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Can’t Get No Satisfaction.

I feel like I’ve been writing this blog and can sometimes have these easy-sounding solutions for you: surrender, let go, stop doing what you’re doing, love others even when it’s hard… do this, do that, don’t do this, definitely don’t do that.

I want to apologize.

I think the point of this blog was to admit how not easy any of this is. To admit that I’m struggling sometimes, and that there often isn’t this simple solution to all of our problems in life. And that sometimes, I think that’s okay.

People want answers though.
We want a way to deal with our problems and our pain… and we want the solution to be instantaneous. Unfortunately, that’s not typically how it works. And oftentimes, what works for one person doesn’t always work for another person. And yet, we are people who continually offer up steps and solutions to comfort others.

I wonder if we might be okay acknowledging that there’s not always a ‘right’ way of doing things. There’s not always a ‘right’ way to achieve freedom over specific sin. There’s not always a ‘right’ way of moving on or getting over tragedies in life.

I’m sorry if I’ve ever made it sound like anything was an ‘easy-fix’. It’s not. I’m sorry if I’ve ever made it sound like I’ve got all the answers and have anything figured out. I don’t. I really, really don’t.

I’m struggling.
Yesterday was my birthday and it sounded more enticing to sit on my couch and watch tv all day than it did to allow anyone to show me that they care about me. Because, when it comes down to it, I think I don’t really believe that people do. I feel like people have this obligation toward me… that sometimes I become this charitable cause to them. They don’t care about me because I’m worth caring about… they care about me because that’s what they are ‘supposed’ to do.

There’s a lot of stuff that just keeps surfacing within me and I desperately want to know why I am the way I am. I heard this quote recently that essentially said that when people are looking for the bad in someone, they are always going to find it. I felt like it summed me up in a nutshell. I’m always looking for the bad in everything, and I always find it. I focus on it. I let it consume me. When I think people are only caring for me out of obligation, I find every reason that could possibly be true and I believe it.

And so then I think on ‘special days’, like my birthday, that I really hope I don’t see the bad, I really hope that someone will prove me wrong and care about me to the point where I don’t ever doubt it.  But, I do doubt….and it ruins everything. Instead of joy and excitement, I feel dread and sorrow. Instead of laughter and celebration, tears run down my cheeks.

It’s a life of disappointment.
Ultimately, it’s a life consumed with myself. A life consumed by wanting to feel special, of wanting to feel important, of wanting to feel like I matter. A life where I feel like I can’t get very much of the stuff that matters ‘right’. I’m never joyful enough, I don’t love enough, I don’t serve consistently, I don’t have enough faith…
A life of no satisfaction.

I don’t have a solution this time.

I don’t know how to not be this person anymore. I feel like I’ve tried. Pray, read the Bible, pray some more, fake it until I make it…. but at the end of the day, I’m just a sinner saved by grace.

My hope awaits me. The hope of an eternal glory.
And right now, I’m just thankful for the second chances…because they are so necessary.

Today I want to be okay with not being okay. I want to be okay acknowledging that I’m a work in progress… and that I always will be in this life. I don’t have to have the answers today.

But, I have to keep waking up and hoping…

Here I go.

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Striving for Desexualization.

The Comment:

When I was reading your blog post about lust, this question was going through my mind. I feel like I have been trying to completely de-sexualize myself. But then, attraction is natural, and it has to happen for marriage to happen–which is a good thing. But I’m just wondering, how do we stay away from lusting, yet let relationships happen, too? Because I really tried to rid myself of every sexual desire that I could and just shut that part of myself off, bc I was too worried about sinning. Where is the fine line between lust and life? How do you know when it’s good to allow yourself to be attracted to someone?

Gosh, I don’t even know where to begin.
Upon reading this, I was honestly sad. Sad because I know you’re not the only one in the world with this mission in mind.

Bluntly?
I think we are sexual beings. I think God created us to be sexual. I think sex is a beautiful gift that we’ve been given and because so much darkness and sin surrounds it, it seems to have become tainted. We grow up thinking that sex and wrong and bad, and so any time we have a sexual thought, we slap ourselves on the wrist. Any time we go too far with our boyfriend/girlfriend, we beat ourselves up.

We train ourselves to become people who, on our wedding night, lock ourselves in the bathroom because we can’t bear the thought of having sex with our spouse. There’s been too much negativity associated with it our entire lives.

