Fuzzy Slippers and Toxic Spider Spray (Part One)

As scary as it was to spy that so-not-cuddly spider over the doorway of my living room, the scariest moment by far was watching it go from “dead” to not dead so fast. I had watched my mum wield her slipper like a pink fuzzy sledgehammer, pounding that thing into the carpet until it was so flat you could practically see through it.  But the minute the piece of paper touched it, up it sprang, with nary a limp in any of its eight furry legs to be seen as it raced to safety under the couch.

In hindsight, I should be thankful that we had some bug spray in the house and mum knew where to find it. If she hadn’t, who knows how long that spider would have taken up residence under there? If I hadn’t been leaving on a jet plane the next morning, I would have happily solved the problem by simply never going into the living room ever again.

Had that actually happened, it would have been a pretty eloquent metaphor for the early years of my Christian life. My understanding of what it meant to “be” a Christian was about as two-dimensional as that spider. I’d come to believe that God really did exist, which meant that the Bible was true, which meant that I was a sinner, which meant I needed to repent and believe in Jesus.

So, I’d done that.

And now I was doing the things that people who’d done that were supposed to do next.

I was reading my Bible (sometimes), praying (sometimes), going to church and Christian college, serving, and working as hard as I could at not sinning and being holy. (And especially looking holy. That was really important, particularly if you wanted to be marriageable, which I did.)

What with my PK upbringing, my degree from the Christian college Joseph and Mary would have sent Jesus to, and my ten years of almost seven day a week involvement at the big brand name evangelical church, I’d been filled nigh unto bursting with doctrine about the evils of sin and the importance of holiness. Kill sin! Be holy! Memorize Scripture! Stop watching bad things on T.V. and dating pagans! Serve serve serve! You can do it! You’ve repented and believed, so off you go and get to work! Righteousness! Holiness! Whack whack whack!

And, just like sometimes a fuzzy slipper does actually kill a spider, it worked, after a fashion. I did memorize Scripture. I did stop dating pagans (sometimes) and watching bad things on T.V. (sometimes). I did serve. And my efforts bore some fruit. Some surface sin patterns did stop. Some godly (looking) patterns did emerge.  And eventually I married a really godly guy and had a baby, which is, as we all know, the ultimate stamp of approval from God that you are a Godly Woman ™.

But for every surface sin or visible attitude I whacked at with Scripture, twice as many invisible sinful attitudes like pride, discontent, selfishness, a desperate and ever increasing need for human approval and achievement, rose up in their place. Many I didn’t recognize – it felt downright “natural” to mourn the loss of my old life and self (meaning, mind you, my single, independent, highly compensated and recognized life).  Many others I embraced. Some that I saw I kept hidden, but many that I didn’t recognize were surely out for everyone else to see. I’m sure I must have looked to God a lot like Alfred Molina did in the opening action sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark – unwittingly walking around with what felt like a warm furry coat. Only it, y’know, wasn’t.

Slowly I began to collapse under the weight of all that God required of me, of how utterly incapable I was at it, of how much of it I hated, how much of myself I hated.

I was beginning to see what God saw and it literally mortified me.

Which was exactly God’s plan.

Because then, and only then, would I truly begin to understand the beauty and power of the life-giving, sin-killing, Cross.

 

(….to be concluded)

 

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