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my not-so-extreme makeover

hiding behind her good reputation

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

—2 Corinthians 3:5

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was one of my favorite shows for a while, mainly because I loved to see the before and after shots. The water damage in the bathroom, the rotting ceiling beams, and the messy kids’ rooms were all so extremely awful. Then poof! They move that bus and before our eyes is a new, beautiful, complete house. No more rot, no more mold; a clean, fresh house with flat-screen TVs and themed bedrooms for the kids.

Makeover shows are compelling for one reason: we love to see the bad turn good. To watch something that was falling apart be restored and renewed is encouraging and hopeful. It’s the same way with people.

Growing up in the church, I heard a lot of testimonies from people who went from bad to Jesus. Their lives consisted of one bad decision after another, which is what made their story so powerful. From alcohol, drugs, sex, and cigarettes, their rebellion would lead to a dramatic climax. Jesus showed up and their lives looked completely different. There was no denying that God got the credit.

As a girl who accepted Jesus at a young age, I couldn’t relate. In fact, I admit to sometimes wishing I had a few years of rebellion under my belt. Then my story would be interesting and dramatic too.

Small-Town Girl

Growing up in a small, southern Indiana town, my sister and I didn’t have a whole lot of ways to get into trouble. We spent our summer days playing outside until it got dark and the lightning bugs came out. We played Barbies and waited for pregnant cats to give birth to litters of kittens. We had lemonade stands and drank most of it before earning any money. We practiced the moonwalk but always did it opposite and couldn’t figure out why our Ked-covered feet didn’t look like Michael Jackson’s. We did normal 1980s kid things.

Our very loving and slightly overprotective mother had clear rules about things we were and were not allowed to do. We were allowed to walk down the back alley to Melissa’s house as long as we stayed together. We were allowed to walk the half block to the convenience store for a Coke and a cherry Blow Pop as long as Mom was watching from the front porch. We were also allowed to ride bikes on the road as long as we stayed on the gravel side.

We were not, under any circumstances, allowed to go under the bridge. Apparently, that was where all kinds of awful happened. I never knew exactly what was so bad about the bridge, but in the depths of my imagination I saw hordes of witches crouched in the dark, stirring their steaming brew, buying the souls of unsuspecting seven-year-olds in cutoff shorts sporting skinned-up knees. To go under the bridge was the ultimate declaration of independence from adult wisdom or supervision. To go under the bridge was to be a rebel.

Nearly four years older, my sister and her friends determined how the days would be filled. I got to tag along because I complained and Mom felt sorry for me. I don’t remember anything about what happened under the bridge the day we broke the rule. All I remember is how I felt afterward. Guilty. I believed my role in the family was to be the good girl, the one who never got into trouble, the one with the admirable reputation. I had an overwhelming compulsion to confess to my mother. I remember sitting next to her, knowing I couldn’t carry the burden of my disobedience any longer, despite the earlier pleas from my big sister to keep my mouth shut. I’m sure we were punished for doing something we weren’t supposed to, and I’m also sure that I was punished less than my older sister. I probably cried. I was the baby, after all.

My reaction to disobedience was just as it should have been: guilt. But it didn’t come about as a conviction of the Holy Spirit or a sense that I had sinned. I was simply a good girl with a heavy, innate sense of right and wrong and an extra dose of responsibility.

The Life of a Good Girl

Even after I prayed to receive Jesus and was baptized at the front of that small church in the middle of a cornfield, it was that inner sense of responsibility that continued to influence the way I lived and the choices I made. Even though I was a believer, it didn’t make much difference in the way I lived. I was good before Jesus. I was good after Jesus. No fireworks. No parades. No dramatic turnarounds.

And so it was that I continued with my good way of life, giving myself credit for all of my own goodness. There was a sense that Jesus had something to do with it, as I clearly remember sitting on the playground under the monkey bars in the first grade telling my best friend all about how Jesus died for her and doesn’t she want to accept him too? But I didn’t understand the middle-of-a-Tuesday Jesus. I only knew him as a when-I-get-to-heaven Jesus. Salvation was my ticket to heaven and not much else.

