This past weekend on a mini vacay in Boston with my ma and pa, my dad made a statement about me that I keep replaying…
We were having a discussion with his friends, Robby and Julia, about The World Race and what the next year of my life will probably entail. We talked about my dreams of dancing and calling NYC home. We mentioned my journey to NYC and how God so clearly brought me to this amazing place to get to work on my heart, to prepare me for what the next year will hold, and ultimately to reveal this call to the mission field. We laughed at how different I am now. “Who woulda thunk it?” How I am a completely different person than the one my parents dropped off in Brooklyn four years ago. Everyone had a good chuckle at the thought of the “old Stacie” living out of a backpack for a year, sleeping in a tent or taking a shower only when available. Then my dad said it, the line that has been sticking with me, the words that encouraged me, the proof that God has given me a new heart. He said:
“Y’all, the princess is dead”
Let me elaborate. Most of my life I loved stuff. Seriously, loved stuff. I went through a phase of being such a princess. (mostly in high school) I was so driven by materialism, my image and what others saw when they looked at me. Looking back, I don’t have a clue who I was even trying to impress. I was just striving to be seen and I was doing so according to the voices around me at the time. The only thing I do know is that I found my identity, my value and my worth in what I was wearing and where it came from, the stuff I possessed. And unfortunately, many people today, live in the exact same way. Believing that their stuff makes them worthy. Or maybe they feel unworthy because of their lack of stuff. Stuff. Just the word itself puts a bad taste in my mouth.
But isn’t that what the enemy/world wants us to believe?
That we NEED this, that, or the other to be worthy? We need a new wardrobe to be beautiful. We need a new gadget to be cool. We need a new car to be seen? We need to look like _______ to be lovable? And if you don’t have that stuff well… tough for you. You’ll never be enough. Pretty enough, smart enough, successful enough, wealthy enough… the list is endless.
But I have good news for you…When I refocused my eyes on Jesus about three years ago, it started to become clear, the only thing I NEED in this life and the sweet hereafter is Jesus himself. The same is true for every one of us. All that we could ever need is found in God. Our identity must be rooted in Him to understand really living, to grasp real peace.
I am so glad that God loved me too much to allow me to stay in my bubble of western, middle class, comfort. I am so grateful that He loved me enough to shake up my world and call me instead to sit with and love on the poor, hurting and broken in this world.
Thank you Lord, for loving me enough to kill those selfish desires in me and replace them with your righteousness. Thank you for showing me that no shopping spree on this earth can ever compare with being clothed in your garments of salvation. “For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness.” -Isaiah 61:10 Thank you Lord, for dethroning the princess in me and instead anointing me as your daughter. He is the King so I guess in a way I am still a princess. The only difference is now i know who the real KING is. I’m not answering to King Chanel or King Kate Spade. Now I bow down to the royalty of King Jesus.
