Unfinished and Face to Face with the Fridge Again.

"Hit me baby one more....."

"What doesn't kill you makes you..."

"My heart's a..."

"And Iiiii, will always loooove ...."

"Don't stop..."

So I am on day five of my no make-up for Lent quest (with the flu no less) and today I am feeling as what I can best describe as - like an unfinished lyric. I did have the day off so I wasn't really forced to leave the house, or do my hair, or put on something cute - but still when looking at myself in the mirror, I find myself feeling... unfinished.

This idea of being 'finished' is something that resonates deeply within me. Why you might ask? Well, because I would say in general I am a 'put together' person (even when things are falling apart). I also am the kind of person who has to has to have resolution at work, in conflict, with change, at the end of a long day. Things must always be resolved, finished. I will also say on the flip side of that I have found myself for a large portion of my adult life being much more of a starter and not a finisher - it is always a catch 22.

But this idea of being unfinished and feeling the discomfort that comes along with it, well I think it is rooted far deeper than just not finishing a project or needing to resolve a conflict. I think it is rooted deeply in our need to feel complete, and doing whatever it takes in our lives to make ourselves 'whole'.

We fill and fill our lives with all kinds of stuff; maybe it is food, or technology, new shoes, or that fancy car or that new two story condo - we fill and replace one thing with another... the this is no longer new so I now need a that, to stay current, to look good, to hold my status, to feel apart of, to whatever... Fill, buy, change, rearrange - all to satisfy our need to be complete, to be whole. And when we are faced to go without- we then find ourselves...... looking in the mirror thinking, "Ok, well I guess that is just going to have to do...unfinished."

But why, why the need to be "complete"? And when did we get the idea that we could EVER be the one, or that some THING could be the one to fill that need, to make us complete, whole, finished?

I have just started the book, A 1000 Gifts - and loving it so far, but the author said something quite novel about our need to have control, to fill our lives with whatever WE want, whenever WE want it. She is talking about the ever famous Garden, where our lives would be changed forever -all because we need to 'be in control' of our completeness, our knowledge.  She says, "We are hungry. We eat. We are filled...and emptied."

This is poetic to the point that it grips tightly to my heart. This is exactly the problem. We are always thirsting for more, what will be next, what will fill our lives. So then we see something and grab it and nom nom nom on it like it is going to be the end all to our hunger. And for a short while it is - like a great meal at the China Buffet - we are filled to the brim. But no matter the fill from that carb-loaded, short lived food baby - we find ourselves standing face to face with the fridge once again, and it's only a few short hours later.

I think this perfectly illustrates what we do to ourselves by trying to fill our lives with things that we believe will make us 'mo betta, mo complete, mo mo of everything'.

So what does this have to do with feeling like an unfinished song lyric? Well, for me make-up has been a long sense of security and a huge defining thing when I consider who I am, how people see me, and how I fill myself with a sense of worth. At the end (of this) the day I sit here in my blue chair thinking - sweet mother of mascara how I miss thee. I am/have already gone through my normal Lenten notions and thoughts of 'replacing' ...such as: I MUST be tan before I go on my girls trip at the end of March, and panicking over not being able to find my newly purchased acne cream (for my one pimple)...

So here I stand, face to face with the fridge thinking, "man I am starving!"

But - and here is the catch (and a painful one at that) I know, I KNOW with full certainty that no amount of mascara can fill or satisfy my soul - no matter the compliments it earns me, or how finished it makes me feel at the end of my morning routine.  Because ultimately, even though if for a short time it has done its job to satisfy my feelings of completeness -  it will never, nor can it ever REPLACE His job. Nothing will ever satisfy our hunger like knowing we are only, and always made complete in One thing, and One thing only.

Jesus.

And every time we put our wholeness, our sense of being finished or complete in anything but Him - we will always go through the cycle of being hungry, being fed, being filled... and ultimately emptied again.

So, for day 5 I am learning to lean on HIS completeness - praying that even with every breath of unfinished that I feel - that I can continue to hold tight to His promise that has already been finished just for me. And as my friend Marcy reminded me today, "You are beautifully and wonderfully made" and that is not because of the mascara I do OR DON'T wear, it is because of the love of my Savior.