Going Back Now

I need to get to know myself again. I have lost myself in other people's stories. And while this can sometimes feed my need for being valued, there is something sinful in it all. God worked in me, He fought for parts of me that have been left out and spoiled. However, somewhere, I know that even a piece of grace the size of sand could wash me new.

So before I start writing again, I am going back. I want to see where I've been to help know where I should go...

Feb 22, 2005

King David…he is the refuge of the suffering, the hope of the abandoned, and the strength of the weak. He is a man after God’s own heart, and yet somehow the Christianity that I have adopted does not allow me to learn all that I should from him. Somewhere along the line, I taught myself to pity those of the Old Testament. They were the poor people, sentenced to a life of never ending work camps, without ever seeing pardon. They were on the judgment scale, and weren’t afforded the chance to have Christ come tip the scale with His weighty grace. And yet for some reason that I am not sure, King David kept trying. No one told Him that he would never get there, he just kept getting up after each beating. Did he know something about God’s desires, God’s freedom and His love that I have sold short because of my insecure response to Jesus? Could God like me even before I am smeared with blood? Cause I am convinced that David would have never written like that to a God that he didn’t know truly liked him first.

I am confused about confusion. I have been in intense Christian community for 4 ½ years now, and sometimes wonder if this whole thing is really just a circle and not the line I want it to be. I have noticed that if given enough time and seclusion, Christians will begin to pick on each other if they don’t have the world to be better than. And many times, when a person is picking on the church, a pastor, or even a friend, they are just desperately wanting you to look them straight in the eye and say they are ok. No, that pastor isn’t wrong, but it isn’t wrong to be confused either.

It has been good for me to live on my own. Even at Taylor, I was living with people that I took classes with. There very rarely was an experience or emotion that I had to go through alone. But now, there are times that things happen to me that will go unnoticed. Its not that I am not in community, or that I don’t have people that care. And I wasn’t ok with that, didn’t know how I could still be valuable without being witnessed. Then I thought about cranberries…

From my understanding, cranberries are put into a lake and the best ones float. So time and balance sort out what is the best. I don’t know if it is laziness or maturity that has lead me to this state, but now, when someone criticizes me, or when I have this whole new thought, I find myself putting it in the lake and pushing it away, because I know if it is meant to be kept and cherished, it will float.

This may seem lonely; well actually it is. There are nights where prayer becomes my proof of existence, but then again, it gives life a new value. This isn’t just a sea of events and I am not a victim of my relationships…I can live with a little more confidence and security than that. Every thought, every reaction and sermon is a cranberry. Once and a while, I get to go and collect, and those are the good ones. Those are the ones that I get to share, laugh and build a life with. I can now love a person that isn’t with me every day, because I am saving for them the ones that fought to be saved. (yeah so we all know I am not there yet, but hey, if I say it, then maybe I am a little closer)

One last thought. I have given much consideration lately to myself. Due to the nature of my personality, my environment, or my ministry, however you look at it, I seem to always be experiencing something. The term “being ok with not being ok” was spoke to me recently with power. But also, I began to doubt even what all of us are trying for. In the secular world, I am taught that I should accept myself. African Americans have an identity, it is ok to be preppy, you can embrace your femininity, and anything from being smart to being a blonde bimbo can be accepted. You just need to find the right amount of insecurity matched with confidence, and people will open their arms. Then I became a Christian and somehow I begin to get this picture of what a perfect believer looks like. So I begin the dichotomy of loving a hating myself at the same time. I am a sinner, doomed to disappoint and living with a need of salvation. I am fallen, I am faithless, and yet I am a new creation and His tool. So many times I walk out of a church so full of self involved love and hate, that I look around and find the same thing…people in desperate need of just saying I am ok. Instead, I am left with trying to convince a 16 year old to leave her supportive alternative friends, who say she is ok with black hair and piercings, for a life of constant disdain and dissatisfaction. Is it ok to be ok? Because if anyone through the “be humble” card to me, I might run out of the room screaming.

I come back to David. He hadn’t seen Christ yet, well at least not like we got to see. And yet, somehow, sin and all, he still felt valuable enough to come back to God. Maybe, Christ wasn’t meant to give us an example so that we could have an unobtainable model of perfection that we could forever quote and use to stand on. Maybe, we would have known our need for God, even without ministers always pointing out our sin, because we would have known we were already liked.

Its not that I don’t love Christ deeply. It is that I am tired of seeing Him used to fill our insecurity. I am tired of thinking there is one perfect church, minister or Christian out there…cause as far as I am concerned, I think Jesus was here a while ago…and a lot of us are really trying.

So I am either going to be confident or cocky, assertive or overbearing, funny or inappropriate, insightful or a drama queen…but ya know what, maybe that’s ok. Maybe I won’t know if a lot of my personality was ever right, but maybe me not knowing makes me ok with returning to God again and again. Would I come to Christ even if I knew possibly I could get to heaven without him? I know that is a dangerous question…but I still think I would. Cause I would like Christ, and I would see that He was so much bigger than what I could have imagined.

I saw the Wedding Planner. Yeah, it was on Valentine’s Day too. And this guy that is an “escort” looks at the girl and says “I would rather be fighting with you than having sex with anyone else.” I thought of what an incredible prayer that would be. Is it ok to have an escort be your mouthpiece to God? Cause for some reason, I am more than ok with that.