in the fury of the moment

the need for fences

I have only lived in North Carolina for a little over a year – I still sometimes forget that the south is different from the north, and that bikini season comes early down here. I have come to very much appreciate the fact that I am not a man, for I can’t imagine the torture that I would potentially experience in seeing that much temptation paraded in front of me. I was just about to write that it would be especially difficult to be a single man and have that much flesh teasing and taunting me, but I think it might be equally difficult to be a married man and be subject to that kind of enticement. In either case, it might be very much like a person who hasn’t eaten for several days, sitting and watching a procession of t-bone steaks and (since we’re in the south) fried chicken, but being unable to get up and enjoy the food. Even to walk away from the food doesn’t solve the problem, because that image still lingers in your thoughts and in your appetite and renders you dissatisfied.

This may be a really touchy subject for me to broach, but life is sometimes touchy and I tend to (especially lately) run into the difficult stuff head-first. Or sometimes it seems I get thrown into this stuff head-first. I was working at the group home last night, and somehow I ended in a conversation about women with one of the boys. We spoke in particular about lust and attraction and what God thinks of all that. I know this guy seems to have girls on his mind a lot, but usually the tone of the conversation is light and more teasing than anything else. Last night, after things quieted down at the house and most of the guys were in bed, we ended up talking about beauty. The focus was more about physical beauty than anything else. Apparently earlier that day this young man had seen a picture of a woman in a bikini, and he couldn’t shake the image from his head. He asked me if it was wrong to feel attraction toward her, and if it was wrong to continue to think about her and what she looked like in that bikini. He asked me if God would be “mad at him” for thinking about her in that way. This was one of those paradoxical moments when I really wondered if I was there, why I was there, or if maybe I had somehow slipped into someone else’s body that was supposed to be there … and at the same time, I knew that was exactly where I was supposed to be in that moment.

I took a deep breath and tried to recover the wind that had been knocked out of me, and I said a quick prayer … and I started talking to this young man (I’ll call him J) about beauty, and how God created beauty for us to enjoy, but how we have tainted and polluted something that He intended to be pure and holy. I watched his face closely and slowed a bit when I saw the flush rise to his cheeks as I talked about Adam and Eve in the garden, and how they were completely naked. I watched his eyes as they scanned the carpeted floor as he listened to me talk about how the beauty of another person is something God longs for us to enjoy in the context of marriage, and how we can actually worship God and honor HIM in the way that we treat another person and another person’s body.

I asked him what it was about that woman that he thought was so attractive. His cheeks grew rosy again as he mumbled “her body”. I asked him if she looked like a nice person, and if he thought that she was someone that he would enjoy spending time with, even if she was wearing baggy sweatpants and a big oversized t-shirt. He laughed nervously and looked at me for the first time in 15 minutes and said he didn’t know. I asked him if she would still be beautiful if he met her in real life and found that the shape he admired was actually the shape of the bikini and not the shape of the woman. Again, the nervous laugh, and a “probably not.” We got to talking about marriage, and about his own family life. I asked him what he thought was missing in his own parents’ marriage, and if he thought his mom was beautiful. He said that he didn’t think she was now, that maybe she was once, and that he didn’t know what was missing – probably love.

I really put J on the spot and asked him to give me a definition of beauty. He hemmed and hawed and sighed in frustration and finally said he didn’t know. I grabbed my Bible and asked him if he wanted to know what God thought about beauty. We ended up in (surprise!) Proverbs 31 and we talked especially about the verses that say “charm is deceitful, and beauty is fleeting … but a woman who fears the Lord is greatly to be praised.” J asked me what that means. I talked to him about my life, and my past – I didn’t give too many details, but I shared with him how there were years and times that I completely based my view of myself on how other people saw me. I put so much work and effort into the outside of me that the inside was totally neglected, like an unkempt garden overgrown with weeds. I made the analogy of a beautiful house with a perfectly landscaped front yard … there were flowers and trees, and it was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. If I was that house, people would have driven by me and stopped their cars and stared and felt drawn to walk through the yard – or maybe they would even wish they lived there … but if they looked further, past the really good presentation, and walked into the backyard, they would see a landscaper’s nightmare, with weeds and uneven ground and swampy spots. I put so much work into the front yard that I completely ignored the needs and devastation happening in the back. Eventually those passersby would grow tired of the front yard, and they would start to meander toward the back … and when they did, they were completely disgusted by what they saw. As beautiful and enticing as it was at that point, the front yard did not hold enough attraction to them to keep them there. That beauty and appeal into which I invested so much time and energy – it was deceiving, and eventually it faded away. It fled because of time, because of the process of going beyond the surface, but mostly I think it happened because God wanted me to learn that He would rather I have balance in my life.

I was so relieved to see that J seemed to be following my story, because I wasn’t even completely sure where I was going with it. But then God took my breath away again. I guess what I really needed to do was just shut up for a minute, because as I sat and listened in amazement, J said “kinda makes you think … maybe a yard that looks so good that it’s unreal IS unreal. Maybe everything should be kept up, and one part shouldn’t get so much attention that other stuff is ignored.” I heard the buzzing of the clothes dryer, telling me that my clothes were done, so I excused myself from the room just in time to blot the tears forming in my eyes. I had rambled and ranted and somehow I had communicated a truth to this precious young man.

When I came back in the room, J was looking at the floor intently. He said, “Miss Krista, what about what’s in the house? Forget the yard, what’s in the house?” I could have jumped up and hugged him … and actually, I did. I said, “that’s IT!” I told him THAT is the question he needs to ask himself when he’s thinking about beauty, especially as he gets older and thinks about a woman that he would want to spend the rest of his life with. I was the one to blush next, as he said (mumbled) to me, “Miss Krista, your front yard and back yard and house – they’re beautiful.” At least I think that’s what he said – his mouth was buried in a pillow, and I couldn’t get an indication from his eyes because they were still focused on a single spot on the carpet.

We prayed together that night, that God would guard J’s mind. We thanked God for the beauty He created for us to enjoy, and also for the way that He gives us limits and teaches us to learn to appreciate them. I prayed for J’s future, and for his future wife, that God would protect both of them and help them to learn how to care for their inner beauty as much as (if not more than) their outer beauty. I thanked God for J and his heart and his passions and his desires, and prayed that God would preserve those until the day when He wants J to be able to fully express them in joy and worship to Him.

As I drove home and continued in prayer, I felt a sadness when I realized that I will only have one more night of official “work” with those boys. But the sadness was soon replaced with joy and appreciation at the privilege of being able to be a part of these boys’ lives, now and in the future choices that they make. There are so many decisions ahead of them, so many battles to be waged and so many victories to be experienced … it amazes and humbles me to realize that somehow, in His sovereignty, God decided to let me be a part of their journeys.

I also thought a bit more about the house/lawn analogy. Of course if you take anything to an extreme, you risk damage – sometimes unrepairable damage … I’m sure that people might put SO much work into their backyards that the front yards are an eyesore. The key is balance. Or maybe the key is a privacy fence. If I owned my house, I think I would probably put up the highest, strongest fence I could find … my lawn and house would be beautiful, but this beauty would only be known by those to whom I open the gate. I’m sure there would be many grateful men if more women would build those fences.

posted by Krista @ 9:50 AM