I firmly believe this attitude we have toward sex is wrong.
To de-sexualize yourself seems like one of the most unnatural things we can do. And, I get it.  I get the reason why you might feel like you need to… but I don’t think it’s the solution to lust.

I don’t think we can flip a sexual switch on and off, as much as we might want to. Turn me on for my husband, but turn me off for any other guy. Nope. It’s a battle. Turning me off for all time doesn’t solve the problem though… in fact, I think it creates new ones.

Attraction isn’t wrong. To want to be with someone… it’s not wrong. I think the lust comes into play when we start imagining all the details of what it will be like. I think lust comes into play when we allow those images to linger in our minds- whether they are actual images that we are watching, or whether they’re the ones we’ve created in our fantasies. And the lust becomes a problem when we give into these thoughts and these images instead of having self-control and turning away.

I would probably argue that sexual desire, in and of itself, isn’t wrong… it’s what we do with it that becomes the problem. I want to have sex. I hope I never stop wanting to have sex, even when I’ve finally gotten to have sex. I hope I love it as much as I think I might. But… that doesn’t mean that I fixate on it, or conjure up sexual fantasies, or watch porn.

I guess I just fear really unhealthy views on sex. I’m not saying I have the best views on it (since I’m clearly inexperienced)… but I don’t want to be scared of the sexual desires within me. I don’t want to put them in this box of ‘wrong’ or ‘sinful’ until I’m married and then suddenly be expected to open those boxes on my wedding night and have there be new labels attached to them. Of course sex would be terrifying if that’s your mindset.

Instead, I want to acknowledge that I have sexual desires. I have them, and I think they’re good. I may not be able to indulge in them right now, but that’s okay. In the meantime, I’ll still let myself be attracted to my boyfriend…but it doesn’t mean that I’m constantly lusting after him.

I think we all know when we’ve allowed ourselves to go too far….whether that’s mentally or physically. We know when we’ve fantasized too much, we know when we’ve crossed a boundary with our significant other, we know when we’re watching porn it’s not a good thing. There’s conviction that sets in and we know. Flee from those things, and I think you’ll be okay. Don’t get so caught up in not doing the ‘bad’ things, that you miss out on all the good things, either.

You are a sexual being. Embrace it. You were created for sex… you were created to pro-create…you were created to be fruitful and multiply!
No need to get all crazy with it right now… but don’t deny yourself something beautiful that has been given to us.

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I Probably Don’t Like You.

“I don’t like her, but I love her.”

I’ve always wondered at the phrase. Is that even possible?

Initially, it mostly just seems like some sorry attempt to be good Christians by ‘loving’ everyone and not dealing with the fact that we might not actually love them at all. But, maybe not…

Bear with me as I do some processing of my own right now.

Perhaps, when this phrase is spoken, we’re referring to a feeling of liking someone. An emotion. A desire to want to be near someone, to hang out with them, to be their friend. We don’t have that with everyone. I think we’d be liars if we said we did. We don’t even have that feeling all the time with the people that we think we do like…

So, can we still love someone without this feeling?

If my argument is that love is not based on emotion, but more on action and choice… it seems it could be true.

I don’t have to like you to be kind to you.
I don’t have to like you to be patient with you.
I don’t have to like you to put your needs above mine.
I don’t even have to like you hope for you.

What if were okay to not like people?
I’ve been struggling with not liking people lately… and I’ve been struggling with feeling like they don’t like me in return. I’ve been battling with this a lot…battling through the guilt I feel for not liking them, and battling through feeling unworthy because I don’t think they like me, either. It feels contrary to how it’s supposed to be.

But, what if it’s okay that it is this way?
What if, instead of trying to conjure up pleasant feelings toward others (which typically end up feeling forced and fake), we spent time simply serving them and being kind to them. What if we practiced living out of love instead of trying to feel like we are loving?

What if, instead of trying to ‘fix’ our heart, we took action where we can and let the Lord be the one to work on our hearts?

I don’t know. I’m still processing.

I guess I think that regardless of if we like someone or not, our words and actions towards them must only reflect love. I also think that while we may not like someone, it’s important for us to not want to sit in that place. It’s important for us, while we might not feel like it, to not become people who are great at loving outwardly and have our hearts be disconnected from it all.

Only, instead of thinking we can accomplish this change within… there’s a necessity of begging that the Lord would change us (remember Maggie??).

