Community

This post is more of a rant than a well-constructed thought. I apologize in advance if it's a bit scattered. Sometimes my brain works like that. I also apologize for the language, but not enough that I'm taking it off.

Also, I know the end is rather depressing, but that's just where I'm at. I don't have a catchy one-liner to close. I just hope that maybe it will speak to some of you, and at the very least get you thinking.



I’m sick of church (not just my church, either). I’m tired of pretending, and it seems like every Sunday I go it’s harder to pretend. But I’m too scared to fall apart, because I know what happens when people see someone fall apart – nothing. Nothing at all. I could be at the front crying my heart out, and people would just sit there, for the most part. (And if I'm being honest, it feels weird when people offer to pray for me in those times.) Then after my emotional breakdown is over, I talk to people like it never happened. Like my heart isn’t broken. Like I’m not crying inside. And it would be weird if I did talk about it.
It feels so one-sided. I feel like one of the few people at church that actually would let myself fall apart (though not too much). But isn’t that what the church is for? Broken people? So why do we pretend? Why do I pretend?
Because I’m scared. I’m scared of the reaction I know I’ll get – silence. Or when people ask, what do you say? “My life’s falling apart”? “I want to die but no I’m not suicidal”?
Someone asked me today if I was okay. I said yes. But inside I was like, “No, I’m not and I want to tell you everything that’s on my heart and why life is too hard” – but she was on her way out the door and I was halfway through another conversation – so what do you do? What do you say?
On the flipside, how do I talk to other people who are letting themselves fall apart in church? It’s almost like people assume that’s just how certain people ‘worship’ or something. Do other people even recognize their own brokenness? Are they too scared to show it? And how can we cultivate that honesty?
Maybe it’s starts with God. Maybe it starts with us being honest with God. When we let ourselves fall apart in his presence, maybe gradually we learn its okay to fall apart with other people, and let them hold us up.
But…will they hold us up? What if they don’t?
Sometimes I don’t feel like I am supported. Sometimes I feel like I put my whole heart on display in a worship service, and then – nothing. Is anyone else inspired? Is anyone else desperately in need of prayer?
Sometimes I wonder if I look like as much of an idiot as I feel. Do people ever look at me and be glad they aren’t me? Or do they think I’m putting on a show? Do they ignore me completely because they don’t want to look at their own brokenness? Or because it’s weird? (When did it become weird to express ourselves honestly?)
I know other people are just as broken as I am – but it doesn’t seem that way. God, lift my eyes from my own mess enough to recognize and acknowledge the struggles of others. To carry them the way I want to be carried.
Why do I feel like I suffer alone? I’m not the only one who cries every second day, am I? Surely other people are so overwhelmed by life's struggles that they just check out and watch tv, or endlessly scroll through facebook posts (which have already been read twice). But what is there to be done?
Often during those times when I feel most upset, I think, I should call someone. Or text someone. Or something. But then I think – what’s the point? Tomorrow will come, and I’ll be crying again. By myself. I’ll still be in this on my own.
We talk about doing life together. As small groups, “We want to do life together.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? I see them twice a week for a few hours. That’s about two percent of my life. And even if I go out with someone different every night of the week, that’s still not even half.
So I’m being unrealistic, because how are you supposed to literally do life with people 24/7? I swear if I knew the answer I’d proclaim it to the world.
But what is church supposed to be? Refreshing? I get more refreshment being alone with God. “To be in community” – what? for two hours a week? when I sing songs with other people and hear a sermon? (as much as I love those). The only community I get on Sunday morning – real community – is when I get to hear what’s on someone’s heart or when I get to share what’s on mine. For ten minutes. And then we say goodbye and head back to normal life. Where you live and walk alone.
I know, I need a family. Shit, don’t we all? But it doesn’t help much to say things like that unless arranged marriages are making a comeback.
I’m lonely. I’m broken. I need more of God. I need more community.
But how?
Maybe I should just give up and wait till heaven. Then everything will be perfect. Just cry my way through life, put on my happy face when I need to, and try and do what God asks me to as best I can, and hope there are joy spots on the way.

Wow Satan’s done a pretty good job of keeping the church isolated from one another. What are we going to do about it? What am I going to do about it?
Nothing.
Just going to let the thief keep stealing. Keep taking. Because why bother? Nothing’s going to change. This is the way it is. May as well plod through life and hope Jesus comes soon.

Waiting

Lately, it seems as if my life is in a sort of stand-still. I'm not in school, not pursuing my dreams, and not making a whole lot of cash either. I've often felt like a failure in every way one could look at it, because I'm not doing what I want or what society expects from a young adult.

