sharing and having faith

A few weeks ago during a brief, rare moment of calm at work when several of us nurses had a moment to sit down and catch our breaths between patient crises, a coworker of mine and I started shooting the breeze about our families. She asked what my husband did for a living.

(Side note: I am always tempted to say that he has a "normal day job", meaning he does not go to work at the same hour that rats scurry out of their holes to forage for nightly food scraps... but I digress:)

I told her, "He's the Administrative Director for our church," which was naturally followed up by the question, "Where do you go to church?" I tell her. And when I tell her it's a non-denominational church, she asks me with complete honest curiosity, "What does that mean, non-denominational? I grew up going to a Catholic church that I hated, and I didn't know what that was about, either." And I found myself at a complete loss. I stared at her, sort of open-mouthed and dumbfounded, and stammered out something lame like, "Uh, well, it means that we don't belong to a particular denomination." Equal confused look on her face, and then the inevitable, "Well, what is it that you BELIEVE, exactly?"

Struck dumb. I was struck DUMB. I don't remember what I told her in response, but it wasn't the intelligent, theologically-rich response I was racking my brain for, nor was it the honest, heartfelt, simple explanation of the grace I've received in my life. No, it was something I probably wouldn't want to reprint for the world to see here on this blog. It likely involved a lot of hemming, hawing, and "I'm not really sure..." statements. Whatever the answer was, I think my coworker came away more confused than anything. There was shrugging of shoulders and confused smiles involved on both sides, and then a patient call bell went off, and the moment was gone in the flurry of the night.

I have offered up prayers in the past that God would send someone just like her to my doorstep - or, in this case, to my nurses' station - someone who is genuinely, sweetly curious about my relationship with God, who asks a simple question about why I believe what I believe, why I follow Jesus, why I sing songs to Him and about Him in praise, why my life is any different and any more worth having than someone who gets to sleep in on Sunday mornings and whose only encounter with a Bible is to move it off the hotel nightstand. Someone who isn't demanding a intellectually solid argument of the existence of God, someone who isn't looking to cut me down, but someone who is genuinely searching, seeking, interested to hear what God means to me. That moment at the nurses' station felt like one of those beautiful, fragile Faberge eggs people collect, handed to me ever so delicately (albeit unexpectedly) and I DROPPED IT.

The busyness of the night prevented me from dwelling too much on the moment - truthfully, I'd sort of forgotten about it all until a few days ago when, of all things, I was logging onto my computer and getting my Twitter messages and updates. A good friend of mine writes about having lunch with another one of my good friends, and he says of their time together, "God is doing great things through that girl." I totally agreed. And then I remembered.

I think that, deep down inside, I really want someone to affirm me and let me know that God is doing great things through me, too. It's not because I want another person's affirmation just to make me feel better, but to have confirmation that I am not spiritual milquetoast, a bump on a log who goes through life just trying to not ruffle any feathers or get anyone upset or angry. Sure, I wish that I hadn't suffered such an acute episode of Brain Fart when my coworker approached me about my faith, but even more than that, I wish that the Brain Fart episode was just an isolated incident of a jumbled tongue and not pointing to the bigger spiritual void in my heart.

I wish that I was more certain, had the confirmation in my heart that God was indeed doing great things through me, no matter whether someone else said (twittered) it or not. I wish that I didn't care so much about offending other people or making them feel uncomfortable, or always trying to find the correct, polite, balanced thing to say. I wish I could use the term "radical" when describing my faith. I wish that I didn't feel like the only one in the small group of church staff and spouses who struggles every single day to find the desire to meet with God, particularly when things are going poorly and I turn to just about everything and everyone else for relief first. I wish that just simply quieting myself before God didn't feel so complicated to me, so ridden with guilt that I've been away for so long, so unsure of what to say or do or read in my Bible. I wish that I didn't feel like such a phony when I get up each Sunday to help lead my church in worship, wondering if everyone (particularly my bandmates and aforementioned church leadership people) can see right through me. I wish that when someone asks me what I believe, I search my heart and not my brain for the right words, and that I would find a simple love and faith resting right there, not cobwebs and empty worries.

I wish that writing this felt easier, but confessions by their nature are never easy. Nor are they altogether comfortable when you know your audience includes people from whom you've tried to hide your spiritual immaturity/immobility all this time, though I suspect it was probably never well-hidden, like a huge red pimple on the end of one's nose that even the best makeup job cannot completely hide. It's gone through several drafts and several more moments of wondering what sort of comments I'm going to get back, whether there is head-shaking and pity on the other side of the computer screen, whether judgment lies in the shadows.

This wasn't the post I intended for today, but it feels like the beginning of a journey back home. And that's what this month is all about - home. Admitting all of this is bigger than I can adequately put into words, but I'm tired of carrying it around on my shoulders and blithely blathering on about smaller stuff as if it doesn't affect every thing I do. I'm tired of not being able to do this on my own, or of my own willpower, though I would have NEVER admitted that's what I was doing before now. I'm laying it down for you, laying it down in front of Jesus, and I'm ending this post now to go sit quietly and listen to Him. I'm hoping He'll take it from there.

See you tomorrow...