Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [10]
I looked down at myself. The one-piece culottes outfit, red with white stripes, complemented my nice suntan, but it was not inappropriate! It wasn’t too short or cut too low . . . definitely not over the line of any reasonable dress code.
Part of me was ready to cry; the other part was mad at the injustice of it all.
“Isn’t this a church service?” I asked the Grandpa Inquisitor. “What if I was a person who didn’t know Christ and desperately needed to be saved, and you turned me away and told me I wasn’t welcome because of what I was wearing?”
All he did was tell me to leave. “You are not welcome here!”
I turned away, tears rolling down my cheeks, and got into my car. My dad, brother, and sister had a Southern gospel group and they were singing in a small church nearby. I drove there . . . and the pastor, my parents, my siblings, and the small congregation all told me I was welcome with whatever I was wearing, and anyway, I looked just fine.
You would think that with my upbringing and the support of my parents and grandparents, I would have felt healthy and secure with who I was.
But I didn’t. There was a hurricane of stuff going on inside of me: my hard-working perfectionism, my desire to be well liked by everyone, my body-image issues of having been a chubby preadolescent and now a pretty teenager.
As time went on I continued to engage with the church kids, while at the same time pushing some of the boundaries with kids in my high school. I continued my battle with the theological questions of God that started so long ago with my grandpa.
Does God love me only when I make good choices? Does He love me even then? Would I ever be worthy enough for a relationship with the God of the universe?
The answer I kept hearing inside of me was “no.” I couldn’t color perfectly inside the lines of what I thought God expected of me. I couldn’t do it right. Grace was not a word I understood, and I had no concept that I was created in the image of God. The Enemy of my soul whispered to me that I could never be good enough, that I just wasn’t worth God’s attention and love.
Around this time I fell victim to a predator who manipulated my naivete for his pleasure. He used me and left me with a deep emotional wound. My trust was broken. I was more shattered than that torn-up Holly Hobby picture. Feeling lonely and scared, I tried fixing it myself by stuffing the guilt and shame deeper and deeper inside.
All these years later, I am still dealing with this pain. It has scarred all of my closest relationships, especially with my very patient husband. Those closest to me have seen the effects that evil and shame can bring.
Now I understand that the blame is not mine to own. But when I was a sixteen-year-old girl, I lived in a swirl of confusion, trying to figure out where God was when I needed Him most. I couldn’t work hard enough or be good enough to escape the reality of my damaged soul. I was driven to avoid, at all costs, the shame that was deep inside. I felt like nothing I did really mattered anymore.
By my senior year of high school, I didn’t know where I would go, or if I would go, to college. I had taken some college level classes and had a high GPA, thanks to my work ethic and academic abilities. As a young girl I’d dreamed of going to Anderson University, but I knew that wasn’t on my parents’ radar. It would be a financial stretch.
But my dad had suggested that nursing would be a great option for me. Since Anderson had a solid nursing program, he and my mom made whatever contacts and calls they could. They helped me take out student loans to finance the part that they couldn’t . . . and the next thing I knew I was accepted at Anderson and on my way to Indiana. One of the last things my mom said to me was, “If you’re going to Anderson just to meet someone and marry him, can you please do it your freshman year so we don’t have to spend all this money?”
My plan was to avoid any situations that could potentially set me up for further pain. Dating wasn’t on my priority list. I would work hard,