...is all that I have to give

I am one to learn from relationships. From life, really. I think that the best thing I've been able to do with my past two relationships is learn about myself from what the relationship was about, including what went wrong and what went right. I can't say that I've actively been trying to glean information these last 7 months from my relationship with Brandon, simply due to my current attitude toward the relationship, but I can say that I've been actively learning about who I am for the past 2 years since Jimmie.

This learning and evaluating that I've been doing, combined with the evaluating I've done of other parts of my life, have led me to conclude that to currently have or seek a boyfriend would be to put my life's focus on the wrong thing. I seriously, strongly believe that - to the point that I have refused someone several times now - and it's something that I hold as being very, very important right now. My relationship with God, hands down, will not hold up if I try to add a third element to my life. It's just gotta be the two of us right now, and I'm going to wait for God to tell me when the time is right to start dating again.

But I've got this problem that is literally tearing up my heart, and I don't know what to do or who to talk to about it. I know that I've got plenty of willing people who love me and want to support me that I can talk to, but I don't think anyone can actually give me the support that I need on this one. If you're reading this: you either know the situation/people involved too well; you know me and my history with this situation too well; or you know me well, but not my history with the situation nor the parties involved. And even though I said I don't know what to do, I do know the only two options that will allow this situation to calm down: complete separation or (and) total trust in and reliance on God. Option one is possible, but not if I want to keep my friends. Option two is necessary.

Okay, so the conclusion is: trust in God, rely on God for the healing for which I've been waiting so long. Problem: I knew that already. I know that.

Over the years I've become a firm believer in the idea that God will bring somebody into my life who will, within reason, meet the needs of my heart. I very much believe this is true. I believe with my whole heart that God will bring someone into my life who will blow my current situation out of the water... if He doesn't make the current situation work the way my idiot human brain wants it to. Which he won't. So God will bring someone into my life who will completely dissolve the feelings I've got left over. And I know that the time for God to do this is not now.

But meantime, it's agony. It's agony not because I don't have a boyfriend but because I know there WILL be a time when I don't feel this way anymore, and no matter what I do right now, that time is not here yet.

So much has happened and I still feel the way that I do. Why?

Let My Lifesong Sing to You

So, concert went really well this past weekend and that was great.

Mommy came up on Friday to get away from the construction of our home and hang out with me a little bit. I took her to the CD Extravaganza during which Into Hymn got together at Natalie's house to listen to our new CD together for the first time. Twelve REALLY excited girls may have been a little overwhelming for my mom, but overall the experience was great because the CD (we thought) was fantastic - a huge step above our last one, which wasn't that bad to begin with! We went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday and then to the Madison Project concert, which may have also been overwhelming for my mom because she was sitting literally in the middle of six n2h girls. Still, it was LOTS of fun, and we went home and had a sleepover.

Saturday we got up and went to Barnes and Noble to get some coffee/breakfast... she stayed there while I went to Chala's for an hour to prepare decorations for the concert. I went back to BN to get momma and we went to lunch at Panera, joined by the lovely Renee and Steven. After lunch we went to the farmer's market in Dayton, which was way too much fun and we probably shouldn't have gone... Not too long after we got back home Lizzie, Maggie and my dad showed up. They chilled while I finished up the slide shows for the concert and got ready, then left when I had to be at Memorial to set up.

The concert went really well I think... we all had a lot of energy, so that was really great, and Courtney's fam was fantastic as a guest group! Harrison, Davis and Jimmie drove down with Luke and Becca (who both know Renee from home), so that was wonderful seeing those boys - especially since I didn't really know who to expect! I was really, REALLY happy that they came. But they were bums and didn't buy CDs cause they're cheap. Well if you think I'm giving you one for free, you're MISTAKEN! Mistaken, I tell you!

Maybe.

Anyway, they drove back that night and I went to the hotel with my fam to stay with my sister, who was in a room by herself. It wasn't a good night, sleep-wise, but we got up and went to breakfast at O'Charlie's.... I got the Prime Time Prime Rib (at 10:00 in the morning, yes) and it seriously hit the spot. Then they left, and I had a bum-around Sunday.