At thirteen I rededicated my life to the Lord because I was scared to death that perhaps it didn’t take the first time. I stared at my feet as I walked up that orange-carpeted aisle and stood next to the pastor while all the grown-ups filed by with pleased looks and proud words. All I could think was, I can’t wait to get out of here and what’s for lunch, anyway?

As I got older and entered high school, my story never included anything scandalous. I didn’t have sex with boys for two reasons: I was scared of them, and they didn’t ask me to, anyway. I was good because I was afraid of boys, afraid of hell, and afraid of getting into trouble. I knew how to listen to the spirit of fear. I had not yet learned the voice of the Spirit of God.

The Mask Wearing Begins

Author David Seamands once wrote, “Children are the best recorders but the worst interpreters.”[4] I remember a lot about being a kid. I remember colors and moments, arguments and smells, situations and conversations that are just as vivid as if I lived them yesterday. Though my memories may be clear, I extract meaning from those memories that may or may not be.

So that big kid who sat three rows in front of me on the bleachers in the fifth grade and turned around and called me Dumbo because my ears stuck out? That memory is vivid in my mind. I can hear the squeaks of the players’ shoes in the background, smell the rubber mixed with sweat and floor wax, and see those boys in front of me with their hooded sweatshirts and their sneering grins: great recorder. But the sinking feeling I had after that night and the voice that spoke in my head for years after that, causing me to avoid ponytails and always have my hair down: bad interpreter. My kid brain wasn’t capable of reason, so the memory stuck and served to shape my actions and beliefs as I grew up. And even though I’m a grown-up now and I can rationalize that those boys were simply insecure and thoughtless, it doesn’t change my mind. I still believe what they said even though I am grown.

It works in positive ways, too. I was praised a lot as a kid. My parents’ friends and extended family members commented on what a good girl I was, teachers boasted about my behavior in school, and I rarely got in trouble at home. I put a lot of confidence in myself and in my good reputation.

I was a good recorder of the praise and the accolades from the grown-ups who thought I was strong and capable. I remember their words and proud looks. I treasured their admiration of me. But instead of simply interpreting their words as encouragement, I internalized them and let them become a standard to continue reaching for. I put extreme pressure on myself to live up to the good girl in their minds. I wanted people to see me as able, even as young as elementary school. I let their proud words define me and lead me to a puffed-up self-dependence, leaving little room for Jesus.

That’s how the mask wearing begins. The neglect of Lucy’s father led her to believe things about herself that weren’t true. For everyone, something happens that leads to a feeling, be it rejection or fear or elation or pride. And that feeling becomes a belief deeply ingrained and carefully coddled. In turn, that belief turns into ways we choose to cope with things and live our lives.

So my good reputation was where I began to place my identity. Though my good started out motivated by fear, it slowly started to pay off. I was the girl who did things right; the friend others came to when they needed advice; the girl on the outskirts of drama; the sensible, cheerful friend. My goodness became part of my identity. Soon, boys liked me because of my good reputation. The right kind of boys.

Good Girl Meets Good Boy

Tenth grade was the year I got my braces off, earned my driver’s license, and befriended a guy one year ahead of me. He had majorly high moral standards. He was athletic and well liked. He didn’t party like those around him, but he still managed to fit in with them. They respected him for his moral right-ness. Just like they respected me. He was my first real boyfriend.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was a good girl desperate for male attention. It could have been because I grew up in a home with an alcoholic father, or it could have just been because I was human. Whatever the reason, I was a well-adjusted, confident, healthy girl on the outside who was desperate for male attention, affirmation, and love on the inside. Even though we were very young, I had my first glimpse of what it might feel like to be loved in a romantic way. It didn’t take long for me to become addicted to that feeling.

