Faithless and complacent

You know what I have never been able to truly come to terms with? The fact that I’m not perfect. My life has been everything but perfect. I know it sounds silly, because you know deep down that no one is perfect, and you know that each person has their share of problems, but it’s really hard to remember that when all you see is the person doing great, being so incredibly successful and have an amazing personality. Yes, I would say that I’m definitely envious of certain friends in my life, because they always seem to have it altogether so often. It’s like you want to scream from anger because you feel like you can’t ever be able to match up, get ahead, arrive, if you will.

Today is Good Friday. And out of the long list of fun things you can do on this holiday, there is one thing that you should never neglect: reflection of the cross, reflection of what Jesus really did for you, for me, for the world. Now, growing up in Cayman, a small, religious community, you hear this all the time; you hear the story of Jesus and the Gospel to the point of viewing it just as a story instead of freedom-giving, life-changing truth. You kinda just tune it out after awhile or don’t take it seriously because so many people try to shove the story down your throat and preach religion instead of love. It’s disappointing and heartbreaking to see the way Jesus gets pushed to the backburner day after day and how so many never stop to investigate the reality of Jesus for themselves. They probably either don’t understand the relevance of Him in their life, or don’t really believe that they could be changed in the first place. And honestly…

I would have to agree with them.

My whole life has been about perfectionism. The perfect grades, the perfect body, the perfect weight, the perfect hair, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect sister, the perfect daughter, the perfect intern, the perfect Christian...and you know what? I’m sick of it. I’m beyond sick of it. I’ve gotten to the point to where I don’t even know who I am anymore, or maybe I never really did. I have allowed so many other things to rule my life and then expect myself to live my life perfectly with those things in charge.

I watch T.V. to distract myself from the reality of my own problems. Normal, I suppose, but not to the point of never actually spending time with Jesus and growing with Him.

I have this dual personality among my two groups of friends, my Christian friends and then my non-Christian friends. I’m one way with them and then another way with the other. And you know what? It’s not like I’m afraid to share my faith, it’s that I don’t want to call myself a Christian in front of them and then be held to the judgment standards when I mess up, when I live less than perfect. Guess what guys? I curse. I do. I curse more out of habit now than before, and I’m trying to work on that, but yeah, I curse. I don’t like it, but it’s a problem I have. After years of stressing myself out to the point of explosion, cursing seemed to suffice in the self-expression department. But what do non-Christians say about that? She’s a Christian? Yeah, right. See? That’s why I don’t do the whole Christian thing because they always say one thing and do another. They’re not really who they say they are. Well, I can’t really blame them. It’s like the whole shoving religion down my throat thing that every single child received growing up in Cayman—people claiming to come in the name of this god and then the real god and then they’re out at the club that night. Would you be inspired at that point? No. Neither would I.

I feel like I’m all over the place here, but what I’m trying to say is that I feel like I have this gaping hole in the middle of my identity (if it were a tangible thing). I fill myself with all these things that I think make me more fulfilled and all it ends up doing is leaving me more confused, more upset, more unfulfilled, more empty. But I don’t seek Jesus to fix that hole. I leave it. I give up on it because I believe it won’t ever go away. I believe deep down that I’ll always be in this place of wondering if I am truly saved in the first place (if I were truly saved, wouldn’t I be doing way better?), or wondering if Jesus is for me just as much as He is for my Christian friends that seem to have the perfect life from the outside looking in.

I’ve treated Jesus like a hyped-up fad, so popular one moment, and then forgetful the next. My whole life has been about coming to Jesus in the best way I understood at the time, running away, Him calling me back, me returning, and then becoming complacent, and then distracted and thus, disconnected from the Vine, and the cycle repeats itself. I am the queen of placing idols before Christ. And it makes me driven to the point of madness and absolute infuriation because if I truly did accept Jesus for who I believed in Him to be, would I live this way? What’s with my unfaithfulness? It’s so immature and further proves the point that I bear very little spiritual fruit. I bet if you asked me how I was doing with my paleo/food/Whole30/Crossfit passions, I could show you tons of fruit that I’ve produced from growth. But guess what? Those things are temporary.

How come I can devote so much of myself to things that are temporary but I can’t reach the place of fulfillment and joy to the things that last forever?

I have allowed myself to adopt the idea that I will never grow, that things will never change, that I’ll always be this mediocre Christian and never really be fully happy deep down. I’ve given up. I must have, otherwise I wouldn’t allow so many things to demand so much of my time and energy that distract me.

I want to be able to comfort myself, but I honestly just don’t know how.