Things are good. Thanksgiving soon = very exciting. I'm a little sick and that sucks but I have an excuse to take Nyquil. I'm not sure why I posted all of this, it was kind of pointless, but I did. Sorry I have no deep questions or concerns for you.

With arms high and heart abandoned

*this is the longest post of all time. continue with caution*

# The Stand - Hillsong United

You stood before creation
Eternity within Your hand
You spoke all life into motion
My soul now to stand

You stood before my failure
Carried the Cross for my shame
My sin weighed upon Your shoulders
My soul now to stand

So what can I say
What can I do
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You

So I'll walk upon salvation
Your Spirit alive in me
This life to declare Your promise
My soul now to stand

So I’ll stand
With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all

So I’ll stand
My soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

Show me Your heart
Show me Your way
Show me Your glory

Alright, so I'm going to get personal, which I normally don't do on things like this, but I need to because I desperately need to remember this. I'm also too lazy to handwrite it in a journal.

A couple of weeks ago, instead of having practice, Into Hymn had an intervention. Courtney and Chala felt it on their hearts to address the group about how we've forgotten what we're here for. To put it simply, Into Hymn is a ministry, not an a capella group - a capella music is just how we minister. We're not even a fellowship, and in fact there was a huge split in the group a couple of years ago when they addressed whether Into Hymn was a ministry or a fellowship, and ministry won. So we are a ministry, chosen individually by God to be in the group. It's so easy to forget that, though, and get caught up in being an a capella group, and that's what happened in a major way - we became so focused on the things that didn't matter about the group, the little things that have nothing to do with our effectiveness as a ministry.

So that night, when Chala and Court addressed the group, Court went first, and addressed the issue of us loving each other, and also rethinking our reasons for being in the group. Chala went afterward and incorporated 14 Bible verses that essentially addressed our hearts. As a group, we exist to minister to others through worship, but worship is the last thing we do when we get together because we're so caught up in the "a capella-ness" of our group.

What I picked up from that night was that we need to address our own hearts so that we can effectively minister to others through Into Hymn, and I knew that this was absolutely true for me. I had so many things that were blocking my heart from the Lord that were made apparent to me that night throughout Chala's talk: pride, idolatry, logic. Pride because when I think about sin, I think, "Hmm... well... I don't really sin... I can't think of anything. I'm a really good Christian." Idolatry because I get my joy from change and new things, not the Lord. Logic because though I have an immense amount of faith in God in the long term (like that He'll make things right for me in the long run), I haven't the ability to put my faith in God from day to day and address Him about my issues.

Let's back up a bit. About a week before all of this happened, I had dinner with Natalie, our devotions coordinator. We were having dinner to talk about the devotion on relationships that I was going to give, and the conversation turned to the faith questions that were coming up in my mind almost daily because of things that I was hearing in one of my classes. Two things to note: First, what I was hearing in my class wasn't directly about Christianity, it was just medical things that made me think about how to incorporate Christianity into them; second, the questions were not challenging my faith in any way, just forcing me to gain a better knowledge of how God works. Anyway, talking about that with Natalie started a conversation in which I told her about the trouble I have with hearing her talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit. When I hear that, I heavily question whether or not I am filled with the Holy Spirit, and I have a hard time believing I am because I can't feel it. This is where logic comes in. Logically, I have a really hard time with knowing I'm filled with the Holy Spirit and praying because they're based on things that come from my heart and not my head. Whenever I prayed, it was more because I felt like I should be able to say that I have prayed, or that I pray regularly, and it was never, ever because I had a desire to address God for any reason. I told Natalie that I doubt my desire for "a relationship with God" and that my biggest struggle was figuring out my motives; figuring out whether I really wanted to live a Christian life or not.

Okay, now remember all of that I just told you about my dinner with Nat cause it's going to make sense in a minute. So during Chala's talk that night with Into Hymn, I asked Natalie for a piece of paper so that I could write down all of the verses Chala was putting up (she had written them on paper in large writing and hung them up on the board). I also, throughout the talk, responded to what she was saying, writing frustrated things like, "What is it that is keeping me from having heart-felt worship?" and "Pride is my number one sin, and logic is the devil's way of keeping me apart from God." I imagine that Natalie saw what I was writing because she was sitting next to me, but I didn't mind.