We were created with a deep need for love, acceptance, worth, and security. The need is overwhelming and must be satisfied. In the same way some girls wear the mask of promiscuity to grasp for connection and acceptance, good girls can depend on their good reputation to meet their desperate need for love. Even though it looked good and healthy on the outside, this relationship was a significant source of acceptance for me and began an unhealthy pattern of looking to men to affirm my identity.

Good Girl Grows Up

My reputation isn’t only defined by what I did or did not do with boys. Reputation can be built in lots of ways. The apostle Paul describes his reputation in great detail in Philippians 3:1–11. Consider the credentials Paul lists there: circumcised on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a zealous persecutor of the church, righteous and blameless in his keeping of the Law. He had an impeccable reputation in nearly every area of life—religious, genetic, and political. And that was all before he met Jesus.

Many good girls can relate with Paul’s impeccable reputation. We are the daughters of pastors and missionaries, we support the “right” candidates in the polls, we attended Bible college. We homeschool our children or we send them to private Christian schools or we are the presidents of the public school PTA. We marry pastors, we lead Bible studies, we sing in the choir, we volunteer in the nursery. And sometimes we do those things in response to Jesus’ leading. But sometimes, we do them to maintain our good reputation.

I am not typically the first person to volunteer for things. But when I do, you can certainly depend on me. It is good and right and responsible to follow through in those things we have committed to. I would never deny that. But there are times when I have become involved in a committee or volunteered for a position that seems to run its course and I sense the Holy Spirit leading me away from that thing or that place of service. But instead of prayerfully considering a change, I struggle and fight against it for fear of what others might think of my backing down.

As a good girl, it is hard to risk quitting commitments for fear of how it might look to those watching. Rather than listening to God’s gentle leading in those areas, I fear and I fret that my reputation as the dependable one or as the one who can handle things will be threatened.

The Mess behind the Mask

The mask of the good reputation is a hard one to take off. So much of who I am is wrapped up in what I do or in what I have abstained from all my life. While it is true that Jesus calls us to live a holy, set-apart life, he doesn’t do so in order for us to gain something from him. And his idea of holy and set apart may be shockingly different from what we always thought.

A girl with a good reputation easily makes friends at Bible college, effortlessly impresses the parents of boyfriends, and has little trouble coasting into the role of pastor’s wife. But if she hides behind her good reputation, there is little room for correction, and the good girl is in danger of being her own compass rather than having a softened heart to the leading of God as he speaks through his Word, friends, or family members. There could be a fear of intimacy, because people who get too close might see things she wishes weren’t there. Hiding behind that good-looking mask, her arms are folded too tightly to give and receive grace, or to fall into an embrace from a God who sees beyond her good reputation.

Behavior matters. Decisions matter. Sin has consequences. In fact, sin is too serious an issue for God to leave it up to us to fix or make right on our own (we’ll explore this more in Chapter 10). It would be years before I would understand the dangers of this moral obsession with my right-ness or wrong-ness being based on my performance. I subconsciously categorized people into classes of either right or rebellious rather than seeing them as people in desperate need of God.

As a good girl, I formed my own definition of sin rather than understand God’s. Sin was the bad stuff people do, the heartache people cause, the poor decisions people make. But my insatiable desire to be my own little god somehow didn’t make the list of sin in my book. My incessant need to be better than, to be important, to be liked and right and good on my own and by myself—those things pulsed just under the surface of my smiling exterior.

In Christian circles, we tend to call that self-righteousness. And it is. We could also call it self-dependence, and this gospel of self-sufficiency robs good girls of a life of freedom and victory.

My Present-Day Reputation

While my reputation in high school depended heavily upon what I did (or more specifically, did not do) with boys, the mask of the good reputation still shows up in my adult life. But it looks different now.

While preparing the manuscript for this book, I wanted to interview a few writers of blogs that I read, as I was convinced their stories would resonate with good girls everywhere. One blogger in particular was my friend Kelly.

