David, dominos and victims

I am an impatient person, I go a hundred and fifty miles an hour and would really like it if everyone else could keep up.  Without God's help I am capable of some pretty atrocious behaviour, for that matter, even with God's help I can be an insufferable brat.  The good news is two fold;


Firstly, whilst I've not gotten to where I'm meant to be, thank God I'm not where I used to be.  Somewhere in Romans Paul talks about the fact that he hasn't arrived but he's pressing on to take hold of that for which Jesus died to take hold of him, thats essentially what I'm referencing and since Paul started out the Terminator of Christians, a zealot on a mission to wipe out anyone who was spreading Jesus' message and ended up writing approximately two thirds of the New Testament, healing, leading people to Christ and shaping the birth of Jesus' church I guess there's hope for me.


My second chunk of joy is that I now also have a scripture I can go to when I'm appalled at my own behaviour, its Psalm 139.  The opening lyric of this song floors me every time;


Oh Lord, you have searched me thoroughly and have known me

Thats a pretty amazing start, I sometimes forget that there's NOTHING that I can say or do that surprises God.  Its a real encouragement that God knew what He was getting when He got me, and still He wanted, wants, wooed and woos me!  That in and of itself blows me away.  But if thats not got you sold, darling David elaborates (This is such a blessing since along with impatience I can also be pretty hard of thinking);

You know my downsitting and my uprising;

You understand my thought afar off.

You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue (still unuttered), but behold, 

Oh Lord, You know it altogether.

I could eat those words and would if I thought it would root them in me any quicker.

The worst victim of my impatience is myself.  I have high standards, meaning I expect a great deal from myself and invariably I am ungracious when I inevitably fall short.  This is probably what therapists refer to as 'toxic behaviour' and it has a plethora of ramifications, so to tie in with the title, here are a few of the dominos; 

• I beat myself up a lot of the time, for example, I spent three hours today cringing (and fighting with myself to not cringe) over a one sentence email that I sent to someone I greatly respect that made me sound foolish.  This pretty much does the enemy's job for him and renders me useless.
• Since I don't love myself in a healthy way I really struggle to wrap my heart around the idea that I'm not only acceptable to God, but that He delights in and loves me
• Because I can't yet fully accept God's love I can't love others the way that Jesus did, I currently can only love others with conditions, like I do myself.  Whilst on the whole I treat others better than I treat myself its little consolation; you can't give away something you don't have.

You can see the underlying pattern I'm sure, but heres the kicker; 

We live in a culture where we are encouraged to be self deprecating and focus on our flaws, particularly in the church, I get the impression that its fashionable to be a wretch.  I'm not judging anyone here, and its a principle that I have to fight to apply to my own life but what we're taught in the Bible is that when we screw up we need to admit it to God, apologise for it, receive His forgiveness and then MOVE ON!  I've lost count of the number of times I've apologised repeatedly for things, mostly because I still feel bad about them.  God's already gotten past it, we need to catch up. 

The dropped penny and sounding like a crazy woman

A week or so ago I was talking with a friend about the things that God's growing me in and he asked was I writing it down anywhere? Before I could catch the answer, or sidestep the question, I told him yes.  He then asked to see it and I think I tried to hide under the table, I certainly squirmed and wanted to.


The request stuck with me though and I bugged God about it, probably praying along the lines of, "You told me You'd use it to help people! People God; anonymous, don't know me, haven't met me, can't really judge me people! **** ******* ****** is not PEOPLE!!!!!!!!" 


To which I got the reply, in calm and patient understanding, "I will use it for whoever I want, I'm growing you to be comfortable and confident about who you are in Christ, that means who you are, not  who you'd like to pretend to be and I will wait til you're obedient" 


Now before any of you think ill of God its worth stating that salvation comes free, but sanctification does not.  I am saved, am going to heaven and am a child of God; all that came gratis when I asked Him to take me and my mess and fix me.  The sanctification part is about me getting what I want from God, that is the things I have asked for him to do in my life; to grow me in the good things and weed out the bad.  For that to happen I need to be obedient to Him so that He can continue to do a work in me.


