being real

I’m not sure why I started blogging, but I know for me writing has been immensely therapeutic.

Surprisingly, some people are actually interested in what I’ve been writing. (Maybe it’s alike to the fascination we have passing a car wreck; every car slows down just to get a glimpse of the mess on the side of the road. My life has been messy this year and I know many people have wondered in awe, “What happened? Is she okay?”)

The comment I keep receiving repeatedly regarding my blog is this: “Jen, I love reading your blog. It’s so REAL.” That comment always perplexes me. It makes me pause in bewilderment; because real is all I know how to be. What benefit would it be to me or anyone else if I pretended as though life was perfect all year? If I pretended I never cried, never got frustrated, never wanted to punch a hole through a wall or pull my hair out.

The more I thought on this, the more I realized why I love the Word of God (and especially the Old Testament) so much. These men and women that I grew up reading about and were the subjects of silly songs in Sunday school and VBS; they are SO real. God doesn’t sugarcoat their lives or their stories. Some of them screwed up royally before they met God, and some of them made a mess of their lives when they knew the difference between right and wrong after they met God.

In a way, these people (that God actually used to do incredible things) were such losers. They were murderers, complete drunks, liars, adulterers, deceivers, filled with pride, impulsive, and sometimes just plain dumb. And I absolutely love it. Because they give us the most powerful thing…hope. If God can make beauty out of their REAL-NESS, He can with ours too.

The people in the Bible didn’t wear masks, and it’s time for you and me to take ours off too. I’ve learned that life is messy. I’ve learned that sometimes the people you love, trust and depend upon the most are often times the very ones to hurt you the worst. I’ve learned that in life, I haven’t always made the right decisions and dealing with the consequences is messy work. But, I refuse to give up on God. Through it all.

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.”