I don’t want to know what I weigh so much as what I weigh in comparison to you.
Not on the bathroom scale with the hand jumping from zero, though sometimes I think about that too.
More, I wonder how I measure up to you on those scales used in faraway markets and ancient exchanges. The kind long used to represent fairness and justice, with the two sides inching closer until they reach balance in the middle, zeroing out, even.
In my everyday life, I watch you parent, see how you put yourself together, hear about your dreams, your marriage, your trips, your activism, your giving and, more times than I wish, I’m thinking about how I measure up. Where I’m failing. Where I should throw some more weight.
Often without recognizing it, I’m weighing you against me, seeing whose side slams to the table, whose inches upward.
And today on this day in which the U.S. celebrates the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., I awake thinking of all those in this world and this nation, born into poverty or simply black or brown skin — those for whom the scales I use to measure still hardly apply.
For more human lives than I can imagine, true justice and the comparisons I ponder are as foreign as any market on the other side of the world. For them, equity is not a warm ideal, but the stuff of lunging and grasping for and resigning and so many more responses than I can know.
This week, I walked alone in the crisp air, frost still edging branches. The day would be full, and I was struggling with anxiety. How I’d need to prioritize, what I had to release. Concerns filled my mind, whirling like a building storm.
I tried to name them and lift them to God, and they kept spinning. I tried to embrace “I trust you,” and then the words exited my mouth. Surprisingly big and clear:
“Only you can tell me who I am.”
Only you can tell me who I am.
As I walked, I emphasized each word of this prayer fresh — the way I learned many years ago, searching a river alive with jumping salmon.
Each time that I emboldened a new word, I felt the distinct truth of it.
ONLY you can tell me who I am.
None other, though I so often look to the words, actions and (perceived or real) judgments of others to assess myself.
Only YOU can tell me who I am.
I choose to focus on the One who made me and lift up this name above my own struggles.
Only you can tell ME who I am.
In this intimate relationship between creator and created, you know every aspect of me. You trust me with this life and allow me to know you and thereby know myself.
Only you can tell me WHO I am.
Exactly the essence and the me of me. Yes, that.
Only you can tell me who I AM.
The parts of me that have nothing to do with the “do,” but just are. I can trust this God who knows his child and will show me how to move.
So many times I’ve heard that no two fingerprints are alike. That each snowflake is distinct. And as we consider these tiny aspects in the breadth of creation, the extension of the comparison is that we consider our own uniqueness.
Our own eye and skin color and body shape, our own perspective of the world and how to walk through it, our own combination of glories and weaknesses, gifts and mess-ups. The understood intention in this simile is that we see ourselves as special and intentionally beautiful.
Instead of fingerprints and snowflakes, though, our comparison default could be rain. We could say, Look at those raindrops, one after another the same. You’re just one of 7 billion.
But we don’t.
We say, those glorious fingertip curves like landscape, those white fuzzy asterisks falling from above, those small things — they are un-usual. Created individually and distinctly by the God who cares enough to do so.
So you? You of skin and bone and spirit, you are something.
Really something.
Today, I am thinking of all the ways our world boxes in and stuffs small and limits and bids us compare. I am thinking of all the scales we use and the multitude of ways we find ourselves falling impossibly short.
So for the self, for the other, I’m wondering what it would be to agree with the God who made each one a unique and marvelous something and called it good.
Today, I’m wondering what it might be to agree with the good gifts of our individual humanity, crafted by God’s tender hand.
Today, I’m praying my eyes would be open to act justly.
Today, I’m praying that I refrain from attempts to cram myself or another on a scale for a value that simply cannot be measured.
Today, I’m joining up again with dear Amber Haines of The Runamuck, as we continue our exploration of voice in writing — using words we can see and touch to express things we cannot. Please visit Amber’s to read her glorious writing and that of other writers and friends who link up there. This week’s piece began with the prompt “SCALE.”
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
Another beautiful post, Ash. I’ll be praying with you.
Thank you, friend. So grateful to join in prayer with you.
Love this. You describe so well the ‘am I winning, am I keeping up” mentality. Can I measure myself, is it enough. I love the response of looking to God, I will ponder on this. Nice to be joining with you again! Xx
You too, Tanya. Amazing how often we women struggle with/against that voice. I’ve missed you. So glad to “see” you again!
