I Think My Glass is Dirty

About 7 years or so ago, my husband and I stepped across to the other side of the altar and took the plunge into ministry, taking over the youth group at our church. Ya’ll, getting teenagers to open up can be ROUGH and I think that might have been when I realized that in order to connect with people, teenagers in particular at that time, (and I mean on a deeper than superficial level), I had to be transparent about who I am and how I fail on a consistent basis.

These days,we are no longer in leadership at a church so my transparency has to do more with the people who are around me that are either young in their walk with Christ or just need someone to be a shoulder to lean on. I have friends that want to have honest conversations about the struggles they are having with remaining faithful and obedient to God’s word and in order for me to be able to be effective in their lives, and not lead them astray, I believe I have to be honest about my own struggles with obedience and faithfulness too. Over the years, I’ve seen that if you can show people you have the same kind of dirt they do, deeper connections can be made.

Showing who you are though, the good, bad and ugly is a hard and frightening thing. We struggle with vulnerability when we are with the ones who love us the most. That struggle can sometimes become a battle when dealing with someone who hasn’t chiseled past all of our walls yet. Maybe that’s why without realizing it we choose surface transparency instead of being completely real.

Chuck and I have been richly blessed over these past 8 1/2 years that we’ve been together and particularly so during the past 3. I don’t mean to say that life has been easy. The thought of smooth sailing is actually quite comical to us. But even in the difficulties that we have faced (and trust me, there have been some doozies), we have been repeatedly reminded by how absolutely truly good God has been to us. We have always had our needs met somehow or another. A roof over our heads, food on the table, heat to warm us, light to guide us, cars to drive us, clothes, shoes, etc have always been on the list of things we’ve never went without. We even have a few wants mixed in there. There are still things we are trying to figure out and necessities that need to be put in place but we are trying to believe those things will come. We don’t have everything but we’ve got everything we need to survive.

(Side bar here….I know life isn’t about “just surviving”. God wants us to have rich abundant lives. I just think that in order for us to have those rich abundant lives, he has to bring us through and to a place we can appreciate the bounty yet still be able to rely on Him. I have a dear friend that says she knows her family will never be blessed with wealth because if they were, she knows her wicked heart well enough to know she’d depend on that money more than God. That’s pretty deep in my opinion. And maybe that’s a small part of why we are in a season of struggle right now. I don’t really know. But I know who does.)

So, survive we do. We truck on every day, navigating our way down what seems to be an endless road march, sometimes not knowing how everything is going to be taken care of but having no other choice but to believe that it will be. Sometimes it’s easy to have the faith that all will be ok. Other times though, we have “intense fellowship” with God. This morning, that’s where I found myself. At least, it was intense on my part. Now, looking back, I picture Him as a parent with his chin propped in His hand waiting on a child’s tantrum to pass to that He can get down to business and get this mess taken care of.

I have another friend who has been confiding to me about a struggle that she has been having in remaining faithful in one particular area. Not – so – ironically, I’ve been struggling in this same area but in different ways. I have told her about how miserably I have fallen on my face with this subject, the struggle I had with it and I actually started to think I had done a pretty good job of being clear about my whole situation with her. Turns out, the glass she was looking into may not have been as clean as I thought it was.

I had to ask for help with something early on in the day today and it was something that I haven’t had to do in a long time. Would you be shocked or think less of me if I told you it absolutely killed my soul to do it? I raged within myself over it, I raged with God over it, and then I cried UGLY tears over it. Why? Well, only because my pride hurt. And that gave voice to being a failure. And that led to showing all the dirt that is still on my windows.

About 20 so years ago, MTV debuted a show called “The Real World”. Ya’ll remember that? The tag line for the show was “When people stop being polite and start being real”. I didn’t care for the show myself but that tag line is pretty epic. As my day wore on and I thought about all the events of it, the thread for this post began to run through my mind. This line was at the end of that long thread and it made me wonder….am I being polite even with those in my circle instead of being real? Have I completely washed the glass house that I live in so that it is truly transparent? Or do I have darkened shades covering the panes so that vision inside is cloudy or dim? Huh.

There is a difference in putting your business on the street and being honest with the people you love and who love you. Until this morning, I thought I had done quite well in the honesty department with those in my circle. I wish there had been another way to learn the lesson laid before me as I started my day but like I’ve said before, God usually has to hit me with a 2×4 before I can actually “get it”.

So I guess I’ve written all of what you’ve read to say this…

Friend, it really is ok. I know the exact toil you face with sharing your story, your experience or your current struggle with anyone else. I know how much easier it is to give the people around you surface honesty. I also know how much it hurts to admit that defeated feeling and actually say out loud that you can’t do it on your own. I know how hard it is to ask for help.

Here’s the really incredible thing though: God designed your relationship with Him and with those who love you so that you don’t have to do it on your own. He specified every aspect of our struggle to be less of a burden if we come to Him first. And that defeated feeling, that fear? They are liars, sent by the enemy to tear you down because if you could just grasp onto what God laid out before you, they’d lose their foothold.

I was told this morning that everyone has to ask for help sometimes. Then I was reminded that doesn’t mean failure. It doesn’t mean weakness. It just means admitting I can’t do everything all on my own. It means that sometimes, God’s help comes in the form of family members and friends. And you know what? They were right.

Go on and wash that glass. Make your story a little clearer. You never know whose life you just might change when you allow folks to see inside.