Exposing the Truth

Help me.

WHAT?

Help me. Please.

   

I can't hear you!  Speak up! 

I don't want anyone to hear me or to know. 

WHY?

Just help me. Quickly. I need help.

WITH WHAT?

Feelings of failure.  

Inadequacy. 

Sin I keep carefully hidden. 

Being authentic.

Spiritual doubt.

Depression and anxiety

Courage to cry for help. 

Admitting I am weak. 

Sitting down for God when He calls me to STAND.

Becoming easily angered.

Feeling out of control and admitting it is inevitably true.

Trusting the love of others.

Knowing all situations and hurts can be redeemed.

Proclaiming my faith.

Putting my hope in people and being angry when they let me down.

Letting God be a trophy rather than LORD. 

Arrogance that I know ENOUGH that there is to know.

Being rejected and knowing I often will be.

Loving people who don't love me back.

Hating people who actually love me.

Seeing a mirror and being disgusted and believing others feel the same.

Remembering my past and letting it shackle me.

Living a life for today rather than living a life preparing for eternity.

Intense, paralyzing, life debilitating... 

FEAR.

I once heard someone say that the opposite of faith is fear.  I believe this with everything in me. And I believe I live with fear. And almost every item on this list. Lately I am realizing that perhaps I am not alone.  That others feel things but fear keeps them quiet. In hiding.  From exposure. 

I know that I am often lighthearted and like to pack a post full of humor.  But I am also intensely passionate about being real. Transparent.  Honest.  AUTHENTIC.

Especially as a Christian.

I often wonder if anyone reads this blog or other bloggers who proclaim their faith and wonder why Christians believe what they believe.  Especially since the images I often see depicted can be summed up to all Christians being just like Ned Flanders from The Simpson's.  And that Christians have never watched The Simpson's because if we do, we will be opening a portal to the gates of hell. Or that we never say hell. Or type it.

Or they may think Christians are Judgmental. Pious. Dogmatic. Closed Minded. Backward Thinking. Old Fashioned. Disillusioned. Believer of Myths. Misguided. Hypocrites. Maybe it has gone as far as being said Christians can be Cultish, Segregationists, and maybe a lot of them are REPUBLICANS (insert falsetto scream here).

And here is what I have to say about it...

It is all TRUE.

Now before you quickly scroll to the bottom and rapidly type out a comment to frantically pull me back from the flames for my erroneous theology here, let me explain.

How on earth can we be human beings and not be grossly fallible? We have all fallen prey to these colorful titles and there is a good reason why. We sin.  We make mistakes.  We are human beings who wing this life that we are given; sometimes with haphazard foolishness.  Sometimes with keen discernment born of wisdom.

And so often, we try to be perfect.

But because there is no person who possess even a smidgen of the fullness of perfection...we need a STANDARD. There are many viewpoints out there that can be considered "standards to live by."  But my personal belief is there are only two options available:

1.  Our Own Standards
2.  God's Standards

And I believe God's standards are perfect.  (At this point,  I wonder if I were speaking to a large audience that I would hear crickets or some feedback from the microphone).

Ahem.

This is where I become afraid to offend someone.  That someone saw my blog and thought, "This chic is cool.  She makes canopies from a hula hoop and napkin rings from hair rollers. Let me follow this clever and strikingly beautiful girl RIGHT NOW."

And then I proclaim what I believe and suddenly my world collapses in on me because I lose a follower or offend one of you precious people who I only want to encourage. I then want to sit down for my King and hide behind humor and the superfluous.  But I am now trying to stand up and get real.

But I have still not gotten to my point.  I know. Shocking. That first list at the top.  The one where a small voice was crying for help? Has that not been the cry of every heart that exists?  Every person who walks this earth?  Is it not what we all confront in the battlefield of the mind?

So here is my question...to myself and maybe some of you.  Why do I hide behind funny comments and a particular image I want to portray?  Of course, that is a big part of my personality but why don't I write like this more often? What will happen if people open that locked door and see the real thing?  I mean, a blog is a fantastic way to fabricate a persona.  You can be anyone you want to be.  It is like being on a stage but you control your lines, your character, your story.  But what if you are caught?  What then?

I, for one, know that when I see the transparency of another person, I feel like I am breathing cleaner, fresher air.  I suddenly feel connected to that person of beautiful imperfection and no longer feel like an island that is slowly eroding into an endless ocean.  I feel understood without ever saying a word.

And as Christians I think we can easily hide behind the stuff of life that so easily ensnares.  Homes and toys and clothes and image and jobs and success and  kids and...you get it.  But we need to get real.  Let our guards down and just relate to one another.  I feel like we are so busy texting, facebooking and NOT communicating. Connecting. Doing what the whole point of my post is...reaching out to others from the recesses of my own pain.

Because God calls me to love others.  More than myself.  And I sometimes can find myself putting on my "Christian Suit" with my "Christian Smile" and acting like being saved by Jesus solves everything and puts a nice bow on it.

The real story is...I acknowledge my need for a Savior and I am fully forgiven and free.  And He continues to save me every day. But life gets hard.  And the hard stuff sucks.

So I want to confess that all those things I wrote at the top of this blog are everything I have felt in this last month.  Every thought, every distressing conviction, every lie.  And I say this so that if any of you have felt like a failure, rejected, weary, bogged down by sin or full of despair I just wanted to say...

Me too.