I think this can be true of any person in any group of people, but it is especially true in conservative (or maybe any) Christian circles.
Daniel (my husband) and I had a late-night conversation with a friend last night that rabbit trailed briefly to this particular topic, and Daniel said something that was almost offensively candid, but true. He said that he admires pastors and preachers who can stand in front of a crowd of Christians and be really and truly vulnerable and honest about sin and struggle, because in order to do that you have to make yourself vulnerable to people who are (often) either willfully or inadvertently ignorant and unaware when it comes to their own sin natures. If even one person in that audience can experience hope and encouragement from the rocky parts of your story it is certainly worth the exposure; however you pay the price of being criticized, reevaluated, and sometimes grossly misunderstood. I know, because I have been the one criticized and I have been the one sitting in the audience doing the criticizing.
When I was pregnant with our firstborn, Daniel and I had several people ask us if we were going to change the year of our wedding date so that Cohen wouldn't one day figure out that he was born only a short three months after Mommy and Daddy got married. It was a strange question that kind of took us off guard a little because the thought hadn't even really crossed our minds. Obviously we had not planned on playing it off like we made the best decisions, had the perfect relationship and were 100% ready for marriage and parenthood when the pregnancy test turned positive. But the thought of changing the tune of God's grace in our lives in order to somehow protect our son from the reality of our sin, or lying about our testimony in order to make some kind of shining example out of ourselves, or even to avoid a complicated conversation in which we might not have all the answers, kind of made me nauseous.
Please don't misunderstand. I am not proud of the person I am apart from the grace of God and I do not take sin or the darker parts of my testimony lightly. But, if I believe in the power and capacity of Jesus to redeem and restore completely, if I give credence to the message of the Gospel that He makes all things new absolutely, if I trust in His work on the cross to accomplish for me what I could never have dreamed to accomplish for myself - righteousness in Him and through His blood, then WHY would I feel the need to cover up a part of my story? How do I teach my son that we overcome by the blood of Jesus and the word of our testimony if I cannot be honest with him about my testimony?
Every time I read the story in the Old Testament of how Jacob wrestled with God and then walked away with a limp, I wonder if he felt the need to lie when asked about how he came to be that way. I doubt it. Because he actually regarded the experience of that night in such a profoundly serious way that he named the place Peniel (face of God) and said "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared." He never wanted to forget, and never wanted anyone else to forget, the reality of his struggle with God.
I have the utmost respect and admiration for the ones who saved sex for marriage, or have never looked at pornography, or didn't... you fill in the blank. I know it isn't and wasn't easy. I know it's an uphill battle. And I know you didn't do it alone. I would LOVE it if my son could follow in your steps and maybe not make some of the mistakes Daniel and I did, or if he could maybe just not have to learn EVERYthing the hard way. I think it's possible.
BUT it breaks my heart to hear stories of kids from conservative religious backgrounds who felt the need to lie on their wedding days in order to gain some kind of stamp of approval from their parents or parents' friends. It breaks my heart to hear stories of kids who have struggled with same-sex attraction for years and found it impossible to talk to anyone about it. I hate that when I'm at church bouncing my sixteen-month old on my hip and someone asks how long Daniel and I have been married, sometimes I am tempted to exaggerate the length of time just a little to avoid the possibility of a raised eyebrow. Because if the Gospel is true then the slip-ups, the struggles, the broken parts of our stories, when met with God's grace, should never bring shame.
"For God, who said, 'Let there be light in the darkness,' has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves." (2 Corinthians 4:6-7)
We are fragile clay jars. And we are fragile clay jars for a reason. And if we try to be anything other than that, how is the world supposed to see the great treasure we have been given? During last night's conversation, Daniel broke down his biggest struggle with Christians today and I have to agree with him. It is that we take the BEST NEWS we could possibly be given, the most mind-blowing, earth-shattering, illuminating revelation of hope and forgiveness and change, the "great treasure" that we have in Jesus, and we screw it up by making it about ourselves. By making it about ourselves we water it down and dumb it down. We make it small. And then we wonder why "the lost" just don't get it, why it isn't relevant, relatable or tangible to "them". And maybe it's because "we" just don't get it.
I'm trying to figure out how this breaks down practically in the here and now today. How can I be real and vulnerable and grace-filled and grace-giving today? Maybe it looks like being honest if I'm overwhelmed by motherhood or marriage, or if our checking account is nearly empty and I'm struggling to trust God for provision for our family, or if I don't have the answer when someone asks me about homosexuality in the church. And maybe it just looks like being honest when someone asks me how long Daniel and I have been married.
The question I keep asking myself is this: Do we want to proliferate more of our own ramshackle, slipshod, broken versions of righteousness or do we want to become and raise up fragile jars of clay who make it clear that what we have is great and real, and not from ourselves? That is the kind of disciple I want to be, Christian I want to be, mom I want to be. And that is the kind of church I would love to be a part of.
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