Despite whatever amiable feelings I may or may not have for you, I always want you to know I love you. Not because I like you and want to be your best friend…but because I think you matter. I think your soul matters.

So, depending on who you are… I may not like you.
But I want to love you.
I’m still figuring out what that means, though.

And may the Lord do a work in my heart, so that my actions and words would not be empty or forced. May I genuinely care about each of you, regardless of if you’re my best friend or not.

So maybe it is okay if we don’t actually like each other… as long as we never let it stop us from loving each other.

Hmmm….
Thoughts?

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Loving Even When…

There was a boy a few years back that I met a handful of times. Despite the hundreds of miles that separated us, we somehow managed to become good friends.

You’d be a fool to believe that I had never thought about anything more with him…because up until the moment he started dating someone else, I genuinely thought I stood a chance.

Between emails and phone calls, we shared our hearts and lives with each other in ways that I had been closed off to for a long time. I felt he had opened up to me in unique ways, too… and although we were very, very different, our commonalities seemed to bring us together. Together we were two lonely people, questioning life, love and our faith. He was driven, successful, honest, funny, intelligent and wanted my friendship.

Just my friendship.

Eventually I told him I loved him.
Not that I was in love with him… but that I loved him.

For those of you who know me, I don’t spit these words out easily. But this time, I meant it. I wanted to mean it. As we began to dig deeper into each other’s lives, I realized that before me was a man who was hurting, closed off, and prideful. I felt this need to love him. To love him in a way that I hadn’t ever loved anyone before.

And as I set out on this journey, I realized that it would look different because the Lord would ask me to love this guy even when he didn’t love me back. As much as I hoped and dreamed that our friendship could blossom into some type of romantic relationship, that was never the purpose… that was never the end goal. As much as I wanted to run away from this friendship, as much as I wanted to stop offering parts of myself to him as I sought to challenge, encourage, and simply be there for him… I knew that loving him when he didn’t love me like I wanted him to was necessary.

I remember one time wanting to pull out fast. And then I happened upon a Scripture I am I sure I had never seen before. Maybe because it was in Numbers.

When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his oath but do everything he has said. 

I had made an oath.  Not only to the Lord, but to this guy… to myself. See for yourself:

i don’t know how love you… but I do know that i do love you.  and it’s a love that has nothing to do with emotions or feelings or romance…. but it has everything to do with being there for you in whatever capacity you’ll allow…. it has everything to do with walking through the good, the bad, the ugly… of rejoicing when you rejoice and mourning when you mourn….of reminding you that you, just as you are, are loved deeply and intimately and nothing can change that. 

I desperately wanted him to know that he mattered. That Jesus mattered. It seemed that if loving him in such a way gained me nothing and him just a little bit of that… it was worth it. It had to be.

I wasn’t perfect in this attempt to love. As I debriefed it occasionally with another friend, he had encouraged me to write a blog about the journey. Loving someone even when….. they disappoint, they betray you, they break your heart, they make fun of you, they don’t love you back. I fear we all have a lot to learn about this.

I never thought I could save this guy. I knew that wasn’t my job, as much as I wished my words or my presence could bring him into a place of total surrender. So I did what I could.

I loved him.
Imperfectly and with great struggle. But, it mattered.

Who are you actively loving right now?
Who are you loving even when…
Who are you choosing to not love because it’s not as easy as you’d hoped it be?

…i suppose i need you to know that loving you isn’t conditional.  i’m not going anywhere.  and even if our talking decreases, or your desire to be friends disappears, or you get super busy, or start dating someone, or you lose your job, or you move away, or you’re broken and don’t want to risk anything with anyone…. i’ll still be here whenever you want or need me.  i recognize that i can’t force that on you, but i need you to know that it’s yours for the taking.  

 What if they weren’t just words and they became our reality?

Make an oath.
And then follow through on it.
Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be a part of truly changing someone’s life.

At that point….isn’t everything worth it?
I hope we all think so.

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Lusty Girls

The Comment:

This new found hatred for bikinis is making me wonder if taking my own shirt off when I go bathing or swimming can be cause for other girls to stumble. Do you have any thoughts on this???

