right here.

I’ve been frustrated lately.

Not furious, not fearful, not fantastic. Just plain old frustrated. What a captivating foundation for a blog post. Real earth-shattering (not).

It’s one of those things that has been bubbling under the surface for a while.

I had no idea until this week, when God so lovingly put His finger on my disgruntled state.

For the record, I have a love/hate relationship with the way He peels back the layers of my heart. When all is said and done, I end up won by His pursuit of my deepest places with intimate love. But, if we’re being honest, in the moment, it feels more like “Seriously, God? Did you really have to bring that up?”

True to form, my story begins with a particularly negative countenance.

I’m sure my tense body language was communicating loud and clear my need to be left alone. If I had to articulate it into words, the sign might have read something like, “don’t-talk-to-me-thank-you-very-much-I’m-fine.”

But please don’t judge me too quickly, it wasn’t intentional! As I passed through the aisles at the grocery store, I was completely unaware of the frown on my own face. Must have been too busy internally calculating the details of my life.

The week ahead was fairly clear and I knew I needed to make good use of the time. Why? Well you see, there were so many possibilities, so many opportunities, so many responsibilities, and so many things taking full advantage of my performance mentality, unrealistic expectation-ality, and routine distract-ibility.

It’s almost a funny image, but the reality stings.

As I drove home, I wrestled internally. Silencing the radio, I finally vocalized the churning emotions underneath my anxiety about the minor details of my week.

“God! What’s wrong?”

Cue the tears.

The pain of the past, the fears about the future, the discomfort of the present, it all spilled onto my steering wheel for what must be the five-hundredth time. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t a revelation. It was just me, pouring out my heart.

Yes, I can put my finger on several specific difficulties. It isn’t like everything in my life is rainbows and daisies. But at the same time, I see God at work in obvious ways. I have been blessed to catch glimpses of my own growth and the growth of others around me as I learn to walk by faith. God has been nothing but faithful and good and wonderful to me.

So there I was, having a come-to-Jesus session on HWY-211 about a season of my life that I am both thankful for AND frustrated about.

I know at this point some of you may be smirking at my emotionally-tumultuous self. But before you throw a “C’mon, Jo, this is life, get it together,” in my direction, I’d just like you to know that God loves me and my emotionally-tumultuous-self, thank you very much, and that isn’t what He said to me.

In the storm of verbal processing, I finally hit gold:

“Why do I feel like You are so distant these days?”

The reality of my frustration with God, was uncomfortable to acknowledge.

But, there’s a truth that has been washing over me during the days following that finally verbalized, very pointed question. Not a harsh reprimand, not a slap in the face revelation, this truth has come to me quietly. Subtly. Gently.

“I’m right here.”

No issue resolved. No major shift in my mood. No crystal clear direction for my future or even how to navigate this week. Just a reminder.

“I’m right here.”

Now, if you know anything about me and my life story, you know that I cherish my relationship with God.

Nobody, not one person in all of my existence has known me the way He does. No one individual has seen the ugliness of my behavior, my pain, and my heart and chosen to love me relentlessly still. Nobody has been able to speak to me, woo me, heal me, comfort me, and challenge me, like He has.

N-o-b-o-d-y.

“I’m right here.”

I have never, ever, found anything that satisfies, apart from just being in the presence of a completely perfect God whose love for me is nothing short of extravagant.

But, recently there has been a lot on my mind. Future plans, overcomplicating theology, and even this reoccurring theme of trying to figure out how to fix the unlovely parts of me. It’s exhausting inside my brain. Can anybody relate?

But for all the effort and energy in my head, I’ve had very little to show for it.

Not only that, I have felt very alone.

“I’m right here.”

Fast forward to my afternoon run the next day. 

Usually the rhythm of my feet on the pavement has a familiar comfort that calms me. Not so at that specific moment. Irritated with my wandering thoughts, I voiced my intention:

“What do you want me to pray about right now, God? What do you want to lay on my heart?”

