Day 2. Philippians 3:12-14

The first time I remember being exposed to this scripture was in Bangladesh two years ago. It was close to the final leg of our trip, and the (very timely) sermon at church that week was based on this scripture. I remember the pastor speaking very passionately, and although I didn’t quite absorb all of what he was speaking (I was probably hot, tired, and sick), I remember being so gripped by the passage that I looked it up promptly when I had some time alone and scoured the chapter, and even the rest of the book of Philippians to try and gather context and understand Paul’s angle.

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

After professing his own human imperfection (which is significant in itself, as a teacher), Paul debunks the myth that salvation is a one-time prayer or commitment to Christ. With those words, he’s saying that yeah, it’s true that Jesus, through his dying and resurrection has purchased me as his own, and I have faith in that, but faith cannot stand without works (which is a nice parallel to James 2, one of my other fave passages), so I have to outwardly show that I have faith and believe by sharing this gospel with others and loving my God and my neighbour as Christ commanded.

Jesus offers each of us a new identity in him, but we have to want it. We have to work towards it, and forget our old self so we can get to know our new self—straining forward towards Jesus, giving it our all to be more and more like him until we are finally with him and cannot try any more.

Day 1. Psalm 73:21-26

Although I’m yet in their early stages, I’ve discovered over the last couple of years that one’s twenties are inevitably the most difficult decade of life so far. Whereas before it seemed easy to size up your peers based on benchmark developmental points that we all reached at relatively the same time, going down the same tunnel of physical, emotional, and educational development at approximately the same rate, it seems that in the twenties, this tunnel just ends, and everything that was in it spills out everywhere, in all directions. You lose the ability to compare yourself accurately to your peers. Maybe others have truly mastered the art of not comparing oneself to their peers, and good for them, but comparison, and trying to be first or best at everything is something that I’ve continually struggled with (and I’ve been pretty silent about it, too, even denying it quite often) because coming out on top makes me feel like I’m doing something right—like I have control. 

I’m 22, single, with no prospects on the dating horizon, stuck in a part-time, dead-end job, spend many of my days just loafting around the house, wondering when my big break is going to come (as if that is owed to me), and lamenting the fact that as more and more of my friends get into serious relationships, the less and less time we’ll spend together. I have friends who are 22, engaged or married, and starting families, and/or careers in which they are very happy and fulfilled. It’s like we all came out of that tunnel at the same time, but none of us was given a map, and although some people seemed to have come out of that tunnel and found the light of the path they were meant to be on, I’m still stumbling around in the overgrown weeds, way off the path, in the dark, even though I’ve not done anything that I feel would warrant my being there rather than on a lighted path—and some of the people on these lighted paths I just can’t understand how they possibly deserve the awesome life that they’ve landed. It’s not fair.

I’m told that this only gets worse as we get father and farther into the decade.

I feel a lot like Asaph, the psalmist, in the beginning of this psalm. He’s lamenting the fact that all of these arrogant, wicked people are prospering and thriving, while he’s struggling and being rebuked, although he has kept his hands and heart clean. It’s really embittered him towards God, and he doesn’t understand why God would allow these wicked people to prosper while he suffers, if God is good, and in control.

And then he says this:

When my soul was embittered,

when I was pricked in the heart,

I was brutish and ignorant;

I was like a beast towards you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Yep, I’ve spent some time really angry at God this year, for allowing things to go the way they have, praying for him to intervene and confirm the notion that he is good.

I’ve struggled a lot with feelings of inadequacy, and self-loathing, and sometimes I’ve found myself crying in front of a mirror because all I see is a hopeless, ugly, [series of expletives]. I really can’t do this on my own. Whom have I in heaven but the Lord? My flesh and my heart have failed, and it is folly to put hope in them. There is no strength in this flesh, but in God there is; not only strength, but portion as well—everything that I could ever need. I don't need to be in control of every minute aspect of my daily life just to ensure self-preservation because God is in control of everything seen and unseen in ways that are so perfect they are beyond my narrow comprehension. Why would I desire anything on earth more than that?

The Verdict:

First of all, let me just say how overwhelmed with gratitude I am, after receiving such a positive response to the previous post. My facebook inbox was flooded with messages of support, encouragement, and solidarity from all kinds of humans—close friends, people whom I’d expected to judge and scoff at me, individuals with whom I haven’t spoken with in years, and even those with whom I can’t recall ever having a conversation. It was absolutely overwhelming to see so many individuals from so many walks of life come alongside and agree with many things that I was saying, and challenge some of those opinions by asking critical questions, as well as apologize on behalf of all Christians for some negative things that I’ve experienced in the hands of other Christians, and the church in general. Never once did I feel chastised, judged, or shamed for saying what I said, believing what I believe, or doing what I did. So, thank you. I’m so incredibly grateful to have such wonderful people in my life.

