Deborah Spooner
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Bath soap and a thank you? Are you kidding me?

My teenage indignation was so thick it could be reached for and thrown (into my dad's face as my verbal assault was affectively doing).

It'd started six years prior.

Sitting on dusty, wooded windowsills in northern parkas in the church basement in the soon-to-become youth room, we were choosing a name. From seeing, in the bare room, a yellow ball randomly labeled BLUE, I'd effectively named the youth group at age thirteen and did not know what else I was going to be called on to do.

I was happy to do a lot of it a lot of the time. Arriving over an hour early, plugging in my jet black guitar, finding myself as the first example in the human sundae ice-breaker and the last to finish cleaning up.

I'd spent life in youth group where I was a few months younger than my friends, my friends who got to be in the big kids group while I was the old one of the young group, called out to answer the questions, share personal stories, and give examples of my sin while everyone was quiet. Needing help myself but not being able to help myself by opening up because what I said reflected back on my dad, reflected on me the example, reflected on my mom trying to counsel this woman who was supposed to be leading us.

Welcome to the life of a pastor's kid.

Bath soap and a thank you.

I'd come home from youth group graduation. My puma shorts now rested on the laminate countertops as my words rang out.

They'd handed my sister and I each matching soap and small trinket baskets and said thank you for what we've done. Although they'd given sagas about two other girls who were leaving a few weeks prior, they said a simple thank you and how they believed in us.

I was beside myself.

"Dad, when have they come up to me and ask me how I'm actually doing? They assume I'm fine, so they don't invest in me like everyone else. They just have me lead."

I'd have various rants like these with one of the parents almost every week. Painful. For me, yes. For them, probably more so as I realize since the years have past. Don't get me wrong, I deeply love the people in my church. They've done so much for me and my family, and I was a very strong-willed teenager who didn't see things clearly. This is very much a reflection on how, in my worst moments, I perceived their actions. But this is still what I would feel, even if I would blow it out of proportion.

What my anger fed from those counter-sitting days would later feed off what was apparently deeper inside me.

The $14 H&M creme dress constrained my legs even as the black thin belt snugged against my waist. I was sitting with hand-pottered, deep purple mugs with my college's insignia plastered across. Sitting as a student among two other people with power.

One said it first: Deborah is a force. The second agreed.

I appreciated it. Really, it means a lot. But in that moment, the weight of being a force, being able to lead, being believed in felt more like a burden than a gift.

You look at me and smile. 
You had me soap and tell me I'll do great things.
You nod and say I'm going somewhere.

But who will go with me?

Forward more months, and the tan-white tiles hit my feet even as the Audible words hit my ears. One summer ago, words from the dad had slid into my heart as John Piper's Desiring God had come to change my perception. Now, Barnabas Piper's words came through:

"One of the greatest defense mechanisms a PK can develop is the ability to sound good without risking or revealing anything of substance... We learn to answer questions and deflect probing without exposing ourselves... Making people laugh or a play on words is a perfect deflection of the topic at hand" 

The tile beneath my feet soon slid into rug carpet as I felt the tears well and my knees grow weak. The ability to sound good without revealing. The ability to read people and respond without letting them in.

I thought I was vulnerable. Who shares their sin with a group of strangers? I thought I welcoming people in. How often did people come stay in my home as they are passing through, sheltered by the pastor's family?

But B. Pipe's words ring more:

"Relationships are built on authenticity and trust, two component missing from the political PK"

Authenticity and trust.

I'd been sitting on the floor of a small room at what would become my first real job. I was facing the prospect of having to walk into the same building day after day after day to see the same people and build relationship with them. To really have them... know me. To really have to... trust me, and let myself trust them.

I'd been sitting across from four new friends, burgers on plates, avoiding the three questions that triggered immediate judgments: my age, my dad's job, my high school. I was looking at them, they who voted me with the superlatives most likely to be president and to rule the world but about whom I wondered. What would it really be like to have them... know me. To really have them... trust me, and let myself trust them.

I've been known of, a lot. The pastor's kid. The person in this leadership. The (fill in the blank). But to be truly known?

"Perhaps the greatest risk any of us will ever take is to be seen as we truly are" (cinderella)

I'd hide when I'd start to be known. I'd try to shape what people thought they knew of me. But maybe my first mistake was seeking to be known for who I am before learning to rest in (and not just know) whose I am.

