Taking off the good girl mask

When I was a little girl I learned about what was right and wrong. In my mind it was perfectly black and white and I intended to be on the right side of it all. In church I learned that Christian girls don't swear, drink, smoke, and they don't have sex until they're married. Those were the golden rules of being a good Christian girl. If you don't follow those rules, you are morally impure and have highly questionable faith. However, if you do follow those rules, you're the golden child. The model of the modern Christian teen. 

So, I took that all to heart and tried my best to follow all the rules and guidelines to succeed as a good girl. On the outside, teenage Laura was a perfect good girl. I didn't go to parties, I didn't fraternize with the "bad" kids. I was very involved in my church. I went on mission trips and I lead bible studies. I built walls of "righteousness" around me to reflect my "goodness", while inside those walls there was a broken, messy girl. Church taught me to follow rules and play a certain part, not to be honest about my struggles. Heaven forbid a "good Christian girl" have real problems.

However, the whole time I was emulating the good girl image, I wasn't a good girl at all. The difference was, instead of being transparent about my bad girl parts, I just hid them and kept them a secret. I didn't want my Christian peers to see me as the "bad girl". It's much easier to play the part and lock away the "badness" within. 

Here's the enormous problem with that idea. That is the opposite of Christian living. Being a Christian is 0% about following rules. The whole point of Christianity is that we receive love and grace without having to do anything. God pours out his love on us not because of what we do, but simply because he loves us. He loves me, good girl parts and bad girl parts combined. And by putting on a mask of fake "goodness", I diminished the power of that love. Truthfully, I am an imperfect person loved by a perfect God. 

I always have been. By wearing a good girl mask, I was even more of a sinner than without it. Being dishonest about where you're at and what kind of person you are is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, you're not being a genuine person. And secondly, you're being a terrible witness to people around you by pretending Christianity is about following certain rules. People focus so much on outside behaviours and not enough on what's going on inside. The Bible says that men judge by what they see but God judges your heart. So what's going on inside, the things that are unseen, are of primary importance. 

In Matthew 23:25-26 Jesus uses a metaphor of dirty dishes to illustrate this problem. "You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." 

Being clean and pretty and "good" on the outside means absolutely nothing. God cares way more about what's going on inside your heart. You focus on that stuff first and then the outside will clean itself.

It's stupid to wear a mask. It's not what Christianity is about and it's not helpful to anyone. You're not a good girl or a good boy so cut the crap. We all have some bad girl-ness and bad boy-ness inside. That's just a part of being human. And you know what? God's ok with that. You think he doesn't know that perfection isn't a human option? Yeah right. You think he did the whole crucifixion thing just for fun? Hardly.

Stop playing the part Christian culture has told you to play, and start playing the part of YOU. Because God doesn't love your mask, he loves YOU. Good parts and bad. 

I've taken off my mask and burned it. I'm a bad girl Christian and that's ok. 

Being a Christian hasn't made me "good", it's made me forgiven and it's made me free. Free to love myself, even though I'm a bad girl, because God loves me.  

The Reality of Depression

There have been lots of challenging things I’ve faced in my life: friend problems, school problems, family problems, and problems I’ve had with myself. I have always been aware that life is not full of rainbows and butterflies. I consider myself to be a fairly strong person; I have been able to negotiate my way through many hard situations over the years. So when I found myself in the hospital on July 7^th, 2013 under psychiatric evaluation even I was shocked.

But to understand this part of my story we’re going to have to backtrack a bit. Earlier that year I had moved to university with a couple issues already weighing on my heart. After the series of relationships I had witnessed breaking at my former church, I felt a little bit abandoned. Living in a new place where I knew almost no one was difficult. And it wasn’t helping that I felt like I didn’t have much to go back to at home. I was in this weird state where the most comfortable place for me, the place I felt the most at home, was on the greyhound bus between my parents’ house and my new school. As the months passed, my feelings of loneliness and worthlessness increased steadily. I spent the majority of my time in my dorm room sleeping, watching movies, and eating cake. I started skipping my classes and I stopped talking to my family.

