Still disagreeing with Miley Cyrus

Reader, you've probably already gotten a huge earful/eyeful of feedback about Miley Cyrus' performance at the VMAs a few days ago. Maybe you saw some tweets that praised her performance. You more than likely saw lots of posts online about people who were totally disgusted with her performance and concerned about its repercussions and the things in her heart that she kinda revealed during her performance. You've heard from parents. You've heard from celebrities. You've heard from celebrity parents. So, now it's my turn to offer my two cents, because frankly, I can't escape this news story. It's still wallpapered all over the internet four days later. I didn't watch or listen to any of the performance or any of the VMAs, but I still saw and heard about what happened. Miley Cyrus expressed the heck out of herself for all the world to see, and she shocked us. And yet, I don't think we were completely surprised. Well, I don't have a worldwide stage and MTV cameras pointed at me, but I do have a computer and a blog where I can express my opinion.

I would like to offer some disclaimers to my opinion and my perspective. I'm not an official Miley Cyrus fan (especially since most of her fan base is probably less than half my age). I became rather familiar with some of her music and her TV work while I was employed with the company that composed the closed captions for her TV show. (And when I was in high school, I roller-skated a bit to her dad's achy-breaky heart. Don't tell my heart.) I'm somewhat familiar with the empire that Disney built for her, and I'm definitely familiar with the kind of influence that she has in the world. Perhaps you remember me blogging previously about my disagreement with her views about gay marriage. That's part of the reason why I and other Christians are appalled at Miley Cyrus' recently raunchy performance. Supposedly (at least according to Wikipedia), she professes to be a Christian, and yet she is very outspoken about gay marriage rights.

Again, if you're familiar with my blog, you know about my previous struggle with and victory over my own homosexual/bisexual tendencies. These are past, previous, dead tendencies. Jesus fixed it so that if my enemy tries to run that software again, he'll only get error messages. So, please understand that if you struggle with or embrace homosexuality, I don't hate you. I'm not afraid of you. You are a beloved human being. And I believe Jesus can help you overcome homosexuality, too. So, please also understand that I completely disapprove of the homosexual lifestyle, gay marriage, and anything LGBT-related, and please understand that my position is completely irrevocable. This is because I follow Jesus, and I choose to live my life God's way.

"Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due." (Romans 1:24-27)

I'm not trying to be witchy about gay marriage. I'm just saying that this is the cause that Miley has embraced quite fully. And I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom when I quote Romans. I'm not perfect, and I've struggled a ton with worshiping created things instead of the Creator. It's just that when other Christians have presented arguments to me in favor of gay marriage, they tell me that the Bible isn't relevant in today's culture. Um, I'm sorry, but I can't explain Romans 1 away. I see it happening in front of my eyes all the time: the gradual migration of a person from life under the Creator's protection to His giving them over to worship the other gods that they've been aching to worship.

Supposedly, Miley wants to live God's way, too. Maybe she did at one point, but I'm honestly not sure she's still choosing Him. Oh, no! Tirzah is judging Miley Cyrus! Yes, I am. I'll explain why. Here's what the Jesus that Miley supposedly follows explains in His word:

"For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:43-45)

If you see oranges growing on a tree, that means it's an orange tree. If you see bananas growing on a plant, that means it's a banana plant. If it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, and smells like a duck, that means it's a duck. Don't tell me it's a chicken or a turkey. I'm not overtly saying that Miley isn't a Christian anymore, and I'm not saying she was never saved in the first place. Let the fruits do the talking. Who or what exactly was she worshiping at the VMAs? men? women? herself? sex? I don't think she was necessarily worshiping a god intentionally, but I do think she's being foolish if she honestly thinks God would endorse her performance, her attitude, or her gay-marriage cause. Actually, she reminds me of somebody who I've recently begun to admire and respect. Posthumously.

Speaking of banana trees, Freddie Mercury was a musical, artistic genius. I mean that very sincerely. I hope this doesn't creep anybody out -- especially his family and friends -- but I consider him to be one of my musical fathers. I have an eBay-purchased autographed picture of him hanging on my wall. And I've just barely begun to acquaint myself with his and Queen's music.

No, I don't listen to all their songs, and I'm somewhat grossed out by the fat-bottomed ones. (I think the bicycle company made a smart decision to sell the bike seats.) I'm extremely picky about the music I listen to, anyway. I've just been having a few "OH, MY GOSH, WHERE HAS THIS MUSIC BEEN ALL MY LIFE???" moments recently. (I was kinda the same way when I discovered ABBA several years ago. What's the name of the game? Does it mean anything to you?) Yes, I was alive while Queen was making music. I was in high school when Freddie Mercury died. Although I barely knew any of their music back then, I knew that AIDS killed him.

Which is a tragedy, of course, and I think I really would have loved getting to know him while he was alive. (Thank you, YouTube, for posting interviews.) He wasn't a Christian; I believe he was Zoroastrian. I can't get over how brilliant of a genius he was musically and artistically. If you ever hear me writing songs with crazy chord progressions and cutting-edge formatting, please know that I consider Freddie Mercury to be one of my musical influences.

So, Miley reminds me very much of Freddie Mercury because of their musical influence and because they both either supported or embraced LGBT themes/lifestyles. Here's where my perspective comes in: I think Miley and Freddie are/were worship leaders.

During a church service, a worship leader is somebody who takes the stage/platform for a while and, usually with music, leads you into God's presence. A worship leader helps people worship God by finding Him and pointing to Him. I'm a worship leader. If I take the stage/platform in a church sanctuary, or if I take a section of carpet in somebody's living room, here's how I usually lead worship: Look at me! Great, you're looking at me! Now follow me, sheep, and do what I do! Look, there's the Shepherd! Let's go get Him!

Of course, I'm just expressing my opinion here on my computer and my blog, but I think whether Miley or Freddie were singing about having the best of both worlds or whether they were declaring that we are the champions, my friend, I think they're worship leaders. They have your attention for a while, and while they do, they have the gifting/superpower to point you to a god and worship it (whether they realize what they're doing or not).

Which is part of the reason why I've had such a beef with Miley this week. She has been gifted -- whether God gave it to her or whether Disney implanted it in her -- with a hugely tremendous platform where she can proclaim whatever the heck she wants. She has a huge fan base, her name is a household word, and people listen when she sings, when she speaks, and when she tweets. She has extreme influence. And what does she do with it? She dry-humps a married man while the entire world gawks.

