For as long as I can remember, talking to oneself has been widely accepted. Talking to an Orange, however, would still be considered strange, to say the least. Though it was probably my own thoughts projected onto the Orange, it turned out to be one of three conversations that would profoundly change the way I see myself.
Every morning my mother wanted a boiled egg, toast, and an orange for breakfast. One time while slicing the orange it seemed to talk to me. It said it was the same as it was created, that it was created to be an orange and was happy to be the way it was. As weird as it was that an orange would be talking, it seemed even weirder to be interested in what it was saying, but I was. It went on to tell me it has accepted that it’s an orange, it’s different than other fruit, and in some ways different from other oranges. It’s a Valencia orange, many specifically choose a Valencia orange and that makes it happy. It doesn’t try to be something different, it’s happy just being what it is.
As I listened I couldn’t help wondering if I knew myself as well as the orange did. I’ve always tried to change myself, thinking if I was better, I’d have a better life. I tried different things hoping to find the one thing I was good at. When I wasn’t able to find that one thing, I tried changing myself into what I thought I needed to be in order to be what I was meant to be. The orange helped me to realize I wasn’t accepting myself the way I was created. I had been so busy trying to be something I thought I should be, I’d been missing out on being who I was. I began to see that instead of looking for what needs to change, I should instead look for what makes me, me. And so my journey through Graceville continued on Image Avenue.
Although I may not have known who I was, I knew what I didn’t want to be. Even though I’d committed to taking care of my mother, trusting it was what God had for me to do at that time, I started to feel as if I was losing myself. The happier my mother was to be taken care of, the harder it was not to think I was giving up my life just so she could sit and watch television. I had thought all the studying, learning, growing and following God would eventually lead me to do something great. And endless cooking, cleaning, and laundry were not what I had in mind.
One morning while putting on my makeup and talking to myself in the mirror, I told myself, “You have become something you never wanted to be–a housewife! And sometimes you feel like a slave.” Trying to bring myself up, I thought about how the leaders at Bible study are thought of as servants. And so I said, “You’re not a slave, you’re a servant of God!” That made me feel better until later when I turned on the TV and heard something I felt was God correcting me. What I heard was, “You’re not a servant of God. You’re a son.” Bursting into tears, I thought “Wow, that’s God’s grace bringing me up so much farther than I could have ever thought!”
The third conversation came while talking to God after a class I’d taken at church on worship. I had been motivated to learn more about worship while reading about the miracle release of the apostle Paul from prison while he was praising and worshiping God. It made me wonder just how a person gets to a place where they can sing and praise God in the midst of nasty and unfair circumstances. Each time I’d given it a try, it wasn’t long before I found myself complaining and questioning God for the tough times. This time though, I saw a connection between Paul worshiping and the miracles that followed.
For some reason, I’d always thought the only way to worship God was by singing, which I didn’t do very well. During the class at church, I learned there were other forms of worship. As an illustration of different ways to worship God, the pastor told a fishing story about how adding a weight onto the lure helps it get to where the fish are. The story helped me better understand the purpose of worship, but a question had come to my mind about the weight. I asked, “Am I suppose to put the weight on the line, or is that something I allow God to do?” The pastor answered my question simply by saying, “It’s according to your relationship with God.”
Later that day, the story and my question kept circling through my mind. I thought about all the times, as a young girl, I’d gone fishing with my father. Not only had I fished for trout in a stream, like the Pastor talked about, I’d also lake fished for bass, and even deep sea fished for albacore. Although I knew different tackle was required to fish in a stream than in the ocean, I wasn’t sure what was needed where. When I heard myself say, “My father knew and he always prepared my line for me.” I knew it was my answer. God knows what’s needed, so I’ll allow Him to put the weight on! And so I asked, “Lord, how can I worship You?” The answer I received was profound, definitely not something I would have thought. What the Lord said to me was, “You can worship Me by thinking of yourself as I created you–in My Image.”
The Bible states that God made man in His image, but I hadn’t taken it seriously. Mainly because God is God and I didn’t think I was anything like Him. After hearing it directly from God, it suddenly became very serious. The Proverb “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” came to my mind as the way of getting there. Instead of striving to be like Him, as I had been doing, I needed to think of myself as already made in God’s image.
Details and aspects of God that were similar to mine began showing up in Bible study, church sermons, and even through friends complimenting my character. I was surprised how many references to physical attributes of God I began to notice in the Bible. I also learned that God has thoughts and emotions. And along with powerful spiritual qualities given at my rebirth in Christ, they all pointed out to me ways I was already like Him. It left me feeling closer to God and wanting to learn even more about the Likeness in which I’d been created. I specifically wanted to focus on Jesus, as the perfect Image of God, to know more about what I’m capable of doing.
Until the realizations on Image Avenue, I’d been striving to be like Jesus, yet believing I couldn’t actually be like Him this side of heaven. Being told by God to think of myself as He created me, not only flushed out doubts I didn’t know I had, it also told me that God cares how I think about myself. Thinking of myself as a daughter of God, created in His image, made a dramatic difference in how I was able to care for my mother. And to think God considers it worship when I do–that’s amazing!
To be continued . . . see Candy Lane
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