Four-Eyed Blonde

I absolutely love Chonda Pierce. I know, you're wondering, who in the world is Chonda Pierce? I had never heard of her before either, until one Friday evening, bored and online, I decided to find clips from Christian comedians on YouTube. I listened to some really great ones, and had some great laughs, but when I found Chonda, I not only laughed but I cried, I listened, and I understood.

Chonda has the ability to take an everyday occurrence and find the humour in it, even after her older sister was killed in a car accident at 20, her younger sister died from leukemia at 15, her father left the ministry, and her parents got divorced. I can't imagine being able to find laughter after surviving two of those types of experiences, let alone all of those. Chonda also has the gift to speak words that go straight to your heart. It's as if God speaks through her when she shares about how much He loves us and as if she's sitting in His presence and she wants us to understand how amazing it is. I need that.

My hardest struggle in life is understanding who God really is and understanding that He loves me and His love for me is unconditional. I have been talking about this a lot lately, with good friends and family, and just this evening I sat down with my mom to watch a Chonda Pierce DVD called Four-Eyed Blonde. The first hour was filled with laughs, but it was the last part that really spoke to me. Chonda told a story about her daughter who had just entered that awkward age, where you get braces and glasses at the same time, and to encourage her, they went to a really fun medieval-themed restaurant where you ate with your hands and cheered on the knights that were fighting down a mud pit. The story goes that they were cheering for the blue knight, who eventually won the battle, and as he came out, he headed straight for their table, went to Chonda's daughter, knelt, took his blue scarf from around his neck, kissed it, and gave it to her. Then he took her by the hand and led her to his horse. Together they rode to a platform where a king stood, who placed a robe around her and a crown on her head. She stood there, beaming, as all her awkwardness fell away and the king pronounced her princess of the day.

Tears were rolling down my cheeks as Chonda quietly told the audience that as she saw her daughter standing up there, she realized that Jesus was like that knight and God was like that king and that we are princesses and princes of God. You see, it's hard for me to believe that God wants to love me. I'm not a horrible person, I haven't committed any major crimes, but I am not perfect either. The older I get, the more I realize how many things I have wrong with me, and the harder I try to do something about them, the more I feel like I can't ever win. Maybe it's because I'm fighting that battle on my own.

Someone said, at a baby's memorial yesterday, that Jesus wasn't afraid in Gethsemane because of the sin that would be placed on Him. He wasn't afraid of the physical pain, of the nails that would be pounded into His gentle hands. He was afraid of something much more. Before us, before Mary and Joseph, before Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel, before Joseph, before Abraham, before Moses, before Adam and Eve, before the angels, before the creation of this world, there was God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Forever. And Jesus was faced with the thought that He could be separated from His Father forever. Yet that did not stop Him. Jesus made the decision because He knew there was no other hope for us.

I know God's love is unconditional, at least, I know that with my head. But I am still learning it with my heart. I know my family and friends love me unconditionally, as far as they are humanly able to, and that they support me in whatever I do. And yet we live in a world where love is conditional and acceptance is based on meeting other people's expectations. Perfection as seen in others' eyes is what we continually strive for and we waste our time, money, and effort just to reach that elusive pinnacle so we can shine. Strangely enough, man's acceptance is not what we should be working for. All we ever do will not be enough to love God because He loves us already. If we can stop battling in our minds to reach a state of perfection where we feel that we can now enter His presence, maybe we'll finally realize He's been with us all along. And maybe then we can begin to grow. When we are confident in God's love and acceptance, we can move forward and do amazing things because we know. . .we are loved.