Refined

Recently, as in yesterday, I shared my history with someone who was not receptive to where I've come from and how that has influenced me. I recounted my experience complete with a lot of anger and a few F bombs. I know people think that things that happened a long time ago shouldn't bother me as much as they do. In fact, she said I shouldn't get so angry because it's not worth it.

I'm gonna let that sink in for a minute.

I'm not supposed to be angry that my innocence was stolen. That I didn't have the right to retain it until I was ready. I shouldn't be angry that the idea that I was the sole owner of my very own body was taken without my permission. Because it's been 26 years, when am I going to get over it?

Never.

I will heal and I will forgive but I will not ever be okay with it.

Do not suggest that I should be if you don't want me to swear and get angry.

This conversation all started over a disagreement about some of the finer points of Christianity. Look, people have been arguing over theology since Jesus came here. He rose from the dead and some of his own disciples did not believe it. Not even when they saw him. He had to say "Here, fools, touch the holes in my hands! Still think I'm shittin' you?" So, the idea that people who don't believe like us are wrong is one of the single most ridiculous and presumptuous things I've ever heard in my life.

I used to think that people who didn't agree with me were morons because I was so obviously right. It's one of my least desirable personality traits-the need to always be right; the unwillingness to admit when I'm wrong. I travelled through my entire life rejecting the ideas of anyone who didn't think like I did and I was so stubborn that I never wanted to change or grow because I didn't want people to think I was wrong the first time. In short, I was an asshole.

But then, I fell head over heels in love with the story of a man who was born of a virgin into an ethnicity that has been persecuted, enslaved and murdered since the beginning of time. This man, who was perfect, was viewed by the religious gatekeepers as a heretic. If He were so holy, why were his closest friends those the  rest of society hated? They certainly weren't an elite bunch. This man who didn't treat women any differently than He did men, despite the cultural mores of that time that deemed women unworthy of such a holy presence. He healed a bleeding woman who because of the rules of that time, shouldn't have been among her peers. He cast demons out of the daughter of a Gentile woman, who the Jews considered beneath them. He rose from the dead and sent a woman to tell the world. He sent a woman to tell all of His MALE disciples. I fell in love with that story. And with it came lots of other questions because the only things I'm actually sure of are the ones I detailed above. All of the other things are up for interpretation by any number of laymen and theologians. And yet, we still present them as absolute truths available to everyone who is present to hear the self-anointed gospel according to us.

 We argue over a lot of things. We're willing to wound our contemporaries with verses that support our ideas about marriage, divorce, dating, politics, abortion, and even eternity, which none of us have seen. I lost someone I considered a good friend over a difference in opinion on one of those big topics. So convinced she was that God had given her the discernment to deem what sin could cause a person to have their reservation to Heaven cancelled, she was willing to crucify me with the Book when I disagreed.

It struck me today that I've had an awful lot of discussions lately on really big topics: Ferguson, rape, theology. And while my opinions may not have been changed, the way I present myself has been refined. I realized that I have changed so much and without the growing pains that usually accompany such monumental transformation. I have learned that I don't need to defend myself, my opinions or my beliefs to the death. I don't need to turn disagreements with others on big subjects into a bloodbath of insults, name calling and contradictions. Because the only absolute truth that exists to me is that God came down here to show us His heart in the form of Jesus and Jesus used up what little time He had to love unlovable people, to save unsaveable people, to redeem the unsalvageable and He did it with boundless grace. The kind of grace that none of us could really conceive of.

So, if that kind of grace and unconditional love could exist for us who are assholes, those of us who never want to be wrong, those of us who wound one another in the name of God, those of us who hear and see a person's heart and still remain unchanged by such a display of vulnerability, how could we possibly be so sure that we alone have been given discernment to judge the journeys of other people?

Of course, the answer is we can't.

 We cannot possibly know what impact our words and actions will have on the faith journey of another person but we can actively and consciously seek to be loving, positive, kind and gracious. We can't possibly know whether our actions will impact them largely or be forgotten, but how would you want to be remembered when their story is finally over? How do you want to be remembered when they're standing on a stage somewhere, whether it be here or in Heaven, telling their story? Do you want to be the person who turned them away from faith because you just wanted to be right? Or do you want to be remembered as being Jesus with skin on to them? Do you want them to look back at the sum of all their years and remember that you gave limitless grace, solicited guidance and gentle love?

That's exactly what I want someone to say about me. I'm sure part of my legacy will be that I swore a lot and that you never had to guess what I was thinking. I hope it will include that I was an awesome mama to Fifi and that I gave my resources more than I saved them for myself. I hope someone will say I was so funny they peed in their pants one time and then I hope they'll tell the story that made them lose control of their bladder. But I also hope that I'll be remembered for leading by example rather than by force and that I did my very best to regift all the grace that has been given to me. I hope that someone will say that even when I disagreed with them, they didn't feel like I was damning them to Hell because I had fancied myself a holy judge.

That should be the goal of every Christian because representing God, glorifying Him and presenting the story of Jesus never looks like hurling Bible verses at someone before you've entered into meaningful friendship with them, before you know their history, before you've shared a drink or a meal, before they've invited you into their home and made a place for you in their life. And those things take time. Sometimes decades. It was twenty years before I told anyone that I was molested in church. It was five more before I admitted to anyone what a lasting impact it had on me. And even still, it was three more years before I got up in church and proclaimed that I used to think they were all full of shit for believing in something they couldn't see. It was 60 seconds after that when I told them that I was one of them and they weren't so full of it after all. God doesn't measure time like we do. That doesn't mean He can't use us.

How will you allow yourself to be used?