Tag: Certainty

A Leap from Certainty to Faith

I grew up in a very certain world. My dad worked in a prominent position at Focus on the Family and my mom was both the homemaker and the primary home-school teacher to my brother and I. My dad was home by 5:15pm every night and my mom always had dinner on the table. My mornings started with family devotions over breakfast at 7am and ended with family dinners that often included Scripture memory. Church was on Sunday mornings and Awana’s on Wednesday night. I had the coveted Christian upbringing and the epitome of a “godly family.” Life was scheduled, predictable, and safe. But this certainty came with a pricetag. Our list of rules and regulations of how to live and love others caused us to not only exist within a very confined space but it also forced us to wear a façade. The tiniest bit of doubt or unbelief was seen as weakness. Although it wasn’t overtly stated, the underlying belief was that if you had enough faith and trusted God enough, you should have your shit together. But of course, no one really has all their shit together, so instead, we just pretended like we did. We hid the broken pieces of our lives behind a happy smile or a “I’m blessed” response when asked how we were doing. If people didn’t see our mess, then hypothetically, it didn’t exist. While causing us to hide our true selves, this also caused a level of judgment when it came […]

Today I Choose to Die

During this Lenten season, our church has talked a lot about suffering. Normally no one rejoices over studying such topics, any more than I’ve rejoiced over studying my history with shame while reading Brené Brown. It’s not easy and it often makes us uncomfortable. But for some reason I haven’t found this topic of suffering depressing the way I thought I would. Instead, I’ve found it refreshing and enlightening. The ability to talk about difficult topics such as suffering has added a dimension of rawness and richness to the community of people at our church that have been open to receiving it. It’s allowed space for authenticity where so many other churches practice facades. This past week, our co-pastor Jenny Morgan spoke about the importance of dying before you die, as in the need to let go of certain things in our lives so that when we physically pass away, we are able to do so in peace rather than fighting our physical death out of fear. So as we approach Good Friday and draw near to Easter, I’ve been thinking about the things in my life that I need to put to death in order to make space for fresh new things to take root in my spirit and grow. Here’s what I’ve decided to start with… I choose to put to death perfectionism. The need to perform and put on a good appearance in front of others doesn’t cultivate authentic connection. By letting go of perfectionism, I make room to be gentle […]

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