On Tuesday morning, at about 5am, I decided to follow Jesus.

I was absolutely not expecting it to happen this quickly. How that decision was reached is a big, long story, involving circumstances that, out of respect for the parties involved, I would prefer not to discuss.

This week I learned that life moves fast, and sometimes it stops moving and ends just as fast. I learned that I could sit around on the sidelines, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for something or someone to speak to me in such a way that motivates me to accept the truth of the gospel in my heart and not just in my head, waiting for a magic, fairytale, emotional moment where I suddenly comprehend the fullness of the gospel, and know 100% without a doubt that Jesus is real, and with me, and for me, just as I am. I could wait around forever, for all of my silent, unrealistic expectations to be fulfilled, and I could die waiting, without ever saying yes. That was one possible scenario.

The other forced me to make a choice, and have closure right here and now: do I love Jesus, or don’t I? That answer was simple. How, after seeing and experiencing all the hurt that I had at the hands of humans, directed at myself and others, how could I possibly be okay with believing that what we see is all there is? After studying, and learning, and growing more and more to understand who Jesus is, and seeing self-proclaimed “Christians” totally miss the mark and use that “faith” as a cop-out to be hateful, discriminatory, and judgmental, ignoring Christ’s gospel of love, peace, hope, joy, and justice for the oppressed—how, how could I possibly sit back, scoffing at these ignorant individuals, while I myself was ignoring the mission that I have to be an example of love and grace? Knowing how flawed and faulty I am as a human being, and knowing, even if it’s not real, that there is a possibility of redemption, forgiveness, acceptance, and grace, when faced with the choice of even the slimmest possibility of that chance, or poking my way through the darkness of my own mind, trying to find temporary answers to just to numb myself enough to make it through another day, as I have for most of my life—how could I not take that chance to put my faith in something bigger than myself? Knowing that I’m not going to live here forever, and that there’s even a chance that I might get to spend eternity with the God who has loved and cherished me, and every other human on this planet—I fail to conceive a scenario in which I would not say yes.

So, I said yes.

Yes, to grace when I fall short

Yes, to love when I find myself consumed with other thoughts

Yes, to the mission of exemplifying the love and grace that I have been shown

Yes, to accepting that he loves me just as I am

Yes, to acknowledging that although I am striving for the humble perfection of Christ, I will never get there (and he’s okay with that and loves me anyway)

I fell in love with Christianity long before I fell in love with Christ. What’s not to love about it? Hypothetically, you’re always surrounded by a group of people who love and support you, challenging you to grow to become more like Jesus. You practice good morals, and if you can do so to a high degree of efficacy, I think some even believe you’ll have a Cinderella-story, white-picket-fence, American-dream, fairytale of a life, casting anything that doesn’t fit that ideal over the shoulders of Jesus (as if that's what those shoulders were meant to bear!). You feel good about yourself by going on missions trips and/or helping the poor and feel like your life has a greater purpose than the mundane everyday of everyone else. Christianity, for many, sadly, is a quick fix to all of life’s problems. I’d be lying if I said my motivation for becoming a Christian in the first place wasn’t to solve a bunch of my own problems.

The problem with Christianity is humans. We’re flawed. We’ve misinterpreted scripture. We’ve placed little g gods in front of the big G God. We bend the rules enough to get and do what we want and justify it. In this give-and-take world, we give God ultimatums and try to bargain with him to get what we perceive as good for us in this world in our own human shortsightedness, failing to see that his plans are so much greater. What’s worse is when we impose our flawed humanness on others, under the guise of living the good life in faith, and become keys that open doorways to the labyrinth of modified, lukewarm, unbiblical “Christianity”, instead of becoming oil lamps that, although they may not be bright, and need to have their oil replenished regularly, strain to shine towards the brilliant, inextinguishable light of Christ. Christianity, religion, whatever you want to call it, has never been the way to a better life, and actually, it’s not the way to any kind of life at all. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Whether “oil lamps” are present to mimic and point to him or not, Christ is there, regardless.

“In him was life, and the light was the life of all men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it”-John 1:4-5

I don’t have all the answers. I’m still figuring this out, and I’m going to keep piecing this puzzle together until the day I die, but I’m infinitely happier to do it knowing that I am not alone, knowing that I am loved despite my imperfections and shortcomings, knowing that my life has a purpose and that that purpose is to love Jesus and become more like him and to tell everyone about how great he is, and knowing that none of that will ever change under any circumstances.

