Can I be really honest? Really, painfully honest? My friend Michelle DeRusha opened this one up for me. (Her post is linked in first comment.) I asked off from work to go to The High Calling retreat. I got the days off even and the tickets were cheap and every door was swinging open for me to go but I chickened out. Heres why: I have never felt like I belong in the Christian writing world. Most of the time, when Im around people who write in the same genre as myself, I feel penned in, stiff, like Im being watched and all I want to do is wear sloppy t-shirts and say hell once in a while or even something worse. Im entirely imperfect for this world. I dont pray with my arms stretched to heaven. Nor do I dance and sing praises. (I didnt know half the songs at the last retreat I went to.) I like rap music and I pretend it doesnt have bad words in it. I know grace but its the kind where youre crawling in a ditch bleeding or thinking about ending your life or the cancer is being cut from your back. Its hard grace. And the battles I fight arent theology based like many deep, talented writers. Im not as worried about the dos and donts of living for God as I am just about daily reminders that Hes intimately interested in my life. Its always this Christian utopia of writing / thinking that Satan throws in my face at these conferences and I pray that God will show me only the good, how people are trying, truly trying, to find their way but I see the plastic smiles too often and I end up putting my mask on too and I hate it. But then, at the last retreat, during Jennifer Lees speech, something broke in me and I sat in the back on the floor with my back pressed against the carpeted wall and my mask in my hand and I ugly cried. A man wrapped his arm around me and asked if I was okay. I told him maybe someday Id share what Id lived through and I stared into his kind, innocent eyes and I knew my ugly would be too much so I stood up, squared my shoulders, and stopped the tears. I didnt go back to the retreat the next morning. I had an excuse not to but I was so thankful I didnt have to. I guess what Im trying to say is I likely will never be one of those guys who attends retreats and conferences. Its not like I dont want to be there. Its just something I might need to grow into. But in the meantime, if you throw a bonfire party, crank up Eminem, invite a gay man, someone on parole, maybe a homeless woman, an ex-drug dealer and a girl with cuts up and down her arms, Ill be there. (Individuals mentioned above are reference to patients of mine who have broken my heart. The hospital has become my church.) Thank you, for your honesty, Michelle... Your post has opened up a LOT of questions for me.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 17:52:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015