Tonight, the Watoto Children's Choir came and performed at my church. This is the third time that I've seen them, and once again it amazed me how incredibly joyful and uncynical all of these orphans were. Each and every one of these children has lost one or both parents, many having never even met them. Their parents and other relatives were killed by war, disease, or HIV/AIDS. Compared to my life, each of these children have been through hell and back. Yet I am the one sitting in the audience continually fighting my own cynicism and bitterness. They who have every reason to be bitter were standing up there singing their hearts out about their love for Jesus and the fact that they are not alone.
This amazing spectacle was immediately followed by Pastor Mark giving a sermon on Parenting. I instantly knew that God wanted me to deal with my own heart, as my own experience being "parented" is at the source of a large portion of my bitterness and cynicism.
I have two of the most amazing parents in the world, who loved me and raised me with more love and care than I could possibly hope to imagine, and yet I struggle all the time with bitterness and anger towards the way that they raised me. It's not their fault. I am perfectly reconciled with my parents and their incredible love for me. But I am still unbelievably bitter towards the primary source of their parenting ideology.
My parents are disciples of and leaders in a parenting ministry called Growing Families International. While I truly believe that the hearts and motivations of the ministry's founders and leaders are perfectly good and right, I still harbor such resentment regarding what it did to me. Because of the methods espoused by GFI, I grew up believing that I had to lie my way through life, constantly pretending to be this perfect little girl who was so far from the person I truly was. Instead of ever changing my heart, my parents were constantly correcting and molding this facade which I chose to show them. And every time the true me broke free, I was corrected and punished at length, hearing every single reason why these actions, this real me, wasn't ok.
Even while I'm writing this, I shudder at the person that I used to be, at the anger that I still hold. I have to let it go. I have to get over it. I want so badly to be able to speak into GFI, to affirm in them what I think they're doing right and to be able to loving tell them which very specific areas they may be erring. But when I even contemplate talking to anyone related to the ministry, bile rises in my throat, and I have to fight back the anger and bitter criticism. I have no clue how to forgive, how to forget, how to stop blaming them (not my parents, but the ministry).
And GFI isn't the only thing which I harbour resentment towards. My highschool. My hometown. My old youth group. My old church. Christianity in general. Every one of these things, I hold captive in my bitterness.
I could go on and on about how deep my resentment runs, about how completely cynical I have become. But none of that compares to the stark contrast I felt tonight while I was sitting, wallowing in my own bitterness, watching the beautiful, joyous, and carefree faces of the Watoto Children's Choir. I have nothing to complain about. I have been through nothing. Yet, just like them, I belong to God. I am His. And I am not alone. I may have been hurt and I may carry the scars forever, but I am here. And I am alive. And I am His.
If those little kids can smile and dance and sing, unencumbered by the tethers of cynicism, unhindered by the chains of anger, then my own past must hold no more power over me. I am free, because I belong to the One who freed those children from the grips of war, disease, and every possible hardship. I am free because, even in my darkest hour, even when I felt most alone, it was God Almighty that was sheltering me, it was under His wings that I took refuge.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with every-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
This is my PSA
It amazes me how horrible so many Christians are at being aware of how they come across to the rest of the world. It really shouldn't amaze me at this point, yet somehow it still does.
For instance, while I was home this past weekend, I spent some time in the heart of Bible-belt country near South Bend, Indiana. It seemed like everywhere I looked, there were signs that oh-so-proudly proclaimed: "WE ARE PRO-LIFE!" and crosses which were dedicated to "all the dead babies." Now, don't get me wrong, I really don't have any problem with people having a pro-life political position. I really don't. As much as I am not pro-life, I completely understand where they are coming from. I get it, and it's ok. But, really, what good could it possibly do to put up pro-life billboards everywhere you go? Is proclaiming your moral superiority going to be the deciding factor in possibly one of the toughest decisions a woman can ever make? Is offering your blanket condemnation going to help witness to someone who has previously had an abortion? Do your billboards actually bring aborted fetuses back to life?
On a seemingly unrelated note: while I was home and therefore back in the land of the cable-having, I saw this new PSA which denounces people saying "that's so gay". I can't really explain just how grateful this made me. I know so many people (and I will freely admit that I used to be one of them) who say this phrase so nonchalantly. I love that someone is finally stepping up and saying something about it. For years, this phrase used to be a part of my every day vernacular. I simply never thought anything of it. Then came my freshman year at AU: I think I stopped saying "that's so gay" after about one week. It's not even that I meant anything by it. I just wasn't thinking about what it meant. It was just a phrase. Then someone pointed out to me that, at AU where a very large minority of people are, in fact, gay, this probably isn't the best thing to say. It wasn't hard to change. And I definitely don't miss saying it (because it didn't really mean anything, anyways).
So what is the point of all of this?
