parched.

actually, tony's comment does make me want to explain a little.

i want to make sure anyone who reads this blog is clear about this: i strongly believe in the Church.

i love it. move in it. dream of it. i'll quote my friend josh and say, "at the core of who we are, we believe in the Church."

no where in me is there ill will toward the family of God. i rejoice in it and find great joy in it.

that being said, part of who i am is someone who is moved and motivated by the sever there is inside of our family. and part of who i am is a girl who has seen a lot of buildings who claim to have been built in the name of the Lord (and maybe they were...thankfully that is not mine to judge). and in those buildings, i have seen a lot of spiritual carnage take place. i have seen whole people broken and broken people shattered. i have seen the timid given cause to run. i have seen the bold shamed. i have seen pride grow. i have seen hatred birthed. i have seen ugliness at its deepest. all within the walls of the church.

i have also seen the most beautiful movements of grace...the kind that changes lives. i have seen hearts healed. i have seen patience and peace beyond understanding. i have seen love as that thing that is deeper than verbs, adjectives, or emotions...that thing that exists like a friend sitting next to you. i have seen it in reality. all within the people of Church.

i don't want to preach the negative. that's not my hope. but in my heart of hearts, i'm really processing all of this. sitting in justin's office once, i told him that i didn't want to be anything like "them"..."them" being the christians you read about who do nothing but remind people how often they fall short...who shame and guilt and bury people inside their failings. who exemplify all the opposites of grace. but justin's words (which will forever stir around in me) were those of gentle reprimand. you don't achieve "right" by studying "wrong" and doing the opposite. your focus is misplaced. you find yourself staring at them...and in you grows all the things that you wanted to run from: hatred, shame, guilt, condemnation, judgement. instead, he said, you keep your eyes on Right. you study Him. that's how you become who you want to be.

and i have worked ever since that conversation toward that. refusing the judgement and the condemnation and the shame and embracing the grace, the love, the joy. but still in me is this frustration that the world has misunderstood. someone out there is making them afraid. someone out there is telling them that He isn't who i know Him to be. and it seems like more often than not, that someone is speaking from inside the church. and that frustrates me. i can't even call myself a Christian anymore because it doesn't mean what my heart wishes it meant. i wish...oh how i wish that when someone heard the word "Christian", they thought, "you know...those people who love everybody." but we don't. we destroy and maim and violate and betray. and i know grace covers it, but at what point are we allowed to get angry about it? at what point is it okay to be frustrated? i don't want to walk around angry. but i want to see a change. i want to see love exude instead of politics inside the church. i want to see people taken care of instead of left out to dry. i want to see life being valued and truth and integrity and intimacy. i want to see needs met and marriages healed and families restored and friendships thriving and life...i want to see abundant life! this is not what i see. and i'm frustrated.

but i don't know what to do about it. i don't want to jump into another congregation, hoping this time it will be different. i don't think my standards are so impossible. i just want to see Jesus first. that's all. really. and now that i've had a taste of that, i don't know how to ever EVER go back. it can't be a coincidence that the most intimate with my God i have ever been has been in this last season...the first one i've ever spent outside of a church.

but my heart is parched for it. i miss conversations like chapped lips miss water. i miss singing together. i miss clapping. i miss sharing my joy and my ache and my life. i miss it so deeply. but i can't...i just can't throw myself into the imitation again. so i probably shouldn't write a song about it. because i don't know how to get it any shorter than this.

He is so good. and i get that now more than i ever have. He really doesn't fail. that has turned out to be true even through the times i doubted it. and He really does offer endless amounts of insane grace...grace that makes no sense and follows no one's rule...grace that simply floods into the deep places. it's such a cool thing. why can't we just collectively live in that? why doesn't that pervade every single flipping thing we do to each other and within each other and among each other? i don't get it. there are incredible people out there! people who offer this insane thing of grace. there are more of them, even, than the other. but somehow the others demand to be more public...more seen...more known...and therefore more representative. and that's what bums me out. (please don't assume i'm talking personally about anyone in particular...i am speaking of the "Christian Culture".)

i didn't mean to rant that much. there's just so much good that isn't being seen and it makes me a little frustrated.