Am I the other God I’ve been worshiping?
This Sunday morning I’m here in bed, exhausted, sobbing, fatter than ever, huge incisions down my right leg, my feet and calves feeling like twisted smoking rebar, and I’m praying to God and I’m all like,
“I don’t understand, all I wanted was to be—“ and right here, I tried to say the word loved, but my true Spirit came out and quietly said, “worshipped…”
Before me flashed all the ads, the icons, the celebrities, the Pinterest boards, YouTubers, Facebook profiles, influencers—and most especially, the pictures I used to take where I could decidedly hold my own with any of them—and I realized that it was all a ploy to be worshipped in the place of God.
Exodus 20:3. One of the oldest yet most famous commandments: thou shalt have no other gods before Me. And yet what have I done my entire life? I’ve been worshipping my talents, my story, my face, my body…all the while wondering why I only have the Spirit sporadically.
I’ve been so terrified of going to my family reunion looking and feeling fat, when all the while my Spirit has been skinny.
I wish it was exactly the opposite.
Yesterday we Wheeling Warriors saw the second TopGun movie, and took a picture after. It is decidedly the worst picture of my body I’ve ever had taken.
I don’t want to show this fat-cheetah-on-wheels picture. I’m still ashamed. I want to hide myself, because I don’t want to be seen naked. But isn’t that—AND the opposite (I’m proud of my body and want to show myself naked?!)—what’s been increasingly in the air for the past 10 or so decades??
A strict requirement of stardom, especially for women, is to uncover that which is most sacred, at least in all my waking memory. And Babylon’s band beats on, shouting for more and more nude sycophantic Miley Cyruses—until even that isn’t enough. Now we must become warped as well, until the public and private vision of what’s truly beautiful has us so confused when we look in the mirror again, and again, and again, when we should be looking up instead.
You know, a line just came to me—
For true inner peace, you must look upward in worship, then look outward in love.
Healing with Christ 