Dreamland

So it seems… that I spend a lot of my time in dreamland. It can look a lot of different ways. Me running down the street, dreaming of one day running with a body like the one that just surpassed me on East River Parkway. Or me sitting in a puddle of self pity after I’ve realized I’ve just blown off a scheduled coffee date with a friend because I double booked amidst the craziness of wedding planning and grad school. Or me sitting on a bench waiting for the bus, staring into the sky imagining “Super Katie,” who is inevitably much better than the actual Katie awaiting the bus. Or how about this one? The dream of “Princess Katie-” I’m walking down the isle to marry my prince (also known as Nick Stromwall)- The dream is perfect. I am smiling with a really cheesy wedding smile, I have a great tan going, there’s marvelous music playing, I’m thin, my teeth are so white you are surely going blind if you’re look at them, I finally have that freckle removed so I wont look completely covered in freckles when my strapless dress reveals that I actually have more freckles than any other person on the face of the planet, oh- and there’s this glow in the air, and Nick is flawlessly googling his eyes at me as I perfectly prance down the isle like Tinker Bell.

Bamb! Like the strike of mid-night in Disney’s Cinderella, my dream, most likely conducted by an unending collection of bridal magazines ,is awakened by the notorious interruption of my cell phone. Ok. Let me float down in my parachute for a second while you look for my glass slipper.

Perhaps I will really have a cheesy wedding smile and Nick will really be googley-eyed at me, and I just might get a freckle removed soon… but what if I fall as I walk and accidentally moon my loving friends and family? What if it rains? What if I sneeze? What if I get all emotional and just enter into hyperventilation mode? What if a bodily function interrupts this perfectly dreamy day of mine? What if I can’t control how perfect this should be? The anxiety could rise to a boiling point if someone didn’t bring me back down to earth during this dreamy season of being engaged. For real. That is what I am so often forgetting- what is real.

Don’t get me wrong. Dreamland is a great place. I think we are meant to go there sometimes. The problem is that I could spend every waking moment there and swim in a pool of dissatisfaction at my dreams-not-come-true and risk missing out on real life.

When I find myself swimming in this pool, I’ve observed that there are often two things going on: 1) I’m dreaming of being something I’m not. 2) I’m dreaming of a world that isn’t. My hopes are that over time, these will be replaced with a love for who I really am and a confident embrace of this world that really is, with room enough to dream of the home in which I am truly created for.

Something I’m not. Let me dig my spoon into the cereal of what I’m not. Let me assure you the reason to momentarily consider this is not to derail my sense of being, for I am “fearfully and wonderfully made,” the Psalms tell me. However, let me acknowledge with loving confidence who I am simply and honestly not, while simultaneously considering who God is and all of the things he has made me to be.

Believing that Jesus Christ was perfect in my place, I have nothing more to prove because he has forgiven and loved me completely, even if there are still a zillion things I’m not. I can find my worth in his perfect love for me, rather than my mediocrity. So I am free to be honest.

I’m not Super Katie. I’m not perfect. I do not enjoy multi-tasking. I do not adjust quickly to change. I’m not easily emotionally composed. I don’t regularly check to see when I need another oil change. I don’t always do what I say I’m going to do. I’m not as thin as the American cultural ideal of thinness. I’m not in control of the weather. I didn’t splash myself with freckles upon my day of birth. I’m not a perfect friend to people at all times. I’m not great at deciding what to order at coffee shops. I’m not consistently organized. I’m not a perfect financial planner. I’m not the fountain of all wisdom and knowledge. I’m not always thinking of flowers and ding-dong ditching people with May Day baskets, although the whole “kindergarten teacher” persona may have you fooled.

My dreamland is often a result of trying to be someone I’m not and being unsatisfied with who I am and with what is. I have realized that I have begun to define myself completely by cultural standards and people’s expectations, rather than taking a look at who my creator is and what he says about this mysterious creation called “me.”

I’m going to run to Psalm 139 in the midst of my insecurities of wanting to be thinner and wishing I could create the perfect wedding day. Consider me so desperate for life, a sense of self worth, and a promise that there is a reason for who I am that I have to get as dusty as the bible for answers.

