But I didn’t come here today to get away from it all. The reason I’m here is Chanty,* a young Cambodian girl, who sits next to me on the beach, telling me her story—how she was groomed, trafficked and then repeatedly raped by a foreign man. I sit with this child, testifying to her pain and witnessing her courage.
Chanty grew up as the oldest daughter in a poor family, suffering from neglect and the weighty responsibility of caring for her younger siblings. Her parents didn’t encourage her to o to school, and she made friends easily on the streets, asking tourists for money and collecting cans and bottles to recycle and earn some income for her family.

Traffickers target vulnerable children like Chanty and befriend them, promising money and jobs to win their trust. A trafficker noticed 13-year-old Chanty and fed her dreams of easy work and a great salary—just think how she could support her family and make her life better! With hope of a better future, Chanty accepted the job the woman offered.

The trafficker drove Chanty a long distance and delivered her to a foreign man who raped her for three days. When the man finished abusing her, the trafficker brought Chanty back to her home and dumped her on the streets, warning her not to tell anyone what happened. The details of Chanty’s story and the pain she feels are unique to her, yet the pattern of the exploitation and abuse is all too common. The reality is that in every country around the world, countless women and children are trafficked, exploited and raped, and have no one to rely on for help.

This is my dream—a slightly odd one, I admit: Seeing rescue, justice and restoration for children and women who are victims of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Even though I live in one of the most beautiful regions of the world, it is difficult to focus on the scenery anymore. My eyes are trained to look for vulnerable children, traffickers and potential pedophiles. Working as the International Justice Mission’s Director of Aftercare in Cambodia, I come face to face with the reality of trafficking daily.

Sex trafficking is a massive global enterprise based upon force, coercion and deception. This violent activity persists here in Cambodia, as it does throughout the world, primarily because of its profitability to perpetrators. Traffickers recruit, transport or detain their victims for the purpose of sexual exploitation and profit, often without fear of arrest or confrontation. Their profit comes not from their own great power, but because of the extreme vulnerability of the women and children they target.

This trade in rape for profit victimizes thousands of women and children every year. Because of the nature of trafficking, it is hard to estimate exactly how many people are affected, but the numbers are high. UNICEF estimates that there are nearly 2 million children exploited in the commercial sex trade today around the world. The U.S. State Department lists human trafficking—of which sex trafficking is a subset—as the world’s third largest criminal enterprise, after drugs and weapons. The problem is urgent and enormous—but we are called to fight it.

When we think of trafficking in terms of the thousands and millions affected, it’s hard to remember the individuals—people like Chanty, sitting here with me on the beach, whose journey of healing has just begun. Though she has a long road ahead of her, I am encouraged as I think of the new hope I have seen in the lives of other trafficking victims during my time in Cambodia. I think of Kunthy* and Chanda,* two young girls who were rescued from forced prostitution at the ages of 13 and 14 years old. These children were held by force in a dilapidated brothel, where they were subject to beatings, drugging, threats and intimidation and serially raped by men who had paid their brothel keeper to violate them.

IJM staff discovered Kunthy and Chanda through an undercover investigation. Our investigators presented proof of the girls’ captivity to local authorities and worked with law enforcement officials to ensure that they were removed from the brothel.

Today, they have new lives. Their brothel owner and pimp have been sentenced to 15 and 10 years in prison, respectively. Each girl has been placed in a loving, professional aftercare home where she can pursue her own goals for the future. Chanda has made many close friends in her new home—her dream is to become an English translator, and she has come a long way in her language skills. Kunthy wants to own an Internet café and website design company. She’s living at a transitional home that offers her both security and freedom while she works at a local NGO and attends computer training school.

Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend the enormity of these miracles—the brightness of hope in new lives contrasted with the darkness of suffering endured. I’m grateful to have this vantage point and remain amazed by how far I’ve journeyed in the past seven years.

In 2000, I first heard Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission, speak about IJM’s global work against abuse and oppression. I was struck by his message that God has called His people to the work of justice—and that it is both doable and urgent. I knew that God was calling me to move from having an inward compassion for these women and intellectually wanting to see sexual violence stopped, to actually being His hands of rescue and restoration.

As much as I wanted to see this big dream happen immediately, I discovered that it takes a lot of hard work, persistence, faith and hope to make dreams happen, especially the ones that God places in our hearts.  Working it out is probably much more like the way of Christ, anyway. Jesus chose the difficult path of humility, persistence, faithfulness, faith, trust, patience, hard work and even pain to reveal Himself to us, teach us, sanctify us, heal us and offer us eternal life.

In Cambodia, IJM’s mission is to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of minors in Cambodia through assisting investigations and prosecutions conducting trainings for Cambodia’s anti-human-trafficking police and by working alongside Cambodian officials to ensure that the poor have access to the protection they need and deserve. My aftercare colleagues and I work together to welcome trafficked children upon their rescue, provide crisis care while they give statements to the police, and partner with governmental social service officials to place the children in aftercare homes that provide specialized care for sexual violence survivors. After placement, we monitor the children’s recovery, prepare them to testify at trial and act as a professional resource to our aftercare partners. I have seen astounding changes happen over the past couple years for girls like Chanty, Kunthy and Chanda.  It fills me with joy to see children safe from abuse, regaining their childhood and learning to dream again.

To be honest, at times I still fight the urge to run away from the violence I witness every day and retreat to a tropical beach of comfort, indulgence and safety. But I know that my heart would not be at peace if I turned away.  The moments I spend with survivors like Chanty remind me that God is in this work and miraculously provides to bring rescue and healing.

When Chanty showed up in her neighborhood disoriented and afraid, a ministry working in the community found her. They knew that IJM investigates reports of child trafficking and called us for assistance. We ensured that Chanty was placed in a loving aftercare shelter that specializes in sexual violence recovery. We walked with her through police interviews as she courageously shared about her experience and identified her abusers. Our investigations and legal staff continued to work with local police to ensure that the perpetrators were arrested and faced trial in the Cambodian courts. Currently, Chanty is receiving excellent care, experiencing safety and healing, starting school and building healthy relationships with other children and trusted adults.

