Chapter Fourteen
I Made Her
I cannot compete
I will not compete
I will be me
as beautiful, as strong
as He will let me
as kind, as close
as he desires
as wise, as witty
as He has made me
I will be me
so me, for me
I do not compete for you
I do not perform
I do not prance or primp
but according to Him
and for me
I am beautiful
and for you
I am me
and you can know
me.
The next morning I woke up with the sunrise because it was too hot on top of the boat to stay in my sleeping bag. I quickly jotted down a poem in my prayer journal, and soon all the other girls rustled as well, and we laughed and chatted as we changed into our swimsuits inside our sleeping bags, dug for our shampoo, and jumped in the lake to wash our hair, feeling refreshed and excited about our first full day on the lake. The guys, who had slept inside the boat, woke when they heard the girls splashing and screaming in the chilly water.
At breakfast I successfully avoided eye contact with Paul. He was naturally calm and kind to everyone on the boat. After we ate, it was time for devotions with our leaders—the girls with Kelly and the guys with Paul. We chose to stay inside that day, while the guys went up top with their guitars and Bibles.
While searching for the verses in the daily devotion, I came across a poem that I had picked up at winter camp and tucked into my Bible a few years earlier. The poem reminded me of the mire I’d been trapped in after I’d lost Lana. God had lifted me out. He was always faithful.
“I Made Her” was the title. It was written as a letter from God. My favorite part of the poem went like this:
I made her in such a way that she would need Me. I made her a little more lonesome than she would like to be. Only because I want her to turn to Me in her loneliness … Only because I want her to learn to depend on Me … I know her heart. I know if I had not made her like this she would go her chosen way and forget Me … her Creator.
During our devotional, I shared the poem. A freshman named Marisa started crying when I read it. I asked her what was going on with her, and she said she was trying to decide whether or not to quit ballet when she started high school in the fall.
“Don’t quit!” I said. “Oh, don’t do it; your body will go into shock.”
I had quit the pre-professional program in the middle of my senior year, right after my first solo in The Nutcracker, and it was a terrible decision. I went through ballet withdrawals. My mind and body craved the routines and stretches and hard work. I tried taking a step aerobics class and yoga at the gym. It didn’t work. Every class was the same, and in ballet not one class is the same. I tried jogging and doing exercise videos. It was good, but it wasn’t challenging enough; it wasn’t what my body wanted. Nothing could replace ballet.
“It’s not good to quit,” I persisted gently. “I’ll talk to you more later.”
We smiled at each other knowingly, with an immediate sisterhood. After our group time, Marisa and I chatted about our love of dancing and the joy of performing on stage.
Later that day, after hours of swimming, tanning, and wakeboarding, I sat alone reading on the back deck of our boat. I caught a glimpse of Marisa’s back while she was climbing onto a raft in the water. I yelled, “Hey! Marisa, you have a ballerina back! Ballet is so good for your back; that’s another reason not to quit!”
“What do you mean, a ballerina back?”
“Come here,” I said. She swam over and climbed up the ladder of the houseboat, dripping. After she dried off I brought her inside the boat cabin, stood beside her, and held up her arms like she was under arrest. She turned her head, and through the mirror she could see her back muscles flexing.
“Wow, that is so cool!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never noticed that before!”
“What the heck are you girls doing?”
I heard the voice, and I froze and melted simultaneously.
“What does it look like we are doing, Paul?” I retorted as he sauntered through the hallway of the boat, smiling mischievously.
“Is this some type of freshman initiation?”
“No, but that is a great idea; I didn’t think of that. I was just showing Marisa her ballerina back.”
“What’s a ballerina back?”
“Look, it’s all these muscles that ballerinas have.” I held up Marisa’s arms and showed Paul what I meant. “It helps that she is so slim. You can see every muscle in her back. It looks awesome.”
“Oh yeah, I see it.”
“Cool. Well, bye guys,” Marisa called.
Before we knew it, Marisa was out the door and back in the water. I hoped I hadn’t embarrassed her in front of our boat leader. But I figured she jumped back in because it was so hot outside. I quickly shut the door of the cabin behind her to keep the air conditioning inside. And to be alone with Paul.
“I try to work out my back too,” he said half-jokingly, rotating to see his own back reflected in the mirror. Paul had been training and playing soccer for years. Unmistakably, he was in great shape.
“What about you, Miriam? Do you have a ballerina back?” he asked innocently.
I got really nervous. “Well, I don’t know. I used to.”
“Let’s see,” he said. “Do the arm thing so I can see your back.”
I paused for a moment. Did he really just say that? Oh my God, he’s still into me!
I had my swimsuit on, but it was under my T-shirt. I angled my chest toward the bunk beds so I could take off my shirt. He looked away.
I was wearing a string bikini top, so soon my entire back was exposed. Luckily, I was confident that I had no back zits or armpit hair that day. I pivoted to face the mirror, and Paul stood behind me. He was a perfect 6 feet tall, and I was 5 foot 9. We looked great together. I fantasized that he would lift my arm and run his hand along the side of my body like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. But Paul did not touch me.
I lifted my hands above my head with my palms facing forward, and slowly lowered my arms, flexing my back muscles as hard as I could. He watched my back with his mouth partly open.
“Oh, I see,” he said. “That looks—awesome.”
He gulped. It was a moment where I naturally would have turned and pressed my body against his, wrapped my arms around his neck, and tackled him on the bottom bunk . . . if I had been born 10 years earlier or him 10 years later. Just then, we heard someone open the front door of the houseboat, and Paul disappeared without another word.
That night, when I tried to pray, I felt like a solid brick wall was between God and me. Where was God in all my confusion? He was not speaking to me anymore.
Earlier in the summer I’d had a conversation with a man, a co-worker at the dermatologist’s office, who was attending seminary. In an attempt to explain one of the topics of his papers, he said, “God is not going to tell you where to go to college or whom you are going to marry. The canon is closed. God doesn’t speak to men and women anymore. All we have is the Bible.”
I couldn’t help but giggle on the inside because I knew he was wrong. God had already told me to go to Azusa Pacific University, and I was convinced that he had told me that I would marry Paul.
He gave me a copy of his thesis, titled The Canon Is Closed, and I took it home and read it in my bedroom. It was well written, and it made me consider his argument. What if it was true? I began to ask myself if I was sure that God was talking to me. If it was not God, then who or what was it that “spoke” to me in my heart? Was it my own thoughts? A demon? Or God?
I had brought my questions to Kelly at that time, and she listened carefully to my dilemma. “Ever since I talked to that guy and read his thesis, I can’t pray,” I told her. “Suddenly, I’m questioni
ng all those times that I thought I heard God guiding me.”
To my surprise, she’d felt the same way before. “Sometimes I feel like my prayers are hitting the ceiling, but I don’t stop praying just because of how I am feeling that day,” she had said. “Continue to do what you know is right. If you can’t pray, then try journaling, singing, or dancing. Just try to be real with him.”
On top of the boat in my sleeping bag, I tried to listen for something from God: Stars. Wind. Moon. Lake. Everything around me was God’s. Everything that belonged to God was beautiful.