The old me would have mocked this form of “self help.” The new me can’t believe I lived 21 years not believing it would really help me. Yes, I’m talking about the bible. I use to think authors of cultural self- help books ( that often start with titles like…”The Seven Steps of a Highly Effective __(fill in the blank)___”) could be more authorized to help me than the author of life altogether – God himself- the divine writer of the bible. I still like those books like “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” and I don’t doubt that they could help me. In fact, they are wonderfully written and full of great life tools we could all use. But they can’t explain to me who God is and who the heck I am.

Its like hearing the most beautiful orchestra when I read these words in Psalm 139:14-15 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. “

I draw from these verses that there is no accident going on with that freckle I don’t like, or that curve that sticks out when I wear a shirt that mistakenly hopped in the dryer. There is something beautiful going on, a purpose to my being. My frame was not hidden from the Lord. In fact, I was intricately woven together- knitted, in fact! Think about knitting. Knitting shops actually stress me out. Which color? Which texture? Which pattern? Hmpph. Yarn overload. It seems a tedious and
time-consuming procedure. Yet God patiently has knitted all of us into being.

Fearfully and Wonderfully made. I have just been told that the way I am made is wonderful. It doesn’t define wonderful with: has a great job, has a great hair color, weighs X amount of pounds, is a great friend, does wonderful acts of service for the poor, goes to church every Sunday, is socially pleasant at all times, is great at relationships, and on goes the list. Our culture, or for Christians, the “Christian Culture” could scheme us unto putting false definitions into the word wonderful.

If we break apart the word wonderful- we find a simpler word: wonder. Is it not true that the beauty of the ocean and the way that a rainbow broadcasts the sky after a rainstorm produce a sense of wonder and awe in all of us? And yet, we have been created to have dominion over all of these things Moses tells us in Genesis. Rather, God has created us to be the highest reflection of himself- the truest form of beauty. We were made different from inanimate objects, and from the brute creation; we were “so” made, in the entire structure of our frame, so as to fill the mind with wonder.

Wonder fits along the lines of dreaming, but instead of dreaming of people and things and places that aren’t real, I want to start dreaming of loving and standing in awe of who I have been created to be, the good and the flaws. I want to start loving that God is in control of my wedding day and of every single day of my life, both the glories and imperfections that may befall.

Just the other day, Nick and I were discussing the ways we could “buff up” over the next three months before our wedding. We could form rules, like no dessert unless we workout, only one can of soda per week, workout every single day until the wedding… oh and we could get our teeth whitened. Well, I am quite confident that we’ll have a flawless marriage if we can attain these goals.

Bamb! Again, the truth hits like a hurricane. Wait! I cry. You mean marriage has nothing to do with the color of my teeth and the way i fit into a wedding dress? But…those magazines…I thought… my honeymoon…what about that bakini I’ve been dreaming slipping into?

Taking steps to be healthy and look good are great goals. But I want to focus on a greater reality- that marriage is not about any of these things. A sense of relief is running down my spine. Whew! Praise God for pre-marriage classes and the blessing of older, married friends. Marriage is not about a dreamland of looking and feeling a certain way. Its about reflecting the covenant God has made to his people. Marriage is designed to help us see Christ’s undying love. How he sacrificially served us by loving us in our sin and taking the punishment we deserve. He came first to serve. When we see that his ultimate purpose is to serve us and give us all good things, it drastically changes the way that we serve and love others, whether we are married or not. I am still in beginning stages of learning to love people this way.

So it seems that I really do spend a lot of time in dreamland. Perhaps, over time, I will learn to get in touch with reality. Perhaps the bible truly is the ultimate self-help book. If it isn’t, I have yet to read a book that could help me find a better, more solid sense of worth and love.

Psalm 139: 1-5 says “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

I can believe that God is a purposeful creator of everything, sovereign over areas I excel in and areas I flounder in. I can stand in awe of this reality. Perhaps areas I flounder in reflect the beauty of dreaming, that I am not yet who I am becoming each day. Immaturity and areas of weakness are a creator’s dreamland- he cannot perfect something that’s already perfect. But he can conform, day by day, an imperfect person to the image of himself.