"For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts toward the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; no, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone" (john calvin, the institutes, 1.1)

Subsistence in God alone. In Christ, alone.

I just finished FaceTiming with a college roommate, hearing how much the campus is not the same, reminiscing of our cow-sock late night sprinkler runs across the MN green. Thinking of all the things I did do and things I wish I would have, of the fine balance of confidence and caution I had tread.

I pulled up an ancient video once I ended the call. She was in her giraffe footie pajamas she never actually wore, and we were fully embracing our girlhood as we changed the lyrics to a T Swizzle song.

What I saw was a girl struggling to become a woman. A girl projecting more confidence than she felt, a girl who only few could see through to her insecure core and desire for affirmation and love she didn't even know she was searching to have. A girl who wanted to trust but who didn't know how. A girl who wanted to embrace who she was made to be but who did not understand that-to embrace who she was made to be-meant losing herself in the embrace of a Savior, in the knowledge of God where she finds who she is.

Subsistence in God alone. In Christ, alone.

"One thing I ask from the Lord. This only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple" (psalm 27.4)

Only when we look to the face of Jesus in the truth of His word do we see the depths of how much we need Him, that He is holy and we are not.

"We have, in our day, started by getting the whole picture upside down, starting with the doctrine that every individuality is of infinite value. We then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ... We are through and through creatures not creators, derived beings living not from ourselves but from Christ." (cs lewis)

If I am called to lead when somedays I would prefer to do anything but, so be it.
If I am called to follow faithfully alone, so be it.
If I must struggle through what it means to trust, to be truly vulnerable, to have to learn to let people in, then so be it.

For I'm seeing more and more that we all have burdens to bear, but we are always living bare in our need before the One who is All-Sufficient.

I need only to need Him more.

To learn that to trust others, I must first learn to be hidden in trust in Him.
To receive love from others, I must find what it means to be filled with love from Him.
To let people in, I must let in the truth that it is about dying daily to my sin and living to Christ and that joy unfolded is within surrender to the plan of all plans.

So be it, for He is, was, and is to come.
© 2018 Deborah  Spooner
(to comment, see red comment link below and to the right
of "You Might Also Like" images)



I don't know where the peanut butter is.

Dark-denimed and hoop ear-ringed, I had just walked through the automatic sliding doors under the lit Publix sign. I'd been working remotely at my new job in an unfamiliar Starbucks after sitting for two-hours at a DMV changing my residency.

I'd selected this spot about half an hour from my new home because the area was known for being good, and I was going to be a good human saving gas and centralizing a lot of my errands.

YMCA membership. Drivers license switch. Grocery store. DSW. Sam's club membership. Walking into the Bank of America only to see too many men in suits, get overwhelmed, and turn right back around and walk out the doors.

I don't know where the peanut butter is.

Everything was so new. I was hating it and hating that I was hating it. I need to get a credit card. Great, I don't even know how to change my direct deposit yet alone get unlimited access. I need to get insurance. Wonderful, the only thing I'm sure of right now is that I'm not sure of much.

Everything was unfamiliar, and I felt so incompetent. How do I ____ ? Fill in the blank with seemingly over thirty tasks every day, many common life skills. I felt that I knew none of them.

But I wasn't just incompetent. I was alone.

Alone and very aware that I cannot just call my mom to quick come over, and we can run errands together like the good old days. Ever aware that babies seemed to be everywhere, and I finally have reached the point where I actually want babies, but no one wants to call me baby. Ever aware that I've chosen to tie myself to a new city for an unknown amount of time, tied up in my head that my feet are not where my heart is (but that each remembering of the MN green reminds me that I wasn't what people needed me to be there, I didn't do what I could have for them according to my own self-standards).

I don't know where the peanut butter is.

And it seems parallel that I don't know where my life is exactly heading. I don't know when these pieces of my life that I'm waiting to fall into place will finally land. I don't know when the new normal will start but also know that when normalcy comes again, I'll be prone to start wanting to move on, ever chasing something better I imagine is just around the corner.

I don't want to be so ajar in side, being so jarred by all the thoughts and emotions. I just want to walk into a store with someone I love and find an item I love without having an existential crisis, a deep tiredness and frustration corrupting my blood and coursing through my heart to my mind.

