“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Marianne Williamson
*This is a guest post from my friend, Caroline Hament. She sees humanity in the trees.
From a small seed, a tree grows. It defies the natural boundaries of the earth, plunging into the ground and stretching into the sky, deeper and higher than everything else. It is ruled by gravity, but not tamed by it. It ignores symmetry and rejects pattern. This tree has a defined purpose: to provide food and shelter for those in need, to share shade and comfort with the weary, and to give the next breath of life to the rest of creation by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.
In the process of photosynthesis, a tree does not reach its most productive stage of carbon storage for about ten years. However, on average, a tree in a metropolitan area only survives for eight years. It is choked by pollution and unable to reach its full potential because of its isolation. In contrast, a tree in a forest can live for hundreds, even thousands of years. The clustered trees of a forest weave their branches into an immense shelter of refuge, a vast canopy of shade, and an organic factory of mass exhalation, sent out in whispers. Together, they thrive and carry out their purpose. Together, they share life. We have a lot to learn from trees.
It was 9 years ago, I was a graduating Senior in high school and it was read at my graduation banquet at Church. I’ll never forget these words.
“People are often unreasonable, illogical,
And self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
Of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
False friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank;
People may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give your best anyway.
You see, in the final analysis
it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.”
Those words, written on the walls of Mother Teresa’s home in Calcutta, India, ring as true today as they did yesterday. The world may stomp you into the ground, but you must emerge from the dirt and brilliantly sprout in resilience. You may be young, but you are strong. You know your strength comes not from muscle but from weakness. It is when you are weak that Christ’s power is made complete in you. Get impatient for Heaven. So much so that you begin to bring it down to earth. Don’t wait for the world to hand you things. Don’t wait for things to change. Don’t sit around and wait for things to happen to you. Go out and happen to things.
Go happen to those who feel all alone. Even if it just means standing silently beside them.
Go happen to those who find themselves without a home. Invite them into yours. Cook them candlelight dinners knowing that poverty isn’t solved when you give to the poor, but only once you’ve become friends with them.
Go happen to the oppressed knowing that Christ didn’t just break your chains so you could experience freedom, but he gave you the keys so you could set others free as well. Freedom means nothing in isolation. Your destiny is inescapably woven into the destiny of others.
Go happen to the sick knowing that a prayer of faith isn’t just a good thought but contains the same power that God used to make everything between pinecones, the Milky-way Galaxy, and you.
Go happen to your family knowing that you wouldn’t be where you are if your family hadn’t happened to you.
Go happen to each other knowing that life isn’t well-lived if not in community.
And one day, when someone asks you why a loving God doesn’t do something about all the pain and suffering in the world, you can confidently reply, “He has done something. He made us.”
I’m a youth pastor now and I love my students. In many ways, they are much wiser than I. So, I’ll leave you with the words of one of my Seniors, Daniel Moore:
“Do great things. Read the Bible; it has the answer to everything. Be passionate about life. Don’t try to act cool; be yourself. If that means you’re lonely for a little bit, it’s worth it because you’ll be ok with who you are. Work hard, it’s much more satisfying than just getting by. Don’t get bored. Read books and watch movies. Make friends and hang out with people you don’t like. Let yourself think alone. Ride a bike somewhere. Watch the sunrise. And run as fast as you can.”
“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly.”
-Soren Kierkegaard
“We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the…
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
We give thanks today for our brother Martin Luther King Jr. who was murdered April 4th, 1968, and for the ways God spoke through him to expose the poverty of our wealth, the insecurity of our war-making, and the contradictions of our racism.
“Like the moon, our job is to reflect the sun to illuminate the night.” -My friend, Billy Osteen.
“I argue that the Cross be raised again at the center of the market place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a Cathedral between two candles, but on a Cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; on a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died and that is what he died about. And that is where the church should be and what the church should be about.”
