Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: IRONY (10/26/23)
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TITLE: A Beautiful Picture | Previous Challenge Entry
By Laurie Bahlke
11/02/23 -
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I am reminded. Reprimanded. Compared. And the devil, once beautiful and favored by God, whispers in my ear, “It’s true. You are being judged, compared, and ridiculed. You are less than. You don’t matter. No one sees your tears, your pain. No one wants you on their team or in their family. No one wants your friendship and least of all, your advice. If others must choose, they will not choose you.”
In the storm, I whisper, “I feel broken.” The taste of salt on my lips punctuates all that moves between uncertainty and grief. I cry. I weep.
A hand touches the back of my shoulder. I can feel its warmth, the gentle squeeze of concern.
Someone has noticed my tears. Do they know how dangerous this is- to reach out through the spiritual warfare and storm swirling around me? Surely, Satan sees and must recoil at the thought of a light piercing through the darkness.
“Lies,” I say to him, the fallen angel, the deliverer of all that is dark. “Go away. You are the ugly waiting in all things. Grace saves me. Grace frees me.”
I open my eyes, look behind me, and see the kind woman who reached out. The congregation was singing, piano chords and guitar strings sliced through the air. The saline stream escaping from my eyes stopped. I smiled at her, grateful for this rescue.
The pastor says aloud to a now silent congregation, “God loves you. You are sacred.”
Calm washes over me.
I listen to the message although my mind and heart cannot help but reflect on all that occurred within just a few minutes. And why.
I am not feeling broken because of any one thing. I am blessed in many ways and God has always been faithful to me in all circumstances. When I step back and look at those moments in time, I can clearly see God’s hand at work. And yet, the day-to-day rituals, chores, caregiving, work responsibilities, and family dynamics when coupled with stress, anxiety, and the quest for perfection—can leave me feeling broken. In these moments, Satan is quick to step in and supply the lies that can lead me away from God’s promises.
The irony is that in Lucifer’s perfection, he became lost. He was not willing to bow in humble submission to the One who created him. He was not willing to accept us, the ones whom God created, and our brokenness. He challenged God to be done with us. Satan continues to use his arrogance and false ideas about perfection, as weapons to draw us further from Christ.
God chose us.
He chose me.
He chose you.
He chooses each one of us every day, in every moment. God loves us in the broken moments, and in the moments when we are joyful. God accepts us in our brokenness. He is rich in mercy. He offers forgiveness. He provides others to help us in the battle, to reach out, escort us out of the struggle, to sit with us while we cry, while we grieve, while we wonder and question.
It is difficult to understand how perfection is at its best when broken. It doesn’t make sense but the beauty that is delivered through trial, adversity, or even simply making a mistake on paper, is greater than striving for the kind of perfection that limits us in our ability to be humble, to show and receive mercy, to look through the dark and see the light.
What a beautiful picture. The light that pierces through the darkness, through the fog, through the sorrow, through the cold of loneliness, separation, and sin in all its various forms. What a beautiful, truly perfect picture comes into view, when shards, smooth and jagged pieces of life, are collected and pressed together.
Lift your eyes and your hands. Your perfect is with God, not with the deceiver who wields the idea of perfection as a weapon that destroys. Throw off the layers of comparison, and inadequacy. Lay down your bag of insecurities at the feet of God and trust in HIS promises. Take up your walk with Him. Lean into His perfect Light and remember, “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (NIV I John 4:4)
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