I have never met Kelly in real life, though I am an avid reader of her blog. She agreed to chat with me on the phone. One afternoon I called her up at the time we had agreed upon, and I spent about thirty minutes asking her questions and listening to her story. A few weeks later, I received this email from Kelly:

I’ve been meaning to email you since our phone conversation. I didn’t think calling would be weird at all until you were on the phone and for some inexplicable reason I started shaking and babbling. I had to sit down to talk to you, because I started getting chills. I was so embarrassed over what I said or didn’t say that I went into hiding for a while. I have needed to write to you, to thank you for calling me, to tell you that I loved your voice and your accent, and to tell you I am sorry I was so nervous. I’m not a groupie type of person. My reaction surprised me so much.

I wanted to tell you this, because you’re not just a blog friend after a phone call. I encountered you in person and your person was sweet and wonderful and cool and my person was not so cool and felt so inadequate to have a conversation with you. I said things I might not have written or that would have come out better in writing than in my half-panicked person voice.

I wrote her back and assured her not to feel embarrassed, that she was charming and helpful and fantastic. But what I didn’t tell her was this: I was a wreck before I called her. I was nervous and sweaty and I didn’t want to do it. As 2:00 p.m. grew closer, I tried to figure a way to get out of it, but I knew I couldn’t. The call was my idea! The thing about blogging is you get to put your best foot forward. You get to edit and delete and ponder before you actually say anything. You get to manage your own reputation. I was worried that when she finally heard me speak unedited, she would see me for who I really am, and then she wouldn’t like me anymore.

Kelly’s email response showed me she was feeling the same way! But instead of writing honestly back to her and admitting my own insecurities, I straightened up my mask of that good reputation without even realizing I was doing it. I took her email as confirmation that my reputation was still intact: Good. She thinks I’m cool and awesome. No need to tell her I was a hot mess before we spoke. I’ll just let her be the mess. What a mess, indeed.

The Reputation of Jesus

Character refers to who you are. Reputation refers to who people think you are. I generally care more about who people think I am than who I really am. But Jesus was not a person trying to keep a good reputation intact. During his life on earth, he never tried to explain himself for the sake of his reputation.

In his book Breaking the Rules, Fil Anderson talks about the scandalous reputation of Jesus:

He breaks all social etiquette in relating to people. He acknowledges no barriers or human divisions. There is no category of sinners he isolates himself from. Simply stated, Jesus is a miserable failure at meeting religious people’s expectations of him. He connects with the kinds of people he should disregard. He attends the wrong dinner parties. He is rude to respected religious leaders and polite to whores. He reprimands his own followers and praises outsiders and riffraff.[5]

He healed people, but he didn’t heal everyone. He stirred things up wherever he went, and the Pharisees hated the fact that he existed. He associated with adulterous and unclean women, lepers, and tax collectors. Though he was without sin, there were still those who questioned his reputation. Knowing there were people who disagreed, even hated him, didn’t cause him to change one thing he did. He wasn’t working to maintain a good reputation. He was walking in dependence on his Father. Jesus didn’t value what people thought; he valued people, period.

By refusing to level with Kelly and take off my mask to reveal our common frailty, I kept her at arm’s length. I may have kept my cool reputation intact, but I did not offer her any human connection. In that moment, I chose my reputation over authentic relationship. That is not the way I want to live. What about you?

Behind the Mask

Walk back through your history to a point in time, maybe within the first ten years of your life, where you recall a memory that may have encouraged you to begin maintaining your reputation. What was the circumstance?

If you were a good girl before Jesus and you’re still good now, then what changed? What happened for you at salvation? What were you saved from?

What have you been doing to satisfy your needs for belonging, worth, and love?

What would be a reputation nightmare for you? Name it. Describe it.

Read Philippians 3:1–11 again. What words does Paul use to describe his reputation in comparison with knowing Jesus?