Real

Growing up as a middle child of three daughters who looked like triplets and all played the same sport, I was always trying to find ways to be different. So when I was 6 years old, I asked my mom to chop off my long hair and to give me a bob. I played with bugs and bit my nails to be like my dad. I would do anything and everything you told me to do if the words double-dog-dare preceded it . . . especially if my sisters weren’t going to do it.

I wanted to stand out.

But when I became a Christian I just wanted to join the club. I thought that the name of the game was conformity and the rules were simple:

Look this way.

Wear this.

Don’t wear that.

Talk like this.

Hang out with these people.

Have this opinion about this, and that, aaaand that.

Start going to church every single Sunday and Wednesday and if you don’t, you will be judged.

And above all, make sure everyone thinks that you are this perfectly even tempered, peaceful, ridiculously happy person at all times. In other words “Fake it till’ you make it.”

I tried so hard to fit in and be someone I thought the church wanted me to be. I quit asking questions as to why we did certain things or believed certain issues and I assumed everyone knew better than I did. They themselves had played the game longer than I had. They had parents who were members of the club and they had actually been raised in it. They must know more than I did. I just got used to speaking in someone else’s voice and thinking someone else’s thoughts.

So I went out and bought a bunch of cardigans to cover up my shoulders when I wore my skanky spaghetti-strap dresses. I cleaned up my language and adapted a new lingo. I wore a cross around my neck every day so that people would “see that I’m a Christian”. I got a purity ring and I wore it on my left ring finger so that people would think I was a virgin still. I made friends at church and stopped hanging out with the "heathens" I used to hang out with. Doing these things wouldn't have been bad in themselves, but I was doing them to make myself look like someone that I’m not. And obviously, no one told me to do all of these things, but I was living off a make-believe checklist that I had made for myself out of my own insecurities. I desperately wanted to be liked, accepted, well thought of and . . . loved.

I don’t know when, but at some point I stopped looking at what the members of this club were doing, and I started looking at Jesus--that dude that broke all the rules.

I watched as he interacted and lived life with the sinners and the socially unacceptable. {Matthew 9:10-13}

I watched as he braided a whip for himself and went all Indiana Jones on a bunch of scumbags who had created a marketplace inside the House of God. {John 2:13-17}

I watched as he showed honest emotion and cried when the people he loved didn’t remember his words and trust him. {John 11:35}

I watched as he told stories with normal language about normal crap to communicate the true story of God to normal people who needed to hear it.

And I started to realize that he wanted me to do the same thing. I started to realize that he had absolutely created me with a unique story and a distinct voice and he was calling me to use it, whispering to me “Just be you, Baby Girl. I knew you even before I knit you together in you mother’s womb. I have a purpose for your existence and a plan for your future. Follow me and let me lead you through that. You were meant to speak the truth.”

What a relief! What a precious, precious gift to know that I can be myself, and I can leave behind the false expectations that I had made for myself. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to struggle, and be honest about your doubts, your fears, and your furked-upness. And to do so in a way that doesn’t glorify yourself or your sin, but in a way that points to the awesomeness of God’s grace.

What a gift!

Because when I stop worrying about whom I think my boss wants me to be, and who I think the parents of the kids I lead think I should be, I begin to have real life conversations about real life things. In reality, these expectations are made up in my own crazy head anyways! I don’t omit certain issues and pretend they don’t exist. It enables me to relate to kids by sharing my story without editing out certain struggles that I’ve had and temptations I still fight through today.

I am an imperfect person stumbling and failing to serve a perfect God every single day. And I’m okay with that. Because as I gladly boast in my weaknesses, I am allowing the power of Christ to work in my story. I am trusting in Him that even though I have done things that I am not proud of, I believe that Jesus has redeemed me and made me clean in the eyes of the Father. I believe that even though I am incredibly unworthy, God can use me anyway. And that speaks to how awesomely loving and powerful He is, and not to how disobedient and filthy I am.

Too often, we shy away from admitting to certain sins. We make a secret list of “sins we talk about” and “sins we don’t talk about”. I know that there will be people who shutter when I speak of them because they see that type of honesty as dangerous.

And to that, I say “okay”. I don’t care. I don’t care if I don’t fit perfectly into how you think a member of the Christian club should look like. I will continue to live out loud in a way that makes me the person who God wants me to be – one who worships Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). And as I do I will carry out my duty to proclaim His name and live out His call on my life that He gave me when he nudged me so long ago, whispering…

Speak up.