This is copied from my myspace blog. In case there are some of you who don't have me as your myspace friend, I've decided to put this here too. I wrote this in early July. God bless you all!
Consider the Lilies
A lot of times, I have trouble trusting God to do things. But every so often, He does something that proves that He's totally trustworthy and He will NOT leave us lacking anything.
About 6 months ago, I began to pray for some new shoes. I know this may be weird -- but in an effort to be financially responsible and to not ask my parents for money, I don't spend money on stuff unless I absolutely MUST. So I prayed for new shoes. It wasn't that I wanted shoes for the sake of having shoes. Shoes are one of the worst things to have to move and I keep my shoes to a minimum. The sad part about that is that when you get wet feet when it rains, your choices are to have wet feet or buy new shoes. My only option was to have wet feet. Or pray for new shoes -- my checking account certainly couldn't accomodate that need. I decided to live with the wet feet, but to certainly pray for new shoes.
One of the things that God has been working on with me lately is gender identity and thinking of myself as a woman and being ok with being a woman. It's difficult for both to occur when you're surrounded by boys and your mama is perhaps the least feminine person you've ever known. (She looks like a woman and does what she's supposed to as a woman, but she isn't into girly things AT ALL.) I've been praying that God would give me a revelation of who I am in Him and to Him. One day, I said, "God, make me girly!" All of a sudden, He said, "MJ, Hun. I don't need to make you girly. You have everything you need to be everything I made you to be. I don't need to add to it. You are girly already. It's just that you're fighting it. Stop fighting it. Stop trying to run from what I've made you to be. Embrace the things that you know you are and should be and stop fighting." I almost cried. Ever since then, I have had this unusual desire to dress in a more feminine manner. It's strange -- I can't remember the last time I wore makeup before that, but I've worn it almost every day since then. But if a girl wants to go from "not very feminine" to "quite feminine," she's got a lot of wardrobe changes to make. And when one can't afford to replace worn out shoes, it's silly to think of replacing perfectly good clothing.
And on top of all this, this girly girl really likes jewelry. I love rings specifically. I don't want lots of them and I don't want huge ones -- I just want one and I want it to be pretty. I'm not too hard to please. But that's also not going to happen considering the state of my checking account.
So, a few weeks ago, a family friend gave my mama a bag full of shoes and a bag full of clothes. When I moved home, my mama told me that I needed to try some things on. There were 18 pairs of shoes in the bag. I tried on pair after pair. Seven pairs fit. There were a few clothing items and winter jackets that I really liked as well. (This is quite surprising considering that my taste in clothing is quite opposite from that of the woman who gave the stuff to us.)
But I still wanted to go shopping and get something that was completely girly and pretty. You know. Ruffles and lace, that sort of thing. But I knew it wasn't going to happen on my own finances. (Job update -- still unemployed, but at least I got someone to consider me to the point where they interviewed me.) But last Saturday, my little brother had this urge to go to a shop in downtown Fargo called the Pink Flamingo. The Pink Flamingo is a boutique where all the merchandise is imported -- from New York City. And it's horribly expensive. And they don't have a single thing that he would be interested in. Except for the lady that sits behind the desk and does Sudoku puzzles when there are no customers -- which happens to be a large chunk of her total time there. The lady behind the desk is a friend of my family's and she treats me and my siblings as if we are her own children. We talked to her for a long time and finally she said, "Timmy, why don't you guys come over for dinner when I get home tonight?" He said, "Ok!" So we went over to her house later and she said, "Let's go to Duane's Pizza for dinner." We had dinner with her and then we went back to their house. (My dad and her husband had been gone all day and we had to bring food for them.) Then she said, "Let's go to Wal-Mart." I don't think there was any real reason why she needed to go there. We looked at school supplies a little bit and then at jewelry (I told her that I wanted to get a small diamond stud in my nose and she thought that was an awesome idea) and then she said, "Let's look at clothes Mari Jo." I was like, "Yeah!" I may not have money, but it IS fun to look sometimes.... We got to the women's department and she said, "Let me buy an outfit for you. Pick out what you want." I was just like, "No way!" I got a girly outfit after all!
If that wasn't enough, back at her house, she told me I could look at her jewelry and I could have the ring I liked best.
I was thinking about all this and it occurred to me that God knows what our needs are and He cares about them and He DOES provide. The shoes -- man. I only prayed for as long as it rained and then I forgot about it, but He remembered and He provided for that need. Even our frivolous desires are important to Him. He put it on that woman's heart to bless me with a new outfit, even when it wasn't exactly a necessary purchase. And my desire for a ring was totally frivolous -- but He still knew my desire and He delighted to give me the desire of my heart.
At first, it totally blew me away. I couldn't believe He would do that for me. But then I thought about a passage that I always think of when I don't know how the bills will be paid. It was Matthew 6:25-34.
25 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
I had always thought of this passage in terms of money and having the ability to provide these things for myself. I had never thought about verses 28-30. They talk specifically about clothing. God "clothes" the lilies so beautifully and they do absolutely NOTHING to accomodate for their needs -- but in spite of their lack of attention to that detail, according to a song that is based on this passage "There is not a king with such splendor as them." Lilies and grass are things that only last a little while, yet God takes the time to care for their needs and even "clothes" the lilies -- and if He'd do that for lilies and grass, then why would He NOT do the same for us?
God is GOOD. All the time. Even when we don't know when or how we're going to get a pair of shoes that doesn't leak when it rains. All the time, MY GOD IS GOOD!
~MJ