An honest comment from an honest guy, striving toward purity. In his recognition of how much bikinis have a negative affect on him, he’s also aware that showing his skin might have a negative affect on girls. I can appreciate this gesture. 
I smiled when I first read this email–not because it was a dumb question, but because of how I often I feel like girls are quick to want the same rules applied to guys that are applied to girls (I suppose I found it a bit funny to think about guys not taking their shirt off to bathe, too…). It’s inevitable, when having a conversation about modesty with girls, that one of them will chime in about how guys need to cover up, too. Sometimes I fear this more about our quest for equality than it is about our struggles when seeing them bare-chested. 
Because… while, sure, maybe some girls struggle with the visual of a shirtless guy… I don’t typically think that image alone sends us into lust-world. Can it segue there quite easily? Absolutely. 
I think women are generally more turned on by emotional and physical connections than we are the visual. While we might see a hot guy and appreciate his hot bod…the arousal doesn’t seem to come until we take that image into our mind and then start fantasizing about what it would be like for him to hold us or touch us or whisper sweet nothings into our ear. 
We don’t need the visual in order to create the fantasy though. It’s why we read romance novels, watch chick flicks and invest in trashy magazines. We want a heart connection, we want a man that meets every single need of ours (emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc) without flaw… and so we conjure that up in our heads. 
I don’t need to see you without your shirt on to think about what it might be like to have you like me, want to date me, hold my hand, cuddle with me, kiss me. I don’t need to see you without your shirt on to think about what physical intimacy and a deep, romantic connection with you could look like. I can get there on my own. 
So… while I appreciate the gesture, I don’t really think it’s necessary. Whether your shirt is on or off, I can still fantasize about you… and I’m not convinced that you having your shirt off makes me get there any faster. If anything, women will admire and talk like it does… but I truly think the things that cause us to struggle are on a more emotional level. 
Rather than asking you to keep your clothes on, I’d probably challenge women to, instead, look at the content of their books, their television shows…to dwell on the things they think about as they fall asleep at night. Maybe they do conjure up that shirtless image and go from there…but if they like you, they’ll be able to conjure up their own shirtless image of you regardless of if you were shirtless or not. 
Lust, for us, typically isn’t visual. 
It becomes this complicated web of emotions, desires, and fantasies that are not real…. just as much as your playboy model isn’t actually a depiction of reality. 
And, unfortunately, since our issues with lust aren’t easily identifiable…. probably many of us go through life lusting away, without even realizing we’re doing it or the harm it’s causing in our lives and in our relationships. 
After all… lust is a passionate (typically sexual) desire for something. 
And most of us are passionate, sexual beings. 
So men: be cautious, sure. But, be aware that your words, your touch, your smile…. those things can lead us into a sexual frenzy more than the sight of your body at a distance. 
I think it’s probably also good to note that while short shorts on a girl can turn you on… short shorts on a guy are typically not ever a thing that causes us to lust after you! 
And ladies? It’s okay that we struggle with lust differently… and I think it’s important to know the ways in which we do. Be willing to consider it… even if it means giving up things you might enjoy. Consider why you enjoy them, what benefit they bring to your life… and if it could possibly be leading you to lust. 
Yep. 
I went there. 
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Friends with Benefits

The Comment:

What do you do when you think you have a good guy, because he talks all the time about waiting for his wife and everything. He really likes you but always has an excuse on not getting into a relationship when the reality is he wants to be single and just have you as a make out buddy?

Ah… the ‘ol friends with benefits card. Unfortunately, I have played this hand before… on both sides. In high school I was the one calling the shots, keeping it casual and commitment-free. Later on in life, I was wanting more of a commitment and he wasn’t.

My short answer? He’s not that great of a guy.
My lengthier answer? Maybe he is a great guy, he’s just a little mixed up right now and struggling through some things. Which, I’d essentially conclude, that where he’s at right now isn’t a place you should be dabbling around, too.

I guess I think (from experience and from talking to plenty of guys) that if a guy really likes a girl, he will do whatever he can to make it happen. If for some reason he can’t (some legitimate reason) and he really likes her, he is going to honor that and not find silly excuses to not date her and not lead her into a bunch of emotional anxiety by still making out with her.

It sounds like this guy is playing on some of your emotional heartstrings and you need to be really cautious. ‘Friends with Benefits’ is typically a colossal mistake. Someone always winds up more emotionally invested in the other… and the more you give of yourself physically, the more you are going to long to feel connected to this person in other ways. It’s the way we are wired.

We long to be connected, we long to be known, we long to be wanted. So, sometimes we do whatever it takes to feel that way…even if it means we compromise ourselves. Stop!