From the book “Only One Way Left” (1956) based on a series of lectures (delivered in 1954) by the Rev. George F. MacLeod — 1895-1991 — Church of Scotland
In two weeks, I’m giving up my 27th birthday. This is why. Check out JamesBirthday.stayclassy.org
*I recently wrote a blog called Homosexuality & Jesus. Soon, my inbox was flooded with Christians sharing their story of sexuality. This led to conversations that could best be compared to turning on a light in a dark room. When the light came on, there were many people sitting in that room. Many of them were us. This guest entry is one of many responses from our brothers and sisters who have or are struggling with homosexuality.
Florida | College Student | Male
Dear James,
Growing up I always felt pressed by other people that I wasn’t “manly” enough. My brother and other kids at school started calling me gay when I was in elementary school. I was always pretty good at shrugging it off, but I hated all of it. I guess I was more “sensitive” than what the typical boy was supposed to be, and very creative and caring. My best friend growing up was a girl, which I guess was unusual; don’t get me wrong though, I had many guy friends as well. My first couple of girlfriends were in middle school. We held hands and walked together to classes. I remember once I was called “a pussy” when I was supposed to take my girlfriend to the school dance and everyone expected me to kiss her. I backed out and didn’t even take her to the dance.
Growing up I felt like I had a pretty solid family foundation. We were almost perfect in my eyes. I had an older brother, two little sisters, and a nice house. Life was good—all the way up until 8th grade when my parents sat me down and told me they were getting a divorce. My world instantly shattered. This was no ordinary divorce. It was ugly, and still is very ugly to this day.
During the marriage, my dad had a secret struggle with gay porn, but what finally ended the marriage was my mom cheating on him with another woman, who is still her partner to this day, Both of my parents struggled with homosexuality. Any sort of relationship that I thought I had with my dad, I came to realize was gone and never really even there. Everything I had been taught by the church and my parents about true love was suddenly meaningless.
Freshman year of high school I tried drinking and smoking marijuana a few times, but it never really satisfied me. I knew there was something more. Then, I was invited back to the youth group at church by some of my old buddies and finally went. I was home. I felt so loved there that I knew it was right where I was supposed to be. After a few summer trips I accepted Jesus into my heart and began my Christian journey. But sadly, the first few years were extremely rough and kind of fake. This is where my struggle began.
After all the years of being called gay, my parents splitting up, and not being truly loved by my father — I finally collapsed. I began looking at porn. At first it was girls, then guys and girls, and then I found that I really craved guy porn. I felt disgusting and I hated myself for it. Whenever I found myself home alone I quickly got on the computer and hopped on the rollercoaster of a struggle that went on for about 2 years. I didn’t know why I got pleasure from it and I kept it as my deepest, darkest secret for a long time. I thought eventually I would be able to overcome my addiction and be normal.
But that was not the case. My junior year of high school my porn addiction finally ended. It was one night when I was logging off the internet after a “session.” It became clear that the computer had a virus that would not go away no matter what I did. I instantly started breathing heavy every time an image would pop up on the screen and thought about what would happen when my dad, and everyone else, found out what I had been looking at. I started crying and got dizzy. I just wanted to throw up. It was one of the worst feelings I had ever felt in my life. I turned off the computer and unplugged it, hoping it would fix the problem. The next morning I laid in my bed while we had a computer technician come in to fix it because my dad couldn’t get it to work. I listened close as the guy was leaving. My dad asked what was wrong with it, and he said it must have been a virus from Limewire. I was so relieved. After that, I realized God saved my butt and I had learned my lesson. Since then, I have only been tempted by porn about three or four times, but the thoughts and images didn’t go away. I still felt doomed.
The summer after my senior year, before going off to college, I knew I had to do something knowing that being on my own in college would only make it worse. I finally got the nerve to call the two people I trusted the most. I told them that I badly needed to talk to them. One of them was out of state so he couldn’t, but the other was 45 minutes away and drove all the way to see me so we could talk.
I stepped onto his porch and began weeping when I saw him. After a few minutes of tears, I finally opened up. I told him about the desires and thoughts I’d been having and how much I hated them. I told him I wanted to have kids and a wife, and that I wanted to be a Christian, but I felt like I couldn’t have any of these things as long as I was struggling with this thing that eats me up and controls my life. My mentor asked me if I wanted to be this way and I said no, not at all. He asked, “Why do you feel like you have to then?”
