Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [9]
You get the picture: I grew up very works oriented, with the idea that Christians don’t sin, they have “faults.” I wasn’t quite sure where the line was between people who sinned and people who simply had faults. As someone who likes to know the score, I became confused. I knew I had a relationship with God, but at what point did the big, far-off God in the sky get mad enough or disappointed enough to look at my faults and see them as sins? And if they were sins, was I really saved to begin with?
With my perfectionist personality, always trying my hardest to be good enough, I was setting myself up for huge disappointments. When bad things happened, was God so disappointed with me that He didn’t care anymore? I always had questions like this in my mind, and without the reality of grace, I just couldn’t wrap my arms around the Jesus who supposedly lived in the heart.
Looking back, I’m not sure if this works orientation is what my church really taught, or if this was how I perceived it. I did desire a relationship with Christ. Every summer when I’d go to youth camp, I’d get fired up about Jesus and my relationship with Him. I’d always get saved again, or at least rededicate my life to God. I wanted to do it all just right. I’d read the Bible and pray and journal about Jesus . . . for a while. Then I’d go back to school, the fervor would fade, and I’d backslide, sin, have faults, or whatever the word was, and the cycle would start all over again. I couldn’t be what I thought a Christian should look like.
I loved my church friends, but I also had other friends at school. I wanted everyone to like me, and if conforming to peer pressure was the way for that to happen, I’d allow myself to be pressured from time to time. So I was a good girl who got good grades, but also a fun-loving girl who had an adventurous spirit and would hang with the wild crowd from time to time.
As a child I’d always been a bit heavy, thanks to my grandmother’s cherry pie and my mother’s homemade sourdough bread dripping with lots of butter. I hated shopping for clothes. At Sears, back in the day, if you were a thick boy, you were considered “husky”; if you were a thick girl, you were considered, yes, “chubby”!
My grandmother called me her little butterball. The kids at school called me Chubby Chapman. I was a big fan of justice – so if something seemed unfair, I wasn’t shy about voicing my opinion. I hated how the popular kids would pick on people like me. I’d always stick up for the underdog.
Then, during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, when I was fifteen, I grew about three inches and lost about twenty-five pounds. Everything on my body shifted around in some pretty amazing ways. All of a sudden, the people who had teased me wanted to be my friends. Boys who had called me “el Chubbo” the year before were asking me out on dates. I found great pleasure in turning them down.
During my summers growing up, I spent most of my time at a family swim and athletic club. My brother was the coach of my swim team, and as soon as I was old enough (about the same time as my physical metamorphosis) I was certified as a lifeguard.
So there I was, tanned, bleached blond, with a deep dimple and straight white teeth, thanks to my parents’ splurge on braces when I was younger. I loved the pool smells of chlorine, baby oil mixed with iodine (for that great, oh-so-natural orange hue), and Coppertone lotion. I loved sitting up in the lifeguard stand, flipping my whistle on its cord around my index finger, in charge and lovin’ life!
During the summers, camp meetings would come to town. There were big revivals every night, with special choirs and singing groups and youth events. One night I went to a church service with the intention of staying for a youth meeting, and a man at the entrance stopped me. He looked about 112 years old, and he said, “Excuse me, young lady, but you are not welcome here dressed like that!”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You’re not welcome here!” he repeated, grabbing hold of my upper arm.