...Celebration time?

What if the truth came out?

Life constantly poses us multiple “what-ifs”. Most of the time, they’re nothing to be taken too seriously: what if I wore the red shirt instead of the blue one, what if I decide to buy 3-ply instead of 2-ply toilet paper, what if my house burns down because I left my slow cooker unattended (apparently, despite Crock Pot's slogan of "cooks all day while the cook's away", this is a legitimate concern held by many individuals)… And then, there are some that raise more interest or concern: what if my crush finds out I like them, what if a loved one receives a terrible diagnosis, what if I can’t find a job after graduation…

The one that’s been bothering me in recent months is: What if I renounced my commitment to Christ? In other words: What if I stopped following Jesus?

Putting this out on the table, I’ve been anticipating a plethora of reactions such as: “but, you were so happy, and full of love for the Lord…” or “well, guess you’re rejecting the truth, guess we’ll be going separate ways on judgment day…” or “good, those weirdo Christians changed you, girl…” or “great, you’re a narcissistic, attention-seeking twat and we don’t want you around here anyway…”

Each of those just lends fuel to the renouncement fire. I’m not happy, or full of love for the Lord. I’m pretty miserable, and feel like my every move and word is being intensely scrutinized by a “community” of faith (note: as in Christians in general, not directed at a specific subset of people within that larger group) that seems to be more concerned with getting another “YES!” to Jesus that the genuineness, strength, conviction, and sustainability behind that little word. I've been thinking for months now, "Helen, this really isn't working out, you're not cut out to follow Jesus, you should just pack it in and renounce your faith entirely so at least you're not disappointing anyone". I’m a failure, a fake, and a fraud. I fucked up. And oh boy, I can just hear the chorus of “but we’re all failures and Jesus still loves us all infinitely so you go back to him and repent right now!” potentially followed by “what if Jesus comes back tomorrow? Would you be going to heaven?”

What if he doesn’t? If he came back last week, or even last year, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have ended up with him for all eternity had that been the case.

After pondering that what-if, I realized: I have no commitment to renounce. I never said “yes” to Jesus in the first place. I was never asked that question. I never made that commitment. I'd been motivated to do "good" only by the selfish desires of my own flesh.

“But, you went to retreats, and conferences, and on mission trips”

Yes, I did.

“But, you go to church”

Yes, I do.

“But, you led a Bible study, and were on leadership in student ministry”

Yes, I did/was.

“But, you’ve preached sermons in churches, and shared your testimony”

Yes, I have.

Remarkable.

I was baptized as a baby, never got confirmed, never gave a profession of faith, was never re-baptized as an adult, and was also never asked to commit my life to Christ, yet over the past 2 years, have found myself in circumstances not unlike those of the most textbook Christian person you’ve ever met.

Two and a half years ago, after a summer of seeing people I loved and respected living out their faith in really powerful ways, and after a school year of struggling with a merciless case of panic disorder, I figured, “what the heck, I’ll try this Christianity thing out, give it a serious go, what have I got to lose”. Secretly, I was also incredibly lonely. My appetite for company and social activities had always been insatiable. Having an anxiety disorder where I was unable to leave the house on most days, coupled with a history of depression and self-loathing made me scream out for attention and cling to every last thread of "love" I could grasp, just as a reminder that I was still here, still human, and still worth having some kind of interaction with. I wanted to get close to God. First, I got close to people who were close to God. They were all lovely, and I could tell that they wanted to love and nurture me and see me do well. And, filled with fear of disappointing them, I became engrossed in every Jesusy thing I possibly could. I went to Bible study, large groups, retreats, I prayed, I read my Bible, I started going to church after 3 years of essentially boycotting it. I just wanted these people to like me.

I also did experience God, tangible things like when he showed me he had the power to take away my panic attacks, which resulted in me going to Bangladesh, where he showed me a lot of other really cool things that deepened my perspective and compassion for other members of the human race. The last two and a half years have certainly not been in vain! I’ve never not believed that he is real. I’ve questioned whether he is good, and what is important to him, and whether he cares about me, or has other priorities, but he definitely has proven to me that he is real. My relationship with and understanding of him as Lord has waned and waxed over the years, but I believe in my heart and mind that he exists.