If she wants to give up her inheritance for a bowl of soup like Esau did, that's her business. But she's gyrating a pagan dance to her gods in front of impressionable young people's eyes. And its aftermath is all over the internet while we Christians (just to name a few people) are still trying to figure out what the heck happened on Sunday night. Her performance was extremely influential and powerful in the sense that it's pretty much taken over the internet opinions for the week. And I wasn't planning about blogging about her again. I was so powerfully influenced that I'm just trying to get it out of my imagination. I was even gyrating with my words in a very rated-G sort of way while I was working from home today: I got to find Excel... I got to find Excel.

That's really all I wanted to say about Miley Cyrus. I'm not going to blame Hollywood or society or the music industry. She's a big girl who's decided that she doesn't give a bleep about what we think, and I don't think her performance was just a VMA thing, and I think she proved it when she posed for butt-exclusive photos the day after her MTV-nuclear explosion. I think she has an unprecedentedly huge worldwide platform where she has a huge influence, and she's flushing it down the toilet. To me, it seems that she's found her god, and she's pointing to it. And yet, before she became Miley, her name was Destiny Hope. I think there's still hope that she'll find the destiny that God originally planned for her. After all, I've found mine. No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions... of the world. 

Delayed reactions, part 8

I think I'm just spiritually dry-heaving again, and I hope this will be the last entry in this non-intentional blog series. It's interesting the types of things that will come to mind when you're healing. For instance, currently my gums and jaw are still healing after I had my wisdom teeth extracted about a month ago. The healing has been very slowly but surely. Once in a while, my jaw will surge with pain while new bone forms, and I'll need to address the pain with my new faithful friend ibuprofen. Other times, I'll hear a gurgling on one side where food is trying to bubble out of my cavernous gum-hole.

I hope this photo isn't TMI, but this is a picture of another new friend: the dental syringe that I use to flush food particles out of my gum holes (where my 2 bottom wisdom teeth used to be) with saltwater every night. This procedure isn't painful anymore, and it's pretty darn fun, but this wasn't my dental-hygiene routine a month ago. This is my new normal.

It sure is better than my old normal: wisdom teeth that would flare up in my gums every few months. I totally thought I could hang on to my unnecessary teeth, but I'm very glad I got them pulled, and I'm very glad that I won't have to deal with them ever again. I guess if something grows and rots inside your mouth for long enough, it will become so familiar that you won't even consider that it isn't supposed to be normal.

I think living life in a spiritually abusive environment can be the same way. Spiritually speaking, now that the deep-rooted, rotting teeth have been removed and new growth is happening, sometimes I have "how the bleep did this get stuck inside my gum-hole?" moments while I watch the food flush out forever.

1) Years ago, I was part of a church group that was expected to attend a weekly prayer meeting at 6:30 a.m. I arrived one morning and began to answer the usual "How are you" greeting questions. I guess I was comfortable enough with one guy to answer honestly, so I told him I was tired. If I remember correctly, he said, "Isn't it good to know that we can rebuke our bodies?" I'm pretty sure he was insinuating that I should rebuke my body for being tired. Um, dude, it was 6:30 in the morning. I'm a woman who likes to get completely ready before I venture out the door each morning, so I was probably awake at 4 a.m. Of course I was tired. There's no need to rebuke anything or anybody, because nobody was doing anything wrong. That is, unless...

Why the bleeping heck couldn't you have shown a tiny bit of sympathy? If your wife goes into labor, do you rebuke her body for doing its job and causing discomfort during the birthing process? Rebuking an illness is one thing, and taking authority over one's body is certainly acceptable and pretty darn awesome. But to rebuke a body for being tired after getting only a few hours' sleep is just a disconnect from reality.

2) Speaking of, I'm uncool with how this preoccupation with Pharisaical rules and ideals has made me extremely insensitive to other people's pain. Over the years, some people have mentioned various people in their lives having cancer. When I heard about it, it either went in one ear and out the other or I just didn't care. I feel terrible about this. I'm truly terribly sorry for not caring. I have no right to feel meh about cancer.

Not to shift the blame -- because I really do want to change -- but to give you an idea of the type of self-righteousness that was my old normal, here's a conversation that happened once between me and the guy who raised me. Knowing that I was involved in a ministry for single people, this guy asked me with the usual condescension in his voice, "Why do they call them single parents? Why don't they just call them illegitimate children?" I replied, with my backbone, that if he and the chick who raised me hadn't gotten married, I wouldn't appreciate being called "illegitimate." (Um, I'm a legitimate person, thank you very much.) Gee whiz. If this is the type of attitude that churches ordain nowadays, is it any wonder that people have trouble believing that a loving God exists?

3) Several years ago, I was driving home from work, and I was supposed to have met some friends to go to a carnival. On the way home, I got in a car wreck. I had to call my friend and tell him I couldn't make it because I had had a wreck. I wish I had heard, "Oh, my gosh, are you OK?" Instead, I heard, "Oh."

I guess maybe it was this same spirit of meh that afflicted one of my past spiritual leaders/abusers. A past friend told me once that she had had a car wreck on the way to church. It traumatized her, of course. So, she called our spiritual leader/abuser and explained that she had had a wreck. "Are you still coming to church?" the leader/abuser asked dryly with zero sympathy in her voice.

"Bleeping heck! What the bleep is the matter with people?" asked the ex-spiritual-abuser while she typed up her blog post, as if she didn't know.

I don't think it's an accident that Jesus commanded us to love one another. Love suffers and is kind. Love doesn't allow other people to keep engaging in harmful activity. But love girds itself and jumps into the trenches with people who are hurting. Love doesn't puke on other people's sincerity. Love doesn't grow coral reefs around a person's heart. Love makes a heart hurt right alongside another person.

I've typed up this post in the most awkward positions ever with my laptop because, well, I'm trying to save my tail. (Literally.) I think months of sitting cross-legged on the floor like a college student have finally caught up with my late-30s butt, because my tailbone has been very sore these past few days. But it's gradually been getting better. This weekend was perfect for standing up at church for several hours on end because it's been painful to sit down. But it isn't a situation where I can "rebuke my body." I've prayed over it, sure. But what am I supposed to say? "I hereby rebuke thee for not being as strong as thou used to be in days of yore, o thou unbelieving vertebra?" I don't think so. What about my aching feet? "I hereby rebuke thee for not enduring mine weight properly during hours of standing in dress shoes in the holy sanctuary, o ye sinful foot-bottoms?" Heck no.

