Messiness

I gave a small part of my testimony Thursday at InterVarsity. We have this thing each week at our chapter meeting called "Word From The Heard." Basically, one person in our group gets up and talks about something that God's been teaching them or shares something with the rest of the chapter. I've never done it before, but recently, I've really felt God lay it on my heart to speak.

Let me back up. I'm often saying that I wish people in InterVarsity were more "real" with each other; I have felt like we're really safe, as a whole, especially recently, and I desired for that to change.

So, what God's been teaching me recently is how to love who He created me to be, in all my messiness, struggles, emotions, etc. That's hard to learn, in fact He's clearly been trying to teach me this for a while. I wrote a poem in the last year called "Shattered but Satisfied" about the struggle to embrace your brokenness and grow and learn to love who you are, rather than putting on a facade and pretending to be someone you're not. I'm very guilty of pretending to have it together because I think everyone else has it together, so I need to too.

Anyway, I got up at IV and said that God had been teaching me that messiness is beautiful, that we are broken and that although we need His healing, His grace, His love, we also need to realize that our goal ought not to be to walk around pretending we've got it all figured out, but rather our goal ought to be to get comfortable enough with ourselves that we can wade into each other's messiness. That's the beauty of God's love flowing through us: we get to love others and jump down into the hole that they've fallen into-- not because we have the answers, but because we've been down there before. As Greg puts it, "I'm just a beggar showing another beggar where to find the food."

So, I got real. I shared very blatantly some of the messiness I've experienced and am still dealing with.

Would it set me free,
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be?
Would your arms be open?
Or would you walk away?
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay?

It was a really big leap, especially for me. I wanted people to see that I'm not the person I often appear to be-- I have some deep hurt in my life and some serious struggles. But that's beautiful. And the fact that there are people in my life already who are wading into that with me is a testiment to God''s love in them and the power of Christian community. But it was a big risk. It wasn't safe, so to speak.

But regardless, I felt freer than ever and I have continued to feel free-- free to not have it together, to not be super-human all the time.