“She’s wondering what it would be like to believe—really believe—that she was born beautiful, that everyone was, and we’ve been beaten down by a society that teaches selfishness, and what we have to do is try to unlearn it, note by note.” -Jia Tolentino, The Raw Devotion of Julien Baker
I think it’s all too common of a practice for Christians to beat ourselves up and consider ourselves evil first, holy second. But God doesn’t design bad things. What he does is good, and sin is like a disease that debilitates us. As Christians, we spend our whole lives unlearning the ways of this limited and broken world we live in.
Our true purpose lies beyond the lies we’re sold, that we’re worthless and that we’re not capable of much and that we can only have that which we can see. The truth is, if we would accept it, is that there is a power we are meant to carry that is beyond the world we know. We weren’t designed to be ashamed creatures with our heads down, living out of fear and hurt. We were designed to be a holy vessel for the very presence of God. To walk in meekness, which means quiet strength. To have a faith that can move mountains. To have a love that infuses our every moment with color, to where even breathing is sweet. Our true nature is not evil. It is beautiful.
Unfortunately, however, there are people who do very evil things. But the most reprehensible of behaviors is the loudest cry of pain, loneliness, and heartbreak. Hearts are the source of everything – beauty and ugliness.
To upkeep a heart is like tending land, which will be the ground upon which you build your structure, your life. You need the proper equipment, because the land issues are beyond what your bare hands can fix. Yet, so often, we try to either fix the land on our own only to find we can’t and give up, or we ignore it all together. Which means that the life we build, our building, becomes very unstable and non-functional. One wrong weather pattern or step can send the whole thing toppling down.
I spent 7 years building on top of a land with knotty roots underneath. I thought because I cut down the trees, superficially dealing with my problems, that I was fine. But I wasn’t. I was operating from a skewed plane. And God, in his grace, took a wrecking ball to my hot mess of a building. We had to start over. All because I had a thousand thick roots of lies underneath it all that were affecting my life. I was doing everything for the wrong reasons. The main reason was that I wanted to “fix” myself and prove the negative voice in my head wrong.
Here’s what I mean by that – in high school, when my writing journey truly began, I felt out of the box in a bad way constantly. I had a passion for expression but didn’t know the standard rules of grammar and journalistic objectivity, so I always felt like I was less than. I had things to say and maybe even a bit of talent for saying them, but I didn’t have experience in the world of journalism. I felt truly bad at journalism. I didn’t like interviewing people and I hated writing only facts. I got a lot of red marks and took them personally. I felt like everyone around me was better than me always. I truly wanted to be invisible.
When I got to college and decided to actually pursue journalism since I knew I wanted to be a writer and actually be employed in some way other than teaching, my attitude shifted. I went from a constantly ashamed and quiet girl to a determined girl. I got so sick of the dejection that I developed an attitude of proving that I wasn’t subpar. I could be a good journalist. And I ended up being a very good journalist. But I wasn’t meant to be a journalist. A dislike for traditional journalism back when I was 16 wasn’t a mistake I was supposed to fix. It was exactly who God made me to be and he never looked at me once and thought I was inadequate or stupid or awkward or any other word I deemed over myself. I already was amazing. And I needed to build on that, rather than build on some misguided notion that I needed to be a great journalist to be special or loved or talented.
Strong identity is the fuel of every great artist. To know who you are sets the perfect foundation for God to build great things. And I know now, whether I’m well-known with a lot of money or not known at all with no money, I am an overcomer, a conquerer, a warrior, fearless, loved. I am anointed. I have purpose. My difference is not a mistake but a calling. I don’t fit in boxes because I am meant to tear down walls and expand minds. As I step out of the ways of sin and into the ways of holiness, I find that God continually takes me back to the beginning. He shows me images of who I was as a girl, someone who climbed things and explored things and created things. Someone who listened deeply and loved hard. Someone who made people laugh.
In the process of sanctification, I find that growth happens in the unlearning. In the stripping away of the things the world has put on my back until I am left as that beautiful person I was at the very beginning.
