Yes.
Today I had a small glimpse of what Abraham must have felt like to be standing on the side of Mount Moriah with a knife in hand, raised above the neck of his bound child. Though I'm no parent and claim no familiarities with the sentiments of being one, I know now what it is like to have God request that you give back to him what you have loved and raised, cultivated and grown; to have to return the gift that God has promised you since the beginnings of time, the treasure you've been awaiting for so long. This night, God asked for my identity.
I can remember a time when I had no qualms about who I was. If I saw a pleasing or inspirational idea, I would copy it. If I threw a tantrum out in public, I ignored the turned heads. If I wanted to wear a striped shirt with a polka dotted skirt and argyle stockings, I simply adorned a colorful outfit for the day. Then I began to sense that people didn't want to copied. That others were embarrassed by my actions. That strangers would laugh at my attire.
Since that realization, I've had an automatic desire to be unique, to be good, and to be beautiful. And since that desire has crept into my heart, I've controlled my identity in a dictatorial fashion, listening to the advice of the Wonderful Counselor only when His words pleased my whims or suited my purposes.
For a few years - maybe only months, really - I learned to pull out the tattered shreds of my identity out of my ragged pocket and handed it to the Great Artist to patch it back together into something lovely once more. But it wasn't long before I stole the unfinished project back with an even more intensified determination to shape it into a mix of what I've interpreted to be fashionable.
Now I didn't just want to be unique; I had to be better than everyone else. Being good no longer satisfied me; I had to be popular. Beauty could not suffice my insatiable appetite to charm others. With every new stitch I wove into the fragile threads of my broken identity, I hid yet another strand of beautiful, vibrant, real color with which He had already dyed it, the colors He had chosen the minute my existence began through His thought and the moment I was conceived by His spoken word.
Tonight, all He asked of me was to hand this discolored dishrag back to him so he can peel away the imitative hues I've ironed on so that He might allow it to reveal the true shades of His original design. If I would just return the piece to its maker, He would show me its full potential. That I am not loved by a commoner, for it is the King that woos me. That I may not be worshiped by people, but the angels rejoice for my every breath. That I need not work to earn my life, because salvation has been given to me by two nail-pierced hands.
So what else, then, can I say to my Betrothed but answer "Yes" to his question? What else can I do but allow Him to allure me into the desert where He will speak tenderly to me and show me the door of hope? For maybe it is only when I am fully in the presence of the great Lover that I can finally learn to stand before Him naked and feel no shame, the way it was intended to be. And maybe when I can see the love in His eyes and note the pleasure He takes in seeing me, I can learn, once more, to have no qualms about who I am.
I can remember a time when I had no qualms about who I was. If I saw a pleasing or inspirational idea, I would copy it. If I threw a tantrum out in public, I ignored the turned heads. If I wanted to wear a striped shirt with a polka dotted skirt and argyle stockings, I simply adorned a colorful outfit for the day. Then I began to sense that people didn't want to copied. That others were embarrassed by my actions. That strangers would laugh at my attire.
Since that realization, I've had an automatic desire to be unique, to be good, and to be beautiful. And since that desire has crept into my heart, I've controlled my identity in a dictatorial fashion, listening to the advice of the Wonderful Counselor only when His words pleased my whims or suited my purposes.
For a few years - maybe only months, really - I learned to pull out the tattered shreds of my identity out of my ragged pocket and handed it to the Great Artist to patch it back together into something lovely once more. But it wasn't long before I stole the unfinished project back with an even more intensified determination to shape it into a mix of what I've interpreted to be fashionable.
Now I didn't just want to be unique; I had to be better than everyone else. Being good no longer satisfied me; I had to be popular. Beauty could not suffice my insatiable appetite to charm others. With every new stitch I wove into the fragile threads of my broken identity, I hid yet another strand of beautiful, vibrant, real color with which He had already dyed it, the colors He had chosen the minute my existence began through His thought and the moment I was conceived by His spoken word.
Tonight, all He asked of me was to hand this discolored dishrag back to him so he can peel away the imitative hues I've ironed on so that He might allow it to reveal the true shades of His original design. If I would just return the piece to its maker, He would show me its full potential. That I am not loved by a commoner, for it is the King that woos me. That I may not be worshiped by people, but the angels rejoice for my every breath. That I need not work to earn my life, because salvation has been given to me by two nail-pierced hands.
So what else, then, can I say to my Betrothed but answer "Yes" to his question? What else can I do but allow Him to allure me into the desert where He will speak tenderly to me and show me the door of hope? For maybe it is only when I am fully in the presence of the great Lover that I can finally learn to stand before Him naked and feel no shame, the way it was intended to be. And maybe when I can see the love in His eyes and note the pleasure He takes in seeing me, I can learn, once more, to have no qualms about who I am.