Once we experience God’s passion for the hurting of this world and know that He calls us to be His hands of rescue and restoration, we cannot go back.  Whether we are in Cambodia or in Chicago, God calls us to awaken to the pain in others’ lives, to partner with Him in bringing freedom and justice into the lives of the oppressed and powerless, and to walk with them on their healing journeys. What an awesome responsibility and gift. What are you dreaming of today?

The Bible may not give us precise details on how we should factor in our tax bracket when calculating our gifts to the Church, but it does make one thing clear: Stewardship, whether of finances or other resources, was not meant to be an obligation to fulfill with a reluctant or dubious heart. At the same time, it’s important to remember that God’s blessings are not meant to cause guilt. As Doug Turner, president of stewardship consulting firm RSI, explains, “In the parable of the rich man, Jesus does not blame the man for being rich. Rather, Jesus rebukes him for worshiping the money. God is not anti-material; He is anti-materialism.”

Stewardship, Turner says, is a response to our relationship with God: “It is not a duty or obligation, as many of us have come to view it. Biblical stewardship is about caring for and improving the lives of others as we offer ourselves to Christ.”

This means more than just figuring out how you can afford to give a little more to charity or adding the local soup kitchen to your checklist of activities. It means fashioning a heart after God’s own—a heart that is outwardly rather than inwardly focused.

“Spiritually, one of the greatest practices regarding stewardship is to give and share your time, talent and treasure in a way that is not from the excess,” Turner says. “Often we say that we will serve God and give to the Kingdom after everything else in our lives is done and complete, but Scripture talks about us giving from our first fruits—that our gifts to God should come first, and not as an afterthought. First-fruits offerings say, ‘I believe God is faithful with what will follow.’ As Jesus is the first fruit of resurrection, first-fruit giving is our statement that the best of the Gospel is yet to come.”

There’s no time like the present to replace a mind-set numbed by fear and legalism with the freedom that comes from serving Christ with everything you have.

How dare I, as a woman of pale European descent, attempt to say something meaningful about race and beauty in America. How can I possibly articulate something worth hearing that could honor the experience of women of all hues? I can’t. So I won’t.

That’s the sinister hiss that kept me silent for too long. If I couldn’t speak meaningfully about the experience of all women, including those who move through the world in brown skins, I didn’t really have much to say about “women’s bodies.” How could I? So I kept my narrow lips shut.

As I listened to my friends of color, though, the wily double-bind became apparent. None of us have experienced the world in any way other than the skin we were in. Duh. So to allow single-toned-ness to be a disqualifier for naming what’s wrong with our culture’s insistence on a particular brand of physical attractiveness is sort of crazy logic.

On the other hand, I realized, if we conspire together, we can finally begin to chip away at the world’s lies about women and beauty. Together, in conversation with one another, we get at what’s really happening in our culture and in our heads.

It’s kind of like color printing. In four color process printing, there are four separate printing plates which are used to transfer a single color impression to paper. If you see just the yellow imprint, or the magenta one, it looks like a whacky blob of nothing. When all four plates are applied, though—cyan, magenta, yellow and black—a recognizable image takes shape. That’s kind of what happens when I listen to friends of different colors describe what it is to navigate beauty in this culture in their own particular skin.

As an American woman who’s lived 39 years in easily sunburned skin, this is what scrolls through my mind—as being true across the board—as I listen to the experience of my friends who are women of color …

1. We’ve learned about the value of our bodies from our mothers
Our mothers learned about the worth of their bodies from their mothers before them, and passed it down to us. As a little girl I hated sitting in the chair in front of my mother’s make-up table after a bath. Frustrated, she’d tear through my tangles, knocking me in the head with a yellow electric Conair hot comb. Somewhere else in America, a black girl sat next to a hot stove, afraid of being singed, while her mother heated up a hot metal comb to straighten her natural hair. What we learned from our mothers was that there was something not quite right about how we’d been made.

2. Too often, we value what is foreign over the way we were naturally made
Hair is a big battleground. When a black woman perms her natural hair, she garners the admiring compliment, “It looks so sophisticated.” When a white woman streaks her hair with blonde highlights, she, too, receives praise for her dazzly appearance. It’s not just hair, though. While black girls pine for lighter skin and thinner lips, white ones are getting skin cancer from tanning booths and paying thousands to have botox injected into their thin lips. When we couldn’t have fabulous afros in the ‘70s, white women started getting curly perms. Once permed curls became achievable for the straight of hair, though, we lost all interest. And today our curly sisters are back to hot steamy straightening. Rejecting the way we’ve been made, we value what is other.

3. We’re all pouring precious time, energy and money into changing our appearances
One black grad student, receiving just an $11,000 annual stipend, finally calculated that she spent $1,500 on her hair alone. Many white women, who are coloring their hair regularly, are dropping the same kind of change. I can’t say for sure whether the time spent on regular trips to the salon, to touch up brown roots to make them glisten golden blonde, equals the 18 tallied hours to achieve a head full of black braids.

4. Refusing the world’s image of beauty, can threaten our careers
Few professional women, white or black, would dare show up to a job interview without make-up and panty hose. When white mothers dissuade their edgy college-aged daughters from getting too many piercings, it’s because they fear it will stunt their future job opportunities. But it’s not even just shocking piercings that threaten future success. Black college students confide in their natural-haired professor that they want to go “natural,” but they fear, if they do, that they won’t excel in the academy, or the business world, or even the church. Unfortunately, she can’t reassure them that their fears are completely unfounded.

5. The more we try to attain the right image, the less able we are to be physically active
When, for reasons involving hair maintenance, teenage girls avoid the pool, and stop running, and stop playing basketball, something is wrong. Achieving the accepted image can really put a crimp in … movement. No woman who’s gone to the trouble of dolling herself up in heels, tailor-fit clothing, make-up and carefully coiffed hair is going to want to—or be able to—run to the bus stop. She can’t. For that matter, glamorous starlets on the Academy Awards’ red carpet aren’t going to get very far from the waiting limo, either. On the other hand, women in sweat suits who are active all day—changing diapers, pushing strollers, playing at the park—become the butt of cruel slurs about those who’ve “let themselves go.”

