Apology Unaccepted.

Today at church, I heard some beautiful words of wisdom from a woman named Kat Lee. Kat attends Antioch Community Church in Waco and for the last few years, she has written a blog for women entitled Hello Mornings. I strongly recommend it! While explaining the need for daily quiet time with God, Kat stressed the importance of starting small. "I am a model of low goals," she said, "I have never finished a Beth Moore Bible study, ever." Let me tell you ladies, hearing that from such a successful and kingdom-minded woman gave me some very real hope and encouragement. The main point is, starting small is still a start. She went on to say that talking to God for 30 seconds every morning often does more for our relationship with Him than a 3-hour 'prayer chunk' once a week. "What we do faithfully is a lot more significant than what we do sporadically."

So right there in my chair I made a list. What do I do faithfully? Here's what I came up with:

1. Cry. (Duh, I'm a woman, what did you expect)
2. Realize my mistakes and crawl back to God.
3. Dream of an adventure.
4. Dream of someone to share it with.
5. Realize I'm lonely & obsessed with finding said someone and crawl back to God.
6. Wonder if I'm beautiful.
7. Try to invest in my relationship with God, let it fizzle out and....crawl back to God.

At first, I took a lot of comfort from the fact that Numbers 3, 4 and 6 were straight out of Stasi and John Eldredge's definition of a woman in Captivating. But after I reread them, I laughed out loud. In church. 

There's a lot of crawling here. And let's not forget Number 1. 
Crawling and crying. 
Yikes. 
It's a good thing my God self-identifies as a Father.

I'm 110% confident I'm not the only one who is building, rowing and steering the ugly cry face boat. We all know that face, we all know that hurt. We all know what it's like to multi-task cry-face management with holiday shopping, dieting and taxes. And yet, when our aching, exhausted souls cry out to our Father, how often do our prayers begin with shame, with embarrassment, and feeling like we're taking up His time. God, I'm sorry, but I'm really hurting and I need you right now.

Let me go on the record and say that I think God takes personal offense when we pray that way. Honey, do not ever apologize for the way God made you. He made you to feel and love deeply, so don't apologize when you do. And it's not just our prayers, it's our everyday conversations. One of my favorite slam poetry performances includes a young woman who recognizes that all of her questions in math class begin with the words 'I'm sorry'. My friends, this should not be! 

I'm on a mission to stop apologizing for who God made me. 
I'm not going to apologize for disagreeing with you because God gave me an innovative mind and I intend to use it.
I'm not going to apologize for not understanding something, because He also reveals His wisdom in His perfect time. 
I'm not going to apologize for needing to talk things out, because God made women in such a way that this is physiologically impossible. 
I'm not going to apologize  for asking you for too much information about your life, because women are unique vessels of His ridiculous compassion. 
And I'm not going to apologize for realizing that I am worth more than the time someone else will not give me, because God told me so in His word. 

Women apologize for these things all the time and yet at the heart of each apology, the God of the Universe is screaming at us No, I made you that way! Apology unaccepted!

So here's a thought. If we're going to be consistent, let's be consistent in our crawling, not our apologizing. I hope you can see the difference. The former moves us ever closer to the heart of our Maker. The later is nothing short of the audacity to criticize His handiwork.