Month: July 2016

“Everybody write down five things about yourself that no one knows.”

Oh how I cringed every time I attended a women’s bible study or gathering for the first time and these words were spoken by the group leader. I knew the basic reasoning behind this exercise—to give everyone a chance to get to know each other a little better—to break the ice as we say.

Of course there are always the women who have such positive and interesting nuggets of information about themselves. You know the ones I’m talking about right? The women who won beauty pageant titles, served in the Peace Corps, backpacked through Europe in college, met their husband while on a mission trip to Africa, worked as a cruise director on a passenger ship, the list goes on.

However, each time I sat staring at my blank piece of paper all I could think about was the shock that would permeate the room if I told five things about myself no one knew. I simply couldn’t get beyond that notion. To write down and tell five facts about myself seemed frivolous at best and honestly, I thought it was dumb. I mean after all, the motive may have been to get people talking but the mere request lends itself to some women bragging and some women feeling unworthy of being a part of the group—an outcast.

Scripture describes a woman like that and to use American vernacular (at least when I was growing up), she wasn’t considered a nice girl. On the contrary, her reputation was ruined and she was relegated to being an outsider among her peers. Hanging out with her would, by association, mean you accepted her mistakes and condoned them. But condemnation was the only acceptable viewpoint in the community and she knew it and accepted her fate. She was ashamed of her actions and she kept to herself. Could she have named five things about herself that no one knew? Perhaps, but everyone knew enough and consequently she was shunned.

However, one simple trip to draw water—a trip she had made hundreds of times—would change her life forever. You see it was customary for women to gather socially to draw water each day. These daily trips to fill water containers may very well have been their only opportunity to talk to each other. Each day was no doubt filled with grueling work—there wasn’t running water from a tap, electric ovens to bake bread or a grocery store to buy staples. Every day began at dawn with a trip to the nearest well and every evening another trip for the day’s last supply of water. So it’s easy to imagine the few minutes walking to the well and waiting to fill their water vessels were perhaps precious moments for conversation. But not everyone was welcome to join this social group. There were stipulations to being a part of this early holy huddle and our unnamed Samaritan girlfriend knew she would never overcome the stigma of her mistakes and be acceptable in their eyes and hearts.

In order to avoid encountering the other women, she waited each day until they were back in their homes which meant she drew her water in the heat of midday. Suffering through the scorching heat was far preferable I’m sure than enduring the cold shoulder or worse from the other women. She didn’t want or need to be reminded of her failures. She was unacceptable and tarnished and she had to live with that fact.

This day was like every other day. She picked up her water pots and headed to the well around noon. As she approached the well she saw a man sitting there and to her dismay he broke a social custom of the time and asked her for a drink of water.

“You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” she asked this stranger who obviously didn’t understand social protocol.

Here’s the rest of the story (John 4:10-30; 29-42 MSG):

Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.”

“I have no husband,” she said.

“That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”

“Oh, so you’re a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?”

“Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

The woman said, “I don’t know about that. I do know that the Messiah is coming. When he arrives, we’ll get the whole story.”

“I am he,” said Jesus. “You don’t have to wait any longer or look any further.”

Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked. They couldn’t believe he was talking with that kind of a woman. No one said what they were all thinking, but their faces showed it.

The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?” And they went out to see for themselves.

Many of the Samaritans from that village committed themselves to him because of the woman’s witness: “He knew all about the things I did. He knows me inside and out!” They asked him to stay on, so Jesus stayed two days. A lot more people entrusted their lives to him when they heard what he had to say. They said to the woman, “We’re no longer taking this on your say-so. We’ve heard it for ourselves and know it for sure. He’s the Savior of the world!”

Jesus didn’t ask the Samaritan woman to tell him five things about herself He didn’t know. He knew her story and He knows our stories past, present and future. He sees our pain and loneliness. He understands that like the Samaritan woman, we sometimes are shunned by the holy huddles of our day. However, also like the Samaritan woman, Jesus is ready to forgive our iniquities and if we repent and “sin no more” we are redeemed, we are cleansed no longer defined by our past but purified in Christ Jesus. In addition and most importantly, we are instructed to tell others about the healing and freedom we received in Christ. We are essentially filled up to be poured out to others—that’s our role as believers in Christ.

Write down five things about yourself no one knows…well, how about five things about myself I hope you do know about me if you know me personally or follow my blog:

• I am a daughter of the King of Kings
• I am forgiven
• I am restored
• I am loved by God and therefore love deeply
• Even though I falter is some way every day, I ask for forgiveness, pick myself up and in my faith in Christ, I carry on

If like me, the Samaritan woman’s story resonates deeply within you too, go to the well that never runs dry. Don’t waste any more time telling yourself there’s no hope; that you have messed up too much for too long.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Amen.

C. Deni Johnson

Did you, like me, grow up hearing this phrase from parents and teachers, “as long as you do your best, that’s all I ask”? I remember hearing this over and over through my childhood and honestly I never understood what it meant—what was my best?