I’d encourage you to think about what really makes him a ‘good’ guy. If he talks about waiting for his wife, but he’s willing to make-out with you for fun without commitment… something isn’t adding up. There’s a disconnect between the things he’s saying and the things he’s doing.

Be willing to walk away from the friendship and not put yourself in compromising emotional and physical spots. It doesn’t seem that, right now anyway, it’s worth it. This requires a lot of self-control on your part… it requires walking away from something/someone that you might enjoy and value a lot. I think you’ll feel better when you’re able to free yourself from this unhealthy attachment.

Maybe he’s that great guy… but he needs some time to sort through life and figure out how to become the man that he needs/wants to be. Be willing to give him that time- even if it means walking away. If he really does like you, he’ll either respect your decision or not be able to live without you. Time will tell.

Also… be willing to be patient and wait for a guy who wants to be more to you than a make-out buddy. You deserve more… and they DO exist.

You’ve got this.
Go be bold.
Do what is right… not always what feels good.

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Does Perception Matter?

There’s been some debate recently over how much other people’s perception of your actions matters.

For example: 
Let’s say I live alone and my boyfriend and I are long-distance. When he visits, instead of him getting a hotel, he sleeps on my couch in the living room while I sleep in my bed in my bedroom. Is it wrong? 
Inherently- no. 
But, the perception of what it could be throws people off. If all someone sees is my boyfriend coming into my apartment at night and then leaving the next morning, they might automatically assume we are sleeping together… right? 
So, at what point would I change my actions that aren’t necessarily wrong simply because there could be a wrong perception attached to it? 
It’s a weird line. 
We’ve argued a thousand different scenarios and it seems that as much as you might always try to err on the side of caution, there could always be false perceptions. 
My biggest issue with this is not that people might judge me for their false perception of me, but more that my actions might lead someone to falsely perceive something and then go do that falsely perceived thing themselves. That I might unintentionally be leading others into a bad spot. ‘Oh, Debbie has her boyfriend sleep over when he’s in town… that means it’s probably okay if I have mine over tonight’…. 
Ultimately, I’m not sure we can always take responsibility for other people’s false perceptions of us. The more the discussion followed a thousand rabbit trails and back to the main issue at hand, the more we realized that in an ideal world there would be a confrontation. A point where when someone perceives something, they would then go talk to that person about what actually happened…instead of assuming. 
That’s an ideal world, though. 
And because we don’t live in an ideal world, we’re still always stuck in this weird place. A place where misinterpretation happens, where gossip dwells, where rumors fly. A place where people perceive things that aren’t always true. 
I guess I think the answer is to simply be cautious of how your actions might be perceived. It doesn’t mean don’t do them (especially if it’s not wrong)… but have an understanding of how things might get interpreted. Be prepared to have those conversations, but also be prepared to let things go. 
When I was in college I joined a sorority and while I hung out with the girls at parties, I made sure to never drink at parties. I made sure to never carry a cup, even if it had water in it. I knew that there was no way for anyone to determine how much I had drank or what I was even drinking. But, in a bar with some of the girls, I didn’t have a problem having a drink or two with them as we sat around and talked. It doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t have walked in later and seen me with a drink and perceived, especially if I were laughing, that maybe I’d already had a few too many drinks. So… was that wrong of me? 
I guess you could live meticulously by a rule book, making sure that nothing you do was ever potentially questionable… but I hesitate to think you’d be successful. And on the small chance that you could succeed, I’d have to wonder if we missed the point… 
That maybe there’s just more conversations that need to take place. Maybe more honesty and openness. Maybe recognizing that we can’t ultimately be responsible for people’s decisions to do wrong. Maybe recognizing that we still aren’t perfect. 
I don’t know. 
But, I’d encourage you to be cautious with your choices. Consider them. 
And just keep living. 
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Contentment

When’s the last time you allowed yourself to truly be content?

You know… satisfied, pleased, fulfilled, at ease…

I think I have the natural tendency to consistently be the antonym of content. There’s always something that could be better, whether that’s within me or someone else or current circumstances. It’s a feeling of constant dissatisfaction. A feeling of misery.

Lately I’ve been discovering what a crappy existence that is. I think, somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that we must continually be striving for something better. That there was a ‘better’ to always be obtained. Whether it was a ‘better’ in school, or sports, or choir, or with my family, or friends, or boyfriend, or relationship with the Lord….being ‘content’ in those things often felt like settling.

