Let’s just get it out there. Most guys don’t understand purses. I’m not being ugly about it. We’re different. And that’s okay. So before starting one more dialogue about my purse, let me go ahead and answer the standard purse questions I get from my husband: Yes, I need it. Yes, I need it at this event, whatever “this” event is. And yes, I need all the things that are in it. All of them. Yes, I do know it’s heavy. Yes, it has pretty much dislocated my right shoulder, that’s why I’m now hauling it on my left one.
Even after that first round of questions, there’s still almost always one more: “How do you ever find anything in there?” The answer is, I don’t. That’s why I put in two of everything. Except for pens. In the case of pens, I put in 4,000.
Before anyone even asks, I should probably also point out that “purse chocolate” is a thing. My husband now understands this: All purses should have chocolate. Don’t touch it.
They are wildly bizarre and eclectic and sometimes beautiful and often difficult to maneuver through. Purses.
Also people.
As intense as my need is for every item in my purse, so much greater is my need for people. Not just because I’m a people-person. It’s true, I’m an extrovert. But there isn’t a one of us who doesn’t need people. God made it so.
The fact that we need people doesn’t negate another fact: people can be messier than a winter purse. I’m not trying to be ugly here either. We’re different. And that’s ultimately okay. It often brings to light our inability to love others well. That’s also okay. We have an indwelling God who will take care of it for us. Every time we’ll allow it, He will love others through us. Even the messiest, most negative person you can think of. Love. It’s positively delightful what can happen in and through a person who surrenders all.
Paul said, “And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11, CSB).
Any growing love or knowledge or discernment happens through Him. Any superior, fruitful and righteous behavior that happens in any relationship—and in any aspect of our lives—“comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”
Nevermind their messiness or their shoulder-slumping baggage. Let me love them. Love them through me, Lord Jesus.
With every wildly bizarre and beautiful and difficult person I encounter, I’m asking the Lord to sort out their negatives and make me a positive. Not just because I need to connect with them, though I do. But because there’s glory and praise to God when those connections are Holy Spirit-empowered. And it simply doesn’t get more positive than that.
On the lighter side of the positives and negatives, I feel I should point out that there is also pepper spray in my purse. I’m not saying I keep it in there in case someone tries to take my purse chocolate. But I’m also NOT, not saying that.