After the talk, Chala gave us each two index cards. On one, we were to write down what was in the way of our hearts. It could be one thing, it could be 10 things, but we were going to rip them up and throw them away, signifying getting rid of them and giving our hearts to God. On the other index card, we were to write just one of those things, and we would all put them in a hat and each draw one out to pray for. I wrote "pride," and then proceeded to fill up the entire other index card with things that had made themselves clear to me as obstacles... things that only I could change. As we wrote, Chala put on some worship music, and we all prayed silently. Almost everybody else in the room cried and sat on the floor together... I just stayed in my desk, knowing that sitting on the floor with the other girls would distract me from an extremely necessary prayer. I can't really remember what I was praying for at first, but Natalie recognized the struggles I was going through because a) we'd had dinner the week before, b) (i think) she saw what I had written down during the talk, and c) I was the only one still sitting in my desk and not crying. She came over behind me, put her hands on my shoulders, and prayed for me, out loud, asking that God would allow me to be released from what was holding me back and keeping me from Him.

I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was the fact that somebody else was actually talking to God asking him to heal me, or that somebody else praying for me validated my struggles and made them real and not just internal, or just that it was Natalie, who knew my struggles, who was praying for me, and not anybody else. The tears literally began to pour down my face because I realized that this desire for a true relationship with Jesus was so real and so necessary, and I prayed so hard to feel the Lord in me. I prayed for humility because it was the last thing I had, I prayed for a desire to (actually and seriously) give my life to God. I'm not sure if I can do justice to what I was feeling, to be quite honest. It was an intense and honest prayer just begging for a heart for God.

That was a turning point. A huge one. I've probably said this before, but I've never been more serious about the Lord than I was that night and am now. So here I could say, Oh, everything's so wonderful now because I'm right with the Lord and I'm walking with Him.

So not true.

Before I started writing this, I was lying on my bed listening to the song that you see the lyrics for up at the top. I'm still sort of experimenting with how to honestly worship God, and so while I was listening, I internally spoke the words of the song to God... but I got caught up on the line, "So what can I say / what can I do / but offer this heart, Oh God / completely to You." To be honest, I misunderstood the words and thought it said "to" instead of "but," making the question, "So what can I say, what can I do, to offer this heart, Oh God, completely to you?" This is my big question! This is my big struggle. Perhaps it's from a lack of knowledge of God's word, but I am at a loss for how to give my life to God. There's this burning desire to do it but I just don't know how. And I know there are ways to live my life in a way that lets God control it, but I want to actually address God and be able to truthfully say, "This is my life, and this is my heart, and I really do want you to have it because I know you'll do a better job with it than I can."

I think my struggle, therefore, is trusting and obeying God. It's not uncommon, I know. But it is such a struggle. It's so present in my life. My mind wants to say, "I'll live my life the way my Bible says to live it. I will share your word with the people around me. Outwardly, I will look like the perfect Christian, because I will say things that a Christian should say. But I'm not sure if I'm going to like what your will is for me, so I think that I'll just hold on to my will for a little longer." It's so cliche, right? It is. You know it is, I know it is, and yet for the first time I'm actually experiencing it.

I think there's a gap between saying we struggle with something and actually, truly struggling with it. Some of the definitions for "struggle": 1. to contend with an adversary or opposing force; 2. to advance with violent effort; 3. a war, fight, conflict or contest of any time. "Struggle" is such a cliche word in the Christian language (and yes, I mean Christian, not English) because we're always struggling, whether we are or not. But to struggle is to advance with violent effort, to fight the opposing force. I've never fought the opposing force before, and I am now, and I am really struggling. This is what struggle is! So many times before I've said, "I struggle with trusting God," or, "I struggle with prayer," but there has been no effort to fight back. Now, it's a full on war against the devil.

