Attempting to live and breathe for an audience of one
I’m having a crisis of faith right now. I believe in God and I believe in Jesus. I just… don’t believe in all the stuff that comes with Christianity. I don’t want to do the stuff that comes with Christianity, such as:
Church often feels like a social gathering—a way to meet new people. I love my church. If I could pick any church to attend, it’d be the church I’m a member of. So why do I choose sleep over worshiping God on Sunday mornings?
This post isn’t exactly fun to write, but I am making it public in the hopes that it might help someone who may feel similarly. I’ve been seeing posts written by other women about the topic of postpartum adjustments and it feels important to add my voice to the mix. Continue reading “Learning to Love My Son”
One of my favorite holiday movies is It’s A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. The reason that it’s one of my favorite movies is because of the message it sends to me. Toward the end of the movie, George Bailey is down on his luck and is considering suicide. His guardian angel, Clarence, gives him the rare opportunity to see life as if he’d never been born. The insight George gains is invaluable. He sees the effect his life has on people—things he’d never thought of before. And It’s A Wonderful Life always reminds me that my life is worth something. And that I don’t know how many lives I’ve positively touched or even saved by my very existence.
In the greater scheme of things I can identify with George Bailey in the death of dreams. George’s dream was to travel the world then go off to college. Instead after his father dies, he takes the helm at the community bank his father owned. This reminded me of my dream to be a successful magazine editor in New York City. Instead I got married (a bit like George’s life) and settled in suburban Philadelphia with my husband. George too gets married to Mary and settles in his hometown of Bedford Falls instead of traveling the world. Now, George’s life didn’t turn out bad just like mine has been all right. In the end, George is reminded that family, friends, and love are what will get him through life. I’d make a slight tweak to that: God, family, friends, and love are what will get me through this life. It’s A Wonderful Life reminds me that I truly have a lot to be thankful for.
I haven’t posted on this blog in a long time, and it’s mainly because I haven’t had anything of consequence to say. I like to post when I have profound things to spout, and that hasn’t been the case in the past few weeks/months. Elections have come and gone (I knew Obama would win re-election), disasters have come and gone (Sandy hit NY and NJ hard), and places have come and gone (I’m no longer at the library where I first began my library job).
I’ve taken to writing nearly daily in a bound journal. I don’t know that it’s always cathartic, but it is very helpful to my ability to sort my feelings out about different matters. Take, for instance, God.
I received Anne Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow book from Barnes & Noble today. Yay! I read it in just over an hour. She refers to God as some sort of maternal deity but I like the paternal-ness of the Bible. That might be because I miss my own father.
What did I learn? There are three essential prayers: help, thanks, and wow. I’d agree with this, if for nothing else, in the texting age, it is much easier and more succinct to communicate those three words than to write out the entire Lord’s Prayer. I believe “wow” acknowledges the greatness and awesomeness of God while “thanks” expresses our gratitude. Then “help” is our supplication. We are asking—maybe even begging—for an answer to our request.
Perhaps I’ve written about this before—probably likely on a blog—but God answers all prayers with the following answers: Yes, No, Not Yet. Not Yes is where [my husband] and I are in our prayer for a child. No is God’s answer to me becoming a successful, let alone GOOD singer. Yes is God’s answer to me being able to freelance.
Not Yet is the most common answer from God, I believe, because He rarely answers prayer definitively right away. Our prayer for a child isn’t necessarily “no,” it’s “not yet.” For four years, God’s answer to [a friend] who sought a full-time position of employment was “not yet.” Clearly His answer was not “no” or [he] would not be gainly employed right now. But not yet can feel a lot like “no.” And in some ways, it is “no”—for the time being. God has said no to J and I for the time being about having a child. But it’s a synonym for not yet. This I believe.
I kinda went on a tangent about prayer and getting it answered, but I’ve probably said before, I’m not as orthodox about God as I used to be. … But is it OK to think that God is maternal? Like an Aunt Jemima, pancake-flippin’ black lady with an apron on as depicted in The Shack? I guess so. Why not right? Male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). God’s got to have some maternal in him to create females, right? And all humans are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
[Next entry]
I don’t think I got around to writing about what I wanted to write about yesterday: how I feel about God. I do believe Jesus is the only way to heaven but apart from that, all hell could break loose. I believe in love. Whether it’s Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve. I don’t believe Catholicism is a one-way ticket to hell. Female ministers are not the worse things in Christendom. And go ahead and baptize little babies if that’s your fancy. I’m a liberal. Oh noes! I believe in developing one’s spirituality. Jesus Christ and him glorified. But at what cost? I don’t believe in beating my coworkers over the head with proselytizing (like I used to).