I hurt because I'm a human being. Whether I'm hurting physically, emotionally, or spiritually, I have access to Jesus my Healer, who will take care of it and heal me because He cares. He isn't a jerk like I used to be. He's completely incapable of being a jerk. He endured probably more physical, emotional, or spiritual pain than I ever will, so He knows exactly what I'm going through, and He cares. He won't lecture at me for being imperfect or ignore me for walking through a hard time. He walks right along with me, and He hurts with perfect empathy, and He comforts in a way that only the most legitimate Parent ever could. And I want to learn from Him.

Heh. Put that in your dental syringe and flush it.

Delayed reactions, part 7

Sometimes when you repent or when you simply leave a familiar place that wasn't supposed to be familiar in the first place, you have a reaction that goes something like, "Wait. You mean... oh, my gosh. That was WRONG. Wait. Why didn't it feel wrong? Everybody else was doing it." It's kinda like what happened after I got saved: I stopped cheating on tests. Yes, cheating was WRONG, and I had deceived myself into believing that I wasn't even cheating. I think one reason why God hates dishonesty so much (Proverbs 6:16-19) is that it's a complete misrepresentation of who He is. Jesus is full of grace and truth. And I'm still learning how to walk in honesty and integrity. But when you live a life of deception, you kinda create your own little world with your words and your actions, and you kindasorta become your own little god in a way. Maybe God hates it so much because it's all kinds of WRONG all mixed together into a giant WRONGCASSEROLE. Then people come over to eat, and they're like, "This tastes terrible. You're the worst chef who ever lived. I've completely lost my appetite! You should have your chef license revoked!!" And then the chef tastes the casserole and declares flabbergastedly, "Wait. You mean... oh, my gosh. This is WRONG. My salt has lost its flavor!" And Jesus' warning in Matthew 5:13 suddenly explodes in your face. And Jesus comes to your rescue, cleans up your face, puts His arm around your shoulder, and says something like, "Hey, squirt, your cooking doesn't have to be that gross. Let Me make it RIGHT."

On this evening's episode of Tirzah's Free Therapy Via Blogging, we'll speak about things that supposedly should have remained unspoken, we'll poop things that supposedly weren't hiding out in my invisible intestines, and we'll rev up sections of Tirzah's brain that may have never worked before. Wait. Is "wrongcasserole" a word?

1) "Let's wait on the Lord." OK, so I know "waiting on the Lord" comes from places in the Bible like Isaiah 40 and all over the Psalms. I haven't done my Hebrew research, but just using a bit of common sense and English, "wait" definitely means that you're waiting for a Person to speak, arrive, or act. If I wait on the Lord or wait for the Lord, I'm probably needing Him to answer my question or solve my problem or rescue me in general. Or maybe I've just come home from a grueling day at work, and He wants me to calm down a bit before He hangs out with me on my living-room couch and we whisper sweet nothings to each other and He shows me what HIS living room looks like, and I spend the rest of the evening trying to stop crying because He's so close that my heart is boiling and my skin is burning. Then maybe I wake up the next morning with puffy eyes and a stuffy nose but a huge smile and a refreshed spirit and a renewed strength that's ready to soar through my next day like an eagle. Maybe.

When I was leading a group in a spiritually abusive church, anytime we as a leadership team needed to make a decision together, the main guy would say, "Let's wait on the Lord," and we would bow our heads, close our eyes, and be silent for a few minutes. The idea was to hear God speak and tell us what to do about a particular situation, etc. When the silence was over, the main guy would ask, "Did you hear anything?" And usually I would only hear God speak to me privately about ME, not about our leadership situation, so I wouldn't have anything to share, and I would sometimes feel a bit left out or inferior. I don't think the main guy would make me feel that way, and I don't think it was his intention, but the whole environment that our group was cooking in was just WRONG.

There's definitely nothing wrong with declaring a moment of group silence so that everyone can hear God talking. It's just that the whole stop-everything-and-wait-on-the-Lord-for-a-few-minutes for every tiny little group decision was just, in hindsight, weird and creepy. Is that any way to have a relationship with a Person? you just stop talking and assume that they're going to speak during the silence? It's like a friendship that I used to have with a chick who I think tried to counsel me. We'd have conversations where we'd try to catch up on each other's lives, but she insisted that I do all the sharing. She would share a teeny-tiny bit about herself, and then she'd keep asking me questions, and she wouldn't stop. While I would answer her, she'd get this glassy-eyed look in her face, and I'd run out of things to talk about. "What else?" "Uh... I think I need to buy new shoes." Come on. That was not the deep relationship I wanted.

I'm not saying that God runs out of stuff to say. I'm just saying that the way we approached Him seems so artificial now. Is His voice just an on/off switch? or can you proceed with the events of your day, including all the decisions you need to make, while inclining your spiritual ear for a moment to hear Him speak, and then naturally flow back into the events of your day? I mean, He isn't the Wizard of Oz. There isn't a man behind the curtain who's making all the noise. (In fact, a Man totally ripped the curtain so that you could see where He lives.)

2) Apparently, and unfortunately, I'm not alone in seeing the red flags. Just out of curiosity, I Googled the name of my previously spiritually abusive environment and saw several websites dedicated to exposing the iffyness of my old church. One person created an entire blog that generated dozens of comments during her recovery. Several people flat-out asked, "Is this church a cult?" I remember seeing one of the web forums about a decade ago, and I remember creepily commenting in defense of that particular church, something like "Eh, I just got hurt by a few people, but the whole church is good overall." Apparently, and thankfully, other people saw the red flags, left earlier, and got healed earlier. I have spent the past 3 years reeling from the shock. No, I don't think that particular church is a cult per se, but I think the people online who identified it as "toxic" were correct, unfortunately. I wish I had tasted the ickiness of the salt-gone-bad earlier.

During my online research, unfortunately, I saw Matthew 5:13 in action. People wrote about how ridiculous they thought the worship services looked and sounded. I laughed because I recognized the stories that the pastor used to share over and over and over again. I hope I'm not laughing in mockery but in a healing lightheartedness, because the entire ordeal is flabbergasting: Wait. You mean... oh, my gosh. Our entire approach to doing church was WRONG? Why didn't it feel wrong? Hmm. Maybe it's because Jesus lets tares grow with wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). If something sprouts and it needs to grow, even if it's growing next to a weed, maybe in His mercy, He won't destroy the sprout by uprooting it too early.

