wrestling

Just picked up the book "Same Kind of Different as Me" by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. My supervisor at Northside this summer told me it was one of the best books she had ever read, so I figured it was worth a read. I found the following passage absolutely hilarious, and thought some of my friends out there might enjoy it as well :)

As newlyweds, Deborah and I were just your basic Sunday-go-to-meeting Methodists. We parked ourselves in the pews most Sundays, and definitely every Easter and Christmas, since in those days it was still the widely held opinion that only hell-bound heathens--and possibly lawyers--skipped church on Easter and Christmas. We kept up that pattern until 1973 when some friends from a Bible church invited us to their home for a six-week "discussion group" about life.

As it turned out, we had actually been labeled "lost," "nonbelieving," and "unsaved," possibly because we had no fish stickers on our cars. (Which reminds me of one friend who, though newly "born again," retained the bad habit of flipping off other drivers while barreling down the road in her Suburban. Even with her newfound religion, she couldn't control her middle finger, but according to her husband, the Holy Ghost prompted her to scrape the fish off her bumper until her finger got saved.)

I laughed out loud when I read that. The chapter goes on to talk about when the author and his wife first became believers. He describes the "six-week discussion group" and how he felt almost pressured to "pray the prayer" before the group ended. "After five weeks," he writes, " I had it figured out: If you hadn't accepted Jesus by the sixth Sunday, you were probably going to hell on Monday. So, on the last night after we went home, I told Deborah I was going to pray that sinner's prayer Kirby had told us about."

What an interesting perception. Sadly, I think it still rings true today. Hall goes on to say that his wife refused to fall into that line of thinking, that since her dad had paved the Methodist church parking lot in her hometown, she was sure to be "saved." Before the end of the chapter, Hall goes on to mention that his wife "cross-examined the gospel like a prosecutor on a federal case" before she became a believer as well.

I was brought up in a church that leaned more towards the performance and praying the "sinner's prayer" that Hall described. While I call myself a believer (even though I buck at using terms that can be used as labels), I hope that at 25 I am learning to approach Jesus and the gospel more like Hall's wife, where I am cross-examining and wrestling with truth instead of blindly and passively accepting it, just because someone who is older or "wiser" than me told me to.

change is gonna come

Change. I do not like it. We are not friends.

So much change in such a short period of time.

Graduate school is done. One of my closest friends moved across the country with her husband to start a new chapter of life in Seattle. Another friend is moving back to Charleston, another to Austin, Texas (from NYC) to take a dream job. My lease runs out in 63 days--I have to tell them by Saturday that I won't be renewing. I currently have a master's degree but no job. One offer rejected, another one basically handed to me on a silver platter just this afternoon.

Bebe isn't here to talk to about any of this.

Change, so much damn change.

I'll be honest, I've lost touch with God in the midst of it all. There's so much mess that's been brought to the surface but never dealt with. There are big decisions to be made. There's starting over to be done, with a new group of people, a new place to live, new job, new...everything, it seems. What do I tell him? What do I ask for? I don't even know where to begin...

I just finished reading Rob Bell's "Velvet Elvis." Great book, really makes you think about some things. Chapter 4 was by far my favorite--I read it three times before I moved on to finish the rest of the book. In this chapter, Bell gives a summary of a portion of his story. One part in particular has stuck with me--Bell is describing his time spent in a counselor's office, and he says the following:

And then he said, in what has become a pivotal moment in my journey, "Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. Anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it."

Pursuing who God has made me to be? Relentlessly?! Intimidating, to say the least. My newly relocated friend Sarah told me about a book she's heard about (or read?) that talks about the importance of dealing with your childhood and family mess. The thrust of the book argues that you can't move forward spiritually until you have dealt with your crap.

I can't tell you how many times my family mess has been brought to the surface in my life.

Currently, I feel like I'm slamming my head against a brick wall with God.

I'm wondering if it's time to take a step closer to the mess, maybe let some of that shit hit the fan instead of hoarding it all to myself. (That's a disgusting image, isn't it?)

I'm wondering if the relentless pursuit of God and who he made me to be involves sitting down with a counselor. I'm almost certain it involves staying in Atlanta, at least for now. For me, moving is definitely a form of running from my mess.

And for me, being willing to sit down with a counselor is just one more item of change I can add to my list.