But I'm being obedient. Not with humility, mind you, and not without a lot of yelling directed heavenward. Yet as I've fought, submitted, despaired, and fought again, torn between my desires and His, I've begun to see that even though from my perspective it doesn't seem like anything is growing, there is something happening.

Often when life has us stuck in one spot, we are simply putting forth roots.

This is an expression of my experience during this season of waiting.


Dead
     nothing growing
     long overdue
     no leaves
     no flowers
     no fruit
                    Chop it down

Wait
     it's alive
     it's growing
     getting stronger
     inside
     invisible
                    Putting forth roots

Rain
     bring clouds
     no sunshine
     for now
     darkness
     sorrow
                    Grow firm roots

Sun
     it will come
     not yet
     first strong roots
     then leaves
     then sun
                    Wait for sun

Growth
     flowers will bloom
     glorious unfolding
     replaced by fruit
     growing slowly
     then at last
                    Produce a hundredfold



"The seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop." -Luke 8:15
see also Luke 13:6-9; Matt 13:23

Vulnerable

I spend so much time and thought trying to build a complete picture of me, my life, and God. To be able to summarize it all in a few sentences that completely capture the essence and purpose of everything, in a way that I completely know all there is to know about all of it. And then, when I know it all, I can fix it all – starting with my own broken self.

And I try to get God to come along with me on this journey of obtaining control. But he doesn’t give a rip about this all-consuming purpose of mine – no, he wants to take it away - “Surrender” is the command. But I have excuses – oh so many. Countless reasons to hold on to my life the way I want it. Still he doesn’t care because he knows, oh he knows my heart.

Way deep down, there are parts of myself that I have hidden so well and so long ago I don’t even know what’s there. All I have is a faint recollection that I mustn’t ever let anyone see those things. I had built these walls (pretty good ones, if I do say so myself) to cover those things up, and I made them look so real that they just blend in. You would never know they were there.

But God – God knows. He knows I’m hiding. And his voice calls out to me the same way he called long, long ago to those first broken people in the garden, the way he calls to each of his children: “Where are you?”

And I don’t even know - Where did I put myself?

Yet he knows, and I know that he knows, and that he will find me if I let him. Only I’m scared and I don’t even know why.

Vulnerability is a word that we are using more and more – and for good reason. The word itself seems to knock on your heart’s door and request entry. Synonyms include susceptible, weak, defenseless, helpless, exposed, in danger. We know that being vulnerable is a good thing, but kind of in the same way we know that we shouldn’t eat junk food – who actually does it besides a few health nuts? And this attitude makes sense – who wants to feel defenseless or exposed?

A few weeks ago I was on a footbridge and impulsively decided to climb over the rail to sit on the cement right on the edge of the bridge. It wasn’t completely irrational because there was this huge thick cable where the suspension cable swooped down in the middle of the bridge.

By far, the scariest part was going over. In my mind, I thought briefly that I might die if I slipped or let go too soon or lost my balance. But I did it anyways, because I figured “Yolo,” and I sat down on the edge there, with the eight-inch-thick cable right up against my chest and my arms over it, staring at my feet dangling above the frozen river, hoping I wouldn’t lose a boot.

As I was sitting there, my mind kept wavering between “This is so cool!” and “I’m going to die!” even though the suspension cable held me safely. I kept sitting there because of the wonder of it, despite my fear. It was exhilarating.

This is what vulnerability is like – sitting on the edge, dangling there, hoping we don’t die, and yet knowing we won’t because of the cable of God’s love that is holding us there, as safe as we ever were on the other side of the rail. This is where God is calling us: to climb over the rail we put up (which is the scariest part of all) and then to sit down and let ourselves be held by the love of God.

And there, in that place of exposing ourselves to everything, we find that the only thing we are in danger from is the all-encompassing love that the Father has for his beloved children, and he holds everything else at bay.

But. Am I willing to let him find me? To let him love me? I know he’s good, and yet – do I want him to see the parts of my heart that I hide?

Does he know my shame? Does he know what I’ve done? Does he know the hidden things that I don’t even know?

Do I want his healing? Do I want to feel the brokenness I know is inside? Do I want to feel the pain of it again?

Can I trust him?

And I know - the answers are all Yes.

So I stare at the rail, trying to muster up the courage to climb. I can’t do it alone.

Knowing this, he calls me to let go of my self-made image and to open myself to those around me, to let them see the brokenness, the weakness, the fear that for so long I have buried. He calls me to take the hands of my brothers and sisters, so that we can journey together over the rail to expose our sins and wounds before our Father and find the forgiveness and healing we so desperately need.

Yolo.