirits are burning to the ground. And Solomon goes, “The wise scream out, ‘I’m on fire!’  They don’t laugh. They don’t laugh, they don’t giggle, they don’t pretend.”

And listen, the thing that makes this so frustrating for me is that so much of this has crept into the church. Like, do you want to hear something that’s really interesting about the Bible Belt? I keep running into people who love Jesus very much but don’t really like the church at all. Like, we just moved into a new house, and I got to go across the street to meet some of our neighbors. And they just seemed to have a real vibrant spirituality. They had a real vibrant understanding of Jesus and who He was and what He’s done for them, but they hadn’t been to church in like five years. Do you know why? Because everybody’s walking around on fire, pretending like they’re the only ones in the world that have never been burned. Which is crazy because Jesus goes, “No, I’ve come for the burn victims. I didn’t come for the well. I didn’t come for the ones who haven’t been burned. I’ve come for the ones who are currently being incinerated and for those who have had the flames put out and now want to be healers.”

…and Solomon goes, “Wise people, they don’t giggle while they burn down, but the fool does. The fool pretends that all is well despite the fact that the world’s going up in smoke.”

The friends that laugh at you, the friends that laugh with you, the friends that ignore the self-inflicted pain and wounding behavior?  That’s not love.

Love is edifying.  Love is that difficult conversation where you sit down, eye to eye, in love and tell the person what they’re doing is HURTING THEMSELVES.  Sometimes we’re blinded by the heat of our fire.  Sometimes we claim ignorance to not deal with the pain.  But it doesn’t make it go away.  It makes it worse.

First degree burns.  Second.  Third.  Fourth.  When does it stop?

When there’s nothing left but ashes?

No, those who love you try to stop you before there’s nothing left.

Let them love you.

Take the pain and embarrassment of someone noticing there’s something wrong, and look at it through the lens of love.

They love you.

They love you.

They love you.

God loves you as you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way.

Cliché as it is, it’s truth.

And you can either not deal with it and burn.  Or let yourself be loved.

Day 87

I, I love you like a love song, baby

I, I love you like a love song, baby

I, I love you like a love song, baby

And I keep hittin' re-pe-pe-pe-pe-peat

Like a Love Song, Selena Gomez

So here’s the thing.

I don’t care about the ring.  I care about who’s putting it on my finger.

And I don’t care about the wedding.  I care about who’s standing at the end of the aisle with me.

And I don’t care about a grand house.  I care about having a home.

Everyone has different preferences.  Many girls have an idea of what they want.  A man who can afford a large diamond.  A man who can afford a large house.  A wedding comparable to Kim Kardashian’s.

Well, all of that is nice.  It just isn’t me.

What I want is someone who loves me when the money is gone.  What I want is someone whose love grows deeper even still after our wedding day.  What I want is someone who, when we’re too old and grey to maintain the house, loves me and the life we lived together.

It’s not the money the man makes.  It’s not the mansion he can buy.  It’s not the glamour of the wedding.

The man I love will be the man whose heart connects with mine beyond the worldly wants.

This ring?  My grandmother wore it every day of her life.  No diamonds.  But an inscription that lives on even after both hearts have passed on.

Love.

Take the ring.  Take the money.  Take the house.

Give me true love, a heart for God, and I’ll never ask for more.