I’ve come so far from my emergent church posts. Maybe I’m Rob Bell-ish now. Maybe Love Wins. Maybe I can refer to God as her. (Although I probably won’t.)
All I really know for certain is love is all there is. —Sheryl Crow
Toward the end of my semester at New York University (NYU), my roommate threw up all over my carpet after getting drunk with her swimming buddies. I made the mistake of relaying this to my pastor at the time. Let’s call him Pastor Joe. I honestly never found the appeal of getting drunk and having a hangover, and not only that, I considered drunkenness (even ingesting alcohol at the time) sin.
During the summer, my summer roommate decided to bring a guy home and sleep with him in the same bed in our room. Wow. They thought I was sleeping but I crept out of the room and went home to my mother’s house on Long Island that night. After telling Pastor Joe about this particular incident, he said to me:
You don’t need live in filth and ungodliness such as your roommate throwing up on your carpet and other roommates bringing guys into your room. You need to get out of that and go to a Christian college where you can grow in your faith, love, and knowledge of the Lord.
I did as Pastor Joe said. And while God used my decision to bring about good, I now recognize that leaving NYU was one of the worst decisions I could make as a Christian. Continue reading “Bad Advice from a Pastor: Separation of Christians and non-Christians”
Yesterday, I discovered some communication that took a potshot at my work, which was very painful. I suppose the worst part of it was that I didn’t think it was so bad. I had the feeling I’d been getting the runaround in some way, which has really been frustrating, and quite frankly, unprofessional.
My husband encouraged me to forgive the person who hurt me, but honestly, I just could not find a way to. Not yet. I Corinthians 13: 4-8 lists the key qualities of love (which the followers of Jesus are supposed to live out):
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
The NIV translation says this:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
On Sunday, my pastor preached a bit on forgiveness and said challenged the congregation:
Is it really forgiveness if you say, ‘Oh, I forgive you but you really hurt me!’ or ‘I forgive you but you have to pay’ or ‘I forgive you’ then bring the incident up again later? No, it’s not forgiveness.
I am not forgiving because I will talk about this again. I will bring this up again later. I currently am all the the things I should not be: irritable, resentful, unkind, impatient, self-seeking, and keeping a record of wrong, among many other things. My pastor said forgiveness is not a one-time act; it’s a process. I will need to forgive the person who hurt me again and again.
I just can’t right now. Not yet. But I am determined to.
And somehow, I’m supposed be thankful in all things, which actually, this situation has made a bit easy in that I’m thankful I will not have to interact with these people on a daily basis!
Before I became a born-again Christian at 16 years old, my problem at that time was that I didn’t have enough “self-esteem” and “self-confidence.” I didn’t believe in myself enough, and I didn’t try hard enough to believe in myself (which to be honest, I didn’t because I was an angsty, grungy teenager who thought it was cool to revel in my depression and suicidal bent).
Enter in born-again fundamentalist Christianity.
Fundamentalist Christianity says that one must not believe in self and only in Jesus Christ. Fundamentalist Christianity has no room for self-esteem, requiring a believer to place his or her trust solely in Jesus Christ.
Then I entered Protestantism and encountered a softer version of the same thing: Solo Christo! (This really refers to a theological belief of salvation, but this is the prescription of many orthodox Christians when it comes to problems with self-esteem.)
For a long time then, I believed self-esteem and self-confidence were wrong. I eschewed these things because my sole worth should be found in God and not in myself. I engaged in “worm” theology: Oh, I’m such an awful, terrible sinner. There is no righteousness in me. All righteousness is found in God, and I’m poor, pathetic, pitiful soul. I suck at life and I’m so lucky God saved me because I’m totally worthless otherwise.
Beginning last week, I started reading Jillian Michaels’s book, Unlimited: How to Live an Exceptional Life, and started seriously thinking, Maybe it’s time for me to walk away from Christianity because I like what Jillian’s saying about reclaiming and recapturing my life. I want to have self-esteem. I want to have self-confidence. I want to stop obsessing and feeling like a poor, pathetic little shit all the time.
But as I got further and further into Jillian’s book, I realized that a lot (not all) of what she says actually lines up with scripture. (Her chapter on Forgiveness and Accepting Responsibility was so solid, it blew me away.) And I realized that self-esteem and self-confidence do NOT need to contradict Christianity and God’s word. How?
In Mark 12, a scribe comes up to Jesus to test him. The scribe asks, “What is the greatest commandment?”