6. We’ve internalized the message that there’s something inherently wrong about our bodies
I grew up being cajoled to wear make-up every day, in order to accent my cheeks, lips, eyes, making them look darker. Black girls learn, as a rule of thumb, to choose make-up that’s a shade lighter than they really are. The message we’ve received is that we’re not quite right as we are. Women and girls who suffer from eating disorders, ones who believe they’re unattractive, ones who want their bodies to be curvier and ones who want it to be flat and hard have bought the lie that they’re not really acceptable as they are.

7. Women are geniuses when it comes to justifying the ways we strive for physical attractiveness
White women who dye our hair and paint our faces and suffer through cruel diets tell ourselves: “I’m not doing this for other people. I’m certainly not doing it for men. I’m doing it because it makes me feel better. I like doing it.” Black women who straighten their natural hair tell themselves, “It’s easier.” I may be white, but even I don’t buy that. If we can’t concoct a creative defense to justify what we’re doing, we just don’t discuss it. Self-respecting black women aren’t talking about skin-lightening creams and self-respecting white ones aren’t talking about tummy tucks. We’re still trying them all, though.

8. We’re all tempted to disguise who we really are
One African-American woman, who’d always been assured by her family that she had “good” hair, did not even know what her natural hair texture was until she got to college. There she found out it was naturally curly. What had made it “good” hair had been that it had straightened easily. Another woman, white, had been a natural brunette through high school. No one who’d met her since college, though, could fathom her as other than the platinum blonde beauty they knew and loved. We willingly sacrifice who we really are for the eyes of others.

9. Our houses of worship are some of the places we feel the most pressure to fit the mold
Proudly, I’ve usually allowed my children to dress how they choose. When they were younger, though, I felt an inordinate pressure to package them “appropriately” for church. Sunday mornings became the most stressful morning of the week in our home. (Did I mention, I was the pastor’s wife?) In another neighborhood, a group of black girls choreographed and rehearsed a dance to perform at their church on Easter morning. It had been decided that they’d all wear their hair straight for the performance. Saturday night, in each home, a girl—who might otherwise have been out dancing—was subjected to the time-consuming uncomfortable hair treatment, in order to look “good” on Easter morning. For many of us, “spiritual” freedom ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

10. We need role models who will confirm that we’re alright as we are
One black academic points to the 1991 release of the movie New Jack City, starring Wesley Snipes, as the definitive moment when being a dark black male became accepted within the black community. Because of Wesley Snipes, being dark-skinned had become acceptable. During the last decade, white women have loved that an aging sex-symbol, Jamie Lee Curtis, posed for a magazine at age 46 in briefs and a sports bra, refusing to let them airbrush her to perfection. Because of Jamie Lee Curtis, not looking 23 instantaneously became a wee bit more acceptable than it had been. We’re all hungry for strong healthy role models who look like us.

Clearly, what we’ve got going now—with all the shame and feelings of worthlessness and inferiority—isn’t working. So let’s just call a lie a lie. Let’s name the madness for what it is, then, and then choose for truth—with our bodies—by modeling something new for girls and women. As we choose to accept ourselves as we are, we live into a new pattern of wholeness that values the bodies God has made as they are.

We can do it. Together.

Christ as a displaced person suddenly has new meaning for me, as I am starting to feel like one myself. No longer do my husband and I live in a bucolic white farmhouse in the aptly named Happy Valley, with only a few llamas for neighbors. Just a few months ago we decided to move into SE Portland, OR. Now, we live in a complex urban environment where survival is at the forefront of most peoples minds.

My new neighbors are a mixture of single mothers, post-homeless individuals and Somali Bantu refugees. Living in low-income housing, we are all about as displaced as one can get, but none more so than the Somali Bantu. Most of the kids I work with were born and raised in a refugee camp in Kenya, yet they longingly talk of Somalia as home. America has been hard for a people group accustomed to tribal laws and refugee camp hierarchies. One of the older boys told my husband the other day that “in Kenya you would spend all day trying to find food. In America, you spend all your time trying to work so you can buy food.”

Christ didn’t have a place to lay His head. I wonder if He considered Himself a refugee. Did people speak to Him slowly or stare straight through Him? Did they view Him as a valuable individual or as a drain on society (and taxpayers)? Did He never feel completely at ease on earth, or was He always longing for home?

Refugees aren’t immigrants. The people I now live with had never heard of the American dream before they came to the land of credit cards and telemarketers and Internet fraud. They aren’t trying to make money or build empires or even remodel their kitchen—instead, they desperately wish to return to a place where they can never go back, to a place that never even existed outside of their stories and songs.

At church a couple of Sundays ago, I actually stopped and listened as the words of Christ were read aloud, and it made me think of my own discomfort at my new situation. I am now a pasty minority in a sea of beautiful brown boys and girls, an individualist in the midst of a large community, a loner who stuck herself amongst people who have learned that they need one another in order to survive. my husband and I have made two conscious decisions that have led us to where we are today: care about money less and engage more. As a result, we are the stereotypical starving college students, living off of love and macaroni and cheese. We work slightly demeaning jobs in order to go to school and not take out (many) loans. We have systematically started shopping at thrift stores and craigslist, and we try to buy fair trade or just do without, which is hard and annoying and uncomfortable for the American in me.

I look at the lifestyle changes we have made and I can’t help but feel that Christ might still ask more of us. We are trying not to be so tied down to “things”—I want to be like the foxes and the birds of the air—but are we willing to be present? Many scholars interpret what Jesus told the second disciple to mean “let the spiritually dead bury their dead.” Christ asked the people who followed Him to wake up to a life that was alive in humanity, that was present and redemptive. I don’t want the American dream or the academic dream or even the religious dream to deaden my senses to the reality of my world, my country and my city.

And so I take the bus to work and answer the door when little hands knock and act nonchalant when the Somali kids try and break my records in two and chase my cat around the house and insult my husband’s beard. I sit and drink chai with women who can’t communicate with me verbally but who still can somehow insinuate that I am getting fat (and therefore must be pregnant). I am learning African card games and Somali Bantu customs (don’t look in a baby’s mouth to find teeth—it’s bad luck), and I am learning to let go of my time and my life and my money.  And yes, I am uncomfortable  to be sure, but I am trying to be present.

