Why Jesus?

Why Jesus?  Why do I turn to Jesus when i hurt? 

From my earliest childhood, I have memories of growing up in a Mennonite home.  We didn’t have horses or buggies; we did have electricity.  And a radio.  (Always tuned to a Christian station, of course, except for my mother’s unholy enjoyment of Paul Harvey’s news and commentary, which was carried on a secular station.)  But no tv in our home when I was a child--all the movies and tv I got to watch were at my friends’ and neighbors’ houses, mostly at Christmas and Thanksgiving.  When I was a little girl, my hair was braided in two pigtails (sort of like “Laura” on the “Little House” tv show of the 1980’s), and I was always supposed to wear skirts or dresses.  We went to church almost every time the doors were open.

Religion was so engrained in me...but dresses, pigtails, and head coverings are no comfort when your heart is aching.  Could there be more?  Could God truly love me?  Me, this girl who was so painfully, achingly inadequate?

No matter which rules I followed, I came up short somewhere.  I had family and school friends who were “plainer” than I...my girl cousins’ dresses were plainer, their head coverings covered more.  


(I didn’t even wear a head covering.  Years later, a co-worker of mine referred to the head coverings as “sin-sifters” and it made me laugh when I first heard him say that...from my perspective as a child, it seemed to hit the nail on the head.  But I do know many dear, sincere Christian ladies who wear head coverings that I am glad and proud to number among my family and friends.  And if that is what God has called another to do, who am I to say that they should not?  I am simply speaking here of my own experience and the process God used to draw me to Himself.) 

But back to the “plainer” people than me...Their stockings were black.  I wore whatever...semi-fashionable...cable-knit tights came in my bag of hand-me-downs from our neighbors.  One memorable pair was even light blue.  My boy cousins wore plain suits...nothing like my dad’s (lovely) green plaid ‘70’s polyester leisure suit.  (I think it was worn for his high school graduation?)  Not all of Dad’s dress clothes were that “worldly;” he had a few other suits that were, for their time, probably fairly conservative, like plain dark green; and his wedding suit had been a plain suit...but definitely not all of his suits were collarless and plain.  So who was holier?  Not me; that was for sure.  Even among we who were “plain,” or at least somewhat plain, the varying standards were confusing to me as a little girl.

How could I measure up?  How could God love me?  In Sunday School we sang a song titled, “Jesus Loves Even Me.”  But even me?  I was not rebellious in my heart...I truly wanted to please God.  But I kept doing “rebellious” things, unwittingly, unknowingly...things that i didn’t even realize were rebellious until my cousins or friends enlightened me.  How could God possibly love me if I were constantly sinning against Him like this?  And, if it were so easy to offend Him, what hope did I have of ever gaining His approval?

But, in spite of the man-made rules that I could never seem to measure up to, I had two wonderful grandmas who were somehow able to get through to me that Jesus loved me....”Jesus loves me, this i know; for the Bible tells me so.”  I held on to that.