3) If unbelievers treat their children better than you do, that's just plain WRONG. 1 Timothy 5:8 is NOT a fun Bible verse to live out, especially when you're on the receiving end of, uh, non-receiving. So, you quit your job to stay home and raise your children. This was so that you could develop a relationship with them? even though all your oldest remembers is you doing house chores and shoving her away whenever she tried to open up to you emotionally? was it to keep her morally pure, even though you were quite meh about her reporting sexual harassment to you? So, you kept moving the family around so you could pursue your dream and provide for them financially, but you used their college fund to pay your regular bills. This was so that you could support their dreams? even though all your oldest remembers is you scoffing at her dreams and criticizing her when she didn't know how to clean her own home? Is this why you neglected to visit her at college on parents' weekend? so you could solidify the fact that you didn't give a hoot about her? I'm sorry, but staying at home because you were paranoid about women taking over your church is a bad excuse for not visiting your daughter. If you really think your church job is more important than your kid...

Oy vey. I understand very much now why Jesus was nice to "sinners and tax collectors" but He ranted and yelled at the religious leaders who eventually crucified Him.

So, the good news is that Jesus, the One who turns WRONG into RIGHT, was actually spiritually abused Himself. At least, if I understand scripture correctly, I think He was. In Luke 11:14-23, Jesus was basically accused of cooperating with the devil to cast out demons. Well, if I'm understanding Hebrews 4:15 correctly, and Jesus was tempted in EVERY way that I am, then maybe when people spiritually abused Jesus, He was tempted to doubt His power, His competence, His validity. Maybe He was tempted to believe a lie that said something like, "Hey, You know what? All those people getting healed were all just a bunch of coincidences. The devil is always going to win, and You're helping him now. You're just another rabbi. You may as well give up, because You'll never amount to anything." Ouch. I didn't even like typing that as an imaginary hypothetical.

But I think if Jesus really was spiritually abused, He can help me overcome it, get healed from it, and wash all that shame off my newly flintified face. I think He's already done a ton to help me. I don't feel guilty about having my own opinions or expressing them anymore. I don't feel like I'm supposed to live inside a cage anymore. I don't doubt that I know Him anymore. Nope. He's already made all that RIGHT, and He's gonna keep cooking everything RIGHT, with His perfect salt, because He's the best, most perfect Chef who has ever lived, who still lives, and who will live. And I get to hang out in His living room anytime I want.

Wait. Is "flintified" a word?

Blushing

For my day job, I sit at a cubicle for 8 hours and write rated-G material. So, sometimes a chick just needs an outlet for writing rated PG-13 or R material. I need to unravel some stuff out of my brain. I'm going to write about men. (Not boys. MEN.) For the sake of avoiding copyright issues, I've posted a photo of the only man in my life. (Aww. Isn't he adorable when he's trying to beg for food?) Of course, I'm not counting Jesus, the Son of Man who is Lord of my life. He's a Male, yes. But it's different with Him. Anyway, I'm not a blubbering pile of grieving ooze like the last time I blogged about my singlehood. I'm reflecting, so I'm a philosophical pile of abstract ooze.

Why am I reflecting? It might be because school is starting up again, and as usual, I have no official ties to the school year because I'm not a student and I don't have children who are students. Or it might be because -- to use a euphemism -- my biological clock is ticking loudly. I can definitely empathize with my single friends who are in their late 20s and/or early 30s and have entered the hormonally-freaking-out stage of late-adulthood singlehood. That's an excruciating place to be. I remember wanting to strangle married people and leaking my eyeballs into Kleenex tissues. But I think I might be past that part now. I think I have entered the hormonally-honest stage of late-adulthood singlehood. I've heard that hormonally, males hit their peaks around age 19. I've heard that women hit their peaks around their late 30s or early 40s. So, with honestly raging, definitely peaking hormones, I'm going to reflect, unravel, and endeavor to not make you stumble while I'm writing. Gosh, there's a lot to trip over nowadays. Hmm. Should I have just cut through the rated-G-ness and titled this post "Trying to NOT think about sex"?

I graduated from high school 7th in my class, and I graduated from college magna cum laude, so my brain can move quickly. But that doesn't mean I always understand things right away. I can be very slow to "get it." A lot of important information has taken a long time to seep through multiple layers of skull.

For example, when I was growing up, I didn't know I was supposed to be attracted to a certain type of male. I remember in the junior-high cafeteria, one of the girls at my table was talking about how crazy she was about New Kids On The Block. I wasn't into current Top 40 music back then (I was into The Carpenters and The Monkees), so I wasn't familiar with NKOTB. She showed me a picture of Jordan and asked me if I thought he was cute. I think I shrugged my shoulders and said something like "Not really," because she gasped in shock and clasped her picture to her heart. Sorry, chicky, but he was just a picture of a guy whose name I had to Google 23 years later to accurately identify.

Another name I had to Google recently was Ryan Gosling. I haven't seen The Notebook yet, but apparently the star of this movie has been a sex symbol on the internet for quite some time. OK, I'm glad he turns you on. But I'm 37 years old, so I don't usually like being called "Girl," and I don't usually notice blond males.

Maybe my taste in men has changed since I've gotten older, or maybe (hopefully) I've become attracted to healthier men as I've become a healthier person. (I'm not really attracted to high-maintenance mama's boys who require constant enablement anymore.) Sure, I'm ideally attracted to extremely good-looking males with black hair. (The actor in Man of Steel IS really hot, and I'm glad they added that little scene at the end for catharsis.) I grew up in a house where the main male was a chatterbox whose voice carried quite loudly, and I remember saying on multiple occasions, "Remind me to marry somebody who's soft-spoken." A gentle voice usually grabs my attention, no matter what the guy looks like.

But I'm not as ideal as I used to be when it comes to males. I remember when I was in my late teens, I remarked to a coworker that God was going to give me a husband on a silver platter. She scoffed, of course. If I was correct about the silver platter, God hasn't done that yet, and nothing about my singlehood has been ideal.

The one male who I thought was ideal for me remarked about me to a friend, "She's not my dating type." So, he didn't pursue me, even though I longed for him to do so. Sorry, chico, that I wasn't your type. I understand now that God didn't have this particular male in mind for me, especially after seeing things in his life that I hadn't seen before. But getting over him was excruciatingly painful, because I totally thought that he was my type.

