The Crime of the Good Girl

They're a rare breed these days, with rosy cheeks and a killer smile. You'll find them reading their Bibles, teaching the Sunday school classes, &/or playing on the worship team. You can recognize one by their very put together outfits, mascara coated lashes, and the purity ring on their left ring finger. Their facebook profiles are lavished with verses, they are usually intelligent, and Christian music fills their cars when they turn the key in the ignition.

My name is Elisabeth, and I'm a good girl.

I am a part of a small, quiet society of young women who are overall labeled as good ("adj., morally excellent; virtuous; pious"). Some people respond differently than others upon meeting a good girl. There are those who exclaim, "if only my child would grow up to be a girl like you!"; and then there are times we hear someone sneer under a breath, "Oh... she has the clean version of this song." All the while, we know the truths about ourselves: we're hardly good at all. Some of us fight with our families, or harbor an attitude, or listen to secular music. Then you have me, who does all of the above -- sometimes all at once.

Our real crime, however, occurs after we slip up. Maybe it's rare, but when we get caught up in this world and sin, really trip up behind our "good girl" label -- our worlds fall apart. Guilt consumes us, tears shower our faces, and our hearts break. We cry out apologizing again and again to Jesus. We think of those whom we let down. We worry about the hypocrisy of our label.

The crime is found in our anxiety about our slip up. The Bible says to repent and to ask for forgiveness. But it also says that we were set free by Jesus Christ for the sake of freedom, not because we wore our "good" label long enough. The crime is found in the laws that we create and plug into our lives. We do not get into Heaven by our works, but by our hearts. The crime is found in the forgetting that Jesus knew our sins when they were poured out onto Him while He hung on the cross, and that He still pursues our hearts daily.

Women of God are called to freedom, to be beautiful, spiritual, adventurous, strong, loving beings -- despite any perversion, shameful act, or addiction. We are free of any chains, assumptions, expectations, and labels. We are invited to enter an overwhelmingly grand love story with Jesus, filled with passion, joy, and victory.

My name is Elisabeth, and I am set free.

So are you.

An Inspiration

The AC hummed while pens all around the room skidded across paper. The assignment: the typical, yet ever asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?". She felt her green plaid skirt pushing against her stomach as the question floated through her mind. Suddenly and promptly, she straightened her spine, took hold of her pen, and scribed "Photographer" on the white, blue-lined paper. She stared at the word written in black ink for a couple heartbeats. Then, her eyes fell under it, to the 27 empty blue lines. Without another thought, she crumpled the paper into her palm and put it in the corner of her desk. New paper, new word. "A Mother." True, but we need something more. And then there were two paper spheres in the corner. Again. She scribed "Writer." No. No, no, no. More, deeper, truer. The desk's corner then had a party of three.

The chair constantly reminded her that it was made of plastic as it dug into her back. What do you want to be? Then the word came to mind, flew in, and took hold of her. She couldn't position the pen in her hand, couldn't bring it down to paper fast enough. After loops and swirls, dotted "I"s and crossed "T"s, the answer laid -- almost stood on her paper. "An Inspiration." She knew, then, why she loved to sing, read, capture, create; to talk, share, and learn. "I want to be a voice," she wrote, "a voice that comes out of silence. A voice of reason that doesn't sound reasonable because it doesn't sound normal at all." She wrote and she wrote and she wrote. The wet ink clung to the side of her hand as she filled one line and then the next. "I want to be a woman who knows defeat, and who overcomes it. I want to be a woman who shines with the victory that comes from her Jesus. I want to be a conqueror, an endurer, a difference. I want to be a beauty -- not from my hair or eyes or mouth, but from a determination, a Spirit, and a knowledge that I am capable of change because of the One who changed my heart so completely and irrevocably. I want to be an inspiration."

And she was.