I no longer accept it

Over Christmas vacation I watched an old video of myself. I was in my early twenties: bright-eyed and bushy-tailed...full of hope and expectation for the future. I was sharing with a group of people how God had showed me I was built to work in the entertainment industry!

I still remember what He told me back then, and I still stand by it. But there was another element that I feel was more influenced by the Christian culture I was in at the time. The ministry I was a part of said... to think of what makes you the most angry in the world, and use that as a clue to what you're called to do.

At the time, I was angry about teenagers not knowing there was a better way to live. That media always only portrayed sex without complications and consequences, divorce and abortion without trauma...and no indication that "living a different lifestyle with some self-discipline could actually save you from a lot of pain."

But I realized...as I watched this video, that my anger has shifted. I'm no longer as angry that media doesn't show that the alternatives to those behaviors/lifestyles as equally viable options. I'm angry that no one has the opportunity to make their own choices about fear, pain, and death.

And the church is just as complicit in this lie.

Whether in the world or within ministries, we never hear that it's even possible to live without them. Christ came to save us from sin! But...fear, pain, death? The things that really hurt us on a daily basis...those were apparently too big for Him to tackle? Or...not on His priority list?...cuz He just cares about our eternal souls, not our physical and mental anguish in this life.

Or...worst of all...He took care of sin but let those things linger to teach us to...overcome sin? Wait, What?

No one ever told me.

No one ever told me that Christ's loving sacrifice had just as much to do with rescuing us from fear, pain and DEATH as from sin.

We're taught to COPE with fear, pain and death...not to believe we have complete freedom from it. The holy messages we hear from the pulpit are "cope" or "learn from"...but rarely is it whispered we could actually be FREE from them. That God is THAT good.

That is my new anger.

That is what my life is lived to reveal...that along with "salvation of our souls" we ALSO get complete peace, healing, and immortality. God. Is. That. Good.

I also admit that even as I write this, I struggle with the paradox that...we do learn things and often draw closer to God through pain. And that we are able to do great things in the midst of fear and anxiety. And even if we don't achieve immortality in this body, the greatest gift is eternal life in our spirit with Christ.

But if I've learned anything about God in this last few years of "deconstruction"...it's that He is much more mysterious...much more paradoxical...and much BETTER than we have yet believed. And so I'm forced to hold that paradox in my hands...and wrestle with it. Wrestle with the fact I have conquered fear...but still struggle with pain in my body. With the fact that I KNOW immortality and health were given to me, now, in this body...but I haven't experienced the fullness of it yet. And neither have many of the spiritual mentors I look to in this new creation path.

Yet I won't revert back to believing it wasn't part of Christ's magnificent gift. He didn't stop at giving us eternal spirit-life. He took the keys of death. He resurrescted, and transfigured in his earthly body...to show us we could too.

So yes...I still struggle with the paradox. But I no longer accept that living despite fear and pain and death is just "a given" even for those who are IN Christ.

I no longer accept fear, pain, and death...even as I still experience pain. I accept it in the moment, and I don't except it as my truest reality. And it doesn't make sense....even as it's the only thing that actually does make sense...if Christ truly gave us...everything.