Continuing in my quirky ways into adulthood, one day a well-meaning member of the church confronted me.
”You need to give up fashion if you want to please God. I’m saying this because I care about you” they said.
“Oh” I thought, I felt embarrassed.
“Does that mean God hates that part of my personality?”
“Is God annoyed with me for being passionate about fashion?”
“If that passion wasn’t from God, is it from the enemy?”
“Does this mean I need to walk away the creativity I know?”
As I look back on this moment I realised that through this one little comment, I accepted a religious expectation that didn’t come from Jesus, because the fruit after was shame. Jesus never ever shames us and Jesus tells us to always watch the fruit of things (Matthew 7:15-20) I know that now, I didn’t then and this was heartbreaking to me. It might not seem like a big deal - but I admired this person so much I started blaming myself for other things in my personality.
I started going down a slipperly slope of legalism, religion, and confusion over my choices. I wanted to please God but my relationship with Him felt critical and heavy internally.
I would feel immense guilt for having any kind of fun. If I rested, if I missed a bible reading, or made a mistake I would feel like God was going to shout and put me in detention.
I believed He only loved me when I was trying to be a good christian, keeping to the rules, and totally trying to squash my personality.
And I felt anything but free. I felt like a slave, trapped in chains.
I thought to be a christian, I need to be boring. I thought God was mad. Mad at me for who I was. Mad at me for my desire to live out of the box.
My relationship with God was a lifeless drag.
In midst of my striving someone close in my family passed away on the same weekend my boyfriend broke up with me. It was the last straw. I didn’t have the strength anymore to put on a performance before God.
My response was ‘Screw this. I need a pack of cigarettes’ and the following weekend I called some mates and we hit up the clubs and I fully intended on getting drunk out my mind to drown my sorrows.
Little did I know I was about to encounter Jesus that night for real, in a night club toilet. Yep, you heard me right.
I was in the club with my friends and I started drinking. I needed to loo so off I went to the toilet. I sat down in the cubicle and I felt God’s presence fill up the space. This was maybe the second time I felt God’s presence as strong as this. It was unmissable.
I felt the presence of Jesus and His immense love and kindness. I felt God’s smile over me, and no judgement despite my agenda for the evening.
As I am sensing such kindness in an overwhelming way; these words filled my heart and mind:
”daughter, this is not the way to go”
I was so touched. He met me where I was at. In my mess and chaos.
I learned for the first time that God was kind.
After this moment, for the next few years I started experiencing who God truly is as a Father. There is a lot of spiritual revelation to be had through meditation on scripture whilst encountering God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 5:48 says that God is “the perfect father”.
What did a perfect father look like? I started to think about this.
To me a perfect father would be provide and protect. He would be firm yet equally kind. He would have great banter, cheerful and playful. He would celebrate his kids wins and passions. He would coach through failure and mistakes. He would want to spend time with his kids. He would be trustworthy. He would unconditionally love his child.
I started to connect this to my own dad and the epic dads I know. In Genesis 1:27 it says: "So God created mankind in his own image”.. meaning the gold in humanity shows us what God is like.
The love and covering of who Father’s are show us a snippet of God’s identity as our Heavenly Father.
Think of the best dad in your mind. Well, God is better than that. This was a pure revelation to me. Before my theology about God the Father was that He was a distant, disappointed, critical God who saw me harshly. God is actually so good, and Jesus connects us to Him - now that’s a whole other beautiful part of the story.
The religious pressure started to lift. And as I got to know ‘Abba Father” I started to fall so in love with God authentically and truly and as a result my heart came back to life. I felt free, I started to express myself as Rae again, and I never felt more like myself; who God knit me together to be in my mothers womb (Psalm 139)
Now I pick out my clothes to express the what I feel inside. The colour the love of God brought into my life. I can express that through my personal style. I want to celebrate the freedom I get to live in through Christ.
