Part One
I hate dressing rooms for a very good reason. They are filled with the emotional despair of every woman who as ever looked at herself in that mirror and thought, Ugh! Who is the ugliest of them all? Avoid at all costs. But occasionally it is necessary to actually try on the clothes that I am buying, so I suck it up and brave the room of despair.
Such was my state of mind when I stepped into a tiny T. J. Maxx dressing room to try on some summer tops that I desperately needed. My expectation of being mirror shamed instantly evaporated when the Lord said to me: “My love makes you beautiful.”
Whooo. I was happy for the rest of the day! That is until I returned home and was met at the door by my squabbling responsibilities. But later that night, God brought the love subject up again, and He made a point I hadn’t thought about. He said that He holds Himself back with me because I had not given Him permission to love me with all of His true self. I didn’t like that. I want God, of all people, to be totally comfortable around me, to be free to be Himself.
I realized that being truly loved by Him meant being completely known by Him. I poked around in my heart, looking for why I was shy about letting Him so close and, sure enough, I believed that being seen meant being hurt, which led me to the vows I had made to do whatever it takes to hide. So, I decided to take a risk, break the vows, and give the Lord permission to know me completely, so that He could enjoy being Himself with me and I could discover what it is like to be loved down to my toes.
Have you ever given God official permission to love you? I think most of us hold Him off a bit, because to be loved by God is to be seen and deeply known by another. And we are so afraid of being truly known that we have even figured out how to hide from ourselves.
We tell ourselves that we want God to love us at the same time that we unconsciously reject His love. Why do we do this? One reason is because we have accepted within the deepness of our hearts that we are unlovable for whatever shameful reason. We are like Adam and Eve hiding in the dark woods as God stands in the glorious sunlight, calling to us, “Where are you?”
In that “Where are you,” is the Lord’s offer to love us in the shame of our nakedness. It is an invitation into His all-consuming, completely accepting yet completely honest love. But, if you are like me, you might be afraid that looking into God’s love is like looking into a dressing room mirror. Every single flaw highlighted and outlined in red.
In the life of us all comes a time when we have to go into the dressing room of despair, take off our clothes, and look in the mirror so that we can try on something new. The Lord is offering to be our mirror. He is saying to us, “My love makes you beautiful.”
Don’t hide from God’s love because you are afraid of being seen. Give Him permission to love you with all of His love. If that feels too scary, will you give Him permission to work on it for you?
God bless,
Susan