Earlier I mentioned idolatry being an obstacle, and I know it sounds strange to use that word. I'm reading a book called Breaking Free, by Beth Moore, and it's about finding the freedom in Christ that he promises us... or, as the book puts it, "making liberty in Christ a reality in life." It addresses five benefits that God intends for us to enjoy and the five obstacles that get in the way of them. The obstacle that gets in the way of finding satisfaction in God is idolatry, which Beth Moore defines as looking to other sources for satisfaction. Like I said, I am guilty of idolatry because I get my satisfaction from new things. And when I say new things, I don't just mean buying new things, I mean change (on surface level only). For example, let's count how many times I've dyed my hair since I was 16 (let's not, but just think about it). Let's talk about how many times I've moved back and forth from room to room in my house. Let's talk about how many times I've rearranged things in my room. We don't even need to address how often I got out and buy things I don't need. I like things to be new and different... I grow tired easily, and when things are new, I am at my happiest. I am ashamed to admit this, but I will for the sake of my point: many times after a big shopping trip I'll wake up the next morning and my new items will be the first thing I think about, and it will make me happy. And every time I think about all of my new items, I'll get jitters in my stomach cause I'm so excited about them. I'm absolutely pathetic.

Recently it was made clear to me that I am guilty of this idolatry and not looking for satisfaction from God. It sucks. It's one of those things that makes you feel so flipping terrible about yourself. As corny as it may sound, I should wake up in the morning and be excited about the Lord because He's going to give me everything I need. And the thing is, I think I struggle (and yes I mean really struggle) with this more than I struggle with living my life for Jesus... or maybe they have something to do with each other. But I think I have a better sense of how to give my heart to God than how to find fulfillment and satisfaction in God. I don't know where to begin. Is it something that will come when I deny myself the satisfaction of things being new and different? Will fighting my urge to change things allow me to appreciate the beauty of what I get from God? Or is this something conscious that I have to do? And if so, how the heck do I do it?

This has seeped its way into other parts of my life, this dissatisfaction with God. Not that I'm dissatisfied, but I'm not satisfied. This dissatisfaction has caused disappointment from things that don't matter. I'll go ahead and explain it, since I have a feeling that if anybody started reading this post, they've quit by now. Next weekend is Into Hymn's fall concert. It's a big one because we're releasing our new CD. The Family (minus Gray) came to my concert a year ago, but we're singing many new songs that they haven't heard and Gray hasn't heard Into Hymn yet so over the summer I invited everybody up for the concert. I got a positive reaction from everybody, though obviously no commitments yet since it was too early. Still, it seemed like everybody wanted to be there. In September, I emailed everybody to remind them of it, that it was Saturday, November 11th and it would be really great if they could come. In October, I made a facebook event for the concert and put them all on the invite list. Later in October I emailed all of them again to ask them to let me know whether or not they were coming. As far as I knew, Lauren was the only one who couldn't come because she had a frisbee tournament (she's skipped one for me before, and I didn't want her to have to do it again). About a week and a half before the concert, I asked the boys whether or not they were coming. Harrison said that he had to be in C'ville Friday night and he was volunteering Saturday during the day for a retreat so he might not be able to make it. Steve said his friend was giving a surprise party and he hadn't decided yet whether or not to go. I didn't really get much from Jimmie because at that point I was already frustrated and told him to just talk to the other boys and let me know.

I IMed Lauren and let out how disappointed I was to her away message. I told her that I felt as though the boys always responded to spending time with me with, "If there isn't something better going on, sure." I don't know about anybody else, but when a friend asks me to do something, I don't wait until last minute to tell them so that I can see if anything better is going to be going on at the same time. They're my friend, it's important to them, I'll respect them enough to give them an answer, and if I've said yes, then if something else comes up, too bad, I've got plans. I guess I got back to the feeling that the boys are much more important to me than I am to them (the same goes for all of the girls), a feeling that several of the girls have thought for a while now, and it's a pretty disappointing feeling, given that we call ourselves The Family. I told her that I felt taken advantage of; that since I was a fellow Family member, I would forgive them and understand. And I do. But it still hurts. Thing is, we're four days away from the concert, and I still don't know if any of the boys are coming. Was it not apparent from my (literally) five invitations that it might be important to me that they be here, and not one of them has given me a legitimate reason for missing it?