Being in community with people you’re trying to impress and get to like you is hard. It’s also stupid. You feel like you never measure up to anyone’s standards—those of others, God, and yourself. You’re not being true to anyone—others, God, or yourself. I felt pressured from all sides to do whatever I had to do to check all the boxes of what a “good Christian” would do, thinking that would land me in the good books of all these people in the community that held power and influence socially speaking. Heck, best case scenario, appearing as a good, Christian woman might even land me a good, Christian man—then all my loneliness issues would be solved for good, right? (Can you see how flawed my logic is?) I committed to events and gatherings that I didn’t want to commit to, I prayed about things aloud that I didn’t care about, I faked an interest in people’s lives just to make polite conversation, I tried to make my story more exciting and dramatic than it was, just so I wasn’t a drone who seemed to have no reason or passion to be where I was, I gave money to ministry projects and missions, just to try and prove to myself that I was seriously not lying about any of this, I dabbled in realms of spiritual giftings, and felt shamed when I couldn’t produce words, or images, or visions during prayers, or speak in tongues on command. I stretched my perception of the truth to include something spiritual, to convince myself and others that I shared an intimate connection with the Lord.

I was a fraud.

I felt dirty on the inside and like I didn’t belong anywhere. People were getting upset with me and wondering what was up, and my non-Christian friends were like, “girl, you’ve changed” and I felt like I couldn’t talk to them anymore because I was too ashamed to even see eye-to-eye with them, and wished this whole Christianity thing had never happened because I was even worse off now than when I started. I just wanted these people to like me.

And I’d failed.

A quote that I’ve been reminded of as I’ve gone through this debacle in my head is this:

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln

Maybe it’s not biblical, but it’s consistent with the all-or-nothing mentality that I’ve learned about following Jesus. I don’t want to be a Christian if I can’t truthfully be a good one. I don’t want to say I’m following Jesus when I’m not. I don’t want to lie. I want to be able to be fully honest about what I need and what I’m experiencing without facing judgment or scrutiny. That last one seems impossible in many Christian circles. I can already see people praying for me to realize the truth and accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour before it’s too late. I honestly and truthfully appreciate such concern for my eternal fate, but could you please cool your jets for a second. You can breathe down my neck, or down anyone’s neck all you want, cornering and shaming them to say “yes” to accepting and following Jesus, but what kind of follower does that create? Certainly one who views God as vengeful and angry, who magnifies guilt and shame, and not ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS HOW MUCH GOD LOVES THEM SINCE HE SACRIFICED HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON IN ORDER TO WASH THEIR SINS AWAY AND DWELL WITH THEM IN HIS HOUSE FOR ALL ETERNITY.

THAT is the God I want to worship.

THAT is the God I want to know.

THAT is the God I believe in.

Until I know I can make an honest and sustainable commitment to Christ, and not a spur-of-the-moment, what-the-heck, I’m-going-to-make-this-person-watch-me-pray-this-prayer-because-I-want-them-to-see-that-I’m-(not)-serious forged statement of belief and action, I won’t, plain and simple. I don’t know when the time for making that commitment will come, but until it does, I’m assured that God is waiting patiently, lovingly, and wanting nothing but my best in exchange for his. I really do hope that someday I will make the decision to take up my cross and follow Jesus, and that someday I'll get in a space where I'll love myself enough to accept that I'm worth it and he loves me.  I suspect I’m not the only closet tag-along-er just trying to be around people, either. (I think we should start a support/discussion group. I also really think I’m being totally serious about that.)

I know that God is the only good thing in my life, and that he is walking with me, and that he is ready to move with me, guiding me, when I’m ready to say yes to move. If I’m going to be lonely and miserable and angsty for the rest of my life, I’d much rather be those things with God than without him.

Loneliness, anxiety, and depression are all bitter pills to swallow. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t believe that prayer makes them magically go away. What does help, however, is taking steps towards God, being in his presence, and trusting when he says that life is valuable, purposeful, and his gift to us and those around us.

Welp, maybe this post has been slightly controversial. I’ve been reading a lot of classic literature lately (you too can return to reading actual books and not textbooks upon graduation!), and I’d like to close with this gem from my favourite literary heroine:

“Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.” – Anne Shirley

(Technicalities, Miss Stacey technically owns this quote, and despite also loving her and always wishing I could have a teacher like her, my grade 2-3 teacher went by the same name and I feel she never particularly liked me...)

Operation rebuild faith: phase one.

I wish I didn't doubt, but...

