Dark corners in my life creep out without notice or permission. As I'm sitting, walking, and going along my day, I'm hit with a sense of distress, a suffocation that begins in my toes and slowly makes its way to my neck.
I feel overwhelmed and disconnected--with being a mom, a wife, with simply being. I want to run far away, but even that can't stop the disjointed feeling within.
Both girls napped that Saturday while I folded laundry with Ben by my side. My fuse was super short, and I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew something was out of balance. I began to tell Ben about my frustrations. How I felt like I was endlessly working and not being appreciated. How I felt the weight of expectations that were unfair and even unrealistic. As I talked, it was as if I were Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, clawing away to release myself from this metaphorical dragon skin. Peeling away layers to find the core of the issue at hand, the cause of my suffocation.
Two truths emerged. One was what Ben said: "You don't have to be Supermom, Superwife, or super anything. Remember what Rob Bell wrote about, 'You need to take your Superwhatever out back and kill it.'"
The second was me realizing I simply needed grace.
In Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell writes about a time his church was growing yet he found himself in a closet between services holding his keys, wondering how quickly he could get out of there. He felt suffocated from trying to do it all. He was trying to be Superpastor.
No one can survive living a facade for long.
Bell writes about the tzitzit in Numbers 15, which are the tassels on the corners of the garment. The Israelites were to wear these tassels as a physical reminder to remember the commands of the Lord when they looked upon them. To remember where they came from, who they were made to be, and how they were meant to live life.
As a good Torah-abiding Jew, Jesus would have been wearing tzitzit on his prayer shawl when the woman who was bleeding for twelve years touched the corner of his garment. After she is healed, Jesus sends her off with this blessing: "Go in Peace."
To know peace is to know restoration. Jesus doesn't give us peace without conflict--it's deeper than that. Jesus told me that Saturday, today, and constantly:
Kamille, go in peace. Know shalom. Walk in the total presence of my restoring, redemptive peace I've given on the cross. Not just in physical realities like the woman I healed, but mental, emotional, all-encompassing peace. Let all of you be restored.
This is the holistic beauty of the cross.
Salvation is more than simply saying a prayer; it's allowing Jesus to move through all of me. To experience shalom in all that I do. It's the restoration of all things through Jesus. On Saturday, my way of doing things was breaking down. I had this image in my head of what "spiritual" looked like, what a "good" mom looked like, what a "loving" wife looked like. Bell says:
there is always a mystery behind the mystery...we try to fix things, but we stop at the first or second layer. We're stressed and so we make adjustments in time management. But a better question is, why do I take on so much? But an even better question is, why is it so hard for me to say no? Or even, why is that person's approval so important to me?
It's not until we dig up everything that we discover the core problem: walking away from Shalom and walking in sin, which for me looks like believing a lifetime of lies about myself. I believed in the facade of who I thought I should be, and that's an insult to the creative God who made me.
My job is not supermom, superwife, superbaker, superdaughter, superfriend, or whatever super-fill-in-the-blank false self I put on. I need to kill the "super" image, to rest in God alone and get back to finding my identity in Him.
I need my own tzitzit reminders to bring me back to the restoring grace and love of my Savior. I need to turn down the volume of every voice distracting me from my job, "the relentless pursuit of who God has made me to be."
I have a long way to go in this journey, but I'm hopeful and I pray: may each of us put to death our own superwhatevers to experience true shalom and restoration.
Kamille Scellick passionately believes that gathering around the table is where the body, mind & soul will be nourished. It's around the table where you're sure to find her on any given day...eating, talking, listening & sharing life with her husband, Ben & two girls. She believes in life-giving hospitality Jesus style and sees his redemption being offered through it. Her greatest achievement is knowing she is extending this hospitality first & foremost to her family and then to others. You can find her sharing stories, hospitality, food and life with friend & stranger at her blog, Redeeming the Table. You’re invited to pull up a chair & sup with her.
shared with the folks at imperfect prose.