Now I realize that being discontent in those things only brings unhappiness and discord- not only for me, but for those close to me. How do you ever really be in relationship with someone else when they are never content with the current state of things? How do you not always feel like you’re doing something wrong, or that you simply aren’t good enough?

It feels like a disease sometimes.

But, in being aware of this mindset I tend to have… there’s been a lot of letting go that’s need to happen. I think it first started with my relationship with the Lord.

I think it started here because somewhere along the way many of us have adopted a mentality that we will always need to grow in our relationship with Him. That we will never be where we want to be. That we should never be satisfied with where things are at with Him.

Now I’m wondering if those thoughts have been more damaging to us as believers than they have been motivating or encouraging. It’s almost as if we’ve been saying that God isn’t satisfied with our relationship with Him, that He wants more and more and more. He wants us to be more obedient, more loving, more selfless, more joyful. And maybe it’s true that He does desire those things, but I don’t necessarily think it means that God is upset with us if we are truly seeking Him.

I think God gets upset when we become people who honor Him with our words, but don’t really meant it. I think God’s upset when we are fakers. But, I don’t think He’s upset when we are honest with Him and others and still following… even if it’s not yet perfect. For us to think he’s always dissatisfied, that He’s always disappointed? It seems damaging.

In fact, I think it’s been damaging.
I’ve told you all a bit about how I put down my Bible for the better half of this year… and when I finally have been able to come to a place where I’m not trying to hard to be this ‘perfect’ Christian, there’s been a lot of content that’s been able to flood in.

What if where you’re at right now is okay? Even if you could ‘do better’ or ‘be better’… what if God is satisfied that you’re exactly where you are? Could you be satisfied, too?

‘Cause, the thing I’ve discovered, is that life is continually going to bringing us to new things. New challenges, new people, new jobs, new locations, new struggles of it’s own. I don’t think our relationship with the Lord is supposed to be a struggle. I think it’s supposed to be the thing that brings peace, and comfort, and healing…. the source of our joy, Him as our only constant.

But… we’ve turned it into this thing that we have to fight through, and struggle with… and be dissatisfied with…because we think He is dissatisfied with us….

And I can’t help but wonder….
Did we miss something?

Today I’m content.
I’m not perfect.
I didn’t go to church today. I didn’t really even read my Bible today.

But, I’m content with where I’m at with God.

Are you?

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Does Jesus Hate You?

‘I was a virgin because I love Jesus and now Jesus hates me.‘

April, from Grey’s Anatomy, says this to Jackson the morning after their intimate night together. It’s one of those lines that makes me cringe…. and it’s one of those lines that gets broadcasted all over the world.

Is this how Jesus is viewed?

Unfortunately, I think it is a lot of times. Not only by the world, but by Christians. And I think this statement is evidence of our lack of understanding who Jesus really is.

Honestly, I’ve probably felt like this a bit myself in times when I’ve knowingly sinned. That my sin causes Jesus to hate me. The guilt is too overwhelming. There’s no way I can ever be forgiven of this (whatever ‘this’ is at the time). It’s especially worse when I’ve chosen to sin, knowing it was sin. I can’t get by with a, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to’ type of confession. Instead, I must throw myself at His feet… acknowledging my unworthiness, acknowledging how undeserving I am of grace and forgiveness.

But to honestly think that He hates me?
It seems absurd and contrary to everything I read about Christ in Scripture.

Remember the woman at the well?
Or the woman caught in adultery?
Or the prostitute that washes His feet?
Or the disciples that had given their lives to follow Him and then betrayed Him in an instant?

Where is the hate, then?

How do we go from reading this about Jesus to believing something false about who He is? Where does the disconnect happen?

It makes me wonder how interested we are in even wanting to know who Jesus is, or if we’re more caught up and consumed by who we are, what we do, our guilt, our freedom, ourselves. It’s almost as if we take our own feelings of guilt and despair and because we don’t know what to do with those emotions, it’s easier to make false statements like, ‘Jesus hates me’.

‘Cause sometimes it’s easier to think that Jesus hates us when we do something wrong than to think that He still loves us even when we do something wrong.

Think about it.
We have this mentality that demands justice be done.
When we do something wrong to someone else, it sometimes seems easier if we pay the price for what we’ve done wrong to them. If they let us off the hook, there’s this feeling of debt that we have toward them.

Do we feel like that about Christ?
That there’s this debt that’s been paid that we’re constantly trying to pay back…. but we never can… because we’re never good enough?