My last blog post ended like this: “In summary: praise the Lord, healing is real…”

I feel like those phrases are among those that get tossed about easily in Christian culture, and, honestly, feel like the depth and magnitude of their meaning has been significantly deflated as a result. In the language of “Christianese”, these are among a series of mystic catch phrases that make many non-believers and Christians alike, cringe and scoff. Generally, I find myself in the cringing crowd, and try to use these phrases only sparingly, when I truly feel conviction of their reality. The truth is, when things aren’t going so well, I doubt the truth of these statements, the same way any other inquisitive human would. When I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, shaking, with my stomach churning, often after a day full of praise to the Lord for how far he has brought me along this healing journey, it’s very hard to believe that healing is real, and true, and has been happening. Similarly, I can barely imagine what it must be like to believe or even utter the words “God is good” after a couple loses their unborn baby, or a single-income family loses that source of income, or a person is evicted from their home and forced out onto the street. How could a God who is good allow these things to happen? If we don’t doubt the truth, even privately in our own minds, even momentarily, how can we ever discover and fully know it?

I’ve had pretty low self-esteem throughout most of the seasons of my life, particularly socially. I always felt somehow different from the other kids, and unable to fit in, and those suspicions of abnormality were, in one way, confirmed to me in grade 3. I was hand-picked to miss a period of math once a week to be part of a mentorship group with a guidance counselor with a bunch of other socially awkward kids, the purpose being to learn how to be less socially awkward and anxious and learn how to make friends—please, parents, don’t do this to your children. Nothing says “you’re weird and unlikeable and there’s something wrong with you” quite like “we’re pulling you out of math class today because we’ve noticed you don’t have any friends, so come let us teach you this basic life skill of acquiring human friendship that you just can’t seem to figure out”. People like me internalize blame, hate ourselves very deeply for it, and also internalize that hate, all while trying to project an image that is at least likeable. When that image fails, we put up walls, isolate ourselves, and stew in our own self-hate and hopelessness, wondering why we just can’t get it together and be normal. Grade 3 me, in all my wisdom (ha!), figured that I didn’t have any friends because I was too smart, so, naturally, to project an image of likeability and approachability, I pretended to be stupid, purposely spelling words incorrectly, and producing wrong answers to math problems. For the record, it didn’t result in any friendships.

About 2 years ago, when I started hanging out with Christians, I was exposed to a lot of new things, particularly relating to charismatic ministry, that I hadn’t experienced before. My first tangible experience of knowing in my heart, mind, body, and soul, the peace, presence, and truth that God is real and loves me—that moment was powerful. It left me knowing God in a way I didn’t know existed, and I wanted that reassurance of his presence all the time. That’s not the way it works, though. The Holy Spirit is not a dimmer switch that you can turn on and off as you please, although some Christians will have you believe that, and diminish all your problems to a lack of faith or spirituality, or ability to step up to the plate and do whatever it is they silently expect you to do. Enough exposure to (or, at least, perception of) that, coupled with my tendency to internalize guilt and blame, has often made me question God’s love for me, and my place in his kingdom. Apparently God outright speaks to some people with words or images or in dreams, but I’m not convinced that I’m one of those people. I don’t doubt that those are ways by which God communicates with humans, just the notion that I am a human he wants to communicate with in this way. Furthermore, when I do encounter inexplicable voices in my head, or dreams, they’re always rationalized somehow: “you only think God is telling you that because that’s what you want to hear”, or “boy, you have some effed up subconscious to come up with those crazy dreams”.

I wish I didn’t doubt. I wish I could just believe that God is real and good, all the time. Last week, Western had a crazy worship night with like 500 people. The sheer number of people in the room when we entered was overwhelming and intimidating, but I was feeling pretty good about the Lord at that time, and he’s proven to me numerous times that removing anxieties is within the realm of his power. I didn’t know very many of the songs, the music was too loud, the lights were over-stimulating (I secretly felt like an old person at a rock concert), but I knew that God was present in that space. At one point during one of the songs, I closed my eyes and heard a gentle, but bold and serious voice: “Helen, I love you—I know you love me, please just let me love you…” And I got emotional for a sec as I tend to do, but I knew within a minute that this was an experience that I would scrutinize, and probably doubt. I allowed the thought trail to continue on: “ha, heard that one before ‘God’, I mean, voice in my head. Of course I want to hear in words that someone loves me because I spend most of my time alone or at work and seldom ever hear those words, of course that’s the first thing I’d think of that I’d like God to affirm to me”. 

But that last part though, that was different.