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” —Mark 12:29-31
So Jesus lays it down: we are to love God with everything we have first. Then we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
The assumption is we already love and esteem ourselves. If we do not, how are we able to love and esteem others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3)? So one must tackle the challenge of learning to love and esteem oneself first before being able to truly love and esteem others better. Consistently treating others better than you treat yourself leads to an erosion of self-love and a path to possible codependency and people-pleasing (needing the approval of others).
An example: think of the mom who sacrifices herself on the altar of her children. This mother is constantly shuttling her kids to soccer practice, gymnastics, ballet class, and Boy Scouts but never takes any time for herself, investing her life in her children at great detriment to her health. She will likely be one stressed out and unhappy mommy. She may have high blood pressure, feel dizzy, and tired all the time. Yet think of the other mom who shuttles her three kids to the exact same activities (still investing immensely in her kids) but once a month, goes to a spa to relax and get pampered. Three times a week, she jogs outdoors for 20 minutes simply to clear her head. Maybe she’ll even join a bi-monthly knitting group so she can engage in her own hobbies so she is invested in herself enough so that she can take care of her children. The latter mom is likely to be in an overall healthier position (mentally and physically) than the former.
A person who invests in herself first is better able to love and serve those around her. I do a better job helping people on 7 hours of sleep than I do 4 hours.
All this talk of self-love is probably making some Christians twitchy. It sounds odd and new age-y. But remember, Jesus assumed that we would already love ourselves and from that, commands us to love our neighbor. As Christians, if we don’t love ourselves, we are sinning. Continue reading “Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence: Shedding “Worm” Theology”
[This is part VII of a multi-part series on Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. Note: Chapter 4 has been broken up into four parts. Chapter 4, part I can be found here.]
Bell continues to expound on the concept that “In the Bible, God is not helpless . . . powerless . . . and [not impotent].” Then he goes through a series of his Socratic questions about God’s attributes and why people were created. And he frames the discussion in a way where it’s either God gets what God wants by all people being saved or God doesn’t get what God wants because some do not.
“God in the end doesn’t get what God wants, it’s declared, because some will turn, repent, and believe, and others won’t. . . . Although we’re only scratching the surface of this perspective—the one that says we get this life and only this life to believe in Jesus—it is safe to say that this perspective is widely held and passionately defended by many in our world today.”
There’s your orthodox Christian view of hell.
“Others hold this perspective (that there is this lifetime and only this lifetime in which we all choose one of two possible futures), but they suggest a possibility involving the image of God in each of us.”
I have no idea what perspective this is. A Christian mystic perhaps?
“. . . And then there are others who can live with two destinations, two realities after death, but insist that there must be some kind of ‘second change’ for those who don’t believe in Jesus in this lifetime. . . . At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.”
Bell never comes right out and says it but the reader gets the sense that this is the view Bell aligns with. And this view sounds a bit like purgatory in the sense that there’s judgment for wrongs committed in this lifetime but that eventually God will soften a person’s heart and allow him or her to turn to God’s presence. It’s a nice view but one that I don’t see supported by the Bible despite Bell’s support of Jesus saying in Matthew 19 that “there will be a ‘renewal of all things’ and Paul in Colossians 1 says that through Christ “God was pleased to . . . reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (The context of Colossians seems to actually make Bell’s argument weaker because Paul mentions a few verses later “if indeed you continue in the faith” giving me the impression that one needs to believe in Paul’s teachings.)
To add further support to his argument, Bell drops heavyweight names like church fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen from the third century and Gregory of Nyssa and Eusebius in the fourth century. Clement of Alexandria appears to have been a gnostic Christian (a Christian form widely rejected by mainstream and orthodox Christianity), Origen was Clement’s student, and Eusebius seems to have been a student of Origen (although Eusebius seems to be considered well-respected church father). Bell pushes the idea that “the ultimate reconciliation of all people to God” was a common belief in early church history. (Hence, how Bell gets away with saying at the beginning of the book that he’s not saying anything new.)
Although Bell tries to shift the wording slightly to attribute it to these early church fathers, the reader can tell that Bell’s leanings are in this category:
“Central to their trust that all would be reconciled was the belief that untold masses of people suffering forever doesn’t bring God glory. Restoration brings God glory; eternal torment doesn’t. Reconciliation brings God glory; endless anguish doesn’t. Renewal and return cause God’s greatness to shine through the universe; never-ending punishment doesn’t.”
I am really, really resisting the urge to fire Socrates-like hypothetical questions after that quote because it haughtily assumes that Bell knows the mind of God and what brings Him glory in the end. Do I want suffering, torment, anguish, and punishment to be what brings God glory? No. And does it? From my perspective, I don’t think so either. But I can’t determine anything from God’s perspective. Since I am not God, I cannot definitely determine or define what brings Him glory.