Honestly, I don't really have a type anymore. But I have noticed that regardless of what "type" of male comes along, certain factors need to be in place in order to get my female attention. Regardless of what the guy looks like (but I have to like what he looks like) or what hobbies the guy has (but he has to respect me enough to let me pursue my hobbies)... well, I can't speak for every female, but the following are what I think I MUST have in order for the relationship to work.

1) The guy would need to love God infinitely more than he loves me. Of course, this would mean that he would want to live life God's way, so he would want to love me as Christ loved the church. This would mean that he would obey God's commandments. This would mean that he would love himself and that he would love his neighbor as he loves himself. This would mean that he would be willing to let God shape him into whatever He wants, that he would be willing to endure pain during that process, and that he would want to walk in the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

2) The guy would need to be strong enough to maintain a backbone during a crisis and soft enough to let me cry on his shoulder during MY crises. And I would want him to be OK with my shoulder if he ever needs a good cry. Everyone has emotions, but everyone expresses them differently. It's OK to not be very emotional. And it's OK to be an emotional basketcase. But when life's storms hit, if I'm joined to a man, he and I would need to face those storms together -- not run away from them and not let them kick our butts.

3) I absolutely, completely, utterly, 100% refuse to do online dating. I mean no offense if you found your spouse this way. I just wish to express for myself that I don't believe a human being should be shopped for as if he were an item on eBay.

So, regardless of the guy's personality, regardless of his looks, regardless of his education, and regardless of all those little details that might not matter that much in the long run, I've noticed that the following are what will attract Tirzah to a male.

1) Faithfulness. Just show up. Show up again. And show up again. Keep showing up, and show Tirzah that she can count on you, and show Tirzah that you want to be in her life. Don't drop off the face of the earth. Any male who wishes to win Tirzah's heart for life will show her consistently that she is the only chick for him and that he won't ever wander off. Why do you show up for church every week? Is it because you have to, or is it because you can't live without God? If it's the latter, life with Tirzah will be the same way. (With the understanding, of course, that Tirzah isn't God, and neither are you.)

2) Singleness. You know what's attractive to a heterosexual single woman? A heterosexual single man. I am attracted to availability. Unavailability is extremely unattractive to me. If you're a married man, no offense, but I think you're about as attractive as a tree stump, because you aren't mine. You're off limits. If you flirt with me while you're on a date with another woman, and you try to make people think you're an awesomely spiritual guy, I will label you in my mind as a hypocrite unless you show me some better fruit. And I will think you're as attractive as a whitewashed tree stump.

3) Maleness. Of course, I won't feel chemistry with every faithful single male who crosses my path. But I've found it almost impossible to be closeminded about every faithful single male who crosses my path. Please understand that I don't equate "maleness" with "machoness." I've been around effeminate guys all my life. Even though I've had bad experiences with a few of them, I still found them to be attractive... because they were male. You don't have to like sports or hunting or cars or anything else that males usually tend to like. You could like fashion or salons or interior decorating or anything else that females usually tend to like for all I care. As long as you were born male and are still male, as long as I am a female who hears her hormones screaming whenever she sees you, I will find you attractive.

Do you get it? People have told me over the years that I need to drop hints, but I'm not very good at dropping hints. The older I get and the louder my hormones scream, the more direct I become. Not to make you blush, but I honestly wouldn't know how to drop a hint to a male without climbing into his lap and French-kissing his ear. Not to sound crude, but if he wants me, he needs to come after me. And he'll probably need to be direct with me (without being creepy).

I've had many communication failures over the years with all kinds of relationships -- romantic and platonic. I need to have boundaries communicated clearly. I've accidentally violated people's boundaries because they didn't tell me where they were. Sorry, but if they're invisible, I won't see them. And I can't read people's minds, because I'm not God.

So, I would love to get married someday. I don't want to do any more of that name-it-and-claim it stuff. And I won't die if I don't get married. I simply want to follow God and keep submitting my honestly raging, loudly screaming hormones to Him, whether I get married or not.

I already enjoy a very intimate relationship with Him. It isn't sexual. (Otherwise, I'd probably have prophetic people beating down my door to offer free counseling and begging me to stay away from their church if I refuse.) But looking into His infinitely accepting eyes and letting Him look into the places inside my heart that are too deep for me to see... well, that helps me forget about my hormones. That helps me accept my current singleness. If I were to ever get married, that would help me be an extremely good wife. That helps me enjoy my life now, and it helps me enjoy the fact that even if this were all I get in this life -- just a peaceful, quiet dry crust with God, me, and two cats -- I'm content. I'm good to go. I think I get it now. God is enough. And He always will be. He keeps me from stumbling, He keeps me feeling like a woman in a very rated-G kind of way, and He helps me to not dilute or compromise who I am. God is enough, and so am I. I am His, and He is mine.

Delayed reactions, part 6

I posted this photo simply for the sake of adorableness.

Reader, you might want to take a couple of steps back and grab some paper towels. I'm about to hawk up a spiritual hairball. The following are frequently heard catchphrases and/or behaviors that I encountered in spiritually abusive environments (or just heard from people who were saturated in these environments) that have irked me after the fact. Yes, I've said these things and done these things myself, too. I think I may have already hawked out part of this hairball in other online forums to a degree. But I think I finally understand how wrong these catchphrases/behaviors can be.

1) "I'm not there yet." You're not where yet? Are you comparing your walk with Jesus with somebody else's walk? Or are you putting somebody else on a pedestal? Sure, it's OK to be inspired by somebody. It's always a great idea to admire somebody's response to a situation or to look up to somebody as a good example. But to immediately compare your character with somebody else's? I think maybe that's insecurity or inferior pride. "Wow, this person is awesome! But I suck. See how immature I still am? Look at meeee!" Why are you shifting the focus from the person who is walking victoriously to yourself? Would it kill you to just rejoice with those who rejoice? Have you ever wept with those who weep?

If this is how you treat yourself, how would you treat me? If I come to you with a problem, if I ask you for help, would you immediately point to a pedestal and ask me why I'm not there yet? "You're supposed to be walking in love. You're supposed to be walking in joy. You're supposed to be walking in peace." I understand now more than ever why I fell into such a deep depression so many years ago -- or at least one reason why. You weren't available to help pull me out.