“I know you love me…” well, yeah, I’m a hopeless, awkward screw-up, and I’ve tried so hard to not be those things, and some days I feel like I only have hate and jealousy toward most other humans, and I’m a horrible, unlovable person because of it. I can’t put trust or hope in myself, or any other humans, or knowledge, power, or wealth for that matter (I don’t have enviable amounts of any of those to begin with), but God has proven his presence and provision through the fiercest trials, when I discovered the endpoint to what human knowledge, power, and wealth can accomplish. How can I have anything but love and gratitude to such a God? I do love him.

“…please just let me love you...” this part is challenging. I can’t even love myself. I have a knack for suffocating and snuffing out nearly every human relationship that I have ever entered for one reason or another. I feel dirty, unworthy, selfish, stuck-up, guarded, and angry all at the same time when I think about salvation. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d even consider myself “saved” because blackness in my mind absolutely rejects the idea of grace. It’s not for me. I’m not a miraculous conversion story. I’m a member of white, middle-class western society, happily blind and ignorant to most of my privilege. I look around at people singing songs of praise in church and think, “oh, how nice it must be for these people to truly accept and believe” borderline unaware of the blatant bitter sarcasm in my own thoughts. My life felt raw before I became a Christian. I didn’t feel fake or censored in front of my Christian and non-Christian friends. I felt like I could say and do what I wanted without having to face the scrutiny of “is this what Jesus would do?” or “have you asked Jesus about this?” or “what does Jesus say about that?” like Jesus is a ouija board. And then I perceive that my thoughts are misaligned with the thoughts of Jesus, so, fuelled by my own fraudulence, the cycle of self-hate continues. Isolation is a tough point in that cycle, where I feel like there’s no one who will understand this sitting-on-the-fence or on-one-side-feeling-like-this-side-wants-me-on-the-other mentality, and “nobody loves you” starts ringing through my brain but I say nothing about that to the Christians because they respond with “lies from Satan!” like he is an easily distinguishable separate ouija board (and having such an opinion is me obviously being not judgmental at all). I’m conceited, jaded, two-faced, fraudulent, sarcastic, angry, confused, depressed, doubtful, ugly, and feel like I don’t belong anywhere, yet someone is pleading with me, “…please just let me love you…”

I think I’d better figure out how to let the guard down and make that happen.

For Christmas, my mom gave me this CD, Welcome to the New by Mercy Me. At first I thought, ok mom, that’s cool that you got me a CD of Christian music because you think I’m super into that kind of thing because I go to church (I actually really dislike most Christian music—it’s just badly-written, poorly-performed, over-produced trash), but then she was like, yeah, I really like this one song on this album, and she starts singing it, and I’m thinking, what the heck? You listen to Christian music? Why? It’s crap, mom! But on one car trip to visit a friend a couple of hours away over the break, I popped it in the car just to see what it was all about. That CD has not exited my car CD player since it was first inserted. It’s a really remarkable album, exploring a bunch of different musical styles, but the best thing about it is the truth in the lyrics. They’re not bending over backwards to work scripture in there (not that there aren’t some excellent songs out there based on scripture), or repeating choruses a billion and a half times at the end waiting for  the last person to finish being prayed for at the altar call. No. They’re real, and raw, based on real human experience of encounter of God. The first track literally had me in tears while I was driving, listening to it for the first time. Check out these lyrics: (and check out the song here)

Got to live right just stay in line
You’ve heard it all at least a million times
And like me you believed it
They said it wasn't works
But trying harder wouldn't hurt
It sounds so crazy now
But back then you couldn't see it

But now here you are
Eyes open wide
It’s like you’re seeing grace
In a brand new light
For the first time

Let us be the first to welcome you
Welcome to the 
Life you thought was too good to be true
Welcome to the new

You broke your back kept all the rules
Jumped through the hoops
To make God approve of you
Oh tell me was it worth it
The whole time you were spinning plates
Did you stop to think that 
Maybe He is ok with just you
There’s no need to join the circus

And now here you are
A new point of view
And now it all makes sense
Why it's called the Good News
And oh

Look at you
Shiny and new
Look at you
You got the proof of purchase
You were purchased
‘Cause you're worth it
Look at you
Finding your groove
Don’t you dare think
That you're not worth it.
‘Cause you're worth it
Yeah you're worth it

I wish grace was simple. I wish I didn’t doubt. I wish I could love myself and allow others to love me. I’d like to have hope that all these things will happen. In my human shortsightedness, I’m blind, but that also gives me the opportunity to trust God, who somehow finds ways to love me even when I don’t want to let him.

Happy New Year, it's Time to DO Something

I’ve felt better over the last 5 days than I have in about 8 years. 