[This is part VI of a multi-part series on Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. Note: Chapter 4 has been broken up into four parts. Chapter 4, part II can be found here.]
Bell starts off this chapter with actual statements from church websites:
“The unsaved will be separated forever from God in hell.”
“Those who don’t believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal punishment in hell.”
“The unsaved dead will be committed to an eternal conscious punishment.”
Then Bell notes what I’m assuming he considers a paradox:
“Yet on these very same websites are extensive affirmations of the goodness and greatness of God, proclamations and statements of beliefs about a God
who is
‘mighty,’
‘powerful,’
‘loving,’
‘unchanging,’
‘sovereign,’
‘full of grace and mercy,’
and “all-knowing.'”
Bell seems to pit these statements as either/or as though they contradict one another. God can’t be all of this good stuff and then do all this seemingly bad stuff that these websites claim. But the Old Testament God was a wrathful, violent (yes, I said it) God who also possessed immense mercy and love. When he brought judgment, it wasn’t because He did it out of spite or was a temperamental woman suffering from PMS; He would send out repeated warnings for repentance before executing judgment. There is justice for wrongdoing, and Bell seems to overlook that God is not only a loving parent but a fair and just judge. Later on, he writes:
“I point out these parallel claims:
that God is mighty, powerful, and “in control”
and that billions of people will spend forever apart from this God, who is their creator,
even though it’s written in the Bible that
‘God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim. 2)So does God get what God wants?
How great is God?
Great enough to achieve what God sets out to do,
or kind of great
medium great
great most of the time,
but in this,
the fate of billions of people,
not totally great.
Sort of great.
A little great. …Will all people be saved,
or will God not get what God wants?Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end?”
First of all, why does God’s greatness need to be defined solely by our view of what great should look like? Just like the Bible verse that says that God will give us the desires of our heart… well, no. I haven’t gotten all the desires of my heart. God changes my heart to make my desires reflect his. I can’t inject my view of what my desires should look like and allege that God has failed me on this. In this, I think Bell’s view of God and His greatness is actually too small.
Bell continues on with scripture verses that support God’s affirmations of love and determination to save everyone. He quotes Paul in Philippians 2:
“‘Every knee should bow . . . and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.’
All people.
The nations.
Every person, every knee, every tongue.”
Agreed. But those actions may not necessarily be done willingly.
Dollhouse image from cutiebeauty.com, House images from hpadesign.comWhenever I beat myself senseless over my sinfulness and wretchedness, I need to quote this to myself:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. —Ephesians 3:14, 17-19
Humans are awful, sinful, wretched people—before God and others. There is truth in “worm theology,” but a Christian cannot stay there. A Christian must move past the idea of being a horrible, terrible person (an idea on which I tend to dwell) and move into the light of God’s grace and forgiveness. Yes, my sin is big but the love of God is so much bigger.
Think of your sin as being the size of a dollhouse. Now think of the magnitude of the bedroom that the dollhouse stays in. That’s pretty big, right? Now, imagine the house that holds the room (and other rooms) that the dollhouse resides in. The house is enormous compared to the size of the dollhouse. The dollhouse dwarfed by the size of the house; it is swallowed up and certainly not a major focal point in the home.
This is a feeble human analogy in how God’s love swallows up our sin. In God’s love, our sin is not a major focal point even though it is there. Just as someone walking into a home would not dwell on a small dollhouse in a large home, so God does not want us to dwell on our sin in comparison to His great love.
Yes, this is what I have learned today, and that’s the verse I have been challenged to memorize.
I have always wondered: Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? I think I would have rather never loved at all.
Who am I… as a Christian?
As a Bible-believing Christian, this topic could be endless.
Under the banner of Christianity, I am a number of things:
The list goes on. But what does that mean for me as an individual?
I read God’s Plans For You by J. I. Packer in the hopes that I’d get some kind of divine revelation as to who I’m supposed to be. Nothing of the sort happened. Although I did gain some further insight as to what kind of individual God wants me to be.
An erroneous thought circulating in Christian circles is that, above all things, God wants us all to be happy. Above all things, God wants Christians to be holy. Achieving that apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit is no easy task. What does the pursuit of holiness mean? (Another good book for me to read.) It means going after the things that are pleasing to God and pursuing the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
Here’s where God has led me in my Christianity so far:
That’s about as individual as it gets right now. There’s nothing profound or earth-shattering in this post. It’s simply an attempt to get me to figure out who I am as a Christian.
This Journey Is My Own 