Eventually I was diagnosed with depression and I started treatment. By the end of the school term in April I had given up on the life I had imagined for myself. If you had asked me in grade 12 what my life would look like after first year, this was not what I would have told you. I was not interested in this life. Believe it or not, a life that is filled with doctor visits, medication, and counselling is not actually that fun. I remember getting my antidepressant prescription filled for the first time. I stared at the bottle of pills and laughed manically for about 5 minutes. I never imagined in my entire life that this is what would happen to me.

And people… yeah people don’t understand.

“Why are you depressed?” Yeah, because I definitely knew the answer to that. Being depressed isn’t being upset or sad. Being depressed is being done.  

I can’t decide whether depression felt more like I was burning alive or drowning. A little bit of both. I could feel the heat. And the lick of the flames as they got close. And as that’s happening I was gasping for air, unable to get any. And I was just sinking deeper and deeper, until the light was gone and all I saw was darkness.

I wasn’t sleeping for 15 hours because I was lazy, it’s because I was constantly exhausted. And no one in this world was more disappointed in me than myself. I couldn’t believe I had become so useless. There was so much I wanted to do and I had lost the capacity to do it.

When you get to that stage, nothing matters. Actually though. I’m not trying to be dramatic. When each step feels like you weigh a million pounds you really don’t want to do anything. Being able to get out of the house at all was a victory. How ridiculously sad is that. It’s sad. And that was my everyday life.

And then sometimes the thoughts come, the really bad ones, the ones you can’t control. It’s like thousands of pictures flashing before your eyes and you want to stop the emotionally painful slideshow but you can’t. It keeps going. And going. All the worst possible thoughts and feelings bombard you and you’re helpless to the abuse. All you can do is curl up on the floor and scream.

And that’s how I ended up in the hospital. You know you’re in trouble when the nurse says “If you try to leave, we’ll have to call the police”. Yay, thanks. I feel so great about life. Yippee.

But alas, here I am. Not in the hospital and actually able to do something with my life again.

Healing is a weird thing. Because, in my opinion, it is more painful than the initial wound. I have been dark places. Very dark places. And sometimes I still live in the shadow of that darkness, but it doesn’t engulf me the same way it used to. I can talk about this now because it’s not my whole life anymore.

Psalm 23 has always been one of favourite passages of the Bible. I used to find it comforting. 

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” 

It all sounds so lovely, so peaceful. And that is true. God does bless us with peace, he does take care of our needs. But, as you read the rest of that passage it says “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” So yea, we will lie down and have rest in green pastures but we will also walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I never used to realize how intense that was. But look at those words. The valley of the shadow of death. That sounds like the least fun place possible. 

And it doesn’t stop there. It also says “You make a place for me at the table of my enemies” So God blesses you and lavishes love on you but he doesn’t keep us from problems or from danger. He doesn’t just put us beside evil. He puts us right in the middle of it all. He prepares a place for us right in the middle of our enemies.

Life is not easy. And receiving blessings from God doesn’t mean a house and a car and 2  kids and summer vacations and a good pension. It says that nowhere in the bible. The richest blessings we can receive are outlined in Galatians when Paul talks about the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the best things in the whole world. That’s what life is about. If you have gained any of those things in your life, you have been richly blessed. Blessed beyond anything else you could have asked for.

But sometimes gaining those blessings isn't pleasant. Sometimes you have to be broken down to be built up correctly. 

So even though the last year has felt like a living hell, I wouldn't want to change it. There were some not-so-right things about past Laura that have been fixed. And there are some not-so-right things about present Laura that I'm sure will be fixed. It probably won't be pretty, but I'm sure it won't be for nothing.

