It's been a while, I know. Since my last post, I've moved home for the summer, which has been quite the adjustment, as usual. I've spent a lot of time on Netflix, but I've also had the privilege of working VBS with kindergarteners (we had 27 one night!) and joining a semi-regular Cru small group. I've gotten to know my church family, which has been such a blessing. Being away from my roommates has been difficult, but I've seen not only the church, but my life in a whole new way as I spend much of my time physically alone. What I thought would be unbearable has actually been extremely refreshing. I'm going to be a bible study leader in Cru next semester as well as taking a mixture of helpful and horrifying classes. For now, though, I'd like to focus on some recent revelation.
But I was. Almost every summer before college, I'd settle into some sort of online community where I'd socialize often instead of turning to friends from school. It was just my routine. Since getting back from Summer Project, though, I've been more conscious about my spiritual health and wasn't sure how that sort of environment fit in. When I thought of those communities, the word that came to mind was often depraved. I remember how easy it was for me in the past to get completely caught up in that culture and isolate from everything else. I lived two lives in middle school- one on the internet where I could do literally whatever I wanted, and would have done anything to be accepted, and one where I followed all the rules in my day-to-day life. I didn't want to go back to that. I was scared, selfish, and unsure. Those places are dark and carnal and didn't seem conducive at all to Christian growth. But I was wrong. That got shoved in my face by the Holy Spirit initially when my dear Christ-following Canadian friend sent me an email to check up on me and invited me to a new sort of community with some old friends called Discord. They had a server where the people who used to play together chatted and she asked me to join. Out of nowhere came an opportunity to reconnect with friends I hadn't talked to in ages and maybe even meet some new people. Just to give you an idea of our sort of friendship, I'll include one of my favorite images representative of it. I'm the purple one, in case you weren't sure. The first night reuniting with these old friends I had the opportunity to share the gospel with the green guy in that picture. He's culturally Catholic and about to start college in the fall. I got to talk about how we all suck in comparison to God's glory so we need Jesus to save us from our sin. Several others in the chat read along. To say I wasn't expecting that is certainly understating it. I anticipated life updates--not immediate opportunities to share Christ. As I met more of the people who had integrated into this community while I was away, I was ultimately struck by how broken all of these people are. One woman in particular, in a rare moment of vulnerability, shared how she'd just finished her last cancer treatment. That revelation was quickly followed by brushing off the intensity of that statement with making fun of the faults of others. At first, I bristled at the way she compensated for her brokenness, but then I realized we all do that. I was struck by how we all seek to compensate for where we struggle and how we're called to emulate Christ in the midst of our brokenness. He shocked the culture and brought healing with his message of redemption. Jesus walked right into the middle of the darkness and didn't flinch. And this was certainly darkness. People are hateful and quick to find fault. They're vulgar and seek inappropriate closeness. They point to other things to keep people from looking too closely at themselves. But we are each called to be light. We're called to go further than the personas people put up and bring light where there is none. Jesus brought grace and truth to both the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus. He looked past who they were in their (respectively different) sin and saw the people they were designed to be. I pray we all learn to do the same- to see people with the eyes of Jesus, because in reality, when the pit of others' sin looks to deep, it's because we've forgotten the enormity of our own. Paul was able to effectively minister after a past filled with the directed slaughter of Christians because he understood that Jesus meant redemption. He called himself the chiefest of sinners, and his words were proclaimed at my church on the pulpit last Sunday.
When we look at people who seem in too deep, we need to squash the impulse that whispers we are better. We are not. We will never be. But Jesus Christ is.
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AuthorTwenty-something kind-of-adult woman trying to navigate her future, her calling, and her God. Archives
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