This was probably the simplest, yet most powerful thing he could have told me, because it turned everything around. I told him how I felt weird and different because of this sin, which I felt like was the worst sin there was, especially because of the way the church tends to deal with it, but he made me feel like I wasn’t alone. He told me telling him was very brave and strong because countless other Christian men go through their whole lives struggling with the same sin. He explained to me the psychology behind why I would have these thoughts and lustful cravings. I learned that the number one cause in almost every similar case is lack of a father figure or a broken relationship with your dad. Check. He told me he would’ve been surprised if I hadn’t thought about this sin, because of how my parents marriage ended. My broken relationship with my dad caused me to crave and desire male affection. He said that this was natural, but my flesh had turned it into something unnatural and not of God. My desires had been poisoned by lust. He told me it was ok, and that because I desired help and change, there was help for me out there.
He could tell this was something I wanted nothing to do with and so did I. We finished talking and I went home, a new lightness to my life. The burden had been lifted. I truly felt that on the day that I opened up about my sin and struggle, I gave it up to God. I had decided to let Him have it and to help me push through it. I had been trying to deal with this on my own and tried to fix things by myself, but this ultimately made things harder and worse. God had been my only option all along, and for so long I had made Him last and pushed him aside.
Ever since, I have been growing and learning so much about my struggle, who I am, and finding my identity in Christ instead of my desires. I’ve learned that this is never going to completely leave me, but it’s not going to define me. It’s a part of my story, my testimony. And God is using it in my life to help other guys with similar struggles. He has already done this four times since I trusted Him with it. It isn’t easy and yes, I still have moments when my thoughts slip and I’m tempted with lustful desires, but God always conquers and pulls me back. I know that this struggle is not of me, or of God, but of Satan and my flesh. Every day is a battle but gets easier and easier the more I trust it to Christ.
“When we suffer anything for Christ’s sake, we should do so not only with courage, but even with joy. If we have to go hungry, let us be glad as if we were at a banquet. If we are insulted, let us be elated as though we had been showered with praises. If we lose all we possess, let us consider ourselves the gainers. If we provide for the poor, let us regard ourselves as the recipients. Do not think of the painful effort involved, but of the sweetness of the reward; and above all, remember that your struggles are for the sake of our Lord -Jesus.” John Chrysostom, fourth-century preacher in Constantinople
*I recently wrote a blog called Homosexuality & Jesus. Soon, my inbox was flooded with Christians sharing their story of sexuality. This led to conversations that could best be compared to turning on a light in a dark room. When the light came on, there were many people sitting in that room. Many of them were us. This guest entry is one of many responses from our brothers and sisters who have or are struggling with homosexuality.
Charleston, SC | Student | Male
Dear James,
I was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Now that I sit down to write my story, I’m not really sure what exactly to say. I guess I’ll just give you a run down of where I was and where I am today.
My battle with homosexuality pretty much started as far back as I can remember. It’s almost like I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t some interest in men. That feeling and interest grew into something way more intense than I ever expected it to. I still remember the first time I ever had sexual contact with another male.
I was in middle school, 7th grade at the time, and a friend of mine was over with his family. The boys were all hanging out in my room. When our older brothers left we started messing around with each other. From then on out our “friendship” was solely based on hanging out together so we could mess around. I think the craziest thing about it all is it seemed like a normal thing to do and it was, in its own sick way, fun for the time being.
When I contemplated whether it was normal or not, something in me would tell me “you can never tell anyone this”. It was a constant voice of shame telling me “nobody will understand this.” Things like that would constantly play over and over in my head. At the same time I would try to convince myself and hear a voice telling me that it was ok to talk about. Although he and I both had a Christian upbringing, I think it was the loneliness that I felt that drew me to act out with him more.