Monday morning I checked my voicemail and had a message from Gray, who had been planning on coming since the beginning, saying that she got her bank statement, and she's spent too much money on gas recently so she can't be there. She mentioned that she would get a ride with Lauren or Tyler but neither of them could come (Lauren I knew about; Tyler I didn't). So that was it, as far as I knew none of my friends would be coming to the concert. I called Davis, who seemed the most like he would be here, and left him a message telling him that Gray, Lauren and Tyler wouldn't be here, and unless he could convince Steve, Jimmie or Harrison to come, he'd be coming by himself, and I wouldn't blame him for deciding not to. I hung up the phone and I cried.

I cried! Who cries about something like that? Someone who doesn't realize that it doesn't matter. I'm not saying my friends don't matter, because they do - they are 7 of the most important people in my life. But wasn't I talking earlier about how Into Hymn isn't even an a capella group? God has control over the group, God is in the group, and I wanted my friends to come so that they could see me sing. My disappointment and feeling of having been let down was a clear indicator that I don't find joy in the Lord.

I didn't write this story out as a way to confront my friends about my disappointment, because like I said, I doubt anybody has read this far anyway. This post is much more for me than it is for anyone else. I used this story to demonstrate the evidence of the way that not finding joy in the Lord is seeping out of my personal relationship with God and into my relationships with others. It's big struggle number 2, and I know how to deal with it even less than struggle number 1.

Prayer, I know, is the only way. It's the only way to handle any of these struggles, and my prayer life has been renewed (though not perfected) since that night with Into Hymn. But I guess the logic in me (in other words, the Satan in me) tells me that there needs to be some sort of action against it, not just prayer alone. Is that a desire to serve God, or is that a desire to have control? Perhaps the best thing for me to do would be just to pray and wait on God.

Show me Your heart
Show me Your way
Show me Your glory

Madness I tell you, madness!

It is so hard to love somebody who's so unwilling to be loved!

Unnamed friend, we'll call him Joe, is struggling with faith in God, yet is unwilling to be pulled out of it. Believes in Jesus, believes he was who he said he was and died for the reasons he said he did, but refuses to pray because he won't believe what he's praying. His background in science tells him that God doesn't exist, and it sounds to me as if instead of looking for reasons to hold onto what faith he has left, he is looking for reasons not to.

Where does one go in a situation like this? I can't give up, but I don't know where to go. Try standing on a chair and pulling somebody up from the ground onto the chair without their help. It's nearly impossible! And yet so much of me wants to keep trying and keep trying and keep trying... I just don't know how to do it. I know that now is the time to just pray about it, pray that Joe would open his heart a little bit, pray that Joe would WANT to find faith again, pray that the Lord would work in Joe in a way that can't be ignored.

How can you be a light to someone who covers his eyes?

Um, I kind of love these ladies.
First row: Natalie, Michelle, Christy, Courtney
Second row: Renee, Jessica, Brett, Sarah
Third row: Ashmo, Claire, Anne, me, Teryn

Some responses to the article I posted, "The writing on the wall: How would Jesus vote?"

Jimmie:
Do you agree with the way things are handled right now? Being that no homosexual marriages are allowed?

This amendment is not about change. It doesn't effect the way we treat homosexuals and it won't change the way that they are treated by the state of Virginia. The amendment just puts that standard into law so that it can't be changed by any one judge, which is the current situation.

*To respond to this Jimmie, since I didn't before: I'm not sure how I feel about the way things are handled right now, but at the same time I feel as though it's the best possible situation. I think the reason that I feel this way is because it could go either way: currently, homosexual marriages are not allowed, but they could be in the future. And even if they are in the future, there is a chance that they could once again be prohibited. I think that leaving it to a majority vote in the senate is the best we can do, rather than permanently going with either yes or no.

No, this amendment doesn't change the way we treat homosexuals, but we can change the way we treat homosexuals.