I don't know where the peanut butter is.

You see, as things had somewhat slowed down from the crazy blur of the last three years where people's "how are you still alive? how are you doing so much?" had begun to burn more than the burnout they said I was coming towards.

You see, I've been starting to see myself. And I'm a little startled by what I see.

Good gracious, I'm so, so prone to wander.

My love for the Lord and surrender to Him is something that has guided my life internally for a long, long time. I'm thankful for that. But I'm not thankful that I've learned how to become so incredible creative.

I justify my sin.
And I'm going to be really honest now.

I struggle with sexual temptation. A lot. And what's scary? I've never even kissed anyone. But I have a world inside my mind that I didn't realize how fortified the walls are.

I struggle with swearing.* No one has ever heard me swear. But I've started to let myself, just to myself. But it started inside my head and now comes out.

I am incredibly jealous. I have this insatiable desire to be the best. Look the best, act the best, be the most well like. I'm not always happy when others succeed beyond me.

I'm terrible with communication. I just tend to cut people out till I think I have it figured out.

I am not disciplined. I'm full of pride and a strong, strong desire to protect me, my number one. I'm much to quick to speak. I've learned to scorn gentleness.

And I'm only just beginning.

Many people would push back my confession, looking at my life and showing me the fruit they see. That's needed. Encouragement is so vital, and I truly am seeking to live a life surrendered to Jesus. But I'm seeing, you see.

I've learned that the closer we come to the light, perhaps truly the more we see how many spots we really have. I feel that I've been having miracle-grow these past two months. I feel like I've been praying for the miracle-grow of breakthrough more than ever before. But I'm really just feeling the miraculously difficult growing pains, instead.

God, I'm ready for the epiphany. I'm ready for the big moment of transformation. I'm ready, I'm waiting. I'm asking.

It hit me as I was in the kitchen, eating peanut butter, naturally.

Deborah, what if it's not one big moment of breakthrough? What if it's a lifetime of moments spent breaking to your will and falling into mine?

And I stopped, just as I later did in the grocery isle. It reminded me of when I had been a freshman in college, making an appointment with the college's chaplain. I was feeling so off and just wanted her to pray that a demon would come out of me. I figured there must be something deeply up that could be removed so I could go back to normal. But no demon came out, and I sat by the cool lake with the slightly dying grass and realized I had to daily die to my flesh and choose Christ.

Here I was again. Years later but seeing that this might be a lesson learned over the years.

It takes years.

And years take months and months take weeks and weeks take days and days take hours and hours take seconds. And it all adds up to a lifetime. A lifetime that's either lived for us or for Christ. A lifetime that's either made up of choices of surrender or succumbing: freedom or a little bit of hell on earth. Delighting in ourselves or losing ourselves enraptured by a savior who saves.

You see that's just it.

I sometimes have zero desire to change. My sin feels so good sometimes. And when I try to reform, I just relapse.

Because, guess what, little child (I have to tell myself). I can't. You can't. We're sinners, but we are sinners saved. Saved by one who made the world and who loves us enough to send His Spirit to empower our every day.

That's what I want, and that's what I have to remind myself daily that I want.

I want the sweet moments of waking up at 5:45 AM because I really just need my hour of prayer and the Word with Him. I want the car blasting music viewing the Tennessee hills and praising Jesus. I want the freedom of sitting myself down and actually writing, knowing that my heart will be restless until it rests in working hard and doing good.

I want to want daily surrender.
I want to want Jesus' way more than my own.
I want to want to die to myself more.
And I know that all I want is for Him to do it through me because it never was and never will be about me.

Yes, I still don't know where the peanut butter is. I still don't know how many of these pieces will fall and how I seem to not have pieces I wish I did. But I truly don't know the depths where I would be without Him, either. And I want that to scare sense into me more.

I know I want Him.
But maybe what's more important, He wants me. He wants you. He wants us. And He's given Himself to us.

How foolish we are, how foolish I am, to forget.

___________________

*I am not trying to start a moral debate on whether swearing is sin. I'm not going to get into that here and now. For me, though, my swearing is coming from a place of deep hurt and anger and my conscience convicts me.