One of the (many) problems with Church

What is church? What are churches? What is the main purpose? What is the point? How can organizations that are supposed to serve God also be powerful forces in the evil that happens in this world?

I think the main problem occurs when churches see themselves as God. God and church are very different things.

Jesus is powerful, he is perfect. He is the redeemer, the saviour, the educator, the enlightener. He is good. Everything good comes from God. God is love. He is all-knowing and all-powerful.

The church is made of the followers of Jesus: the people who have recognized the redemption and accepted it. The people who are called to love others as a result of God’s great love that saved them. Sometimes Christians think that because they are called to love as God loves, they can also judge as God judges or discipline as God disciplines. However, that is so very incorrect. God is perfect and sinless, whereas humans are imperfect and sinful. We are ever-affected by our subjective perceptions and realities. There are a whole host of factors that influence every single move we make. How then, are we to have any right to act as God does, to be God? We are not perfect and good; we are primarily self-serving. In most cases we act out of self-interest. And sometimes that’s ok, it doesn't mean we are constantly hurting others. But it does mean that our worldview and scope of reality is very small and focused around ourselves. So as Christians we have no right to act as higher beings. Being a Christian doesn’t mean you’re a good person, it doesn’t mean you’ll make good choices, it doesn’t mean you’ll do good things. As a person progresses in their faith, there should be outward signs of their commitment to God, as we are called to love. But it doesn’t mean people will always do the right thing.

We will all make bad choices.

I was 17 years old when my view of church and Christians was shattered. Through a series of unfortunate events involving dishonest church politics, my family left the church I had attended as a teen. I didn't understand how a pastor and an organization meant to serve God could also deliver such pain. I spent many months crying and yelling in my room, unable to express my pain to anyone else. After that I had a very negative opinion of church and of adults in leadership. I had expected them to be act as God. I had expected them to be Jesus. Obviously, I was let down. No one can live up to that standard. My trust in people was gone. My trust in the church system was gone.

And that’s when I learned the difference between Jesus and the church. Jesus is what Christianity is about: a personal relationship with Jesus. We’re not to depend on others; we’re to depend on Jesus. Jesus doesn’t lie, he doesn’t cheat, and he doesn’t act selfishly. Jesus is dependable, he is worthy of all our attention and praise and dedication. There is no human on earth that has lived or will ever live that deserves that dedication and attention and trust. And if we depend on people, if we look to people to guide us and be there for us, we will always be disappointed.

That doesn’t mean that we aren’t supposed to gather together and be a part of a faith community. That is an important part of being a Christian. But being a part of a faith community isn’t what Christianity is all about. And it certainly isn’t what is going to save you, or support you, or give you strength. 

Everybody sins and falls short of the glory of God. That means that only God holds that glory. So look to God.

Because there is a big difference between God and his followers.

God will not hurt you, he will not wound you, and he will not forsake you. He will not lie, he will not break promises, and he will not cheat you. He will be there for you. He will not let you down.

I can’t say the same for his supporters.

What's Up With Me

Let me tell you some stories. They're not all fun stories, but they're a true stories. They make up my story and my life. I think one of the most important things we can do in life is tell our honest stories. Everyone has one, and they’re usually not pretty. But they are true, and that is worth a lot. Being real is rare these days and it leaves people feeling lost and alone. Well, here’s a story of mine. I’m not going to hold back, I’m not going to censor. If you don’t want to hear sad things or hard things or challenging things then just disregard all of this. The reality of life is that it’s hard and dark and messy sometimes. I apologize in advance for some of the language or topics that might rock the proverbial boat as I write this blog. But I write things as I experience them, and I’m not going to edit out the way I feel in the moment. That wouldn't be authentic. My name’s Laura and I have some issues and stuff. Why am I disgruntled? Because life has made me that way. It's not that I am continuously pessimistic, but rather I see more of the world than I used to and it makes me unsettled. I refuse to believe that things can't improve. In plain language, I've got thoughts and stories to share so here goes nothing...