Does God hate sin? Yes. He has to… He’s too holy to even have it exist in His presence. But does He ever hate us?
It’s completely contrary to the Gospel.

Soon I’ll probably talk about this whole cliche of ‘loving the sinner, but hating the sin’ that we spout of quite regularly. But, for now… I’ll agree that it’s true of Christ. That while we may not be able to separate the two in our human little minds, I believe Jesus is fully capable of loving us despite our sin. He is able to see us and know us beyond anything that we do or think or say…. and love us.

That’s the Jesus I’m interested in knowing. The one that contradicts everything I think I know about how we are naturally wired… the one who came so that we might live.

Who is the Jesus that you know?
One that hates you because you messed up? ‘Cause that Jesus doesn’t exist…

Seek to know Him today for who He is. The one full of mystery, power, healing… and love.

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Scared & Hiding

I started writing this blog thinking that it would cater to a younger female audience. My vision was that high school and college-age girls would identify the most with my rants about the craziness of the female race.

Turns out that my rants about crazy girls are more sporadic and my random thoughts about issues in life seem to be the overwhelming theme of this blog.

I’ve been incredibly surprised by the amount and type of people who consistently seem to keep up, though. Moms, youth pastors, 30-year-old men, single women in their late 20’s, college guys… and of course, the high school and college-age girls. It’s weird..
But it makes me wonder how much we’re all (no matter where we are at in life) really searching for answers. It makes me wonder if deep down, none us really feel like we know anything at all. That as much as we can speak with authority and conviction on certain subjects… I wonder how much we’re really hiding. I wonder how many of us are scared of being known, scared of being discovered, scared of failing. 
In the last 5 years or so I had this vision of writing a book some day. It was to be a book about fighting. A book about not having all the answers, a book about struggling to live each day and letting that be ‘normal’. 
I grew weary of reading so many Christian books that seemed to have all the answers for us. I was annoyed by the easy solutions and fixes to the things in my life that didn’t seem so easily fixable. I was frustrated by simple Christian phrases that are tossed around so easily, and when I took the time to really consider what they meant… I still wasn’t sure. 
Instead, I wanted to write a book that said, ‘Hey world, this is me… this is me raw, and broken, and not having anything together… but still believing in Jesus, still believing Jesus is worth it. This is me fighting for something better, hoping for something more… and sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding.’ It was to be an invitation for people to join me, for people to journey with me. A grand idea that the more we could all admit that we don’t have it figured out, the more something beautiful and changing could sweep across the world. 
I tried to write it. I wrote clips and bits of it. You’ve maybe read some of it here, actually. I even sent in a sample of it with the idea for the whole thing to be published.  Too personal, they told me. No one wants to read that type of thing. Maybe they’re right. 
So, I stopped writing for a long time– except for job required things. 
I got scared. 
I’m still scared. 
When I started up this blog in January, it didn’t come without fear, doubts and worries. Every day I debate whether or not I should keep writing, how often I should write, if anyone even cares about what I have to say. It’s been a battle. 
And I realize that the fear is consuming. 
I fear being judged, I fear disagreements, I fear being wrong, I fear failing. 
Do you? 
Yours might look different than mine (in fact, it probably does)… but, I can’t help but wonder in the deepest places of our hearts if we’re still searching. If we’re still searching to be known, but desperately scared of the fullness of what that means. If we’re still searching to fully believe in a God who sometimes seems full of contradictions. If we’re still searching to follow a Messiah who spoke in riddles and parables. If we’re still searching to find ourselves and simultaneously get over ourselves. 
And because we’re still searching, we are terrified. 
Does our fear of being found out, of being discovered… of being seen naked, exposed, vulnerable… does that fear drive us more than anything else? 
I sometimes think it does. 
What are the things you avoid, the things you run from, the things you put off… because of fear? 
How much of your life are you living in fear? 
Is there something that you know you should do, but you’ve been too scared to do? Whether that’s fulfill the purpose of your life, or have a hard conversation with someone, or quit your job, or move somewhere else, or forgive someone, or break up with someone, or propose to someone, or confess to someone… I don’t know… 
But, I just want to urge you to think about it.
And then to be willing to walk through the fear. 
I’m writing again. 
It doesn’t stop being scary, but I still keep doing it. It hasn’t been what I’ve expected, but it’s been good. 
What is it for you? 
Do it. 
Right now. 
And then tell me all about it. 
Deal? 
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