Once I broke the seal of homosexuality I was messing around with people like it was a job. In doing so, it lead me into nearly complete isolation. In my isolation from the deep emotions and shame I felt, I found the release of pornography to suffice my desires when “hooking up” was not accessible. Ultimately I “came out” my senior year of high school and swore I would never look back. From then on out, I got my first boyfriend, and found a love for parties, bars, drugs, the gay scene, and the chaos of constant random hook ups. For the better part of the last 4 years I have actively lived a gay lifestyle and been very open about it. And I made a point of rubbing it in the face of the people from my Christian past. It wasn’t until last year when things began to change.
For some reason, I decided to go to church with a long-time friend of mine. The unexpected part was that I continued to go every week. What compelled me to go, I’m not quite sure, but I kept on going. Then in July of 2011, God re-entered my life and has been working and increasingly changing my life for the better ever since. I still struggle everyday with all of this and I’m trying to refrain from the lifestyle, so I’m working with a couple pastors at my church trying to figure out some way to get a hold on all of this. I’m reading this book right now by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi called “Shame and Attachment Loss”. It’s very good and does an incredible job on explaining homosexuality. It’s giving me good insight.
*I recently wrote a blog called Homosexuality & Jesus. Soon, my inbox was flooded with Christians sharing their story of sexuality. This led to conversations that could best be compared to turning on a light in a dark room. When the light came on, there were many people sitting in that room. Many of them were us. This guest entry is the first of many responses to come from our brothers and sisters who have struggled with homosexuality.
Midwest | Christian Artist | Male
Dear James,
What I am writing below is my story. A story about where I’ve come from, what I’m doing to fight and grow in the Lord, and also my opinion on homosexuality.
I was raised in a Christian home, and had no reason to struggle with homosexuality. I don’t have any gay uncles, grandparents, and I don’t think I ever met a gay person early on. I remember kissing my first-grade girlfriend behind my family’s barn, so I had no obvious reason to struggle with being gay.
When I was fourteen, I was molested by an older friend of mine. He was 17, and I had always looked up to him. I thought that if you had sex with a girl, you were guaranteed to get an STD and she would be pregnant, but since neither of us could get pregnant, it didn’t seem that wrong.
I then became addicted to porn. As weird as this sounds, I wouldn’t say that I was gay. I was completely insecure in my body, as I was tall and lightweight. I was looking for someone to validate me. My dad is such an incredible man, but my friend’s opinion mattered more to me.
Between the ages of 18 and 22, I had sex with more guys than I can count. It was all random hookups planned via the Internet. I probably could tell you 2 or 3 names. It was so addicting, too. Even though I was attending a Christian college when I was 19-22, I still couldn’t give it up. I had it set in my mind that these guys cared about me.
Eventually, it got old. I started to feel tired of using myself, tired of the unemotional, recreational sex. It took a friend and I talking about our lives for me to realize that I didn’t want it anymore. I knew I had to give it up.
Since then, it has been a battle. I know that I wasn’t created by God to be gay. I don’t believe that anyone is born gay. I think we all struggle with different things, and my battle is homosexuality. There are days when I want to throw it all away and live the easy lifestyle of serving my emotions and fleshy desires, but I know it won’t get me anywhere.
In order to keep fighting, I have to spend at least an hour in the Bible every day. If I don’t, my mind gets caught up in the moment, and I find myself in a battle. Christ came that I could have freedom and be free, so I want to pursue that.
A word of caution. For those of you struggling with homosexuality, the answer is not to pursue “heterosexuality”. The opposite of our sin is not the counterpart. The opposite of homosexuality is Christ’s holiness, and that is what you have to pursue.
I can’t wait to get to heaven and have a body that doesn’t respond to these fleshly thoughts. Until then, I have to remain strong, allow God to change my heart and mind, and live in His holiness.
For those of you who feel like you are too far gone for God to do anything with, trust me- you’re not. God’s love goes beyond anything you’ve done, and will never let go of you. His love has fought for your heart, and it won’t stop fighting until we are joined with him in Heaven. He is so faithful and will be there for every time you fall and fail. He just wants your heart. He wants you to feel His furious love. Your Abba just wants you. Run to Him, and live in His freedom.
