thoughts

In preparation for our gathering tonight, I had to re-read my book. So far I have to say that I haven't connected with it as much as others. But it made me think this afternoon about church culture, secret sin, labels, and being a friend of sinners. A little more than a year ago, I was asked to speak to our student ministry at Carrollton. Reid gave me the topic I was supposed to cover and I could've spoken about it, but that would be too easy. I guess after seeing so many marginalized people in my work life and with the Corbins being who they are, I decided to speak without preparing.

As I spoke, I could see a few of the kids expressions. They looked uncomfortable and I could feel it. I began to speak about things that were only difficult to live through, but hard to hear. And I didn't get any positive response back, there was no warmth, only true examples of the life Christ changed. In those few minutes, I feel like I changed the way those kids would look at me forever not because of what I did but because I was honest about my struggles. I no longer held the title of "having it together". And I feel like the less we know about people, the better we feel about our own failures because there is less of a connection. And that is precisely why we don't serve people because if we saw the needs in others, we wouldn't be able to ignore how close we all are to being them or accepting the fact that we have issues with getting our own junk together. (I'm assuming that we are thinking we are better than the people we're serving...its an American mindset).

After speaking, I sat down at the base of the stairwell and processed a bit. I didn't know if I had done the right thing. Shortly after, Tim came and sat down beside me. He put is arm around me and said, "You've done well, Jess. I'm proud of you." About 5 minutes later, he offered me a job. Its not so scary to put things out there. I'm no illusionist and don't care to be one.