So it probably comes as little surprise that a few days later, already burning, I told my friend the address. Now the reason I was preemptively burning is because I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to talk about lust and sex as a Christian (certainly not graphically and certainly not as a Christian woman) by and large people seem to pretend it doesn't happen.  So a few months ago when I was so wound up that my body was screaming and all I could do was think of lingerie, positions and scenarios for days on end I started to write it all down, to get it out of my system, to focus on the things above, about my reasons for choosing not to.  This is primarily because I felt there was no one I could go to and say, "I'm having to wear mismatched underwear and avoid my boyfriend because I think I might screw him and I desperately DON'T want to" I'd sound like a crazy woman! By this point I quite feasibly was.


Nevertheless, out of these writings started to come my story, in dribs and drabs, on the back of envelopes, uni notes, church notices and whatever paper came to hand.  It wasn't long before it was on my heart to collect the bits together and put them online so that God could use them to communicate and help.  I was to be the abstinent Belle du Jour, well at least that was my understanding of it, God seems to have far less anonymous plans.

Methodology

Having decided that I am going to become a 'real woman' (and at this point the term alone makes me cringe) it is imperative to discover, or more accurately construct for myself with guidance what a woman is called to be.  Some time ago I would have likely made ludicrously postulated that, "I have never allowed a man to shape either my appearance or, more importantly, my opinion of myself" this would have either been an utterly ignorant statement, or a bare faced lie.  This is largely because I, and probably most if not all women, have at some point dressed or acted in a way to be attractive to a man (or another woman for that matter, but once again I risk veering wildly off topic)  Now before everyone's up in arms its worth having a real look at the word attractive, now in contemporary culture its viewed as synonymous with sexual appeal or attraction, granted this can be one, albeit small, part of the works meaning, however, attractive in its full definition is;
1) providing pleasure, or delight especially in appearance or manner; pleasing; charming; alluring
2) arousing interest or engaging ones thought or consideration
3)having a quality of attracting (drawing things near to itself)

So, if you've ever dressed or behaved in a way to do any of the above for a job interview, to appease a family member, or to impress someone you are just as guilty as I.

Its probably also worth pointing out to any stoically independent women out there, who feel they've never engaged in such foolishness, if you've ever snuck an alternative outfit out the house, covered a tattoo, taken out a piercing or not sworn in front of a father or grandfather you'd best come join the rest of us.

I would also like to address among you those who are cunning and astute, those who "play by their own rules" (and much like the stoically independent I would have once counted myself in your ranks) Just because you are making a conscious choice about it doesn't mean that; firstly, you're not conforming and secondly, you're not being influenced by your own behaviour.  For years I "played men at their own game" and being pretty cynical from a young age I swiftly worked out that even if I got an equal wage with my male counterpart (far from being a sure thing in the biased labour market) I would suffer financially and in terms of career progression by having children (incidentally, I always knew I'd be a mother, but never considered having a man though)  I therefore contented myself with preemptively making up for the shortfall with such stalwart feminist tactics as queue jumping with low cut tops and being bought drinks in exchange for being examined like a slab of meat.  I'm pleased to say that by and large I grew out of this by age nineteen but its certainly left a mark that runs pretty deep and I have to fight with my flesh over it whenever I feel uncomfortable.

But back to the issue at hand; how do I become a woman?  The obvious quandary is that I don't know what a woman is supposed to be, so I have decided to start at the beginning and study my way all the way through the Bible to find out what exactly God is calling me to be.

Illusive treasures

It occurs to me that I have little idea of what it means to be a woman.  Being female take no effort or self examination, let alone the building of character; I was born with a vagina and grew breasts, job done.  However, having the apparatus makes me female, not a woman.

To be truthful ‘women’ as a group irritate and intimidate me, I don’t like them.  Individual women I love, care for, like, consider friends.  But as for ‘women’ they’re the most infamous secret society in existence.

I found men simple, understood them (or thought I did) and could communicate with them; if you’ve angered them, they tell you and if they say it you can probably take it at face value. 

Women to the contrary specialise in secret codes that say one thing to your face and another behind your back and have complex levels of hierarchy that are beyond me and baffling.  This is unfortunately only the beginning; there’s the beauty regimes (I was recently informed that I need to start using anti-wrinkle products; I DON’T EVEN MOISTURISE!!!!!!!) the mastery of straighteners, waxing, bikini lines and the mystery of make up and the torturous tweezers.  This may come naturally as breathing to some women but for me it’s like quantum mechanics.

