I am not polished ladies and gentlemen, I am not perfect, I struggle to want to create a posh image of myself, that looks the part I feel I am supposed to play. I am tempted to pull back, to be measured, to minimize and not move rather than push forward and embrace crazy. I have wanted to be anything but crazy, I come from a family line of very imperfect people and I looked around at everyone else and wanted so desperately to be 'normal.' When I was at a revival one time, the pastor came in from out of town, I am a nurse and the man was actively having a heart attack in the church. I was only twenty five at the time and let me tell you it was an experience. The pastor was praying over this man and a relative of mine comes, pushes me out of the way and grabs his hand. They then precede to telling him that when he goes to heaven tell her son hello." We had to get her out of the room, and as this was the pastor's first time coming up and I gotta tell you I was embarrassed by my families behavior.
They never seemed to do the right things, they don't have the right pedigree and I over time seriously internalized an identity that said I wasn't allowed to be crazy, I had to be perfect. Many a time when my husband has gone with me I look at him and say "I love you because you married me in spite of this crazy." He just smiles and me and says something smart like "Your lucky your cute." The shame of having a crazy family caused me to really run from anything that would mark me as crazy. My mom was a female minister and my dad is a pastors spouse, because again we seriously can't be normal. Pastors felt the need to let me and my sisters know "our place" as women and it reinforced the idea that who I was wasn't good, and so therefore I had to be someone else. I have many other stories but here is what I want to say to you "Embrace the crazy."
Yep I said it "Embrace the crazy" you see we can't love people where we are if we are embarrassed by who they are. I used to surrounded myself with people that I could hide with. I could be surface level and it wouldn't matter, image was everything, and I knew how to have an image. So if you are like me shaking your head at your past, your family, your calling, I want to share a few of my personal truths.
Your crazy is important to God's story in your life
"Why can't you just get it together Cassie" I would tell myself all the time. I would constantly open mouth and insert foot clear back to my childhood. I can remember as young as ten just wanting to get it together. I didn't have the right clothes, didn't have the right relationships, and didn't have the right family. People didn't want me around in my school, my church, or my personal life. At twelve I suffered from pneumonia so bad the doctor's told my parents I could struggle with breathing issues and get it easy in life. I then was molested, by yet another man who came into our families life through church. Something snapped inside me at twelve, I remember asking God "what is wrong with me that grown men want to sexually assault me and boys my own age wanted nothing to do with me." The church environment was just as crazy I am not joking when I say church leaders and members would make sure I knew what they thought of my family. As a young girl entering in her teenage years I compartmentalized in an effort to control the emotions I struggled with. I just said "this never happened" and tucked it away. I created walls and placed a false image of who I was to keep people away from me. Now at 32, twenty years later, I know that what was used for harm God can redeem it, restore it, and he can use your story to speak to others to help them on their journey to freedom. The enemy started in on me from a very young age to destroy my identity through Christ. I have lots of crazy in chaos in my life but what I have learned is that leaders are not needed for times of comfort but times of chaos. Maybe just maybe God is preparing you to be used through storms of crazy.
Your crazy is needed in the kingdom of God
Whenever I get a patient who is what normal people would deem as crazy or weird I can connect with them. The other nurses ask how and I respond "I speak fluent crazy" One time a patient was creating a ruckus, acting inappropriately and the patient exploded when another nurse told her very firmly to go back to her room. Less than two minutes later I sat with her and spoke the words she needed to hear "We are here to keep you safe, even from yourself." "We care about you." She stopped in her crazy and was able to listen to the wisdom I had in that moment. God needs us for his kingdom to understand the broken, the lost, the captive, the widow, the orphan, and the weak. Basically everyone who has had some crazy in their life, our stories of God's faithfulness his love and His grace can speak to those who struggle in your life. You can be completely focused on behavior modification or be used to help heal the hurts that were done to them. Most people who struggle with crazy didn't just end up there, that is why we need to be light bearers. For me I hid behind the image of self righteousness, like a pharisee I didn't struggle with drinking, with premarital sex, with partying, but I struggled with self hate, anorexia, judgment, broken mindsets regarding intimacy and wanting a false image of a perfect women in the place of a daughter should have been. God began to work on this in me and it I began to share my story with others and hear others stories as well. My crazy redeemed speaks louder than any bit of my perfection image I had erected.
Your crazy will help you discover your purpose
Yes I said it, your crazy will help you discover your purpose, you see I knew at fourteen God called me to preach, I had visions of seeing me preach and I was not excited. "I WILL NOT DO THIS" I told God. I asked him why he hated me, why he choose me, and why couldn't I just be normal. So I hid behind a microphone to sing, I hid in kids ministry, I hid behind my image of perfection, I hid in keeping busy, all because I didn't want to embrace the crazy call God placed on my life. It has so far and counting taken almost five years to prepare me for the call he has placed on me. He had to get me to the basement level of my fears and then deal with them one at a time. "God church leaders are going to call me a Jezebel, I don't want to step into the call of my life." So what did he do: He made me face it and after everything was said and done he asked "Am I still God?" "God if I do what you call me to do the enemy is going to attack my family." So He made me face it and again asked me "Am I not redeemer and restorer." Then I said "God people will not be for me, I am too much, I scare people, I scare myself." He then made me face it and asked "Am I not enough?" You see your excuses God will deal with, it is whether or not you will focus on your crazy your your Savior. Let God deal with your fears, your crazy and allow him to redeem it and restore it.
God is Good, but People are Crazy
I deal with people and have for all of my life. I haven't found a single one who was perfect. There was always something crazy in their life, the more they looked perfect the deeper the issues. What I have learned is to have crazy in our life is to be human, but to seek perfection is to set up an idol before God. Perfection is fake it doesn't exist and if you are trying to recreate an outside image maybe you should start with the inside work. I can give grace more because I see how messed up I am, I can love people because I know God loves me, and I can speak life into chaos because I know my Heavenly Father gave me that authority through the blood of Jesus Christ. We need to really let go of the false idol of perfection and embrace our imperfections, and instead of focusing on our weaknesses we need to allow God to empower us through the Holy Spirit who is the enabler, and He will complete the work in us. Stop freaking out, give God permission to take your crazy and redeem it for His purpose.
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