Growing Edges
alexa lopezArchive for August, 2008
Controversial
Richard doesn’t remember this, but he told me before he got involved with me 19 years ago that he had been told I was “controversial.” People had used lots of words to describe me, but that was a first. Nevertheless, it was true.
Some things never change.
Today I am still controversial, but not in the same way as pre-1989.
Back in that day, I let spew from my mouth whatever would pour out, and the feelings of others were of no consequence to me. I was pretty heartless — it was a total defense mechanism. My life philosophy was “do unto others before they do unto you.” I was all about the pre-emptive strike, the hardened exterior, barfing my opinions in the most self-important way possible…I was “cold-blooded” to everyone who thought they knew me. Richard somehow saw through that and married me anyway.
Today, I am a mother of six, a wife of eighteen years and a woman who deeply loves Jesus who, in the last five months, has chopped fifteen inches from her hair, changed her legal first name, and gotten a nostril piercing and a tattoo symbolic of my freedom in Christ.
I took none of those actions, made none of those changes, to fit in with or gain the approval of any group of people. I took those actions for me.
I broke out. The box I lived in had become uninhabitable, its boundaries predefined by theologies that lacked the grace of God. What seemed perfectly suitable for many years began to show its inadequacy, having become warped by the deluging rains of hard knocks and unable to contain the resulting growth I was experiencing as an individual.
Some of my more conservative Christian siblings would consider me a backslider, a carnal Christian, a pagan or a heathen. Here’s where the “controversial” label comes in: whether they approve, it’s not my problem. My heart still belongs to my “Abba, Papa, Daddy, Father.”
I don’t mind being controversial, as long as it is known that nothing stands between my Lord and me.
© Alexa Lopez, 2008
Entitled
Entitlement is an ugly thing.
No, no, no…I mean to say, the sense of entitlement is an ugly thing.
I’ve been on both sides of the entitlement line. I can’t count how many times my commercial airline pilot-father “pulled rank” on people at places like the grocery store or started name-dropping when he felt that he deserved better than to wait his turn in line; and I have been passed over for promotions or other opportunities for which I was clearly entitled.
Both sides of that line: I have felt “entitled” when I wasn’t, and I have been “entitled” without enjoying the benefit.
My point is that the whole sense of entitlement thing is a plague. And it is one about which many, many people are in denial because….well, let’s face it: who among us will admit out loud that we think the world owes us? Will any of us even admit to ourselves that we think that way?
A sense of entitlement is a plague that deceives our hearts, distorts our perceptions. It is ugly.
One of my favorite (but not fun) Bible verses — one of my life verses — is Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (NIV). For King James enthusiasts, it reads: ”The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (KJV).
Society’s voice tells us our hearts don’t lie, but the Bible says that is all our hearts do. Even if one doesn’t recognize the Bible as a standard, honest reflection upon our lives would show us that our hearts aren’t always reliable. Nevertheless, we rely upon them.
The sense of entitlement is also a plague that inflates our egos. Puffs us up. Robs us of the day’s joy because we “deserve better!”
I have to remind myself that if anyone has ever had real-deal entitlement, it was Jesus Christ…and He didn’t go around pulling rank on people or dropping names to get what He deserved. He served. And loved and served and loved some more.
The amazing thing is that once we stop walking about as though we deserve better, our hearts become full with gratitude for all things, big and small, and we see more clearly that we are no more important — nor more entitled — than the next person.
© Alexa Lopez, 2008