“Get off me you stupid …! I’m going to … cut your [expletive] throat!” As I put “Mickey” into a safe-hold, I began wondering when and how my life had come to this–chasing an emotionally disturbed 7-year-old and allowing him to verbally assault me on a daily basis.

After graduating from college and finding teaching positions to be scarce, I found employment as a paraprofessional at a local elementary school. While working with students with Emotional Behavior Disorders, I assumed the money and benefits would make it worthwhile until that “perfect” teaching job opened up. That plan pretty much went to pot when Mickey was put under my care.

Mickey is a cute first-grader. He loves hockey, SpongeBob and his missing front teeth. For the first few weeks of our placement, he didn’t meet the description of your average student with EBD. He was full of cuddles and loved spending time with me. A few weeks into his stay at our school, however, the honeymoon was over. The sunny, happy disposition had given way to anger and rage. The hugs had turn into physical attacks. I would look at Mickey and wonder what had happened to my student.

In our time together, I’ve seen Mickey in a number of disturbing situations: attacking a pregnant teacher with a straightened safety-pin, punching a classmate in the ear without provocation, cutting himself, kicking/biting/spitting at various teachers, tearing apart classrooms, kicking holes in walls, fleeing from school across busy streets, threatening to kill myself and others, excessive swearing, etc.

As I carried Mickey into our cool-down room on this occasion, the usual threats and curses were being flailed out. The shock value of his language had long since worn-off. Incidences like this had become part of my day. I held him until he settled, and then I let him go. Exhaling deeply, I allowed myself to lean back against the wall and fall slowly down to the floor. My head leaned back as I looked up to the fluorescent light above.

Mickey scurried away on his hands and knees under the rug in the room. It hadn’t been vacuumed in days, and I could see dirt gathering on his navy school uniform. Somehow, as disgusting as it was, the heavy rug made him feel safe and controlled. He was covered in the filthy mat from head to toe.

Immediately, feelings of anger welled up in me. I’m too smart, talented and well-trained to babysit this kid anymore! I knew his parents would be livid when they heard about this.

Mickey was quietly sobbing under the carpet. I could see his tiny body heaving up and down underneath. He slowly grabbed the edge of the rug and peered at me with one longing eye. After these rages, I would give Mickey a “safety squeeze” by wrapping my arms around him and applying deep pressure. These “squeezes” let him know we were still “friends” and he was safe.

But today was not a day for cuddles. I was exhausted from the umpteen chases and holds over the past months. I couldn’t do it anymore. I could see his one eye tear up as he disappeared back underneath the rug.

I don’t deserve this! I don’t deserve to come to work every day and be sworn at by a psychotic 7-year-old in a thankless job. I don’t deserve this!

In the midst of this internal venting, I felt the heaviness of truth: You’re right, you don’t deserve this. You deserve nothing …

Part of being a Christian is sacrificing your pride. It’s painful and I don’t like it, but in that moment I knew I was being challenged to let His Kingdom come. Jesus wanted to impart His heart into Mickey’s life when all I wanted was to sin-vomit on it. But I love it when you serve Mickey and share a little bit of me with him. I love it when you serve my least.

I began crying and felt pain as my pride was being cut away. I wanted to let Jesus have His way but struggled to surrender my need for vindication. Slowly and achingly, I extended my arm toward Mickey. “Hey, buddy, why don’t you sit next to me so I can squeeze you?” I asked, my voice cracking.

Mickey peered out from under the rug. He pulled himself out and crawled over to me. I was struck by how small his body was next to mine. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and asked, “You ready? Because I’m going to squeeze really, really hard.” He giggled and looked up at me, smiling with his tongue pressed up against where his two front teeth should have been.

I cried quietly, ashamed that grace seemed to be completely missing from my natural-person. In the midst of my selfishness, I found Jesus saying, Thank you for serving him, Libby. I love it when you love Mickey.

As I felt the warmth of the pleasure of Christ, I was reminded that grace is never easy. It’s painful and goes against my very nature. It wasn’t easy for Jesus to humble Himself. It wasn’t easy for my Savior to extend His arms and allow my sins to pierce Him to the cross.

Every time I sacrifice pride on His altar of grace, I am challenged to look more like Jesus and die to myself. It was then and is still excruciating, but by extending my arms and embracing grace, I embrace the heart God.

I don’t know. I haven’t ingested a single episode.

My lack of consumption, though, doesn’t alter the naked truth: I resonate with the show’s title. Sadly, it utters volumes of my spiritual state in recent weeks.

Just the other night, I confessed to my husband, Ted, “I feel mediocre.”

“Why?” he probed, intuition at work. “Who are you comparing yourself to?”

I bristled. I didn’t want to admit it, but he was spot on. My version of the comparison game was in full swing.

Julie was a better mom. She frequented the park more often with her kids, enrolled them in expensive classes my daughters longed to join, and still had energy to seek out meaningful friendships with other women.

While Amy’s house wasn’t spotless, it was cleaner than mine. Her sink sat free of the overflow of dirty dishes that plagued mine daily.

The results of every recipe Sara attempted were delicious. She had beautiful pictures and online accolades from her husband to prove it.

And then, there was the big one; the one that tormented me the most. Jennifer and Alicia were more successful professionally than I was.

Within three weeks, I’d learned both friends had achieved significant feats in their areas of expertise. One I anticipated, the other I didn’t. The news of it came as a shock.

Failure, not mediocrity, would seem a more appropriate word to describe how I felt after the mental game I was playing. But it wasn’t, because here’s where it gets even uglier. I also compared myself to others I perceived weren’t doing as well as me, hoping it would boast my esteem.

I didn’t yell at my kids the way the woman at Costco did the other day.

My house might be messy, but it wasn’t covered in cat hair like Mary’s.

At least I attempted to cook, unlike Rachel who let her husband and Stouffers handle the meals.

I was doing better professionally than Andrea. Or, at least, I liked to think so.

In the end, mediocre best described me. Worse than some, better than others. But it wasn’t a happy medium. I wanted to excel—to be the best—at something. And I didn’t feel that way standing in the shadow of my friends and acquaintances. Instead, my life seemed lacking.

“Remember, God is a good God,” Ted firmly stated as our conversation continued.

