If you’re here from Deeper Waters, welcome! I hope you’ll find this site a place you’ll call home; a place you’ll get the encouragement your heart longs for and the perspective your soul needs.
Because the truth is, most of us are just doing the best we can. And sometimes the measuring stick others use to assess us–or worse–which we use to assess ourselves, finds us coming up short. I learned this the hard way many years ago….
It was May, three weeks before the school year ended and four weeks until my birthday. I was a ten year old with unruly hair and a wide, eager smile.
I don’t remember her name because she was a substitute. Called in because our regular teacher—a kind, loving, competent teacher whom I loved—had been immediately dismissed when her marriage dissolved after only a few brief weeks. I didn’t know why, just that her removal seemed unfair, even to a fifth grader.
I can’t recall much about the substitute except that she was a stickler for rules, even when compared to the other teachers at our private religious school. One spring day I was called to the front of her class where she curtly informed me that my dress was too short and she was sending me to the principal’s office to wait for my mother to bring me suitable clothes.
Distraught and embarrassed, I plodded down the hall, pushed the heavy principal’s office door open and handed my teacher’s note to the secretary, feeling like a convicted criminal handing the prison guard her sentence. She read the note, shook her head with disapproval and reached for the ruler. I knelt to the ground. My dress needed to meet the “no-more-than-two-inches-above-the-knee-while-kneeling” rule. The dress had been fine in the fall when we bought it. I hadn’t worn it during the cold winter months, but it was May, and I was almost certain I had grown.
I closed my eyes while the secretary measured.
Please, God, don’t let it be too short.
“Call your mother” she muttered, coldly.
I dialed, feeling like a child marked with a scarlet letter, although it would be years before I was old enough to read the book. Still, I understood humiliation.
I waited, arms folded, head down. Those who entered glared at me with the look that says “you must have done something really terrible to be here”.
All I’d done was grow.
I’ll never forget my mother’s face when she burst through the door. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Hell hath no fury….
She wasn’t mad at me. Not at all.
She was mad at them. At their hypocrisy. At their legalism. At their cold hearts and indifferent treatment of a vulnerable child. At their insinuation that I was a bad girl; so bad that I needed to be removed from the presence of the good kids whose dresses hung lower than mine.
I don’t remember what happened after that. Try as I might, I can’t remember if I changed clothes and went back to class or if mom took me home. All I can remember is feeling safe.
The sight of my mom changed me. In the midst of my cold-hearted accusers I suddenly felt no shame. I felt secure. I felt rescued.
I felt loved.
And it happened without a single spoken word.
Sometimes all it takes is one person to crash through the door of your shame, whose very presence whispers “you’re mine and I’m here”.
That person is Jesus.
When Satan accuses you, reminding you of all the ways you fall short, shaming you, discouraging you, defeating you, what then? Look up. Jesus blows through the doors of your condemnation.. All you have to do is look up. His presence whispers “you’re mine and I’m here. I came to rescue you.”
You are safe. You are loved. You are forgiven. You are His.
This, sweet friend, is who you are in Christ.
“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”.
-Romans 8:1
* The winner of last week’s book give away, Warrior in Pink is Julie Proffitt. Congratulations! Please click here to privately email me your address and we’ll send you the book.
Donna speaks to all over the United States, encouraging and equipping women to follow God in their real, everyday lives. To find out when Donna will be in your area, or to book Donna for your event check out her website at www.donnajones.org or connect with Donna on twitter: @donnajonesspeak.