© 2018 Deborah  Spooner
(to comment, see red comment link below and to the right
of "You Might Also Like" images)




"People may teach what they know, but they reproduce what they are" ( j o h n   c   m a x w e l l )

We all have a role in each other's lives as women. To the girls coming after me, I want to say I'm sorry.

I was scrolling through Instagram tonight. I'd been sitting at the lingeringly sticky, mahogany tinted table at Starbucks (yes, I'm at a chain in a city renowned not only for its festivals but food. Don't judge. They're open late).

I saw the caption. "Sweet 16, baby." She was by her new sedan. High waisted jean-mini skirt, legs tan and posed, hair billowing, blush pink crop top emphasizing her womanly features, she reclined on the hood. Swipe right and you got another downtown lean, long legs sliding towards you from the screen, eyes to the side, slight smile sitting on the pronounced lips.

Did we do that to you?

The thought came without me trying to put it there. Did we do that to you? Did we teach you that the way to be, the way to be happy and to fit in and make it was to make yourself basically like every other basic girl out there?

The body. Did we teach you that sliding out a leg was the way to be selected by the girls, the guys? To enter the inner ring? That the best way to find happiness was through making other people happy to see (and happy to want to have) your body? That the best love comes when he pushes the heart on your photo that all your friends say makes you look so hot? Did we model this for you? Did you see it in us?

We didn't tell you, and I'm sorry.

We didn't tell you that sticking that leg out could get you selected (yes). But it's seductive. You can be at a concert and find that guy, beer in hand, who is more than happy to have you. I've seen, now.

We didn't tell you that getting their eyes on you can make you happy (yes). But it can mean they are looking at you with lust not for your heart but for your flesh. You can be walking through Target and feel their stares. You can be sitting at Panera and notice the garbage near you is being visited. Every three minutes by a man who noticed. I've seen, now.

We didn't tell you that people can push the heart on the screen and push your heart into places it was not meant to be. That beauty is a game girls play and never feel like they win.

We didn't tell you, and I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that we get caught up in this game ourselves and neglect our responsibility, our responsibility to warn you, to show you through not just our words but our actions that this game is bondage when we've been offered freedom.

You see, we really didn't tell you. We didn't tell you about holiness. We didn't show you in our actions. And I'm sorry. We didn't get lost with you in the wonder of what it means to be a true woman, what it is like to live knowing you are pursued by a divine redeeming love. We didn't tell you what you are actually made of, that whose you are is more important than who others (and even yourself) say you are.

Instead, we just heart your Instagram stories, becoming numb to our own blindness. That we don't see where we are leading you. That we don't see that we are the leaders. That with every heart we are affirming this illusive reality that this hearted way is the way to life. That you are not missing anything but have actually found it all.

Because we get too caught up in it ourself. We are lonely and want your affection, too. We want you to come running to us and squealing our names because we want to be wanted.

What do I really wish that we wanted?

That our hearts burned, were beyond restless, couldn't settle until we'd told you:

You are so worth loving, not only for what you look like.
Stop obsessing over what you look like and who likes how you look.
You're missing out.
You're missing out on these crazy free moments where you break the basic norm and sing a little more loudly. love someone who others avoid. take extra long on helping with something less than glamorous.
You're missing out on giving.
You're missing out on so much laughter.
You're missing out peace.

There is truly so much more. 

Please, forgive us.
And please, those of us who are are responsible. It starts with us. So let's start.

Let's start calling people to a higher standard.
Let's start calling ourselves to a higher standard.
Let's break basic, basically pledging to live so in love with Jesus that we are so in love with life. So in love with life that His way is contagious.
Basically breaking our shallow self-obsession and chasing to pursue faith, love, and holiness (1 tim).

There truly is so much more.

© 2018 Deborah  Spooner
(to comment, see red comment link below and to the right
of "You Might Also Like" images)

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About Me

Deborah Spooner is an analytical creative enamored by ideas and addicted to dripping words in candor. Serving as a Marketing Strategist for LifeWay’s Adults Ministry, she loves all things big-dreaming, difference-making, and Jesus-pointing. A pastor’s daughter with a background in communications and theology, you can find her at her local church with her students (and probably way too excited about the color yellow) as she seeks to know Christ more and make Him known.

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