I know God is good, I inwardly fumed. What does that have to do with this?

Turns out, it had everything to do with it.

I later realized that Ted pinpointed the root of my problem: I failed to see God’s goodness to me personally. Instead, I chose to believe lies.

Back to the Garden

I’m confident that if an in-depth series of books were written on the history of sin—and perhaps there is such a collection—lies about God’s goodness would be in volume 1, chapter 1, right after pride. Genesis 3 reveals that God’s goodness came into question early on when Satan, disguised as a serpent, peddled fabrications to Eve.

Sometimes I try to imagine that fateful day.

The sky, a brilliant blue, hung as the perfect backdrop for the gentle flow of the Euphrates and Tigris—two of Eden’s four rivers—as they added to the already calm of the Garden’s peacefulness. Every color and species of flower imaginable was in bloom; their favorite drink the early morning dew.

Trees galore—some providing beauty, others shade and, still more, sustenance—adorned Eden. While I don’t know what varieties decorated its grounds, I picture the tall, unbending stature of palm trees standing side by side with strong, majestic oaks and gentle weeping willows. I envision the inviting arms of apricot trees and apple trees extended, living in near proximity to their mysterious cousin, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It’s in the middle of this paradise, where everything testified to Creation’s first woman of God’s goodness to her, that Satan sought to taint the truth.

He introduced doubt.

“You will not surely die,” he whispered to her. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5, ESV).

His words painted a perverted picture of a loving Father, each stroke disguising His generosity as that of a withholding hand.

And Eve believed the serpent. Hook, line and sinker.

Back to the Truth

I’m not that different from Eve. Entertaining lies gets me in trouble, too.

“God doesn’t love you as much as He loves Jennifer,” doubt whispers. “If He did, you’d have the same opportunities she does.”

“Look at how well-loved Julie is by her friends. If God liked you as much as He likes her, He’d make sure you were as popular,” it taunts.

Its voice is persuasive, seeking to sway me. I find myself struggling, doubting that God intends good for me.

But what if I stopped listening? If I stopped comparing? If instead, I chose to believe, as Sarah Zacharias Davis talks about in her forthcoming book The Friends We Keep, that God doesn’t have favorites. He doesn’t love Julie or Amy or Sara or Jennifer or Alicia any more or less than He loves me. That, as Scripture tells me, “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” (Psalm 16:6).

I’d venture to guess I’d be more content. I wouldn’t feel mediocre.

Not only that, but I’d be quicker to genuinely “rejoice with those who rejoice” and “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

And so I’ve determined to do just that—to get away from the comparison game I often play. To move away from the lies that distort the reality of God’s goodness and back to the truth.

The truth is, that while my struggle may still surface, my long-term goal is this: to no longer resonate with the title of Fox’s drama Lie to Me. I desire to be unlike Eve that fateful day in the Garden—clearly able to see that the hand of my Father is good to me. Not merely some of the time, but all of the time

For some people, the question of whether or not to move is based on a job, a loved one, family or chasing a dream. For me, it was mostly prompted by a vague feeling inside me that said, “Something has to change.” My community in Nashville had been dissolving, and the Bible seems to indicate that it’s a pretty important thing to have, so I knew it was worth pursuing if it was something God said I needed. I had a few good friends in New York City who were encouraging me to move up, so I began to consider it. There was also the great shopping and the fact that I have an unnatural crush on the Chrysler Building. But mostly it was about the community.

When the thought of moving first crossed my mind, I started to ask Him to show me what to do, to open the right doors widely and to close the wrong doors tightly. It kind of blew me away when He actually did. And it terrified me to think of what that meant: moving farther away from my family than I had ever lived, not being in the Bible Belt anymore and paying more money in a year’s rent than my parents paid for their house. Still, something had to change. I could stay where it was comfortably uncomfortable, or I could ask Him for the strength to step out into what seemed like the right direction.

Steps came slowly at first. I had a list of three things I wanted to secure before making a solid decision. First on my list was a church. Since several of my friends had recently moved, I had the benefit of learning from their experiences. Watching them “church shop” for several months, seeing them eventually fall away from any kind of community of faith, I realized that a church family was vital.

Fortunately, my friends in the city offered a lot of options for churches. The pastor at my church back in Nashville had suggestions, and I also checked out RELEVANTmagazine.com’s church directory to see what churches had been recommended. I visited the church websites, downloaded sermons, read statements of faith, researched their twentysomethings ministry groups and service groups, then narrowed it down to three options that seemed to fit: a small liturgical church filled with intellectual people whom I loved to talk to, a large but simple church with challenging teaching and carafes of hazelnut coffee in the back after the service, and a medium-sized church with great worship music and where most of my friends went.

I made three or four trips to the city during my decision-making process. I visited the churches during those trips and found myself leaning, somewhat unexpectedly, toward the big church. Every time I went, I couldn’t get over the teaching. I thought about it all week long. Another thing that swung me more in its direction was the fact that it met on Sunday nights, which meant I would have the added bonus of being able to keep my normal schedule of sleeping until noon.

Those short trips primed me for the move in a way that I can’t emphasize enough. Not only was I able to pick a church before I moved to town, but I also got to spend my time there planting seeds for relationships and gathering information for the other big decisions I would have to make: If I was going to move, when should I do it? Where would I live? Who would I live with?

In the meantime, I started saving cardboard boxes and old newspapers. Whenever I felt strong enough to make the move, I would pack up a box and tuck it away in the basement so that it didn’t taunt me when I felt too afraid to push through. I still had not made a solid decision, but the last thing I wanted was to lose out on that incredible loft apartment overlooking Union Square (should we ever find it) just because I hadn’t boxed up my collection of Yanni memorabilia.

It was also during those short visits that I learned the hard work involved in building community, the second of the three things I really wanted to have in place before I moved. My friendships in the past had always been based on convenience—the people I lived near or worked with or went to school with. For the first time in my life, something was required of me to initiate friendships. Whenever you’re the new person in a situation, you really have to be intentional with people. I had to be willing to go places alone, and I set goals for myself: meet five new people, make plans to grab coffee with someone, get phone numbers of other girls my age. It forced me to step outside myself and reach into the community that I longed for.

