Burn baby burn.

It's ok. I saw you roll your eyes at the lame title.  And you're welcome for the awful disco anthem now stuck in your head.

But in all seriousness, it's about to get real for a minute.

Truth: I've been burned by the church. Badly.  I've stood at the edge with the intention of throwing away everything I've learned to be true because the truth tellers were hypocrites, liars, cheaters...and well, human. In a matter of months, it was a path of destruction and sin because if they were walking that way...I was walking the other.

My mom has confessed countless nights, crying and praying on her knees for God to change me.  While there is heartbreak for the grief I've caused, I'm more overtaken with the miracle that ensued in the years to follow.  I'll forever stand behind the power of an Almighty God because I've seen, felt, and witnessed the actual life change that happens when we give it all to Him--in this case, my mama's plea and dedication to pray for God to take over.  The past six years have been a series of prayers over my soul, of miracles done in my life, and of God ripping me out of the depths of darkness.

One major instrument in the rebuilding? He used people to LOVE me beyond my brokenness.  People who were willing to look past the fact that I "knew better." People who were going to live life with me despite the mistakes that had been made.  Because if we really  take a good hard look at our lives, when did our sin become less of a sin than the sin of any other person?

And so my heart breaks for those who have been burned by the church--by the Christians who claim to follow Christ but are clearly not walking in His steps of love and grace and mercy.  And the reality is that we've all been on either side of the system.  We hurt. I mean we all hurt.  We, as people, hurt.  And we hurt people.  But isn't it time that we act by the Love that saved us?  I'm not advocating a relationship that lets "everything slide," but I am advocating caring for those who are hurting, telling the Truth in love, praying for our brothers and sisters on a daily basis, helping to pick up the broken pieces...even when we know how they got there.  Because that's the Love that we've been given.  Love that became that tangible, that deep, that weighty...to save your soul. If that's not motivation, I'm not sure what is.

 

::For the love of Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and there all died.  And he died for all, that those who love should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again:: 
2 Corinthians 5:14-15

And the answers to the prayers I'm talking about?  The ones that showed me what it truly means to be loved and convicted apart from judgment and condemnation?  Wellllll, they look a lil something like this....

 

See? All you need is Love (you're welcome, again).