Pebbles in My Shoes

Once, in the middle of a tearful midnight chat, my wise, insightful roommate put her arm around me and said, “Darlin’, if we had lived a long time ago, I think you would’ve been one of those nuns that walked around with pebbles in her shoes.” And she was absolutely right.
She was referring to my tendency to beat myself up about things. On the one hand, it’s a tendency for which I am thankful. I want to deeply feel the disgustingness of my sin. But to constantly carry that slimy weight around, to bloody my flesh with self-accusation did not seem to be the way to glorify God. Just as we would now disagree with a monastic who inflicted pain on herself to make her more holy, this kind of mental flagellation seemed to be wrong.
I’m not saying we should not weep and beat our chests over our sinfulness. Would that I felt the gravity of my sin deeply enough to actually cry over it! But as the Lord recently revealed to me, this kind of holy grief was not the kind of grief that was keeping the soles of my feet bruised.
I realized that I was distressed not because I had offended a holy God, but because my sin had revealed to those around me that I was not perfect. When I mistreat or become angry with another person, when I shirk work or pout about not getting my way, when I gossip or make a crude joke, I am ugly in their eyes. They see that I am sinful, and I am exposed.
I’ve spent all my life constructing a careful façade of perfection. If I can’t do it as well as I want to, I do something else. If it doesn’t look right, start over. If I didn’t get an ‘A’, I failed. If it was obviously broken and I couldn’t fix it, I just didn’t talk about it, tried to pretend it didn’t exist. It was perfectionism at a whole new level. At root, it was nothing but gross pride.
I really shouldn’t say “was” because I still struggle with this a lot. Realizing what the problem is does not mean I’ve solved it. I’m sure I will continue to struggle with this tendency all my life. But the good news is, I found the cure for this disease. And I can trust that it will be victorious.
His [God’s] divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
The next time I botch it (and we all know it can’t be very long!), I have the privilege, yes, the privilege of pointing to that foul creature in the mirror and saying to the world, “You see her? There is nothing good about her. She is despicable. And that is exactly who I am. But I have Savior who has begun to work in me, to conform me to the image of Christ. Anything good you see is all His doing. Anything bad you see is who I really am without Him. But praise the Living God, I am not without Him anymore!”
Actually, in re-reading the above paragraph, it comes to mind that it would probably be better not to look at the foul creature in the mirror at all. More and more I find that the mirror (or self-regard) only gets me into trouble with Pride. The things said in the above paragraph are glorious and true—I am foul, He is glorious and powerful, and He loves me! But is not humility to forget oneself altogether? And when I sin, not to point it out to the world, but to regard it as rebellion against the almighty God, to make it right with Him and with the individuals whom my sin affects, and say no more about it? Hmm, this bears more thought.
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)