Well, besides my random desire to blog rant, I simply felt the need to say, to all my fellow Christians out there: think before you speak. It's not that hard. It doesn't take that long. And the phrases or words which you may have to cut out, you probably won't even miss them that much (if at all).
Think about how it sounds to the hurting and the oppressed and the searching when you spend so much energy denouncing the "murder" of all the "dead babies" and then nonchalantly joke about the "gayness" of this or that undesirable occurrence.
Now, even I find it ironic that I'm writing a blog asking people to watch what they say when I so rarely watch the type of language that comes out of my mouth (when it comes to swearing, that is). But the fact of the matter is that me saying a four letter word every once and a while does little if anything to compromise the Message which I am striving to live out. If I started to use language, however, which makes fun of how someone defines him/herself or which condemns an already hurting person, my Message would be not just compromised but utterly forsaken.
So if your greatest desire in life is to love the world around you and to reach out to the hurting and broken people, maybe you should focus less upon which four letter words not to say and more on how your overall message or your flippant jokes come across to the very people you're supposed to be reaching out to.
Oh, and one final note, in case that wasn't clear enough:
For the love of all things holy, if you go to AU, don't make fun of anything even remotely related to homosexuality! Even if you hold the moral stance that homosexual acts are a sin, you still should not make fun of being gay. You never know who standing around you, even if you're in a supposedly all-Christian environment, is struggling with this issue. There may be a gay person standing next to you, or maybe just a straight person who is struggling with knowing what to believe about homosexuality in general. So don't mock it. Don't make jokes about it. If you can't talk about it in a constructive manner, then just don't talk about it at all!
Ok, I'll get off my soapbox.
For instance, while I was home this past weekend, I spent some time in the heart of Bible-belt country near South Bend, Indiana. It seemed like everywhere I looked, there were signs that oh-so-proudly proclaimed: "WE ARE PRO-LIFE!" and crosses which were dedicated to "all the dead babies." Now, don't get me wrong, I really don't have any problem with people having a pro-life political position. I really don't. As much as I am not pro-life, I completely understand where they are coming from. I get it, and it's ok. But, really, what good could it possibly do to put up pro-life billboards everywhere you go? Is proclaiming your moral superiority going to be the deciding factor in possibly one of the toughest decisions a woman can ever make? Is offering your blanket condemnation going to help witness to someone who has previously had an abortion? Do your billboards actually bring aborted fetuses back to life?
On a seemingly unrelated note: while I was home and therefore back in the land of the cable-having, I saw this new PSA which denounces people saying "that's so gay". I can't really explain just how grateful this made me. I know so many people (and I will freely admit that I used to be one of them) who say this phrase so nonchalantly. I love that someone is finally stepping up and saying something about it. For years, this phrase used to be a part of my every day vernacular. I simply never thought anything of it. Then came my freshman year at AU: I think I stopped saying "that's so gay" after about one week. It's not even that I meant anything by it. I just wasn't thinking about what it meant. It was just a phrase. Then someone pointed out to me that, at AU where a very large minority of people are, in fact, gay, this probably isn't the best thing to say. It wasn't hard to change. And I definitely don't miss saying it (because it didn't really mean anything, anyways).
So what is the point of all of this?
Well, besides my random desire to blog rant, I simply felt the need to say, to all my fellow Christians out there: think before you speak. It's not that hard. It doesn't take that long. And the phrases or words which you may have to cut out, you probably won't even miss them that much (if at all).
Think about how it sounds to the hurting and the oppressed and the searching when you spend so much energy denouncing the "murder" of all the "dead babies" and then nonchalantly joke about the "gayness" of this or that undesirable occurrence.
Now, even I find it ironic that I'm writing a blog asking people to watch what they say when I so rarely watch the type of language that comes out of my mouth (when it comes to swearing, that is). But the fact of the matter is that me saying a four letter word every once and a while does little if anything to compromise the Message which I am striving to live out. If I started to use language, however, which makes fun of how someone defines him/herself or which condemns an already hurting person, my Message would be not just compromised but utterly forsaken.
So if your greatest desire in life is to love the world around you and to reach out to the hurting and broken people, maybe you should focus less upon which four letter words not to say and more on how your overall message or your flippant jokes come across to the very people you're supposed to be reaching out to.
Oh, and one final note, in case that wasn't clear enough:
For the love of all things holy, if you go to AU, don't make fun of anything even remotely related to homosexuality! Even if you hold the moral stance that homosexual acts are a sin, you still should not make fun of being gay. You never know who standing around you, even if you're in a supposedly all-Christian environment, is struggling with this issue. There may be a gay person standing next to you, or maybe just a straight person who is struggling with knowing what to believe about homosexuality in general. So don't mock it. Don't make jokes about it. If you can't talk about it in a constructive manner, then just don't talk about it at all!
Ok, I'll get off my soapbox.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)