It's hard to tell if all the crappy things in life really do always happen simultaneously, or if they actually slowly accumulate, simmering under the surface until all of a sudden they are a huge, slimy, stinking ball of stress on your back, preventing you from functioning normally. I am starting to get the feeling that because I process things so internally, I am getting really good at pretending those crappy things don't matter and stuffing them down, only to find myself bogged down by all that crap, stuck down in a few weeks of good old fashioned depression.
The title of this blog is not implying that my beautiful, lovely mother that brought me into this world is also bad at processing her emotions and is subject to fits of depression. I am referring to the famous quote by Saint Augustine, who said, "The Church is a whore, but she is my mother." Such a great understanding of the simultaneous 'unimaginable beauty' and 'uncountable shortcomings' of the Church. Using Augustine's quote as a leaping off point, I feel that like the Church, which in the past has been both an agent of peace and love in the world as well as the perpetrator of some of the worst injustices in human history, I am also somehow caught up in this tension. I am stuck in the tension between being an ugly, perpetual sinner, and being a beautiful son of God redeemed forever by Jesus Christ.
So who am I? That has been the biggest question in my life over the past year and a half or so. Am I the perfect kid who was always polite, always respectful, always got good grades, always did well in extracurriculars, and was always respected by the adults and elders in his community? The one who loves Jesus and is a youth pastor and wants to live out his life serving Jesus and loving people? OR am I this perpetually failing scumbag? The one who gets depressed and snappy with people he cares about. The one who drinks and does stupid things that epically mess up his life. The one who cheated on his girlfriend. The one who got caught up in sexual sin. The one who lives with bitterness and confusion and doubt.
I truly believe that as much as I would want to be solely the latter and just be done with the former, the answer to this question is not one of these choices. It is both. Somehow I am living in this tension between hopeless, lost sinner, and redeemed, beautiful son of God.
Somehow, I am a 'hideous/beautiful' 'sinner/saint' that is a 'hopelessly broken/completely restored' 'doubter/believer.'
This is not a new revelation. This is not an original thought. (I guess mostly because I believe this is what God intended for us from the beginning) But this is something of which we easily lose sight. It is easy to dismiss ourselves as worthless and unworthy and spiral into a whirlpool of negativity and doubt and depression. However, Christ calls out to us in our ugliness and depression and tells us that he has redeemed us and wants us to be whole. Sometimes I feel that wholeness in undeniable ways. Sometimes it is glaringly absent. I doubt. I question. I wonder if Jesus is really there. But I think Jesus is okay with me doubting and questioning. The good thing is, I keep coming back to the conclusion that He actually is somehow there, in the midst of my doubting.
I am hoping that writing out some of these struggles and questions I have will take my intensely introverted processing of emotions and doubt and force me to get them out and deal with them. I really don't care if others read this or not, but if they do, I am hoping that they will be encouraged to also openly struggle with their doubt and with their identity crises as both whores and sons and daughters of God.