The friendships that I had been planting started to grow. My community was falling into place. One girl invited me to a Bible study while I was in town, and I kept my promise to myself to go to anything I was invited to. More friendships developed. Meanwhile, two of my closest girlfriends in Texas told me separately that they were planning to move to New York City. It was almost as though I could actually see God opening the doors and leading me through them.

Ecstatic (because I loved the city) and scared (because it’s so big and unknown), I prayed for the final thing on my list to fall into place: a roommate. Then, without even much effort on my part, He dropped someone into my path. One of the Texas girls asked me to look for an apartment with her. By that time, I had studied a map and walked around enough to know the general layout of the city, which helped me narrow down what parts of town I did and did not want to live in. Fortunately, she wanted to live in the same neighborhood. Not only that, but we also had the same time frame for moving and the same general budget.

In New York City, the real estate market is a vicious, scary monster. It steals from you and laughs at you and calls you names. My roommate and I tried researching things on Craigslist.org, asking around about prices and options, and when nothing worked out, we decided that we needed to find a realtor. Upon making the offer to our realtor, he actually laughed at us. “In Greenwich Village?” he asked. “Let me put it this way: If you can afford $500 more per month, I can find something for you that hasn’t been damaged by fire or flood.” We talked it over and decided that we could, so the search began.

We walked 13 miles one rainy December day, covering half of lower Manhattan. I tried my best to take note of the location of my personal necessities like local coffee shops, cute boutiques, bookstores, the post office and (since I was feeling particularly hopeful) the gym. We fell in love with one of the first places we saw that day. Later, we did a business search on Google Maps and found that there were seven Starbucks within four blocks. I was sold.

That’s how we decided on our 250-square foot apartment. We moved in 10 days later, just before the biggest blizzard in New York City history. It has been a beautiful adventure—scary and uncertain, but beautiful nonetheless. It all started with that little prompting in my heart—the thing that said, “Something needs to change.” I am so happy that I paid attention and took that leap of faith, and I believe that He guided every shaky step. It could’ve been so much more stressful, but I’m finding that it’s a lot easier when you don’t have to open the doors on your own.

I can be so sinful that way.

Pawing through the racks, I felt disappointed by the selection. The toddler-sized shirts were all printed with unsatisfying messages like “Spoiled Rotten” and “Sexy Beast.” It was truly as horrible as it sounds. Continuing to dig, I finally found one with which I could live. It read simply, “Dancer.” The glittery illustration featured a girl with a huge head and a tiny body who was, in fact, dancing. It was perfect.

The next morning, as we were driving to preschool, I glanced back in the rearview mirror to admire my delighted sparkly girl. What I saw just about stopped my heart. Though she was buckled into her big-girl booster seat, looking down, Zoe was carefully rolling up her shirt in order to bare her sweet roundish toddler midriff.

I squinted to see whatever it was that Zoe was looking at that had inspired her to show some skin. To my horror, it was “Dancer” girl. Despite my best efforts to avoid a shirt that said “Sexy Beast,” I had failed to notice that “Dancer” was wearing a tiny shirt on her own miniature body that failed to cover her tiny cartoon abs.

It was hard to know whether to laugh or cry. In three short years my daughter had learned, from T-shirts, and from magazines, and from noticing girls at church, and from ones at the nearby mall, that there was power in exposing more of her body than was really necessary. Three years old.

As it began to sink in, crying suddenly seemed to be a much more appropriate response than laughing.

When we value girls and women for how their bodies appear, we do something that theologian Paul Tillich and Martin Luther King, Jr. called “thingification.” It means exactly what you think it might. When a girl or woman is valued for her appearance, she has been thingified. When a 17-year-old sends out a revealing self-photo snapped on her cell phone, she has thingified herself. When a woman’s image appears on a pornographic website, she has been thingified. When, on the cover of a popular women’s magazine, a famous woman’s body parts have been digitally enlarged, reduced, colored, fluffed and reshaped—even though we all thought she was beautiful in the first place—she has been thingified.

The added heartbreak, in this modern strain of objectification, is that the possibility of any kind of organized resistance occurs to so few of us. Instead, most of us participate willingly.

We actually embrace this ungodly situation as if it’s a great idea. When a physically attractive young woman in college makes extra money by jumping out of cakes at bachelor parties, she cooperates with her thingification. When young women and old ones systematically alter every body part imaginable, with cosmetics and dyes and elective surgery, we agree to our thingification. Mothers who insist that their daughters dress in order to appear attractive to others, at 4 or 14 or 24, participate in their daughters’ thingification.

You might be thinking, “You did not just put cake-jumping in the same category as eye shadow.”

I’ve had the same reaction to that crazy apostle Paul when he makes these long lists of practices to avoid and chooses to stick envy right next to murder. What kind of a weird dirty trick is that, anyway? So I completely understand that all my friends who are make-up wearers and hair-dyers might be feeling more than a little bent out of shape, now that I’ve included them in the ranks with cake strippers.

I just want us to admit that we’re not as blameless as we might like to think we are. How can we act so outraged about Hooters and Playboy and Desperate Housewives when we, ourselves, pour billions of dollars into objectifying ourselves in order to appeal to the eyes of others?

We justify our personal beautification all kinds of ways—describing how we’re really not doing it for others, but for ourselves, because it makes us feel so good—the truth is that when we play the game, when we doll ourselves up for the eyes of others, we thingify ourselves.

The thing that we’re really made for, says Jesus, is to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. When we do that, we’re living the kind of bodily life for which we were meant.

At the end of His ministry, Jesus wanted to drive home for His disciples the most important stuff to remember, to live, when He was gone. Wrapping a towel around Himself, like an apron, Jesus bent in front of His friends and washed their feet. Then, tipping His head toward theirs, He explained: “I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do” (John 13:13-14, MSG). After He died, I imagine the disciples replaying a mental reel of all the ways Jesus had loved them: touching, feeding, washing, healing, kneeling.  He’d loved them in the body. Honestly, there’s no other way. Convinced that this is the thing for which we’re made, I keep my eyes open for this sort of stuff all the time.