The response almost stopped me in my tracks (which would have looked awkward jogging down Main Street).

“What if I just want to hear you tell Me that I’m wonderful?”

The first thing popping into my head wasn’t some beautiful, won-by-redeeming-love sonnet.

Um. What?

Wouldn’t that be unproductive?

Ahhh, there it is. Underneath all my striving, that old, familiar root.

“Joanna, if all I asked of you was to love Me and to let Me love you, would that be enough for you? Would you be satisfied?”

I realized that it’s time for my mind to be still, and my heart to engage again.

“I’m right here.”

The God of the universe,
the Great Creator,
the Designer of my heart,
the Savior of the world,
the King of Eternity,
the One who is the actual substance of perfect, unconditional love, hope, joy, peace, comfort, purpose, etc…

“I’m right here.”

In my very adult, very responsible, very intellectual effort to cover all the bases in my very human life, I lost sight of something very precious.

The presence of a very intimate God.

The truth that I can crawl up into His lap, bury my face in His chest, be held in His arms, call Him Abba, Beloved, Savior, and approach Him confidently to discuss anything that is bothering my weary mind is truth that takes my breath away.

It’s not about me or my striving or my behavior or my productivity. It’s about Him. It’s about the cross. It’s about the love He had for me before I ever knew His name.

Which, by the way, suits Him perfectly.

I AM.

I AM who I say I am.

I AM everything you need.

I AM more than enough to satisfy you.

“I AM right here.”

So, as I sit here at Starbucks with my fingers on the keyboard, I want to share the incredi-bility of this truth with you. Not a new revelation, not an earth shattering shift. Just a quiet, subtle, gentle reminder that He is right here.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re facing, He knows, He cares, and He never designed you to do it alone.

Will you join me as I engage my heart to worship a God who is abundantly available, abundantly beautiful, and abundantly enough?

Maybe of all the things on today’s to-do list, that’s what matters most.

“They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.” -Ecclesiastes 5:20

“Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” -1 Timothy 6:6-7

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” -Psalm 37:3-6

“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” -Psalm 16:5-6

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” -Psalm 139:7-10

“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” -1 Timothy 1:17

the ugly side of beautiful.

I’ve hesitated to write this for a while.

I guess if we’re being honest, I’ve been afraid. Afraid to face it head on again. Afraid to share it publicly. Afraid to be humble. Afraid to remind myself of the truth and let go of the lie again.

But, I’m angry. I’m sick and tired of being stolen from. I’m horrified by how much I have lost in exchange for something worthless, and I'm grieved as I watch those around me make the same mistake.. It’s time I told the truth.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be beautiful.

As a young girl, I dreamed of being an actress. After every movie and TV show, I would dutifully waltz into the bathroom, and take a long, scrutinizing look in the mirror. I would glance from a distance, pose, adjust, and get up close to search for blemishes only a microscope could find. Then, I would look myself directly in the eyes and say these words: 

“Joanna, you are too fat.”

This ritual that was formed in secret continued to plague me. If I could go back now, I would take a baseball bat to that bathroom mirror. I had no idea that every moment I lingered in front of my image was a moment that would reap destruction in my life for years to come.

I remember the first night I decided to stop eating. I think at the time I knew it was a bad choice, but the pain of my self-disgust had a force that was too powerful to ignore.

Looking back, I wish I could have asked myself this question:

Too fat for what, Jo?

Too fat to be an actress? No. That was never the issue.

I believed that I was too fat to be loved.

This lie was a foundation that I built upon, and my physical body become the measuring stick for my self-worth. The pain of being unlovable was unbearable, so, I took action. When I realized that I could manipulate my appearance by changing my eating, exercise, make-up, and clothing, I saw a glimmer of what I thought was “hope.”

If only I was beautiful…then, I would be enough…and if only I was enough…then, I could be loved.

What a sick cycle I sold myself to! 

