NO CAPES!

Our society is tumbling.

I know, it’s not as graceful of a fall as that word makes it sound. I’m sure most of you imagine it more as a violent collapse. Perhaps like that of the buildings after Samson pulled down the columns. Destroying whoever was unfortunate enough to be underneath at the time.

We all find ourselves under these buildings as they collapse and turn to rubble around and onto us. We look around once the dust and dirt settles and see our fellow people who were caught in the same place. How did we get here? Why didn’t we see those columns falling earlier? Why did we make ourselves so vulnerable?

Society has always been a living, giant label maker. Have you ever seen one of those? You type a word into the machine and it nicely prints the word onto a laminated piece of paper that we can place anywhere, giving anything a name. It’s pretty, handy, innocent…until the label maker decides to malfunction. Ever seen that? It becomes rapid, hurried, and messy. Our society is a malfunctioning label maker.

Lately, I have been asked if I’m a lesbian. Or if me and my best girlfriend are dating. We laugh and joke about it, ultimately being firm in the fact that we’re neither. But, through the jokes and sweeping the comments off my shoulder (trying really hard to not allow it to become a full-fledged chip), I find myself deflating. As a single woman, I am not different from any other single woman when it comes to not wanting to hear that I’m not enough of a woman to be pursued. That I don’t wear enough dresses. Not enough make-up. That I have too many opinions and ideas to keep someone around.

   

And here’s the best selling point to my new label-I compliment other women.

Not just the ordinary, “You look nice today!”

Or, “Your hair looks good!”

Or even, “You’re good enough for him!”

I am a woman of words. I love to use them; they are my gifting. However, I didn’t get the memo that my gift was limited to men. That I could only use sweet words and kind adjectives when I’m attracted to someone. In fact, I’m pretty close to positive that this isn’t what God has intended for what He’s given me. MY God isn’t a God of limits. I am a human of limits created by a God that knows none. And I fully believe that His gifting in me isn’t meant to be limited by humans who only know limits. What right do we have to place limits on God breathed ideas, gifts, words, creations….the list goes on. Who are we to limit a species that was created and chosen by a God that literally knows no limits at all because He created everything that we view as limiting?

When society places that messy, limiting label on us we tend to allow it to stop us cold. We cannot possibly go on because we now “have a new name”. Our lists of “new names” are long and cruel. In a way, I believe we wear these like a long, heavy cape. They engulf us, we wear them, and they weigh us down. But, we cannot take them off because they give us some sort of identity. Perhaps an ugly one, but one none the less. They allow us to take on other identities such as victim, survivor, warrior. But, how are we these if we need a cape of shame, dirt, and ugliness to bear it? Is this cape really worth what society sees as a good reason to complain? Or judge? Or compare?

Our worth has become based on capes that bring us down.

Our identities have become based on petty labels.

Our faiths have become based on our limited view of an unlimited God.

We have become a society that labels itself because it doesn’t want a seemingly “invisible” God to do it for them. Beat God to the punch. We are who we are.

Yet, this is why we are limited. We are not limited because we surrender and submit to a limitless God. We are limited because we give in to a creation not only full of limits, but a creation who creates limits. We are so desperate to have control of our own identities that we destroy them. We destroy who we could be. Who we are meant to be.

My gift isn’t meant to be limited. My words aren’t meant to be hidden. I am not meant to be boxed up in hopes that one day a man sees me and opens the box back up. A man has already seen me. His name was Jesus. He put Himself into a box by becoming a man so that I wouldn’t have to even be put into the box. MY God has created a limitless, bubbly, kind, unique, loud, talkative woman who loves to shower my fellow women with words of beauty and encouragement. THAT is my identity.

God is my identity.

The whole cape analogy has made me think fondly of the scene from The Incredibles where Edna is explaining to Mrs. Incredible why capes are a bad idea. Let me just quote this eccentric character and say to you to take off your cape- “NO CAPES!” They may give you an identity now, but they will eventually kill you. 

One of the girls....

Taylyr Jane