Lauren:

I'm with this guy, and with Jimmie. Everything he said in his article is well-formulated and completely on-track, except for one thing. If he was suggesting that the "Christian" thing to do is to vote against the amendment, in favor of leaving the law open to the consideration of homosexual marriage, then I have to dissent from him there. I think it's dangerous to say that voting one way or another is going to be the way we represent God to society. Of course, everything leading up to the vote--debates in which homosexuals are targetted, rallies, etc.--can be seen by the public, and so those need to be the forum for witnessing. It's hard to remember that the actual voting--your standing there in front of your ballot--is completely private and anonymous, so that if Christians rally and do the "right" thing of rejecting this amendment, the only effect I could forsee (apart from the issue of homosexual union affected directly by the vote) would be for non-Christians to rejoice for having "beaten" us.

Or maybe I'm just cynical when it comes to politics and other mass forms of witnessing. Obviously presenting the Gospel to people en masse has to be somewhat important, because that's where people get most of their negative views of God. So obviously status quo isn't working. Anyway, I'm most on board with Brian Goodman when he reminds us that we're not to expect heaven on earth, but that instead there will one day be a new heaven and new earth. I don't know how to balance that knowledge with the obvious need for increased social justince now and with a view to the Old Testament, where God very clearly set up a kingdom on earth--or was it a kingdom on earth? Did Israel just have no idea that they were serving as much of a narrative/metaphorical function as a physical/earthly one?

Whoa, what was a originally saying again? Sorry for the tangent.

Susannah:
Actually friends, I didn't post this article because of what it said about the amendment... I posted it because of what it said about Christians. I almost jumped up and started dancing when I read this in the Breeze on Monday because I feel like, for once, somebody has gotten it right... somebody has publicly taken action to do two things: to attempt to correct the picture of Christians that non-Christians have, but more importantly, to attempt to correct the Christians by reminding us of what our calling actually is. "Correct" may seem like it's not the best word, but we do need correction, and I believe that God works through others to correct us, as He is doing here. The quote in there that said "of 100 men, 1 will read the Bible; 99 will read the Christian" is so remarkably true. I think you should read the article again not with the mindset of reading an article about voting for this amendment, but with the mindset of, "This guy has something to say about the nature of Christians right now."

Ignore what this guy says about how we should vote and look at what he says about how we should live.


Harrison:
I agree. Good point suse on asking us to read it as a method of living instead of voting: This article, in my opinion, served that purpose well. It seems he was making the point that fighting the culture wars should not be our chief end, but that loving homosexuals and telling them the good news of forgiveness/grace/mercy should be. This is strong widsom, and a message that quite often goes unsaid. And for a while, I figured that he would tell us that it didn't necessarily matter how the votes turned out, who beat who, if the christians defended their sanctity or not, but simply that we begin a new culture where homosexuals cannot tell those stories of unfortunate run-ins with christians anymore.

So, considering this while I read, I felt that his last sentence almost 100% undermined the whole article. He talks about bringing homosexuals a message of love, doing what the bible says, and avoiding those short lived earthly victories. Lauren said this too: how is the vote, in any fashion, going to accomplish these goals. If you are looking for a victory for the yes's or the no's, you are still looking for a victory and still participating in culture war. I wish he had left his last sentence off, and just let his article stand alone as a call for christians to mobilize and preach the good news.

If he talks about doing what the bible says, he better understand what the word "love" really means. If we are to preach a message of love to homosexuals, shouldn't it be one that takes in the eternal consequences of living in sin? What kind of friends are we if we let someone continue in their sin just so they feel "comfortable" and "accepted" in the meanwhile. Wouldn't real love challenge their sin and call them to leave it? I think so.

Civil Unions: I have changed my mind. It might be love, true, but it is not complete love. The idea of civil unions is not clairvoyant love, it is temporal love. It is a love that protects our butts so we aren't called "those intolerant christians" in today's 2006 culture war. I am not so much concerned with my present persecution, and all of the name calling, but with homosexuals' well-being in the long term.

Regardless, I feel called to act. Not to simply think I am changing things by punching a hole in a scantron card. I think fighting real injustice has much more to do with getting out into the world and saying something than it does with being an active civic participant. Still, voting is better than being apathetic, but it won't change much at all.