2) "We covet your prayers." Have you ever read the Ten Commandments? If so, I'm intrigued as to why you selected the word "covet" to communicate your desire. Do you understand that "covet" has an extremely negative connotation? The Ten Commandments say to NOT "covet." The creepy chick at the Church's Fried Chicken drive-thru coveted my car. I no longer patronize that particular establishment. Are you trying to sound smart when you say "covet"? Why can't you just say, "We want your prayers?" Or, "Please pray for us?" It's OK to keep it simple. It's not OK to sound like the creepy Hispanic chick who made me feel like the object of her flirtation.

3) "God gives priority to the prayers of lost people." I heard this once from a guy who repeatedly lectured me about the un-biblicalness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit moving today. According to him, being filled with the Holy Spirit meant reading the Bible. Logically, would this also mean that lost people who read the Bible are filled with the Holy Spirit? I cracked open the Bible for myself and found some very interesting things. Psalm 66 says that if I cherish sin in my heart, God will NOT hear me. Psalm 145 says that God is near to ANYONE who cries out to Him sincerely. And Psalm 34 says that God's eyes are on the RIGHTEOUS and that He's listening for their cry. Logically, I think this means that God gives priority to His children. Yes, of course God wants to hear the prayers of lost people, and He wants to answer their prayers. (I believe He's also extremely, urgently interested in finding lost people.)

But perhaps if this guy who misinformed me valued his children, he would understand the concept of a loving Father actively listening for the cries of His children. No, the Holy Spirit won't flex your muscles for you whenever He wants to lead you. No, people who pray in tongues aren't hypnotizing themselves. But maybe you should check out Galatians 5 and see if you've ever given the Holy Spirit a chance to bear some of His fruit in your life. And speaking of praying in tongues...

4) Can you please not pray in tongues under your breath while I'm talking to you about my life? That makes me feel like a freak. I know you're about to pray for me, and I know I need prayer, but why exactly are you praying in tongues while I'm talking? Are you, like, binding a spirit of hesitation or something? I hope you, uh, understand that, uh, the fact that you're muttering in your prayer language during our conversation is, uh, distracting the heck out of me.

5) Not everyone needs his or her own newsletter. That's for vocational missionaries. For everyone else, there's social media. A Christmas letter is one thing, but a non-Christmas update about your non-missionary life is a bit much. You know who else prints newsletters? Corporations. Just out of curiosity, how many cubicles and breakrooms does your one-room apartment have? Is that all I am to you? a stockholder? And speaking of missionaries...

6) Just because I met you and had a couple of conversations with you doesn't mean I want you to target me for support-letter spam. You may "covet" my prayers, but I do not "covet" your requests for money and micromanaged prayer. "Hi, we're going to take a two-week break from mission stuff, so we're going to go on vacation in Sri Lanka. Please pray that we would book an affordable flight, that we would walk in joy during the flight, that we would not have any flight delays, that we would have a safe flight, that we would have opportunities to do even more mission work during our flight while we're taking a break from our regular mission work, pray for divine appointments, pray that would have enough money to tip our cab driver, pray that our cab would be driven by an unbeliever so that we could share Jesus with him, pray that we would have a safe journey to the hotel room, that we would be good stewards with our fun spending money, that we would have wisdom in how we spend our money, that we would be the hands and feet of Jesus while we're out shopping, pray for "Bob" and "Mary" who own a cute little shop near the main market, pray for "John" and "Mike" whom we met on the beach, pray that we would have a safe trip back, pray for good health, pray for team unity, pray that God would provide enough money for us to pay for cab fare back to our house, pray that we would become re-acclimated to our mission life." OK, I GET IT! Are you sure you really want me to pray for you? It sounds like you've already got everything covered. In the future, I would appreciate it if you would allow me to go to God myself and let Him talk to me about what you need. I would appreciate being able to use my imagination whenever I pray for you. It's OK. I'm a human being, too. I know what other human beings need.

You know who else spams me for support? Baylor. I loved my time at Baylor overall, I'm thankful for the degree they gave me, and I like seeing my framed diploma hanging on my wall. But for crying out loud, I walked the stage nearly 16 years ago. I've been an alumna for nearly 16 years. I stopped being a Baylor student nearly 16 years ago. When I applied for student loans, I don't remember Baylor offering me a discount so that I would have money leftover to donate to their school. And another thing about that: I know they're a private college, but why are they so frickin' expensive? Why not tone it down on the pomp and circumstance and just go no-frills? And why do they keep mailing me magazines and bothering me for money? I'm still in the process of getting off their mailing lists. I don't remember their degree helping me get a six-figure job. Baylor profs get to live it up. I got to sell back many of my books so that I could pay my share of my first month of post-college rent.

I understand that you're a missionary who's endeavoring to fulfill God's call on your life. But you are not Baylor. You do not need your own magazine, especially if you're doing undercover missionary work in a country where you could get shot for sharing the Gospel. Hello, aren't you afraid of blowing your own cover? Can you maybe think of a more discreet way of sharing your needs with us? Don't you have enough financial support by now? If you don't, shouldn't you yourself pray about doing something else or supplementing your income another way? And who are all these people in your photographs? Did you obtain their permission before you published them? "Hey, I'm going to send all these pictures to people who will pray for you. You don't mind me telling them that you're lost, do you?"

I would like to wring the neck of whoever thought up the concept of missionary fridge magnets. I understand that you're a missionary, and I will pray for you whenever God nudges me to do so. But why do you insist on me tacking you up on my refrigerator? Do you want me to pray for you 3 times a day? Do you want me to pray for you whenever I get hungry? Do you think my fridge is ugly, so you want to spruce it up with your smile? Does my fridge bore you? Just so you know, I don't have a picture of my pastor or his family on my fridge. That would be creepy. I'm not pooping on the concept of prayer, especially for missionaries. I'm just so tired of and creeped-out by the concept of missionary fridge magnets. Do you want me to point to your picture and say, "I'm not there yet" every time I need ketchup?

7) Oh, my gosh, stick a fork in me. I am so done with spiritually abusive environments. I don't actually have a point #7. I just thought it would look pretty to have 7 here. And I wasn't sure how else to transition into my concluding paragraph...

...thusly. If you're a minister who is so full of crap that it's all you have to offer people, I think that means you've flunked. If the legacy you leave God's people is a huge, looming doubt of their salvation, you flunked big-time. If you poop landmines into people's lives, and they need to sign up for classes, counseling, and therapy afterwards, you flunked quite stinkily-volatilely. Do everyone a favor. Poop in the privacy of your own facilities, deactivate your landmines, and let God have His way with you. Jesus didn't die so that you could glue a mask onto your face, climb onto a pedestal, and tell people what to do. He died so that your relationship with His Father would be eternally restored. He died to save you from a death that you seem way too willing to embrace. He died to fix your complicatedness with His simplicity. He died for people because He wanted them, whether you want them or not. And He will always want them. 