I noticed it the other day in two of my friends.  Jean and Denise are teenagers who have intellectual disabilities. The three of us were going out on the town after school, where they had to dress out of their school clothes, and Jean, who has a weak arm, wasn’t able to tie her shoes. Before I could bend to help her, Denise, whose arms work fine, had already scrunched over to tie her friend’s shoe. Now that’s what bodies are for.

I also noticed that kind of body-love in my friend, Jeanette. She recently told me how she’d celebrated Christmas a little differently this past year. Instead of decorating and buying and dressing up in red and green, Jeanette knocked on her neighbors’ doors and asked how she could serve them. Though most shocked neighbors turned her down, one elderly man let her climb up on the roof and clean his gutters.  Now that’s what bodies are for.

Sally, another friend, spends most of her days chasing after two small children. I know she’s bummed that, in some ways, at a few particular junctures, she’s sort of lost her girlish figure. We were at a park, recently, and I watched her feed these two little boys, and lift them, and push them on swings, and chase them, and protect them, and pick them up and dust them off. One of Sally’s other friends was also helping out. As I watched them both, I couldn’t help but muse, “Now that’s what bodies are for.”

I’m not a big expert on spiritual powers and principalities, but I’m convinced that we can do some pretty serious damage to them, specifically to our culture’s fixation on physical appearances, as we purpose to use our bodies for the things they’re made for: loving others. In Grace Eventually, Anne Lamott exhorts,

“This culture’s pursuit of beauty is a crazy, sick, losing game, for women, men, teenagers, and with the need to increase advertising revenues, now for pre-adolescents, too … Every time we agree to play another round, and step out onto the court to try again, we’ve already lost.  The only way to win is to stay off the court.”

We stay off the court when refrain from dolling ourselves up to achieve absolute maximum attractiveness.  We stay off the court when we model for girls what it looks like to be comfortable in our own skin, whether it’s stretched tightly over six-pack abs or gently rolling along over ribs and hips. We stay off the court when we choose, in a myriad of ways, to use our bodies for loving others.

When we stay off the court, we at last win that wily battle against thingification. Girls win. Women win. We all win.

Think about it. How do you sum up the guts of who you are while having lunch with a new friend? What about in 100 words, for a bio statement you need to write for your new blog? Or what do you say about yourself when you have only 140 characters, the limit for a Twitter bio?

Social media demands that we put ourselves in a neat, tidy little package. We’re creating personal brands in ways the average person a generation before us never even considered.

Right when I thought I had compressed my essence as much as I possibly could for my Twitter bio, I was faced with a new challenge: Sum up who you are in three words.

Three words?!?

I had decided to register myself at the WeFollow Twitter directory, and to be honest, the task seemed pretty straightforward when I first set out to take care of it.

To be included in the directory, all you have to do is sum up yourself in three words. Then you’ll be listed under those three categories, which will help people with similar interests find you on Twitter. Everyone seemed to be registering. (This bout of peer pressure, I’m sure, was responsible for the pubescent-style identity crisis that followed.)

The first time went to the WeFollow site, I could have just added myself to the directory without a second thought, using the first three terms that came to me: “writer,” “freelance” and “mom.”

But I didn’t. Ohhh, no. I typed, deleted, typed again and deleted again. I got up to make more coffee, and stared into space as if I would see the three words miraculously hovering outside my window. In other words, I generally over-thought it.

Should I replace “writer” with “blogger”? Did one sound too pompous, and the other too common? Also, lots of people are moms, and I’m not a mommy blogger. Was I being mundane or maybe misleading?

The issue I struggled with most, though, was my desire to include a term that indicates my faith. Yes, I could have kept it straightforward, and just put “writer,” “freelance” and “Christian.” Done.

I couldn’t do it, though. “Christian” doesn’t seem like the right term to use, even though, technically, it is. It’s a trigger that could cause a whole lot of almost everyone to instantly write me off, whether on Twitter or my blog. I’m not a “preach to the choir” kind of girl, so it doesn’t really work for me when everyone but the choir takes off. I have stories that seem to open non-Christians up to at least thinking about faith in new ways. My goal is to encourage them to stick around at least long enough to hear some of them.

The term “Christian” can be a problem from the other direction, too. Probably 90 percent of the people out there who are actually looking for Christians to follow on Twitter are bound to be sorely disappointed by me. I might even start getting hate-tweets from people who think I’m not properly representing the faith by living up to the stereotypes.

In search of a new terminology

So if I didn’t want to go with “Christian” as a label, I figured I would just find an alternative. That shouldn’t be too difficult, seeing as how I write copy for a living. I took out a fresh piece of paper and started brainstorming.

Hmm …”spiritual” could work, but it has the potential of sounding like I own lots of crystals and possibly have some marijuana to help me get to That Special Place.

What about the term “emergent”? That’s pretty good, because many of the ideas being developed by the emerging church resonate with me. But it feels a bit like a party I stumbled upon—everyone’s nice and welcoming, but I feel kind of awkward because I know I don’t really belong. I don’t go to the conferences, and I only read some of the right books. I worry that I’ll be called out as a poser if I use “emergent.”

So, what are the other possibilities? “Faith” touches on a big portion of what I write and think about, but it doesn’t really describe me. Believer? Missional? Disciple? Then of course there are all of the individual denominations, none of which I really connect with anymore …

Every possible term seemed to have great potential and all kinds of baggage. I must have gone to the WeFollow directory to register myself half a dozen times, each time getting caught up on that one, elusive term.

Labels are dangerous, but they’re also necessary, particularly in social media circles. When we’re getting to know someone in person—someone we work with or go to church with, or a friend of a friend—we generally have time on our side. We have a whole evening ahead of us to talk leisurely, allowing who we are to emerge through stories we tell, facial expressions and how we respond to what others are saying. Plus, there’s always next time to share a bit more as we let our personal narrative gradually unwind. We don’t need to introduce ourselves to someone at a party and say, bluntly, “I’m Kristin: mom, writer and believer in Jesus.”

But that take-your-time luxury isn’t there when we’re on Twitter or looking at blogs. There are thousands of people we could follow, and thousands of blogs we could read. We click a link, skim what’s in front of us for clues—is there anything at all that grabs me?—and then we move along.