Last Saturday night, I came to the decision that I wasn’t going to go to church the next day. I was really tired and unlikely to wake up on time, for one, and I had attended a church the previous week that I had been to once before, and although I enjoyed the service, I didn’t really feel comfortable there. I felt like an outsider, and no one spoke to me other than the greeter who gave me a bulletin, and I’m not the type of person to jump into conversation as a stranger among a group of friends, so I left promptly after the service was over. I didn’t have any desire to play the same game of roulette with a different congregation, but I knew that I was going to end up disappointed and sorry if I didn’t go to church, and that if I did go, I’d get something out of it, God would use something to speak to me.

But I didn’t go.

I spent hour after hour watching marathons of renovation shows and British dramas, obsessively checking my social media accounts during every commercial break the way that some people check their refrigerators, afraid to miss out on anything new that might appear. I was angry at myself for not going to church, or going out of the house, or even getting dressed. After about 14 hours (yeah, disgusting, right?) of binge-watching, the questions bouncing around in my mind became more prominent than the removal of asbestos tiles and tone of hardwood that was going into that downtown semi, or the intricate terms of various alliances that were being formed by historical, fictional characters.

When, how, and why did this become my life?

The instinctive answer to the “when” was when anxiety became a part of my life as something that I consciously and constantly had to deal with on a daily basis, but different occurrences from even before that yielded similar results. In high school, I tore a ligament in my knee, which ended my athletic career for the time being, since it was a year between the injury and the surgery, and a year of recovery following that. After that ordeal, I babied that leg for years until I developed severe symptoms of overcompensation in the other leg, which required further medical treatment. I was so afraid of getting hurt again that my efforts ended up being harmful.

Almost 3.5 years ago, after living as normal of a life as I could for the previous 4 years dominated by knee injuries, life took another blind turn. All of a sudden, I was having 3 violent panic attacks a day and had to wait until I was feeling well to do anything that involved leaving the house, and even then it was a gamble. Mental illness is SO different than physical illness. It’s easy to Velcro on a futuristic-looking brace and be excused from potentially harmful components of a game or workout session. It’s so much harder to explain to your TA that you haven’t been to your tutorial in a month because you literally are unable to get out of bed without hyperventilating, gagging, and crying, and so aren’t able to get to the doctor to get a doctor’s note.

So the posture quickly becomes one of self-preservation when one’s safety or well-being seems threatened. That’s something I acknowledge that I tend to gravitate towards, and I’ve been working on it. To other people, it sometimes comes across as selfishness, or attention-seeking… There’s been a lot of healing that’s had to happen over the last year or so as a result of me believing those lies about myself.

When you have a mental illness, your self-worth is in the toilet. It is no source of pride or confidence to wake up in the morning and only be able to cry because the challenges embedded in the tasks of daily living are insurmountable in your present state, and there’s nothing anyone can do to take it all away. Adding insult to injury is when:

1)      society tells you that you need to make your own happiness (kind of impossible when you can’t even make yourself dinner because you can’t get out to do shopping)

2)      individuals with no experience or knowledge of the disease treat it like it’s nothing, and you’re being way overdramatic

3)      the church and its people say things like “you don’t need to have everything together to go help and serve this other person/group of people” (meaning: “you don’t have to be a perfect person” and not “you don’t have to be able to do anything”), or dismiss mental illness as spiritual inadequacy, or demon possession

It’s been a rough few years, and I’ve been hurt in all of these ways and more, and it’s chipped away at my self-worth piece-by-piece until there’s been nearly nothing left and I’ve just gotten up in the morning and cried because I was still alive and nothing had changed—for weeks on end! I knew that God loved me, that that was truth, but when your self-worth is swirling down the pipe after that flush and you believe that you are nothing, anyone else’s words and thoughts become more credible than your own, and you can start believing some really hurtful things about yourself if the people around you are not supportive, or have a different idea than the gospel of love and healing.

Permanent change doesn’t happen quickly, or easily, or painlessly, but the alternative is extremely unappealing. I want to change. I want to be uninhibited by physical and mental afflictions. I want to be confident in the truth that God loves me, and to rest in that. I want to take risks and live the full life that he intended me to live, without guarding myself from irrational circumstances. God has proven to me time and time again, that although things are not always comfortable, he is with me, protecting me, and I will be okay. I want to be convicted of that on a much deeper level this year, and beyond. I’m making a conscious effort to step into that conviction this year, going out of my way to go places and do things where I would’ve preferred to stay home and do nothing before, just to prove to myself that it’s okay, and that I can do it because I’m relying on the unwavering strength of the Almighty. I’m bound and determined to get my old life back—my old, uninhibited, confident life—the only difference this time around is that the Lord is in the picture, and has convicted me time and time again that things are so much better when he is there, and that I need him there.

