BHall

Confessional

I have a confession to make.

Before I say anything else and dilute the confession with too many words, I need to just say it - I don’t really like admitting to people that I’m a Jesus follower.

I guess I should probably explain myself a bit, now. I’m tempted to leave it at that and walk away without explanation, but as this is an exercise in transparency I suppose I’d better try and lay it all out there. Here’s an analogy to explain how I’m feeling:

Did you ever take a vacation with your family as a teenager? Everyone would pile into the car and you’d take off for another place, all excited to get away for a few days and experience something new. You finally arrive at your destination, unload your things and head to bed, fiercely fighting that excited feeling so you can catch a few hours of much needed rest.

When tomorrow morning comes, everyone is bouncing off the walls in excitement for the day you’ve been waiting for - and then it begins.

It starts innocently, of course. Your Mom mentions something about sunscreen, and everyone lines up to be covered. She goes one-by-one, giving everyone a portion of the skin-saving cream, but when she gets to your Dad he replies “No thanks, I’m good!”, and he pulls out his khaki bucket hat…

That godforsaken bucket hat.

Next you’re walking around with your family, and they’re bickering and doing all sorts of embarrassing things out in public, and even though you know you are a one of them at your very core, you’d give anything to be somewhere else at that time. (This situation is purely hypothetical, of course. This kind of thing would NEVER happen in our family, right Mom?) :)

And that’s why I don’t like to share.

When I hear whacked-out stories about the Christian who hijacked a plane because he had a message from God for the President, for example, I get that same teenage-angsty feeling. *Oh good grief, get me out of here*

The thing that I know, however, is that the stories like the one above are edge cases. I know plenty of Christians out there living normal, even downright quiet lives, doing amazing things in their communities and generally not making a spectacle of themselves. They feed hungry people, are good neighbors, and stay the hell out of the newspaper! I can get with that.

So I guess I’m going to give this a try and own up to the family I’m a part of, for better or for worse. It’s not even necessary to say “I’m not perfect”, as that is (and will be) immediately obvious, but just know that I’m on a journey of trying to figure stuff out.

You’re welcome to come along, actually, provided you don’t own a bucket hat…