One of the ministry opportunities we have here in with KIM is Josie’s Angels. Josie is Jeff’s (the guy who runs this shindig) daughter and in the last couple years she started up bible studies with girls that live around the YMC which is where we are staying, through those bible studies she started to realize that the environments that a lot of the girls were living in wasn’t good. Not just that the home isn’t nice but that family life wasn’t a healthy thing for them to be growing up in. When she realized that, her dad challenged her to do something about it and a year later she has now opened up what we affectionately call the “Jazz House” (Josie’s Angels House) where so far 26 girls live. These are some of the most beautiful little girls I have ever met and I get the stinkin’ amazing privilege of hanging out with them on a daily basis.
Last week we even got to have sleepovers with the girls, which includes a lot of dancing, girl talk, movies, and them playing the piano (somehow all of them are rock stars at that); its’ over all a blast. In midst of all the fun though there does eventually come the time when sleep is necessary. Right about that time during my first sleep over we were all winding down and just hanging out with a few of the girls in the room we would all be sleeping in, when one of the girls came up to me. One thing I’ve learned about people in other cultures around the world in general and specifically younger individuals, is that there is no censor what so ever when it comes to commenting on others physical appearances. In Africa we got this a lot as they would comment blatantly about how big or small some one was, and here we experience it with these girls as they tell each other and us just how it is. In this instance the girl came up to me and after looking me up and down and then looking at my squad mate who was there too says, “You don’t really have any boobs, do you”. I mean seriously the blunt honestly of that statement kind of made me chuckle right then, because I’m used to living in the culture of America that is just too PC to say anything like that. The thing is, though, she didn’t even mean it offensively, while physical appearance is still important in these areas of the world, they just don’t get so sensitive about it or hold it to the extreme position we do. So they can make comments like that to each other with out it being super hurtful or a big deal. I do think at times they should probably learn some sensitivity with it, but more than that I also think that I have quite a bit to learn from their lack of emotional attachment to their appearance. I, and all the ladies back in the states I think, at times can be so emotionally invested in the way that we look, that comments like that become destructive to us.
I realized that fact a lot that night. I definitely chuckled at first, brushed the comment off and told her, “Yup, that’s just the way I was made and I love it”. Yet right after that we laid down for bed and I found myself mulling it over and over again in my mind, and not very long afterwards experiencing a snowball effect of thoughts and conclusions being formed about what this meant for my life. My mind and heart took that one observation from a 12 year old and from it made the jump to assuming that meant I wasn’t attractive at all. From there the snowball went on to thoughts that I could maybe be attractive at times but that I could not be found attractive all the time and because of that I could maybe one day be attractive enough to get married but in that marriage my husband would inevitably one day realize that I’m not actually attractive and move on to another woman and our marriage would fall a part…all this because of one comment. Literally in a matter of five minutes I moved from reality to exaggerated conclusions about my future and then ended with the thought, “what am I even thinking trying to be in a relationship if this is all that could come of it.”
It’s astonishing how quickly a lie can take over and tempt you into viewing/ believing life to be a certain way through it. The Lord snapped me back to truth right after that when I plugged in the good ol’ ipod and turned some worship music on to sleep to. I immediately saw what had just happened, and those lies slipped out of my mind as quickly as they had slipped in but it has left me to all this reflecting.
Deception is a tricky thing, it is subtle and inconspicuous, which is what makes it so dangerous and destructive. I am thankful that I have a spirit of truth in me (john 14:17) because of the Lord and I am thankful that that He guides us in all truth (john 16:13). And not only that but helps in discerning where the truth ends and lies begin at times, I’m thankful that if we allow Him, He will walk us back through the lies and show us just where the truth can be found and then help us understand that truth through His understanding. I think one of the things I’ve been attacked with the most, and what a lot of others are attacked by, through out our walks with the Lord are these subtle distortions of truth; that is why it is so important to be rooted in Him and what He has to say about us.
1 john 4:1 “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…”
