Playing with dolls.

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I suppose it’s quite like an Elijah/Jezebel thing. Who am I, a mere mortal to stand in the way of money, power, and avarice?

Who am I to tell a different story?

The Gospel is the most amazing tale ever told, woven from the very beginning of time and still braiding together, thread after thread, to this day. It is a story of our dirtiness, our sin, our unwillingness to bow down to God and how God still died for our unholy hearts.

It’s a story of how the things we think we want are just worn out band-aids covering our soul-level problem. That the only way to Jesus is to drop the way of this world, confess and repent our sins, and follow Christ as He wears down our path.

It is not a story easily told to those whose hearts have hardened.

I see their faces, and I see the old me. I see the mocking glint and puckered mouth. I see the rolling eyes and manicured hands. I see the bravado and the pride I used to wear nestled close like the Coach bag against my body.

I was a real piece of work, and I know that kind of work when I see it.

Humbling myself to that kind of thought process is grueling. I really just want to start smacking people, if I’m honest. But as a fellow human being, I know that’s not conducive to peeling back the layers of this world to show what’s at the core of it: a deep and dirty lie that keeps you apart from God.

Some people have no qualms about that, separation from Jesus. I personally shudder at the thought. The idea of an eternal hell with no hope, separated from the Maker that knows every inch of me? It’s not something to take lightly.

So I’ll think about that when I see their well groomed hair and expensive clothes. I’ll remember they’re nothing more than a dressed up doll playing at life, at the idea of being something more than the plastic parts that are surely meant to break.

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As the color of my soul.

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I wear black and gray and sometimes navy blue when I’m feeling a tad festive. I blame the fact that I wore a uniform for thirteen years, but I also like to say I wear the colors of my soul.

Kidding, not kidding.

There’s always a dichotomy within me. And I’m so keyed into it that I worry how far away from other people I really am. Do other people feel their sin with raw fingertips, the touch just a bit too irritating to the point of constantly overworking it in their minds?

I’m gonna go with, “Are you feeling okay?”

No, apparently not.

It’s been a rough season for all involved. We’ve all been thrown around like a loose sack of marbles, and I feel we’re held captive in either two categories: those who have suffered and those who have watched the suffering.

It’s a mental merry-go-round. It’s a cannon, one spark away from exploding. The world as we know it is no longer the world. It’s a sinister slithering in our ears.

As believers, we’re not to make friends with this world. It’s something I lose sight of from time to time. Not that I’m going to cash in my chips and make plans to head out to Mardi Gras any time soon. But I sometimes get a foothold in my chaos, and I like to watch it order itself into place, if only for a tenuous minute. But then, like everything else, it falls and washes away.

The only true, real, and forever thing in all of this is God. No matter how hard we work the details to fit our own perspective and understanding, God will never faill us but everything else will. Everything else will fade away and all that will remain is the glorious face of God.

I find nothing depressing in that. If anything, it’s the only true answer I can rest my heart on. Because I don’t understand the bleak landscape, the cold and distant colorless colors that I choose to wear sometimes. I can’t explain my hardworn devotion and then the weak attempt at following what I sometimes don’t even want to follow.

But I can bet my life on the always was and always will be. On the true and beautiful thing that shines light on my damp and darkened threads.

I can bet my life on the fact that as I think, so I am. But more importantly, so is He.

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Perfectly imperfect.

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ADHD. It’s the non-existent thing that is very existent.

At least in our lives.

I used to be one of the naysayers. Even as a kid when I knew a few friends who were supposedly hyperactive, I always thought it was a copout.

Their parents were horrible people who just couldn’t handle the gig.

Oh, Jesus. You’re a riot.

I love control. Even if it’s a disillusioned sense of having everything together, I absolutely love it. I think know that’s part of the reason I had to get off social media. I liked the idea of looking good and everyone knowing it.

And really, I think in a sense that’s something we all kind of crave. It’s a ridiculous drug meant to get us hooked and then take us down.

And even though my online presence is much smaller nowadays, I still get the the cravings. I want Ava to listen. I want her to be quiet. I want her to be more like me.

I want her to be perfect.

And here’s the problem with that: there’s no such thing.

For awhile, we were doing medication. She did well with it in the beginning, and it’s something that God introduced, and I was grateful for. She was able to still her body for the first time. She was able to take direction.

She could focus.

But all good things must come to an end and our season ended this summer. The side effects became too much. She started to get headaches and nausea and she wasn’t gaining the weight she needed to. I was done with it. We all were.

And honestly, I wanted her back. Her funny personality and her unchecked courage.

I think there can be a vital good in doctor assessments and medication. But when those things start to feel like a warped crutch that’s doing more harm than good, it’s time to let them go.

So we have this summer. And we’ve begun the journey of behavioral development and growth, not without a few bumps along the way. But overall, this has given me the opportunity to look imperfection in the eye and give it a firm hug.

Just like God does with me.

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