: telling the truth, part one

I need you to know I’ve drafted and deleted this post at least twenty times in the past six months. The first ten drafts were written out of anger and revenge. The next ten were written out a mixture of sadness, frustration and loss. Now, I’m crossing my fingers for pure motives and writing out of broken joy mixed with a pinch of hopeful expectation. I’ve divided up this blog series (so official!) into four different parts. As a warning, the first one is by far the most depressing, but I promise it ends well because the plan of God can't be stopped—his truth marches on in my life and your life and the lives of everyone across all time and history. This is a big step for me and I'm excited/grateful you're sharing in it.

Living a secret life is incredibly difficult to keep up with, but many times we’re taught to be OK because everyone else is OK. Foolishly we walk around like storefront mannequins with colorful masks and costumes, completely ignoring the poison that ails our hearts. I’m not sure where the idea came from that Christians are called to look like robots that never struggle with anything because WE’RE COVERED BY THE BLOOD AND DON’T EVER HAVE PROBLEMS EVER… but it’s an artificial and mechanical way of living. It's a lie, really. And I’m not trying to be dramatic or depressing or overly intense, but there’s the sweetest, most amazing freedom found in exposing the truth.

God exposed the truth, didn’t he? He didn’t sweep our sin under the rug and ignore the condition of our souls. Instead, he uncovered the darkness of humanity by sending Light to earth: “Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12). If God isn’t in the business of secret-keeping* I’m not going to be either. 

When I was eleven, I was sexually abused in the trunk of a car while my church’s softball team was winning a playoff game fifty yards away. He was a member of my extended family, and five years older than me, so I didn’t say a thing.** My entire family (extended and immediate) was very involved in ministry. We ate together every Sunday after church. We spent holidays and celebrated birthdays and baptisms and weddings year after year. Being in a ministry family often comes with the expectation of acting like storefront mannequins, though. There is a pressure to look perfect and have the right answers and be problem-free forever and always. In my experience, many tensions were ignored for the sake of ministry and many relationships suffered for the sake of sermons and songs. In the same way, my abuse was left completely unresolved. Sometimes it's easier (and less disruptive) to act as if bad things never happened in the first place.

The sun kept rising and the world kept spinning, so I moved along and didn't mention it again. Out of the eighty-seven million books I’ve read about childhood abuse in the past several months, almost all of them agree that this is when I went into survival mode. I know it’s kind of gloomy, but it really makes sense of why I acted the way I did, especially in high school. I was addicted to a number of things*** and stopped eating for a while and couldn’t carry on healthy relationships with anyone. Seriously, if you have time, read this article on adult victims of childhood abuse because I fit into a ton of those statistics. 

I didn’t like myself, didn’t like other people, and really didn’t like Jesus. But I never missed a Sunday at church, don't you worry.

The next nine years of my life were spent “wandering from the fold of God." I was coping and rebelling and harboring hatred in my heart while simultaneously wearing elaborate masks and costumes for the world to see. I won like... every single Bible drill and never cussed and didn't sneak into any R-rated movies (except Sweeney Todd at age 16), but my soul was quickly withering away.

It's kind of surreal to put everything into words, especially this part of my life. I just can't believe Jesus pursued and saved me in my wandering. What a Savior.

This is a good stopping point, I think. The upward swing is coming.

*In this context, God isn’t in the business of secret keeping. Meaning, everything that is hidden will be exposed (Matthew 10, Mark 4). But there are certainly secrets God has (Deuteronomy 29:29) because he’s God and we’re not. So in some sense, God is both in the business and not in the business of secret keeping.

**I want to make it abundantly clear that my dad and brothers haven’t ever (ever ever ever) laid a hand on me. Except one time my brother farted in my face and covered me with a blanket to make me smell it.

***I’m not dancing around anything, I just want to be mindful of the ages and experience of people reading this.

: post-graduation plan

Earlier this morning, someone asked me what my post-graduation plan was, a question I've heard at least 53 times this month. Eighty percent of the time, I respond seriously and map out the potential outcomes of my life after graduating. The other twenty percent of the time, though, I tell the truth: I have no idea. (If I'm in an extra good mood, I add, 'And we could all be dead in 11 months so I'm not going to be anxious about it either.')

Seriously though, every time I try to plan out January of 2014 my eye starts twitching. NO LIE, as I write this, my right eye is twitching.

And this might be the free spirited 21-year old in me, but maybe I'm not meant to know the future. Maybe I don't need to figure out what January 1, 2014 is going to look like because there are (at least) ten thousand things that will happen between now and then. So for me to act as if I know what my life will look like next week, let alone next year, seems a little silly.

I understand that planning and strategies and vision are all great, biblical things. In fact, as a side note, I took the StrengthsFinder test and Strategy was one of my themes...I felt pretty good about it. But we have to remember that we've only been given the present. We can't fast forward, reverse or manipulate time, right? All I can do is be faithful with this very minute, because this minute is all I'm guaranteed to have. 

I don't know.

There's just a lot of talk about 'discerning the will of God' and 'trying to know his purpose' for my life. But maybe his will for me is to be faithful today with what he's given me today. And tomorrow I will do the same with tomorrow. Then, day after faithful day, I might find myself in grad school or planting a church or sneaking into North Korea.

But for now, my only job is to proofread this post and get cupcakes out of the oven. So that's exactly what I'll do.