Dear Ashley
I love your words that you want to know the parts of yourself that just are, without being boxed and sealed into the world’s values of “doings”! My sweet friend, this is the crux of a life being lived in our Lord Jesus. Us not measured by our doings, but by just being as we live in the One who is “The Great I Am”. Definitely not “The Great I Do”.
What a heartfelt thoughtful post, thank you!!
Much love XX
Mia
The “Great I Am,” not the “Great I Do.” So true. Thank you, Mia!
A stunning piece! Brilliant wise humble holy truths. I love so much when a prayer drops into our mouths the way this one did for you. I love how, when speaking emphasis on one word, and then another in turn, though they are the same words, they have fresh meaning. I love how you said that “God trusts” YOU with this life. (Thinking the trust only went one way, this is new for me)- and suddenly I love that it Doesn’t! This gift of words from you came wrapped in silk and pearls ! A treasure! Thank you dear girl!! xxoo
Thank you, Mama. That was sort of a new awareness for me too — that God trusts ME. I was so glad to learn that about prayers. I first learned of the power of each word in praying, “Be still and know that I am God.” It has brought lots of new depth to the holy mantra kind of prayers. Xoxo!
This has has the beautiful mark of Ashley all over it. It is wondrously you. When you write I hear these sacred echoes in my own life. A response to the cries of my heart. Love all the places you took me of crying out and leaning into the arms of Father God. When you write, I am stirred. Such a beautiful gift you have and you do use it so so well. Honored to be journeying with you.
Bless you, friend. I feel so grateful to have found such a kindred spirit in these written reflections of life and faith. Thank you for all the ways you keep cheering me on, friend.
Loved this the most: “Today, I’m wondering what it might be to agree with the good gifts of our individual humanity, crafted by God’s tender hand.”
Everyone different yet imago dei…in His image. Thanks, Ashley.
Everyone different, yet imago dei…yes, that’s exactly it, Tresta. Thank you for hearing my heart, friend.
OH ASHLEY! So the same…the perpetual measures that I never reach. Thanks for sharing this…GREAT.
Thank you, Melissa. So glad to know I am not alone. I loved your scales piece!
Oh Ashley. This speaks, like with that yelling kind of soul whisper. Thank you.
Oh my goodness, I couldn’t love our little group of writers any more. I love you. Thank you.
Wow, Amber, thank you. A yelling soul whisper…how often that’s my response to the words you write. I, too, love this community of writers! What a gift to me.
Ash, I’m soaring with your words… all this, it is truly, profoundly, God-breathed-on stunning. “So for the self, for the other, I’m wondering what it would be to agree with the God who made each one a unique and marvelous something and called it good.” I’ll need to come back to this post again, and again, and again. Amen, friend. Amen.
Bless you and thank you, Amber. Your presence here is always such a gift of loving light to me.
“Often without recognizing it, I’m weighing you against me, seeing whose side slams to the table, whose inches upward.”
Nice image. good things said here, girl. loved it.
Thank you, Kim. Thankful for you.
Isn’t it amazing Ashley, that we ALWAYS weigh more at the doctor’s office than when we are stripped in our own bathroom and on reliable scales. Who is the doctor anyway!!? One of my prized possessions is an English counter-weight, in shape of a mouse or vole.
Sent from my iPad
Is that so? Tell me more about this counterweight, Grandma.
Dearest Ashley, you are NOT a failure. Maybe you don’t need to pound the table to be heard.
I do believe you’re right, Grandma. :)
Beautiful reminder my beautiful friend!
A good reminder for me too, honey. Xoxo
Ashley, this is breathtaking. I have missed participating in Concrete Abstractions but am so happy to be back. I have hardly, however, missed a single post of yours in the last months. You were already a beautiful writer, but it seems to me your talent has soared to new realms during this time. Beauty.
Thank you so much, sweetie. So glad to be back with you. I loved what you had to share with us this week!
I love where you went with this Ashley. Throwing your weight around in comparison, where do I need to do or be more, do or be less? Isn’t that the cry of any honest woman? And then to agree with God that what he has made us to be is indeed “good”. Yes. SO good to be here today friend and to continue to get to know you better through Amber’s writing community. :)
So happy to connect with you again, too. Yes, Danelle. And I’m wondering why is this the cry of so many of us women? I don’t really understand it fully, but I do know agreeing with God that we — and all of us — are good seems to be a powerful response.
How wonderful when the heart struggles that God fills it with words.. his answer. xx
Amen!