Honesty

I have so much that I want to write about. So much is on my heart and mind.

There is something going on at my church right now. It is an open confession of sin in front of everyone. Our pastor is at the front and people are just lining up to confess sin, to read scripture that has been on their heart, to share deep places in their lives. I love it. I could sit in it and rest in it all day. I love openness. I love honesty. You can ask me anything about my life and I will answer it completely, even the uncomfortable stuff.

It makes me think of the time when I was fifteen and our youth pastor put a microphone at the front of the room and asked us to share. Everything in me wanted to stay sitting on the floor, to stay in my sin, to just sit there and be silent about my pain and my messed up life. But something was telling me that I wanted freedom more. There is something so freeing about honesty. To live and know that when people are looking at you they can see all of you. There are no secrets.

So I got up as a young fifteen year old. I felt like I had a lot to lose. I was playing on the worship team, I was a "leader" in our youth group, my parents were in full-time Christian ministry... for a kid, I had a lot to lose :). But I went up to the front and I confessed. I remember saying, "People tell me I have a pretty smile or that I smile a lot, but I want you to know that a smile can hide so much." I confessed my loneliness, depression, my struggle with food and eating, my struggle with thinking about sexual things (this was in front of about 60 of my peers).

And then I got down and wept. I just wept. I remember one of my youth leaders, a mom of one of my friends, holding me. I remember three girls coming up to me afterward, I had no idea that they were struggling with the same things.

Now, from there on I would be lying if I said I lived a perfect, sinless life. That would be ridiculous. In fact, I think I struggled even more intensely with sin later in my life. Even immediately after that time I think I struggled with a deep depression.

But I think it was my first taste of real freedom. I can look back on that moment and say, that is when I began to live in the light. The book of James says "Confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed." I think that is where my healing began.