Delayed reactions, part 5

(If you're new to this non-intentional, somewhat spontaneous blog series, please see my posts from June 21, June 26, July 5, and August 9 for parts 1-4.)

So, the last time I posted here, I was spiritually dry-heaving. Now I think I might be dry-heaving again and/or doing that scary thing that my little cat did a couple of times. She puked repeatedly over the course of several hours until she upchucked blood. Gosh. How do you handle spiritually puking that hard in writing? I guess you end up writing about yourself in the second or third person. Maybe it feels less scary that way, especially when the infection made you angry enough in your past to implode and flip off the entire world. Maybe it helps you feel like you're not accidentally dishonoring people who you thought you were supposed to be honoring. Or maybe it's safer here behind a computer screen. And maybe Proverbs 26:1 confirms that it ain't supposed to snow in the summertime.

Once upon a time, a little girl was born to a polyglot nutty professor and the Mexican version of Cindy Crawford. The professor was, of course, a polyglot who had superhuman intellectual abilities. La Cindy Crawford mexicana was, of course, a drop-dead gorgeous goddess who had colossal cover-up skills. Both parents were complete polar opposites personalitywise, but they both agreed silently and wholeheartedly on one thing: Their little girl was an ugly duckling who may or may not ever become a swan. This was confirmed several years later when a young swan was born to them, and she instantly bore la Cindy Crawford's drop-dead beauty.

The little girl and the young swan were quite opposite, which became more and more apparent while they grew up together as sisters. The little girl was extremely self-conscious, but she was so engrossed in her artistic endeavors to notice her unhappiness. The young swan was extremely comfortable with her sassiness, and she was quite eager to grow up. She attracted quite a few young duckling suitors. The little girl, on the other hand, wore the professor's old clothes around the house and faked illnesses so that she would not have to leave the house or interact with people.

One day, the little girl gave in to her Creator's nudges and knelt at an altar, where she was supposed to have met Him. But instead of leading her to Him, the professor assumed that He and the little girl had already met. Instead of making sure that she knew what she was doing and that she had made an actual decision, He sailed across the ocean of his superhuman intellect with which he was quite familiar.

As the little girl entered her teens, she received increased pressure from la Cindy Crawford to start wearing makeup. The little girl was well aware of the blemishes on her face, but she was severely reluctant to paint her face. Perhaps the professor and la Cindy Crawford felt that since they had spent hundreds of dollars fixing her bucked teeth, she needed to at least try to learn how to paint a few coats on her ugly-duckling face. Finally, la Cindy Crawford added a hefty dose of forcefulness to her charms and painted many coats on the little girl's face. The little girl was impressed and was convinced to begin painting her face on a regular basis.

The little girl eventually surprised everyone and shed her ugly-duckingness for swanness. No longer faking illnesses or being afraid of interacting with the human race, she raced out of her home and sprinted for college.

While she was at college, a strange thing happened. She re-met her Creator. He became closer to her than He ever had before, and He began to show her how non-ugly she really was. She began to re-learn what it meant to be a woman. As the years passed, she eventually, gradually stopped painting her face completely.

One day, la Cindy Crawford came to visit the grown-up little girl, and she saw some Bible verses taped to the grown-up little girl's mirror. They were verses from 1 Peter that said that her beauty was incorruptible and that it came from a gentle and quiet spirit. With layers of paint on her face and a scoff in her voice, la Cindy Crawford told la niña adulta that the Bible verses didn't mean that she should stop making herself look beautiful on the outside.

Whenever the grown-up little girl would visit the professor or la Cindy Crawford, the latter would tell the former to give messages to the grown-up little girl: Dress nicely and wear perfume. La Cindy Crawford was too busy to deliver these messages herself because, of course, she was occupied skillfully covering herself up. In fact, she did very few of the things that the verses in Proverbs 31 say to do. Instead of rising early to feed her family, she would sleep until 10:30 a.m. and instruct the grown-up little girl to not tell callers that she was still sleeping. The professor would fear her more than he would praise her. She would gossip and slander instead of loving and protecting. She would wash dishes and cook meals instead of developing relationships and making memories. She would dress nicely and wear perfume instead of bathing daily. She would stare at cable TV instead of reading her Bible.

Many years later, after the grown-up little girl had severed ties with the professor and la Cindy Crawford, her Creator began to show her how these two people had, in fact, blocked her from Him. From the polyglot nutty professor's failure to introduce her to Him (so that she would have to find Him herself) to the Mexican version of Cindy Crawford's success in butchering her healthy concept of womanhood (so that He would have to re-create it all over again), these parents had ultimately hurt their little girl by blocking her from her Creator -- from the One who yearned for her in a way that they never could, who disintegrated any distance between Him and her with His own Son, who never considered her to be an ugly duckling at all. She had been, all along, a young swan.

So, as the grown-up little girl began to read scores of internet posts about women discovering that true womanhood is what blossoms underneath what makeup colossally, skillfully covers up, she fumed. As she began to hear simple stories of people meeting their Creator for the first time and having conversations with Him as if such a thing were supposed to be normal, she wilted with disappointment.

The truth is that the little girl had been robbed. Perhaps her bucked teeth truly had been beautiful after all. Did they really need to be fixed? Perhaps she hadn't needed to colossally, skillfully cover up her face after all, because it truly was not an ugly-duckling face. What had all that covering-up earned her? After all that trouble, she had still endured 19 years of datelessness. Perhaps she had not been good enough for the professor or la Cindy Crawford.

But she began to improve without them. Her Creator had begun to restore to her the precious things in her life that had been stolen from her. In His justice-bestowing way, He also began to show her things that she had not seen before. She truly had met Him on her own, and she truly had been having conversations with Him, and such a thing was normal for her. And she began to develop a concern for the professor and la Cindy Crawford, such as the fact that they both were employed for an institution that is supposed to specialize in training people to help people meet their Creator. And the hunch that the Creator seems to know who the professor is when the grown-up little girl has conversations with Him, but He doesn't seem to know who la Cindy Crawford is. The grown-up little girl began to wonder if la Cindy Crawford had ever truly met her Creator. And if she hadn't, the grown-up little girl now hopes that la Cindy Crawford will humble herself to do whatever it takes to accept the disintegration of distance between Him and her -- the disintegration that only His own Son made possible. After all, la Cindy Crawford has many tools at her disposal of meeting her Creator. Perhaps she simply needs to lay down her colossal cover-up skills.