In my late thirties as I sat in one of my college classes (obviously a non-traditional student) a very sweet professor probably in her late seventies, was discussing an upcoming exam or project when she, as she walked down the aisle, made the “just do your best” statement. She was just inches from me when she said it and I looked up at her and asked, “How do you know when you’ve done your best?” I’ve never forgotten the look on her face although I don’t recall her comment if any, but hearing myself ask the question began my journey of figuring out why I couldn’t personally define it—recognize it for myself.

The dictionary defines the word best as 1) better than all others in quality or value; 2) most skillful, talented or successful. And therein may be why I struggled with the “do your best” idiom. I believe for most of my life I considered my best meant I had to “outshine, out do, be more, do more” the list goes on. Of course, I simply wasn’t talented or brilliant enough to do that—I wasn’t perfect. As crazy as that sounds, I think I equated doing my best with perfection…an unattainable goal.

I began searching deep and praying hard after my confession to my professor that day. I knew there was something driving me to always crave to be the perfect student, wife, mother, friend, daughter, but of course I couldn’t live up to that goal and a sense of failure pervaded over me. But why? From where did this self-imposed, unrealistic mindset derive?

Sifting through my earliest memories from childhood I realized there was a spirit of comparison in my home. I have to stop here and say that my mother did the best she knew how to do and she loved me with all her heart. This is not mother-bashing. This is simply a journey that upon taking, opened my eyes and allowed for some much needed revelation and healing. I’m sharing just a few of these memories not as a poor me, blah, blah, blah but rather to shed light on how, in part, becoming an approval addict can germinate from some very small seeds.

As crazy as it sounds, even though I was an only child I found myself being compared to other girls. Usually girls in our extended family. One cousin in particular (we’ll call her Holly) who is exactly 4 years to the day older than myself, was my mother’s usual choice. Holly’s mother would brag to my mom about how Holly was so helpful around the house. She cleaned off the table after dinner and did the dishes. Holly made straight A’s in school, yada, yada, yada. Year after year I heard what a wonderful, helpful daughter Holly was but of course I also heard in my heart, “why aren’t you more like Holly.” A little later, probably when I was 12 or so, my maternal grandmother began comparing me to another female cousin. This time it wasn’t about how she helped her mother or her grades in school but her height! Every time we were together at my grandmother’s home, she insisted we stand back to back so she could see how much taller this girl was than myself. Trivial sounding isn’t it? It sure didn’t feel trivial to me at the time. It was yet again another reminder that I wasn’t measuring up—this time literally! It was around this time I began the active cycle of comparing my weaknesses to other’s strengths and my flaws to what I perceived as perfections in others. To add insult to injury, someone called me fat in the sixth grade. That seed fueled a lifelong self-image issue and eating disorder.

So by the age of 14 I found myself obsessed with staying thin and making straight A’s in school—two things I believed I could control. I ate very little and would weigh every morning to make sure I had not gained an ounce. I weighed every night several times before going to bed. I’d stay up and exercise and weigh myself until I felt confident of the next morning’s reading on the scale. Combine this activity with the volumes of material I would memorize for tests. I couldn’t risk not making A’s because in my mind, A’s were the only acceptable outcome. I aced tests in every subject—not because I learned the material but because I could picture in my mind the page in the textbook or in my notes, read the answers in my mind’s eye and simply transcribe them to the test. I can recall one of my biggest fears was the teacher losing my test paper. I feared that 10 seconds after turning in my test, I could not have passed the same test again. I had downloaded the information…it was gone. I retained very little because I was only putting it in my short term memory. You see, learning wasn’t the goal. Perfection was the goal. And an “A” or a “100” on a paper or test was proof of perfection—sort of.

The irony of the story is that whenever I would receive awards or accolades regarding my grades, I would always feel slightly undeserving. I knew I wasn’t necessarily smart, just able to memorize tons of information long enough to regurgitate it on a test. I found no deep personal sense of achievement. I didn’t know if I was doing my best or not. I performed…period.

My whole life felt like a performance. I can tell you many times I was labeled as appearing arrogant when actually I was struggling with low self-esteem and the posture I took was one of defense not superiority.

For an approval addict like myself, perfection was defined by someone else’s validation. My best was not an inward sense of giving it my all regardless of the outcome. My best was an outward-seeking endeavor to receive acknowledgment and acceptance.

Funny thing about living your life this way—no one on this earth can provide the inner sense of peace and calmness that comes from knowing deep down that you have done all you can do to the very best of your ability—you simply must lay it down and know it is what it is. And probably most importantly—that’s okay.

The journey has been a long one but I’ve learned to accept myself as God’s masterpiece (Eph. 2:10). I don’t necessarily feel like a work of art every day but I’ve learned to accept that I’m a work in progress and will always be a work in progress and that’s much better than expecting myself to be perfect. Because perfect is a cruel illusion that the enemy will gladly use to rob, steal and destroy (John 10:10). We are all dealing with past and current hurts that run the gambit from insignificant to devastating. That’s why we need a Savior. That’s why we need the Cross. That’s why we need Jesus. Amen.

C. Deni Johnson