The Sinner's Creed

Christianity is filled with creed: ideologies, not understood, simply recitations for stone hearts. My heart is far from stone, it's been softened by tears, and overflows with love, joy, and also sadness. These creeds just don't do it for me, they just don't say what I believe. They don't state all of the truths that God has taught me in my life. So here is my creed. It's a sinner's creed, a belief of the broken. Don't judge it harshly, just accept the words of my heart for exactly that. This isn't perfect, this isn't the Truth. This is my heart.


I believe in God. A big strong powerful God. My God is outside of human conception. He neither dwells in time or shape that we can conceive. He's not an old white man, he's whatever speaks to our hearts best. Sometimes God is the big, black momma I wished I always had.


I believe that God created each of us with love and care. He knew our heart long before we were born, or even a thought. He knew, and knows every pain and sorrow, every heartbreak that we will ever endure. He knows all of our joys and passions, and the desires of our hearts. I believe that we were all kissed by God, that he came near to us and breathed his spirit, his Ruach, into us, and has never left since.


I believe that God is Three, and He's one. He's whatever we need, whenever we need it. I believe that his Spirit is in every one of us at every moment, meaning that God lives in us. I believe that God sent a part of himself to live and teach on Earth and show us how to love, and bring Heaven to Earth. I believe that God sacrificed himself to show us the extent of his love, and the sacrificial nature of love. 


I believe that we are all a Beautiful Letdown. We all screw up more than we do it right. We fail more than we succeed. We disappoint, we backstab, we hurt, we kill, we sin, and despite all of this, we are forgiven. I believe that because God forgives, we forgive. I believe that all sins are the same, and no sin is beyond forgiveness. 


I believe that God is all about forgiveness and reconciliation. I think that there is beauty in restoration, and we are called to pray, Thy Kingdom come, and then do it too.


I believe in grace and mercy for the fallen. I believe in compassion for the poor. I believe in generosity, and open hearts. I believe in living simply so that others may simply live. I believe that charity isn't enough, God doesn't give us to give money, he calls us to give our hearts. I believe in being the poor, not just helping them.


I believe in community. I believe that we weren't made to be alone. We need each other, and we find God in each other. We were meant to show God to each other, and find the Spirit of God in each one of us. We were meant to be companions and friends, strugglers along the way, each of us on our Road to Shambala. 


I believe in the power of love. I believe that we were meant to love each of those around us, and love those far away. I believe that we were meant to share generous smiles, and kind words with those both familiar, and strange. 


I believe in callings and signs and spiritual experiences. I believe in open ended questions, and vast, open ideas. I believe in opening the boxes of faith, and releasing God from behind the steel curtains of so many hearts. I believe in lots and lots of questions, and learning to be comfortable in the awkwardness of not knowing. I believe in settling for wonder instead of answers, because without wonder, how could life be wonderful? 


I believe that the Bible can be summed up in two words, Love and Freedom. It's all about being free from the things that bind us, the things that confine us and limit us. It's about freedom from shame, regret, fear, anger, grudges, families, histories. It's about loving God and loving each other.


I believe that it's ok to be afraid and angry and upset. It's ok not to have a happy ending. It's ok to admit that you're not perfect, and that your struggles are present tense, not past. They're still alive and well, not something buried beneath a facade of perfection.


I believe in myself and I believe in you. We are the Body of Christ, and we are children of God. We are the hope of the world, and the heirs of God's kingdom.


These are my beliefs. They are far from perfected, they are far from being all true. This isn't approved or tested theology, this is just the truth in my heart. These are the words in my soul. Welcome to my life (:

Sore eyes, Sore heart

My heart hurts. It's sore and swollen, swollen with love, sore from the heartache. The tears come easily these days. Hurt feels magnified, small slights feel like huge injustices. I'm not sure what happened, I'm not sure who I am. I'm not sure who this girl is with a bitter heart and tears that flow freely. I'm not sure about this stranger who is both happy and sad; thankful and resentful.

My days are filled with friendship and joy and laughter. In the midst of the daylight I bask in the warmth of the sun, feeling so incredibly blessed, yet just about every night I cry. Not quiet, graceful tears, these are loud, angry, broken cries. These are cries that leave me on my knees calling out to God. These are cries that leave me wondering where everything is going wrong. Why the things that I know are right feel so wrong. Why it is so hard to pursue the one thing I've never been surer of. Why commitment breaks everything that I am and tears my heart to pieces.

So I wonder, and I cry. I call out to God with what feels like the same angst as David lamenting over Absalom. My heart is weak, and after the anger and the sadness, the fear sets in. It creeps in and wraps around me. It knocks away my breathe. What if He doesn't hear me? And the tears come again. Every tear is a million fears, a million sadnesses. Every teardrop is a waterfall. My eyes are swollen and my skin is raw, just like my heart. 

But it's going to be ok. I'm going to be ok. You're going to be ok, we're going to be ok. It reminds me of a song I used to sing as a little kid at wilderness camp. "And things go up, and things go down, and the world goes around and around and around, and God lives on." If you don't know the song, it doesn't sound like much, but in the song, the first few lines are rushed and quick with lots of motions, and then everything slows down, and we would bellow with arms extended,our pointer fingers in the air, "And God LIVESSS ONNNNN!"

God has promises for me. He says, "I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will know me for who I really am (Hosea 2:19-23)". He says that, "The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him (Lamentations 3:25)". He says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)". 

Isaiah promises me that, "The Lord will wipe away every tear from every face (25:8)".

David says, "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you (Psalm 56:3)".

Hosea says, "What are you waiting for? Return to your God! Commit yourself in love and justice! Wait for your God, and don't give up on him - ever! (Hosea 12:6)"

Paul promises me that, "He comforts us in times of trouble (2 Corinthians 1:4)".

Job shows me that even when everything is lost, "may the name of the Lord be praised! (v. 20)".

God says that all he requires of me is, "to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)". Even when I'm overwhelmed by my inability and my inequity. Even when the future seems too much to bear, and I can barely get out of bed in the morning. When I think that there are too many things I can't handle, and I can't do, and not enough that I can. When I can't carry on, it's that quiet voice reminding me that I don't have to do any of this. This is my own mess, this is my own worry. All that is required of me is to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. No small task, but doable. I can wrap my head and my heart around that. And "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13)". 

Paul even tells the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling! Wow, I've got that down pat! He tells them that, "it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his perfect purpose (2:13)". I can't do this, I have that right, but God can do anything, and he lives in me.

So I know it will be ok, because I have these promises, and I have the faith passed down to me by these men, by David who lost his son, by Isaiah who was scorned by all, by Hosea whose heart was broken by his wayward wife, by Paul who was jailed and beaten, by Job who lost everything. I have the promises to cling to. God will live on!

On a recent post from one of my favorite organizations, People of the Second Chances, I heard something that screamed, "THAT'S ME!!!"

Karen Hammons, the author, said, "Sometimes the happy girl struggles too. And when she is leading the charge, sometimes she is shaking in her black corduroy TOMS, questioning herself and her abilities."

This is me. So I cry, and I come before God, shaking in my TOMS, broken and miserable. And then I count the million blessings in my life the next day and I see them everywhere, in a kind word from a friend, in the encouragement of a youth leader, in something going right for once, and they give me the courage to deal with the disappointments and the failures.

So again and again I cry, and again and again, God draws near.