I became a Christian at a very young age. I was in kindergarten. The school I attended was housed inside a Baptist church. They were very strict--girls wore skirts to their knees, we weren't allowed to wear shorts, the pews were itchy and the sermons boiled over with brimstone. During Sunday School one week, the teacher asked us to bow our heads and close our eyes. Anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart was supposed to raise their hand. I did, and was escorted out into the hallway to recite a simple prayer. I confessed that I was a sinner and that Jesus died on the cross for me. I asked him to come into my heart. It seems very sweet as I sit and write about it. The humor comes in that I repeated this three weeks in a row. By the last week, the teachers let me know that I only needed to say that prayer one time.
I couldn't begin to theorize about my initial comprehension of the gospel. I think I had a rudimentary understanding about what Christ had accomplished on the cross. I knew that I was disobedient, mean to my brother, snarky with my friends. At the same time, I felt like God had a scorecard. I picture him, now, as an adult, pen poised over paper, watching me like a hawk. That's how I felt as a child, that God was not only expecting me to sin, but he was excited about it and waiting to fill up my score card with negative points. I just sensed his breath on the back of my neck, waiting on me to make one false move, to say the wrong thing, to do something heinous.
The thing is, when one feels that the Almighty is expecting them to screw up, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It got to the point that I didn't even try anymore. I knew that, no matter what, I was going to make mistakes. I figured, if God expected that from me, there was no shock in it actually happening. And so I fumbled through my early years, into pre-adolescence, not really understanding the depths or widths of God's love. I could only see my shortcomings, not his magnificence. This was the perfect breeding ground for low self-esteem. It warped the filter I used to view the world. When people gave me praise, I perceived it as sarcastic. I heard (or imagined) that they couldn't be telling me the truth. When my dad told me I was beautiful, I only saw pudginess, or my lack of coordination, or my plain brown eyes.
Concurrently, I felt that I couldn't praise myself. I couldn't say, I'm a good swimmer, or I read well, or I have a gift with words. If I made these statements, I was bragging. I was unable to distinguish between making truthful declarative sentences and being arrogant. I went for a long period of time not knowing how to talk about myself. I spent a lot of time making demeaning comments about myself. I was either the best or the worst in a group. I was either the most holy or the most sinful. It's a tough way to live, on the outskirts of an imaginary Venn diagram where I am never part of the intersection.
Then there is the issue of sin. I believed for many years, as many of my counterparts did (and do), that there is a hierarchy of sins. On the one end are white lies. Yes, it's lying but it's for the sake of someones feelings. It's a sin but certainly a lowly one. On the other end is brutalization of children, murder, rape, etc. These are the really "bad" sins. The people who perpetrate these crimes are really awful, ugly people. Surely, these are people that God feels have really let Him down.
I will say that I spent a lot of time on the "better" end of the spectrum, looking down my nose at others. I was haughty and self-righteous. I didn't have a great view of myself, but at least I wasn't like the dregs of society. Then I became a dreg of society. I darkened the doorways of places I had no legal business being. I operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated. I lived the life of someone for whom I used to have so much derision. It was a dark, lonely and scary place to live. I already believed I was worthless--what remains below worthless?
I walked away from God during college because I felt like I was too far gone. I compared my insides with other Christ-followers' outsides. I saw them praising God on Sunday mornings and living in a way that was in step with that. I saw the joy on their faces and even though I had a smile on my face, there was a hollowness to my worship. I was the noise, the clanging cymbal Paul writes about. I went through the motions, of saying the right things, of knowing the right scriptures, of singing the right tune. But my heart was heavy and empty. I was no more than flotsam, a piece of toilet paper stuck to someones shoe.
After a while, I found recovery from intoxication and other recreational bad habits. I realized that even though I believed in God, Jesus, the whole ball of wax, I was living my life as if I was God. That's a pretty ridiculous, blasphemous thought, but it was my reality. I was disregarding the rules that God had given me. If I'm not following His rules, I'm following my own, making me the ruler of my life.
Let me assure you, there was never a better time for that ruler to be overthrown. I made a mess out of almost every relationship I had. I was unreliable, as a friend, family member and co-worker. I was someone against whom the UN would have levied heavy sanctions. I was absolutely toxic to myself and anyone who came close to me.
It is at that point; where I was broken, alone and living out of my car, that I finally understood what kind of gift Jesus had given me. He told his followers in Mark 2:15-17 that he didn't come for the healthy but the sick. He defended the woman whom the Pharisees brought to him after catching her in the act of committing adultery. He received Mary Magdalene's anointing not with a scowl but with love. The women He loved were the most broken, I was a broken woman and therefore, He loved me.
Basking in that acceptance, that fierce, crazy love, is powerfully wonderful and powerfully terrifying. I remember a few years ago a ministry called Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program (or PEP) visited my church. It was a ministry started by a woman aimed at helping prisoners in the Texas prison system. The underlying principle was that a certain segment of the prison population had enjoyed some amount of success as business people. Drug dealers, while they are breaking the law, are excellent at running a lucrative business. She saw this as something that could be redeemed; she could take their brokenness and use in conjunction with the gifts they already had. Now, the ministry itself was something I found incredibly interesting. I feel like prisoners are already so disenfranchised that there is nothing waiting for them at home but the path back to jail. But what occurred to me that Sunday morning is that they and I are the same.
Yes, we are the same. The hierarchical construct I made for rating sin was bogus. God sees sin as a separation from Him. He doesn't have a double-secret book in the Bible that lays out the "good" and "bad" sins. Sin is sin; as such, these hardened criminals and I were the same. We all had sinned. It was a pretty crazy epiphany for me. I spent most of my life thinking I was worse than or better than---how freeing to find I was equal to! It was like God was able to finally flush the crap out of my broken filter. I was able to see myself for what I really was; a child of God. The things I loved about myself, God loves. The things I don't like, God loves them too. I don't need to pretend to be who I'm not. God didn't create drones and I don't believe He wants us all to be the same.
I stayed out of social media vis-a-vis the Chick-Fil-A nightmare. I have discovered, through trial and error, that it's not the best way to relay thoughts or propel change. Here's my two cents, though. First, my job as a Christian is not to judge other people. It's very clear about that in the Bible. The only judge of people is God. Second, I am not furthering the kingdom of Christ if I condemn anyone. Do I agree with abortion? No, not really. It's not a choice I would make for myself, but the beauty of being a Christian is that I get to make all sorts of choices. Why shouldn't every woman have the right to make that choice? I will not worry about the babies because, again, that's God's job. I'm saying that the people who are perpetrating the hate are just as guilty as those whom they hate. I always said to myself, "oh, phew, I've not broken all ten commandments because I've not murdered anyone." Unfortunately, God's take on that sin is that we are murdering someone if we have hate in our hearts for them. Eek. I'm in trouble; 10 for 10.
What I can do is try to teach my kids that love and tolerance is our code. I will not spew hate speech because there will be spittle on my chin, convicting me as much as those whom I hate. I will not decry a social group as sinners because that posits that there is a social group without sinners. We are all broken. We all fall short. The beauty is that we are infinitely and fiercely loved in our brokenness. We are not expected to become whole to become worthy of God's love; it's because of His love that we are wholly worthy. I refuse to be the one to strip someone else of their right to His grace.
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