“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12)
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
Last week, I wrote about housecleaning. This week, I found something else to talk about, and I think I can best illustrate my point by NOT sparing you the gory, disgusting details. Warning: I think I’m going to have to rate this blog post PG-13. Ready? Here we go.
Yesterday evening, I was minding my own business at the parking lot of a local grocery store. I had been driving for about 45 minutes, and I hobbled out of my car and was heading for the store entrance. Behind me, I heard a woman shout, “Nasty-lookin’ dyke! Nasty-lookin’ bitch!” It took a moment for it to register that she possibly could have been shouting at me. I felt prompted to just keep walking. I entered the store, and all sorts of things started rushing into my head. Wait -- was that woman really shouting at me? Why would she shout at me? I’m straight. I mean, I was wearing a T-shirt and baggy jeans, and I recently chopped my hair down to the same length that I wore it about 10 years ago. I thought I looked adorable. I mean, what the heck happened? So, I paced the store aisles a little bit and composed myself and prayed and forgave the shouting woman.
I would like to reiterate that I’m not gay, and I don’t want to disrespect anyone who is or who struggles with homosexuality. To read my full opinion on this issue, please refer to my blog post from a couple of years ago. I didn’t see the shouting woman, and yes, there’s a strong chance that she wasn’t even shouting at me, but I felt very unsafe during and after that weird episode. I don’t want to make light of serious situations that have seriously happened, but I think I got a tiny taste of what it’s like to be stereotyped that way or shamed that way or to even possibly be the target of a hate crime. I’m thankful that God protected me from such a thing, aside from the majorly huge, majorly ironic detail -- HELLO, PEOPLE, I’M STRAIGHT!
I forgave the shouting woman multiple times, but her words, even though they may not have been directed at me, resounded through my spirit for many hours afterwards. I spent the rest of yesterday evening and most of today working through it. I lost my self-confidence for a while. Should I not have cut my hair? Should I change the way I dress? Is this why guys don’t ask me out? Does everybody else agree with the shouting woman?
So, what it boiled down to wasn’t the shouting woman. It was her words, whether they were directed at me or not. My spirit gulped them down, I think because I have a history of abuse (long story!), and I’m used to consuming those types of toxic, deathly words inside me. I really need to get un-used to it. Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. The shouting woman was speaking words of death. The Bible says that the devil is the father of lies. Lying is like a language to him. Unfortunately, I think the shouting woman was letting the devil use her, and she was speaking his language. It was like a fiery dart that needed to be extinguished in the shield of faith.
If I understand correctly, God showed me that the shouting woman was looking for a fight, and she thought I was somebody else. Anyway, regardless of how or why this happened, I hope what I’ve gone through will change me for the better and help somebody else. The truth is, I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, and my soul knows it very well (Psalm 139:14). I’m probably not going to change the way I dress anytime soon. I like my style. I’m not going to try to be somebody I’m not. I’ve almost always been nerdy and dorky, and the more God frees me up, the more artsy-fartsy I get, and lately I’ve been going back to my old punk-wannabe look. Sometimes when I’m in a very good mood, I strut. I’m a girl, but I’m not a girly-girl. Dang it, I like men! (Especially when they’re older, wiser, and starting to get gray! (swooning)) I don’t want to care what people think about me. I want them to get to know me and my heart. I want them to know the One who made me and redeemed me. He loves me, He cherishes me, and He likes me.
Speaking of love, here I am with my little girl cat. Just look at that face. I dote over her. OK, if you squint a little, she kind of looks like E.T. in this picture, but I still love her. (Actually, in some lighting, she looks more like Yoda. Dang it, she’s my cat! I love her!) I believe that God healed her of a heart murmur a few years ago. I took her to the vet, who said that she heard a heart murmur during the examination. I brought my little girl cat back home and prayed and wept over her. Remember when I said that death and life are in the power of the tongue? I was so afraid of somebody accidentally speaking death over my cat that I didn’t tell anybody about her condition for an entire year. At the next vet visit, the vet didn’t hear any murmur! And no vet has mentioned it ever since! Hallelujah!
Back to the housecleaning metaphor. God showed me that the shouting woman speaking words of death was like somebody puking in my closet after I’d just cleaned it. Sometimes when I’m thinking or praying through an issue, I’ll want God to show me what I have to do to fix it, and I’ll treat it like a formula. He’s showing me that it isn’t a formula but a relationship with Him. He also showed me that one reason why I’ve taken so long to learn how to clean house (literally) was because I believed that it was hard. In the past, I was shown that the proper way to clean was to use a certain product and/or tool. But the truth is, cleaning house (literally) really isn’t that hard. Just pick up whatever product and/or tool you have available, and just go for it. If somebody pukes in your closet (literally), maybe after you clean up the actual puke and you spray stain remover on the carpet, you might need to wait for it to dry before vacuuming over the puked-on area. Hmm. I might have too much experience cleaning up puked-on carpets (literally) because I own two cats. And because of other things.
Several months ago when I blogged about equilibrium, I mentioned getting a dizzy spell, and I will now share some details of how sick I got. While I was driving home, I puked on myself. I literally lost my lunch on my car and my clothes. I gotta say, that home ec class I took in high school did NOT prepare me for this cleanup job. Hmm. How to discreetly cover up one’s soiled self while laboring up the stairs to one’s apartment... how to wipe up puke chunks from one’s car with old towels... how to scrape dried puke chunks out of one’s steering wheel a couple of days later after one is well enough to notice that the steering wheel isn’t completely clean yet... how to hope that the old puke stench will disappear by the time one offers someone a ride in one’s car. Nope, I don’t remember reading about any of this in the home ec book.
I think that’s kind of how it is when somebody pukes in your clean closet (metaphorically). Sometimes it isn’t just an unwelcome Christmas present that sits there and takes up dust. It’s a defiling mess that stinks and needs to be cleaned up right away. There isn’t necessarily a verse in the Bible with every one of my specific situations. There isn’t a “Tirzah, when somebody calls you bad names in a grocery-store parking lot, here’s what you do” verse in my Bible. I need to lean on God and let Him show me what to do. He told me to keep walking, so I did. I knew I needed to forgive, so I did. I know that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, so I need to just be who I was created and designed to be. My relationship with God is the most important thing in my life. I want to depend on Him for everything. He speaks words of life to me all the time, and I need to listen. Sometimes He sends people to help with the cleanup. And sometimes He sends experts with professional, sophisticated, stain-removing equipment. Just as long as it gets clean, just as long as He’s in charge of the cleaning, and just as long as He’s at the center of the cleaning job, I think He’s OK with it. I think He wants the closet to be just like new, if not better than new.
So, tomorrow I plan to heavily gel and spray my hair like usual. My self-confidence is back, my shame is gone, and I might do some strutting. I feel a song parody coming on. Ha, ha, ha, ha, speaking the life, speaking the life. Ha, ha, ha, ha, better than new, better than new.
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