But for now, it ain't supposed to snow in the summertime. While the grown-up little girl wraps up her newest blog post with a surprising amount of peacefulness (she had imagined punching, yelling, and cussing, but instead has experienced drowsiness and cat-snuggling), she now prepares to feed her beloved felines their evening snack # 59834509-BB. She is glad that they do not seem to mind her artistic endeavors. When they see her, perhaps they see a waitress. But they see a real woman who loves them with a ferocity that was modeled for her by her Creator, who develops relationship and makes memories with her. She sees feline tranquility and a normalness with her Creator that was supposed to have been in place years ago. With no more blockages from Him, she looks forward to the wintertime, when it's supposed to snow.

Still even more delayed reactions

(I guess technically, this post should be titled "Delayed reactions, part 4," but I didn't initially plan for this to become a blog series. This has been pretty spontaneous. If you have no idea what I'm talking about and would like to catch up on my previous puke-healing ramblings in parts 1, 2, and 3, please see my posts dated June 21, June 26, and July 5, respectively.)

Not for the sake of being gross, but for the sake of being descriptive: You know how sometimes when you have a stomach bug, and you're puking into your toilet, your stomach keeps dry-heaving long after everything has already been puked out? I'm not exactly sure why this happens, but maybe your tummy dry-heaves just to be doubly, triply sure that every ounce, drop, molecule, atom, quark -- every tiny bit of infection -- is gone. Well, I think after all my spiritual puking, I'm now spiritually dry-heaving. I'm writing this post not for the sake of being redundant but for the sake of squeezing out whatever has still been floating around inside me that is aching to leave my system. So, for this post, I'll try the old-school mass-email cutesy format.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE WHEN...

- After telling an aspiring missionary to her face that being a faith missionary doesn't work, you become a faith missionary and put her on your support list. Um...

- After explaining that you leave the "o"s off your internet posts so as to not offend Jewish people (e.g., writing "G-d" or "L-rd" instead of "God" or "Lord") and to not leave anybody out, you publicly make fun of gay people. So... you want everybody to hear the gospel, as long as they're heterosexual?

- You openly cuss when you watch made-for-TV movies, calling rapists "bastards," and yet you allow ushers to repeatedly violate your daughters under the roof of the church building where you are a pastor. Hold on; I think I need to cough up a hairball: coughcoughMILLSTONEcoughcough. Whoo. That feels better now. Thanks.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE SPIRITUALLY ABUSING PEOPLE WHEN...

- You perform an original skit at church to illustrate the evils of watching a movie to relax on a Friday evening. Hmm. Do you think it's any wonder that any of the former members of your congregation have struggled with workaholicism or just have had a hard time relaxing on an actual Sabbath?

- Your boundaryless preaching becomes contagious to your disciples, especially when it comes to money. I'm sorry, but I don't remember giving you permission to lecture me about saving money when all I was doing was giving you a casual "I already spent all my paycheck" statement to continue our "How are you" conversation. Um, unless I live under your roof or unless you pay my rent, please keep your nose out of my bank account.

- You make people's walk with Jesus so dependent on you that they have no idea how to follow Him when they leave your environment, and they abandon Jesus and/or become openly gay and/or agnostic. I have a sarcastic message for you: Great job.

YOU NEED TO JUST STOP EVERYTHING AND LET GOD LOVINGLY REBUKE-SLAP YOU IN THE FACE WHEN...

- Your advice to an able-bodied, college-degreed, extremely competent adult -- who happens to be struggling financially -- is to apply for food stamps and/or write hot checks for cash at the grocery store. Excuse me, but she needs a rope to help climb out of the hole, not a shovel to dig it even deeper.

- Your view on the abortion issue is so casual that you'd actually counsel a girl who's considering the procedure to pray about it. If that girl were ever me, do me a favor: Clasp my shoulders, look me in the face, and tell me to just say no. But, I mean, considering your history of spiritually abusing people, should it really surprise me that you couldn't care less about an innocent human life?

- You have the audacity to stand up and teach in a class full of aspiring missionaries that the Bible ISN'T inerrant. I'm not saying that there may not be grammatical errors here and there, and I'm not saying that there aren't all kinds of awesome paradoxes floating around in there. But have you ever met God? He's perfect. He's incapable of making mistakes. Sure, He used fallible human beings to write the Bible, but He wrote it. Do you really think He's dumb enough to allow glaring errors to hang out in His perfect Book? I mean, it's as if you invited the devil into your aspiring-missionary classroom, pointed at each student, and said, "Hey, look, a chink in the armor. Go to town, princey." I want to throw a book at you now. Calm down, Tirzah. OK. Maybe you could just read 2 Samuel chapter 22 and Psalm 18. I dare you to tell me that isn't the same song or the same story. Please type up a report and have it on my desk by Wednesday morning.

YOU KNOW YOU MADE THE RIGHT DECISION TO LEAVE A SPIRITUALLY ABUSIVE ENVIRONMENT WHEN...

- You've noticed that unfriending approximately 100 people from Facebook -- so as to distance yourself from a certain church that was harmful to you -- feels wonderfully exhilarating, not sad. Hmm. Proverbs 17:1 isn't kidding when it says that a dry crust with peace and quiet really is better than a house full of feasting with strife. And your shoulders feel lighter, too. Hmm. Walking with Jesus is so much easier without a million-ton weight on top of you.

- You don't feel the need to leave EVERY church service early. Wow. Parking your exhausted butt in a church sanctuary for the entire duration of a church meeting -- without dodging any guilt trips -- is supposed to be normal. Listening to a sermon -- and not wondering when it will be over -- is a healthy thing, especially when the message gives you hope instead of shame.

- The peace and quiet is so pervasive in your life, you could almost sometimes hear a pin drop. No more manipulative friends calling you every time they want a piece of you. No more mockers leaving Facebook comments that make you feel two inches tall. No more overgrown children turning a perfectly good holiday into a freakout session or a Sabbath into another workday or a headcold into a terminal disease. God takes care of me because I let Him. And He does an infinitely good job.