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Created for a Purpose

INGRAM LINK |GUEST In 2006, I had a house full of children (11, 9, 7, and 1). My husband had a struggling business, and I was doing a variety of things to contribute financially. We enjoyed close friendships and were involved in our church and our community. Our families did not live close by, but those relationships were strong, and we spent vacations with our extended families on both sides. In the midst of what was normal life, my oldest daughter struggled. She was smart, kind, and had talents and abilities, but she often found herself on the outer circle of different friend groups. Socially, there was an immense push to be on a certain level soccer team, dance team, gymnastics team, etc. There was also social pressure to pull children out of regular classes and be placed in enrichment classes. I saw her and the girls around her striving to be identified by what they did, rather than who they were. My mom is an artist, and she always encouraged us to be creative. As a result, I was the mom that let the kids use glitter and help me cook in the kitchen. To remind my daughter and other girls her age that they were created by God in His image for His purposes, I reached out to some other creative moms to offer a weeklong creative arts camp for girls in my home. Throughout the week, we focused on 1 Timothy 4:12, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” My intention behind the camp was to use hands on, tangible ways to show the girls what it means to be wonderfully made by the God of the universe. The girls cooked a meal, sewed, painted, created a photo scrap book, and made a nativity sculpture. They had fun and they loved being together, creating, laughing, and hearing truths from God’s Word woven throughout the activities...

Created for a Purpose2024-08-26T14:46:01+00:00

Set Free Indeed

TARA GIBBS | CONTRIBUTOR As a young mother, I took my one and three-year-old toddlers with me weekly to visit an elderly homebound widow. Seeing this woman’s joy in the hugs and laughter of my two children was a delightful gift. But, as I left each week, I began noticing unsettling thoughts in my mind and heart: “It is so wonderful that you visit this woman with your toddlers each week! What a good thing you are doing! If people knew, they would really say nice things about you.” How frustrating it felt to not be able to do one thing without pride. I knew the solution was not to stop doing the right thing, but I wondered if there would ever be freedom from this weight of sin. I wondered, “Is the Christian life just one, long slog of feeling guilty all the time?” Twenty-five years later, I would commend my younger self for identifying and confessing the sin in my heart. But I would also encourage “younger me” that a continual slog of guilt is not how the Bible describes the Christian life. Repentance was in order, but when repentance turns into one more opportunity to over-focus on self, I have missed the mark. We can construct a false, self-made identity through focusing on good works, or we can build our self-made identity by over-focusing on guilt and shame. In both cases, I am the focus...

Set Free Indeed2024-07-20T13:52:00+00:00

The False Identity of Vanity

KATIE POLSKI | CONTRIBUTOR In C.S. Lewis’ fantasy novel, The Great Divorce, there is a scene where people in hell are offered a bus ride to the mountains, which are symbolic of heaven. The passengers on the bus are all ghost-like figures while their family and friends near the mountains are solid beings, beautiful and non-transparent. One of the ghostly ladies on the bus, dressed very nicely, feels inferior because she is transparent and not as solidly beautiful as the others: “How can I go out like this among a lot of people with real solid bodies? It’s far worse than going out with nothing on would have been on earth. Have everyone staring through me.” [1] The spirit-narrator looks at the woman with bewilderment as she has just been given the chance to leave hell, and he says to her, “Friend, could you, only for a moment, fix your mind on something not yourself?” But she could not. Overcome with the way others might see her, the woman chooses eternity in hell rather than feel less beautiful than the other bodies in her midst. Vanity: A False Identity Vanity is often defined as someone who has an excessive love of themself—an over-the-top, prideful attitude that thinks, “I am the fairest.” Vanity is certainly not less than this. There are many who live in self-admiration of the way they look or in excessive pride over their gifts and talents. The vain person sees no need to give thanks to God when a compliment is received because they believe they are the sole reason for their success; they love themselves more than they do anyone or anything else, let alone the God who created them. But there is another aspect to vanity that is equally harmful, and that is seen through Lewis’ fantastical illustration. Sometimes, vanity surfaces from deep insecurities over one’s appearance. While seemingly contradictory, a person who is consistently ashamed of their appearance or often worried about how they look in comparison to others is also expressing vanity. Many women struggle with this in one form or another. Whether we walk around gloating in our beauty, or deliberately drive the bus back to hell to avoid company that causes us to feel outwardly inferior, it is all vanity, and connected to a blurred vision of our true identity as a believer in Jesus...

The False Identity of Vanity2024-07-20T13:44:41+00:00
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