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first othe kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. -Matthew 6:31-34

being vulnerable (& other things i'm not good at)

In true late-bloomer fashion, I successfully avoided being honest and vulnerable until my junior year of college. Then, after reading Frederick Buechner's Telling Secrets, it hit me: how can I expect my friends and family to love me if they don't even know who I am? I had created a version of myself that I deemed to be acceptable of love: a girl who rarely had bad days, never got angry, and had only once snuck into a rated-R movie (Sweeney Todd, age 16).

Getting older, I grew frustrated with people around me for failing to understanding who I was. But how could they know if I didn't tell them, right? I set them up for failure, but grew angry with them for failing. It's twisted, but a lot of us do it. Much of my anti-vulnerability stemmed from believing that if people really knew who I was and what I had done, they wouldn't love me any more. Or, even if they continued to love me, they would certainly look at me in a different way. 

Last year, I got honest and vulnerable and super emotional about my life. At first, I told my two best friends a bunch of stuff I kept inside for years and years. And guess what? They didn't throw me onto Nolensville Pike to stone me. We ate the rest of our burritos, laughed, cried, and moved along. Then, this year, I told my family a bunch of stuff I kept inside for years and years. And guess what? They didn't excommunicate me. We laughed, cried, and moved along. 

Being vulnerable is being free. It's to open up your life to others and say, 'Here I am at my best and worst and everything between.' There's no better feeling I've experienced than to know my friends & family* know the absolute worst about me. It's strange to think there's so much freedom in recognizing and confessing your own sinfulness. In fact, we think the key to freedom is hiding our sin from everyone else (except God, maybe) and to act like everything's okay all the time. But when you're fully exposed, you're fully at the mercy of Jesus Christ... you're fully dependent on the saving power of the cross rather than your own goodness.

And listen.. I'm not sure who I'm writing this for. Your closet might be skeleton-free because sneaking into Sweeney Todd is actually the worst thing you've ever done. But I have a strange feeling that someone needs to hear this: everyone has a track record, and yours isn't beyond forgiveness.

It's like we've limited God's grace to lying and cheating and occasional idolatry. Or even worse, we've limited his grace to past sins, not things we're struggling with today. But the truth is, Jesus' death and resurrection paid for it all: past, present, and future sins. It's all covered by the blood of Christ.

It's time to take off the mask and and turn on the lights.
Bank on the mercies of Jesus, not on your your ability to successfully hide sin.

...as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103

*and a number of other people I've felt compelled to share my story with, ranging from teenagers in England to strangers in Starbucks.

new year's resolutions?

Much to nobody's surprise, I'm not one for making resolutions, and I'm definitely not one for keeping them. This stems from a promise I made my freshman year of college to fast for seven days. After like, thirty-six hours, I was shoving food in my mouth because I couldn't concentrate on anything other than the fact that I was hungry. I thought to myself, "God doesn't care if I make a promise to him and break it. Grace, y'all."

After scarfing down a Natchez panini from Jackson's, I went home and did the whole 'flip a page and put my finger down in the Bible' trick. NO LIE, I landed on this passage: "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it" (Ecclesiastes 5:5-6).

Lord as my witness, that is a true story. I cried for hours.*

I didn't fast again until the beginning of last year, when I lasted for a full seven days, completely fulfilling my vow (praises). Ever since then, I've made a point to not promise much of anything, especially not to God, unless I'm sure to follow through. That being said, I decided to make a few resolutions this year. I landed on four and I think that's an achievable number so I'm sticking with it.

1. Be discipled by someone that isn't my mom or best friend.

This is sort of in my control, but not really. I'm just hoping that 'discipling Savannah Ellis' is some cool woman's resolution. Plausible, right?

2. Disciple more people.**

Once again, this is sort of in my control but sort of isn't.

3. Learn to pray. Really pray.

Not the talking-to-God-throughout-my-day kind of praying. I want to learn how to more intimately be in God's presence, how to be more sensitive to his voice. And I don't know if this takes practice or more faith or tragedy or studying. But I currently have the attention span of a mouse and would like for that to change. 

4. Be present.

Since my friends are graduating in May and I'm graduating (Lord willing) in December, my natural inclination is to look at the next step. What am I going to do in January? Where does God want me to go? Grad School? England? North Korea (!!!)?

I'm fighting that, though, and attempting to let tomorrow worry about itself. Instead of freaking out, crying to my parents, literally shaking worrying the next ten months away, I want to be present. Present to my friends, my church, my school. I want to trust that God will let me know what to do when I need to do it, and maybe not a moment sooner. Until then, my only job is to be present.

Now that these are publicized, I feel a sense of responsibility. 

Fingers crossed, guys! Talk to you in 12 months.

*Not that this comes as a surprise to anyone, either.

**Don't worry, Ali. You'll always be my first!

: 2013

I clearly remember this time last year, sitting on this exact same chair, drinking hot chocolate and listening to this song on repeat. Similar to last year, I’m incredibly happy to write a small, but meaningful, “The End” on 2012.

The special thing about December 31^st is that it bursts at the seams with 364 days’ worth of memories and tears and laughter and songs and pictures. The special thing about January 1^st is that it doesn’t burst at the seams with anything. It’s another chapter, a blank page. And it’s not as if the bad things from the past year (or twenty years) go away, but there’s a sense of freshness that comes with a new year, right? Even if it’s a mental thing, I’m personally thrilled to start writing on a blank page.

For me, 2012 was marked by pain and provision. Provision can’t really come without pain, I guess, so there’s a sense in which pain is a provision in itself. Pain provides a place in which God can provide. That's a cool thought, but I'll wrap it up before I go completely Dr. Seuss on you.

Here’s to 2012 in all its crap and glory.

May 2013 be half as crappy and twice as glorious!