the world in color

so much going through my head right now.... my friend kristen is getting married tomorrow... i am looking at life in a different light, again.

it's like during the whole school year i wear these "tinted glasses" over my eyes to shield me from exposing my real self to the world, but more importantly, to shield the world from seeing me... but with that process comes this tinting of things ... the way i'm seeing life isn't really real.... life isn't all really one color... but then the summer comes and suddenly the glasses are snatched off... and all the sudden i can SEE... i can SEE what's really around me.... i can see colors again when i had forgotten color even existed... and suddenly life is beautiful and i KNOW where i am and where i want to be and where i am going. and i've got this PLAN about how to get there... or at least i think i do.

and all of this is because of my church. so, i know that many of you are going to stop reading now. because you WERE reading something possibly cool, potentially interesting... but now that church has been brought into the picture, you're gonna give up on me. ok. it's your choice.... but it's true. i promise. i don't know WHY it's like this. i don't know WHY church has this effect on me. i don't know WHY i'm one of the ones who just feels so at home there when so so SO many others i know would rather be anywhere but the church... for them, church is a place they feel judged, encroached upon, guilty, bored, tired, put out, pessimistic, bitter, chained to doctrine....and i'm just thinking back over everything i know about jesus and trying to recall a time when the message he was trying to present to us ever matched any of those descriptions.... and i'm not coming up with anything.

i'm finding myself extremely bitter about our country, our world, and what our race has done to mutilate christianity. it truly breaks my heart. i cannot bear it. maybe this is stupid.... but some days when i start thinking about this, i just break down in tears because that is how strongly i feel about this... that is how much it bothers me. i can't bear it when i look around me at a world that has taken something that was and still IS perfect and has distorted it and mutilated it and twisted it and made it into something we can use to get ahead or to beat others down to raise ourselves up or to just be what we want it to be or just to fit inside our own minds. the last time i checked, this whole god thing was bigger than we could ever hope to comprehend... so it kills me when we try to fit god into our own boxes. god has no limitations.... we are the only ones who put limits on god. and that's where the trouble starts. suddenly we limit god, and this beautiful life story becomes something that makes me want to vomit. and it sucks. it sucks living with part of the story but not all of it. it sucks living in this world's "boxed christianity". it sucks that i can't reach out to every person that has ever been hurt by a "christian" and personally apologize on behalf of christ for such a bad portrayal of his intent for life. it sucks that i can't appologize to everyone i've ever offended with my own battered version of "christianity". saying that word just makes me tired.... the word "christianity"..... christianity...... i feel exhausted just typing it. it has so much baggage.... it has such a bad rep these days... it breaks my heart, cause i'll never be able to achieve to show in my life the kind of example of christ that i want to be.... and i'll never live to see a world, a country, a city, or even a community that can remove the tinted glasses and yet feel "comfortable" enough to live without them.

so like i said.... i'm starting to see colors again.... and that's great..... except what do i do when i'm seeing color but the others don't want to take their glasses off? i mean, i wouldn't blame them... who would want to do that when seeing colors has such a horrible rep these days? people who see colors are liars and cheaters and they call themselves "christians" but then they're just like everyone else with the tinted lenses... and sometimes worse.

so how do you get them to take the glasses off? what can you possibly say to make them change their minds when they've watched you proclaim the name of christ and then go act like the scum of the earth? why would they want to take their glasses off when they've watched you act like that? how can they believe that color is better when you say that but then your life looks just as bad as theirs? why risk removing the tinted glass?

i am feeling so broken about our broken world. it is so confusing... how do you live a life balancing on this fence? how do i explain to my parents (who aren't christians, who are also sick of christians and sick of religion) why we worshipped together tonight at kristen's rehearsal dinner? how do i explain to them why i won't marry a man who doesn't share my faith? how do i deal with looking around the world and feeling so overwhelmed with our depravity while i am one very tiny, helpless soul in an ocean?

suddenly, i am starting to ask myself if color really is any better than tinted lenses.

dare to love completely

something else profound my friend kevin wrote:

I saw the inside of a chocolate wrapper today and all it said was "Dare to love completely." Nothing else. This immediately struck me as amazingly prolific. My love is conditional. "I love so and so because they do whatever." When in reality there shouldn't be a because. I should love without condition. No matter what someone does (or doesn't do) I should love them. We often add a "because" onto our love. We say, "I will love you if..." But God doesn't, he just tells us "I will love you, no matter what." This amazes me. Why in the world would God, the creator of everything, say "I will love you" with no stings attached!! What in the world did I do to deserve this extravagant and unconditional love? Nothing, yet I still receive it! That's about as crazy as Donald Trump walking down the street saying "I will give you 1 million dollars because you were the first person I saw." I mean God is crazy for loving us without conditions. But it is that craziness that we try to emulate. We try to love without conditions, but we fail. I try my hardest to love my friends, but there are times where I completely have no love for them because of something they did. And these people are my friends! What kind of friend am I if I wont love them unconditionally??