That’s a lot of pressure—to know and be known in the space of 30 seconds. I want to pique people’s interest in who I am, and I also want to be genuine. I want to bust the stereotypes that have encrusted our well-worn terms of faith, but I’m also tempted to ditch all of that, and work with all of you to create a whole new lexicon for this particular community of believers.

What do you think? Is it more important to re-claim the old terminology, or to find new ways to express who we are? Have you had any luck succinctly describing not only what you believe, but also what particular brand of believer you are?

There’s not much room in my garden, but it’s no matter; any chance I get to see first fruits brings great joy and the excitement of taking a bite of something grown literally on my front porch is astounding.

We’re all more aware lately of the importance of making sustainable food choices; eating organically, locally and ethically grown fruits, vegetables and meats is gaining popularity—and rightly so. These “whole foods”—foods that have not been processed with preservatives and high fructose corn syrup and monosodium glutamate—are better for our bodies and better for the Earth.

But with times like these, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wasn’t tightening her belt and thinking that maybe shopping at the farmers’ market is a luxury she can live without.

For many, eating sustainably and locally grown produce falls into the “not necessary” category, even for those who aspire to a more eco-conscious lifestyle. In our home, when we began to trim a little fat from our spending diet, we made the decision that eating foods that not only sustained our bodies but also our community was a priority, and if we had to cut something out, it definitely would not be local and organic foods. We’ve made budget decisions in other arenas (we stopped renting movies, go out to eat less often, utilize public transportation and buy things only when we need them, for instance), but we have put more effort into making sure we’re eating healthful food—for us and for the environment.

Here’s what we’re learning: As it turns out, when you eat locally in season, you actually can save money, and save resources, and you support your local farmers. What’s not to like?

That’s what organizations like the Sustainable Food Center in Austin, Texas, are all about. Suzanne Santos is the director of farm marketing at the SFC, where they encourage a more food-secure community by enhancing access for fresh, local, healthy food in central Texas, but programs like theirs exist all over the nation.

Santos explains that living sustainably is more than just eating local. “It’s having enough to eat—we want to mitigate hunger,” she says. “It’s also being able to see a full circle of your food. You may get it from the farmer, and you buy in-season, and hopefully you will use the leftovers in compost to feed your own little garden. And, also, that you can sustain yourself economically.”

Eating locally has more to do with an overall lifestyle than just what we put on our plates. Because all of us must balance our lives with our checkbooks, we often think that shopping locally means spending more than we’re willing. But there is hope. “Yes, there is a way to do this on a budget,” Santos says. “The thing is, more than half of the American population eats out more than half the time. If you eat in, you can save a lot.”

She isn’t making this up. If you have ever tried to limit your takeout meals each month, you have seen a significant drop in the amount of money you spend. For instance, just by packing lunches consistently and cooking more on weeknights, our household was able to save more than $200 in one month’s time. If you purchase local, fresh foods, you’re upping the ante nutritionally and ethically. Even if you spend a little more on the front end, the quality of what you are putting into your body makes up for it (think of this as an investment plan: it’s better for your body in the long run to eat a salad of local veggies that costs $6 than to chow down on a low-fat frozen dinner for $3).

“Eating local foods, you get a lot of good nutrition. I like to tell people, it’s like getting health insurance one tomato at a time,” Santos says. “You increase your nutrition because you’re eating more vegetables and they are at the peak of freshness.” None of the nutrients are lost to freezer burn or early picking. Plus, there are some ways to get more bang for your buck.

Listen up, folks: here’s where it gets good.

“Be sure to buy in season,” Santos advises. “Try shopping toward the end of the market—farmers don’t want to take home a lot of unsold produce, so they may knock the price down. And you can also look for seconds (less-than perfect produce).”

If you think about it, farmers don’t want to compost every bruised peach or tomato. Purchase those imperfect tomatoes for homemade pasta sauce, or bruised peaches and pears for cobblers or preserves. You can even cut up the produce and put it in the freezer to bring out weeks (or even months) later for pies or casseroles.

With those perfect veggies, though, what you put on your table will be gourmet without you even having to try. Part of the Sustainable Food Center’s curriculum is a cooking class called The Happy Kitchen. The criterion is that each recipe takes 30 minutes or less to whip up. “A lot of people say they don’t have time to cook,” Santos says, “but what we found in the Happy Kitchen class is that it doesn’t take the time. Really, if something is great at the beginning—in-season broccoli or cauliflower—you don’t have to do much to it to make it delicious for the meal. You will be eating more healthfully and saving money and time at the same time.”

There are plenty of simple recipes: Leafy greens like arugula and Bibb lettuce can be topped with just a simple lemon juice and olive oil vinaigrette. Sweet tomatoes in every color need little (if any) preparation; think a little freshly ground pepper and sea salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. Homemade salsa is a breeze—a rough chop of tomatoes, cilantro, onions and jalapenos gives you a simple and delicious side dish. Mouth-watering, isn’t it?

But there’s a bigger picture here: eating on a micro level has a macro affect.

We purchase foods in the store that are processed and produced all over the world. Shrimp sails in from Thailand, bananas hop on a plane from Uganda and pineapples jump on board in Costa Rica. The amount of energy it takes to process and ship these is astounding. Plastic packaging, jet fuel, oil for tankers and gasoline for 18-wheelers adds up quickly and depletes other natural resources more quickly than we can replenish them.

Now, think what happens when you buy from the woman three towns over who produces goat cheese and organic herbs from her five-acre farm. She may have to drive 200 miles to bring her product to market, but she comes in her two-seater four-cylinder pickup truck.

“You’re gonna have less of a carbon imprint—no big tractors, no big rigs, no diesel trailers,” Santos says. And eating seasonally also plays a big part, she explains. “There’s more nutrition, less packaging, less travel and really an increasing the amount of land under cultivation near to [consumers], creating its own aquifer, retaining natural resources and animal habitat.”

The bottom line? “It’s good stewardship,” Santos says.

And, really, good stewardship is what matters the most. By doing this one small thing—simply choosing a new place to grow or purchase our fruits, vegetables, and maybe even meats and cheeses and breads—we can make an impact on our bodies, our communities and our world. We become better stewards of the gifts that God has given to us.