Whilst completely confident and blissful in the realm of power tools and gardening the land of hair and beauty is like Pan’s Labyrinth.  The most upsetting part of this analogy is that, much like Pan’s Labyrinth I’m sure that if I can just get through the scary tasks, not pinch the grapes and evade the monsters, there’s a whole world of experiences and relationships that I will cherish and enjoy.  The net result of this is that I’ve decided to get to grips with womanhood and fully intend to become one.

It is worth noting at this point that I have already been on this journey for a couple of years, but to be honest it mostly consisted of having the tomboy wardrobe, by level of degrees, beaten out of me (that being said I still have all my hoodies, gym sweats etc and love them)  This form of girly boot camp came by way of P, a spectacular creature of her own design who shall doubtless be getting her own post.  Suffice to say I learnt enough of the surface tricks to masquerade as a woman, but nothing about the character of a woman took root, and it is this most illusive of treasures that I seek.

Elucidation and inquisition

A wonderful Christian friend of mine has a habit of asking me questions which knock my socks off, I love her for them, not least because I wonder how her church, her youth leader, parents, school, whatever haven't answered them for her.  This is not a criticism of any of these people or places, merely a curiosity.  It may also be because she knows that she can ask me anything and I'll answer her honestly and practically.

I've never considered how many myths are propagated about sex, not just sex but its motivations and the intimacy that goes alongside it.  I just seem to trip over them on occasion, usually laugh out loud and then try to untangle them for whoever brought me the latest treasure.

This, by way of example is what I mean; "women will only have sex with someone that there's an emotional involvement with" now this may well be true for some women but its a choice, not a biological fact and this is where my darling friend had been misled; whilst its true that women release a hormone, or endorphin that results in emotional attachment, this happens as a result of sex, not before it.  This could well be why women foolishly think that after a one night stand he's going to call, since surely 'he feels it too' once again, trying not to be cruel or cynical on that biological level; NO he doesn't.

The thing that I marvel at is not the assumption, which in and of itself can be dismissed by a wealth of anecdotal evidence and the existence of one night stands but the fact that the myth is out there at all.  In my humble opinion this has probably got more to do with the way women feel that they ought to feel about sex than anything else.  Now I do not suggest for one minute that sex can be its most intense and incredible when shared between two people with a deep emotional investment and I can back that up from personal experience.  However, I can also tell you that from personal experience its possible to have sex with someone that causes you to not only loose count of orgasms but also blackout without a whisper of an 'I love you' in sight and in the particular instance I refer to I was unaware of the guys middle name or the fact that he had a child.  Now before you write me off as a raging harlot, which you're entitled to do, its worth a moment of personal introspection.  Have you never wanted to kiss a stranger, or sleep with someone you met in a club?  Lets be honest now, there's no emotional investment there.  So I'm left to come back to why the myth exists at all?

The rationale

It's been a year and a half or so since I committed to not having sex, and if you're wondering; no I'm not a bright eyed teen, I've not been brainwashed and yes I know intimately what I'm choosing to not have.  It wasn't because of peer pressure, religion or a 'dry spell'.  I gave it up because I was a mess and sex didn't make it better.  I also shall not pretend that its an easy road, or that I've not had my hiccups along the way.  But nothing is achieved by dwelling on shortcomings, save to demoralise oneself and increase the chance of repeating them.  But for the curious among you, yes the hiccups went as far as sex, no it didn't change my mind.  If anything it strengthened my resolve.  This is not to say it was bad or unsafe sex, simply that it didn't result in my feeling good about myself.  This may seem an obvious statement to the wise among you, but sexual fulfillment does not equal happiness, sexual confidence cannot substitute self worth and sexual desire does not equal emotional investment.  This was the maths that I had been trying to make my life work with and probably goes a long way to explaining why I was in such a pickle.

Chocolat

Whilst an abhorrent cliche it is none the less accurate and will therefore serve as illustration. I can long for, crave, desire, lust over chocolate, arguably to obscene proportions. A part of myself delights in the delicate torture of denial, but upon eventually succumbing I find it hollow and disappointing; its texture grates on my teeth, its mastication, be it carnal crunching or the sensual sucking results in an unpleasant film on my teeth and its aftertaste is simply vile. I wonder if this is how it is with sex?