Susannah:
Good points Harrison - I agree with you. Still, I tried to take the voting process out of my mind when I read this article despite the last sentence, because I think you're right, it does undermine the rest of the article. What hit me about this article was that we are fighting a culture war just with our attitudes if not with our voting, and that needs to change. Take the situation with the ammendment out and we still are fighting a culture war in the attitudes we have toward homosexuals and everybody else who lives a life we may not agree with. There's power in the phrase, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Most of the time, we don't love the sinners. Yes, if we want to truly love them we will make them aware of the eternal consequences of living in sin, but there are ways to do that in love and there are ways not to do it in love.

Exodus

Conflicted is the word of the... month. Year. Two years. Almost two and a half.

and prayerful.


"I tell you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

The Writing on the Wall: How Would Jesus Vote?

In the ‘culture war’ over the marriage amendment, Christians have failed to do their job
By Brian Goodman, opinion editor
Posted on October 30, 2006

A number of years ago, Philip Yancey, a Christian, began going around the homosexual community in his Chicago neighborhood in an attempt to better understand the world outside of his door. In so doing, he was faced with an uncomfortable reality, encapsulated in the words of a man he met: “As a gay man, I’ve found it’s easier for me to get sex on the streets than to get a hug in church.”

Unfortunately, that is the situation we in the commonwealth of Virginia find ourselves in this election season. If the rhetoric swirling over the marriage amendment (Ballot Question No. 1) is any indication, a gay man or woman here would likely say the same. And that means that whether or not Christians “win” on Election Day, we have already lost.

We Christians find ourselves actively engaged in what has been called the “culture wars” — in which gay marriage is only a battle — demonstrating our firm belief in moral uprightness. But active engagement in the culture wars shows how damningly confused our priorities have become.

It was this very culture war that got me involved in Harmony (now Madison Equality), JMU’s gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-questioning-ally-etc. student organization. A friend of mine was in the process of questioning her sexuality, and asked me to accompany her to a meeting. As both a Christian and her friend, looking for ways to show her love and support, I swallowed my presumptions and went.

The meeting was in a room in Taylor Hall adjacent to a Christian meeting. They were in no way intentionally or maliciously imposing upon the Harmony members, but their worship music filtered loudly out of their room while we socialized in the hallway before the meeting. This prompted a conversation: one by one, gay members of the group went around and shared a bad run-in with a Christian — and each person had a story to tell.

Being a straight, Christian freshman, I did not feel as though I had the right to interject. But the entire time I writhed, wanting so badly to reach out, embrace each storyteller and maintain that what he or she experienced is not the God I serve. That is not the God I love.

But the homosexual community will never hear the message of love that is the Gospel of Christ if the followers of Christ are too busy fighting in the culture war to tell them. As Christians fight with tenacity to protect the “sanctity of marriage,” “family values” and “tradition,” we do nothing but reaffirm to the world that, in the infamous words of Fred Phelps, “God hates fags.” We cannot swing a sword and offer a hug with the same hands at the same time. It is horrifying that the body of Christ would even try.

It seems that, as the body of Christ, we’ve gotten our kingdoms mixed up; we seek to bring Christ’s kingdom to bear in this world at the expense of the next. Christians are willing to lose the ability to share the love of Jesus with the world He came to save for short-lived, earthly victories. Dwight Moody once said, “Of 100 men, one will read the Bible; the 99 will read the Christian.” It is a damned shame that the message the world around us gets to read is one about gay marriage and not good news.

Perhaps that is why Jesus gave the church the mission that He did. The job of the church was never to impose morality; it is to care for the widow and the orphan and to keep ourselves — not the world around us — unspotted by the world. The job of the church was never to wage a culture war; it is to feed the hungry, hydrate the thirsty, shelter the stranger, clothe the naked, look after the sick and visit the imprisoned.

Above all, perhaps the body of Christ should get back to the business of Christ, who commanded Christians to “love each other as I have loved you.” If we believe that God demonstrates his own love for us in that — while we were still sinners — Christ died for us, we who call ourselves the body of Christ should dare not be willing to do any less.

As an epigraph from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Yancey used before telling his story:

“Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?”

“O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them.”

On Nov. 7, let us do them. Let us come together as Christians and vote against Ballot Question No. 1. It is long past time for us to put this frivolous and costly culture war down and get back to work.

Brian Goodman is a senior communications major.