Not quite nice

I like her. I really like her. In fact, I’ll go over and say just that to her now!

 

In my little conservative ways (yes, I am quite conservative, I’ll admit 😉 ), I still believe that every individual is capable of being who she is in the fullest way possible because that is what Christ promised. It is what he achieved on that cross, and it wasn’t the least bit ‘nice’.

It was a dramatic, triumphant, victory and a pretty messy defeat. He died on the cross and there was no form or comeliness in him.

And because of that, we have fullness in everything. Of everything. And grace to flow out of our inadequacies.

I can completely imagine myself, however, saying to my children if I ever have them – Be nice! And I cringe as I think I might even say it more to a daughter than a son. I heard my boss say about his daughter that he wanted her to grow up thinking there is nothing that she wants to do that her gender would make her incapable of doing.

And he was looking for heroines in popular culture who fit and was failing. I wanted to interject – to say there are heroines everywhere. I loved every story I read, and always asked why I couldn’t do something. I knew I was different – but I never wanted to be a boy either.

And it’s not just gender. It’s a whole load of walls in our minds. Outside of the word of God. It’s us. We do the limiting. 

 

We just have to remember not to forget to tell our sons AND daughters that the God we serve is not just some nice God. He rides the heavens to help us, he mocks evil, he tattooed our names on his hand. He is just that radically in love.

And he won.