This has been an incredibly slow, and, at times, painful process of healing that has been full of setbacks, but for the first time ever, I firmly believe that healing is happening. Healing is real, and it is something that God wants for his children. It doesn’t happen when or how you tell it to, and not as a result of you or others doing anything other than asking for it, but it is absolutely real!

¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. – 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

Truth. I can’t even say it any better than Paul does here. I put this passage on a sticky note on my desktop almost a year ago, with little conviction that it was truth, but reasonable conviction that it was something I needed to let sink in, and it has sat there, and sat there, and I see it multiple times a day. I’ve scoffed at it, sworn at it, read multiple commentaries on the passage, called myself the exception to the rule because “there is no way this is true and I am being renewed because I feel like shit every day and this is only getting worse and I feel like there’s no one to talk to about it and God isn’t listening to me…” and then the thing that you’ve been praying for for years starts actually happening, and you finally gain the wisdom and perspective to sort of begin to grasp what’s really been going on.

One last resolution: I want to help people affected by mental illness. This is the loneliest life ever, and even if you have people who support you, that doesn’t mean that they understand what you’re going through. You’re always afraid of people dismissing you when you tell them how you really feel, or that they’ll overreact, or that the people who knew you as the person you were are going to see you differently and that it will ruin those relationships. It sucks. I’ve been through it and I have no idea what it looks like to effectively minister to these people, other than coming alongside, sitting, listening, and being patient. It’s not very glamourous, and probably really messy, and likely won’t produce observable change in a relatively short period of time like some other forms of ministry, but I really believe that it is very important, and often overlooked because it’s literally invisible most of the time. It doesn’t have the appeal of building a school in Central America or holding orphan babies in Africa, or even helping students meet Jesus, and honestly, that makes me kind of ticked, because it’s just as needed as all of those things.

In summary: praise the Lord, healing is real, and unresolved angst that I hope leads to something larger and more important.

Can we all be human this Christmas?

Christmas is hard.

I absolutely adore the time off work, getting together with friends and family, the music, the food, the general festivities, and even the gifts, but none of those change the fact that I am human. None of my problems magically disappear when December 1^st rolls around and we enter this season of hope, peace, love, joy, and giving. Yet, I feel pressured to hide away all the stress, anxiety, depression, and angst that seem to run even more rampant than usual during this month, and paste on an over-the-top happy façade that says: “my life is perfect, and I’m having you over right now over eggnog and cookies at my perfectly decorated house full of love just to prove that to you—you should feel happy for me, or shitty about yourself so that I feel superior to you in some way because that validates my twisted psychological needs…”

No. Just, no.

I don’t often like getting preachy, because I feel like everything I say gets intensely scrutinized, or that I’m believing something “wrong” or misinterpreting something else, or that people just stop listening as soon as I drop the J-bomb thinking I’m some sort of weird, fundamentalist religious wacko without the balls to admit that I have my own human problems and doubts. But, I do believe that Jesus was fully God and fully human. He came to earth not to trumpet himself above us, but to be holy, yet approachable—to show the love and care of the father as a human in the flesh. Yes, there is the atonement for sins part as well, but when we herald that above the gentle, meek, humble, ready-to-get-his-hands-dirty human that Jesus was, we make him seem more distant from ourselves as humans, and less accessible.

If our lives were as perfect as we like to make them seem at this time of year, what need would we have for Jesus? If I had no mental health issues, a perfect family, and an infinite amount of money, and if I somehow magically felt adequate amounts of joy, peace, and love all the time, I guarantee that I never would have ever had any questions about Jesus, and sought answers. Christmas as a Hallmark, consumerist holiday has absolutely poisoned us. “Here, buy all of these material things on credit that you can’t afford so that you’ll be stuff rich and cash poor, but at least able to show your neighbours that you don’t have money to pay for stuff, so your life must be better than theirs, even though you’re both living paycheque to paycheque.”

No.

How about: “I’m human. I’m broken. I struggle with x, y, and z. I NEED a God who loves me enough to come down to my level and sit with me, cry with me, hurt with me, laugh with me, walk with me, and stay with me.”

Instead of trying to hide our brokenness under mountains of red and green, silver and gold, delicious food, and gifts, how about we get into community with one another as humans, be vulnerable about that brokenness with one another, lift up one voice to God, and celebrate that he cares and knows our struggles because he gave us his son to come live among us humbly, in full humanness.

Just a thought.