Here’s the problem:

If love can be earned, it is no longer love.

I chased an illusion called “control” to get what I wanted, never realizing that I was running full tilt in the opposite direction of what my little-girl heart actually needed. There was no room to be vulnerable. No place of security to be myself. I was craving affirmation, but the mirror could never affirm me, it could only affirm my masks.

Can I be real with you?

I became more attractive, and people noticed. I was praised for being beautiful. Come to think of it, I was praised for my appearance before I ever noticed the mirror. I was often told that I was beautiful growing up. But the compliments never scratched the surface of my cavernous need for love.

It’s no secret that body-image is near top of the list for how a woman evaluates her self-worth.

But, please, hear me out,

When we try to fix the problem of self-worth by affirming the image in the mirror, we have entirely missed the root issue. Worse than that, we have cultivated deeper roots.

We have targeted a smokescreen.

We thought the problem was believing I am ugly, but what if believing I am beautiful can wreak just as much havoc?

Hang with me.

One woman believes she is unlovable because she is ugly, while another woman believes she is lovable because she is beautiful. The devastating reality is that a life built on either of these lies will never be able to experience real love.

The competent, drop dead gorgeous woman who flaunts her appearance needs to know the truth just as much as the overweight, unkempt woman who hates her appearance.

Can I tell you what I wish I had told myself when I made eye contact with the mirror 12 years ago?

You are so much more than your physical body.

Did you hear me?

You are so much more.

You are not “loveable” or “unlovable” based on the image in the mirror. Right this second, regardless of what you look like, you are 100% precious, irreplaceable, and worth cherishing.

I wish I could take hold of you by the hand and we could run away together from this world that hurls the lie at us without a moment of relief. What a tough battlefield we find ourselves in, girls!

Yes, your body has a purpose. Want to know what it is? Your body houses YOU; your body does not define YOU. Don’t get this mixed up or you will open yourself up to a world of grief.

Will you be brave with me? It’s time to stand up and say “No, thank you” to this toxicity so that we can move on to what really matters.

Like you.

The real you.

You matter.

Are you willing to fess up to your desperate need? Let the masks fall. The real you needs some real healing. The real you needs to be nourished and cherished. The real you needs an encounter with real love.

Do you want to know what I discovered?

The real love that you have been chasing, has been available to you all along. Before the first diet, before the first time on the treadmill, before the first mascara brush touched your lashes, before you ever tried to become beautiful…

You were loved.

You were designed with intentionality and purpose. You are not an accident. There is a very real God that created the very real you. Completely independent of your effort and performance, He made a choice. He chose to love you. No matter what you do or how hard you try, you cannot increase or decrease His love for you. You are worth loving because He made you. Not because you earned it.

Can you hear His voice?

“Stop fighting, stop denying, stop running, and just let Me love you!”

We were only ever meant to be satisfied by the abundant and unconditional love of God. This is what I was searching for, and this is what your heart is hungry for. This is real affirmation, affection, intimacy, and the only source of real self-worth.We can gave confidence, ladies! It's not found in ourselves, but in the security of Who we belong to and His deep and unchanging love for us. 

The first time this truth washed over me, it was accompanied by a wave of grief and anger.

Seriously? I poured all of that energy into something that not only failed to fulfill me, it devastated me.

I both damaged and lost relationships. I grieved my family. I abused my body. I made myself miserable. I formed habits that don’t come undone overnight. To this day, I continue to watch God hauling away the rubble of my faulty foundation. And it hurts.

So, I’ve chosen to speak up.

Will you join me? Will you choose courage? Will you choose to believe that you are loved? Will you choose to cling to the truth even when the lie bombards you? Will you dare to believe with me...

We are so much more.  

We are loved.

Then, washed in this truth, will you grab the women next to you by the hand and tell her too?

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

-Ephesians 2:4-10

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

-1 John 4:10

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

-Romans 5:6-8

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

-John 3:16