A friend asked me how I became a Christian. I sat down and three hours later this is what I ended up with. I am tired and full of so much freaking joy I could burst. I wish you could feel my soul right now. It. Is. So. HAPPY. Praise God:

I was in a three year relationship that ended in a very sad way. We were going to get married, the whole shabang. We spent more than half of our relationship living apart (he in Mexico, me in NYC), as much as we loved each other it just wasn’t going to work out.
Crushed and feeling very alone, I spent most of my time crying and hiding in my very dark apartment. The bottom had just dropped out of my world. I had looked to my boyfriend to save me from the empty place inside and when he failed to do that I was a total wreck, poor guy; that was too much to ask. My roommate/ best friend took me to church with her, took me home with her on holidays, and invited me to spend time with a group of people who called themselves The FAT Kids. (Because when they got together to talk about Jesus they would eat and eat and eat.) They are my family now, the family I have always wanted. Even though some of us have moved and married we still stay very close. I have been very lucky that way, people, like Beth for example, have come into my life and have seen my worst and have stuck around. I am blessed with the best family.

Now at first I went just because I didn’t want to be alone, then I stopped going because I swore none of them liked me. I was a messed up kid, not just because of the break up, I have baggage. But that is a whole other email.

But even when I didn’t go, they prayed for me. I didn’t know it until recently, but they prayed and prayed I would find my way out of the dark place I was in. When eventually I would start going again they all got my number and would text me encouragement and jokes and one girl would visit me at work and bring me cupcakes and mixed cds. Even when I was a jerk or tried to ignore them they never gave up on me. And they were/are awesome cool people. Most of them were actors, like me, but there was a nurse, a math teacher, a costume designer, a graphic designer, a musician. They didn’t only read Christian books or listen to Christian music and they watched R rated movies, beside Passion of the Christ, and read great books and loved to eat BBQ. And they were…different. They were a family, with flaws and stuff but they loved each other with a passion I had never even seen in my own family.

So now I really wanted these people to like me. I had no idea why they were the way they were but I wanted to be liked by these people.

Okay something embarrassing I have to stop and explain here. I have spent most of my life, from about the age of six or so trying to get people to like me. Part of it is being an only child, part of it from the broken example of relationships my parents displayed to me, part my own brokenness.

So I read the Bible with them and asked questions and prayed with them and felt awkward and frightened and felt like at any minute they would see my true colors and kick me to the curb. I had no real concept of who Jesus was. I mean I knew who he was, but I didn’t know who he is. In my head he was some dead white guy with feathered hair that artists really liked to paint dressed to their time period. Clearly didn’t get it. Then I started going to church with them. We all ended up at this small church on the upper west side, operating out of a café, called Origins.

All this while I am still in the dark place and actually getting deeper to a very scary place. One day I get up and go to church all by myself. Mostly because I was alone and I was afraid to be by myself with myself. I get there; sit alone at a table (all the others were going to the night service) and listen. Ravi, I can’t even remember what the service was all about, I wish I could, all I know is that my heart cracked open and all the sadness, anger, loneliness, and hurt I had been feeling came pouring out. I sat there long after the service ended and let the tears stream down my face. I mean I had cried before but this time I was crying. It was as if those feelings were being pulled from my chest. It was so…freeing. I told my friends and they all listened and nodded and hugged me and told me they loved me.

I started to really listen to what I read in the Bible, I started to study the writers and the culture and Jesus. Still I wasn’t very aware of what was happening but I knew it was something.

Shortly after the incident at the café a light bulb went on and I understood. Or at least thought I did. Now that I think about it I don’t think I got it at all. At the time anyway I thought I knew so I accepted Jesus as Christ. He had come to die for my sins. I was like cool, I got it. Okay great now what happens?

Since that time which was oh…about two or three years ago, I am so bad with time; my life has been turning inside out. So many false stops and starts I can’t even count them. I turned my back on God time and time again. I said I believed (I was even a thumper…nothing is scarier than a person who doesn’t really get the Gospel but goes around saying they do and telling others how they should get it too) but my negative behavior hadn’t gone away and I was still looking for people to save me.

Something I believe is that we human beings are wired to worship. And if we don’t believe in God, or sometimes even if we think we do, we end up worshiping things around us, people, things, you name it. We look to them to save us, which they can’t because they are only things and people are only people. My FAT Kids were able to stand the pressure of my intensity because they understood what I was doing, and they tried to help, bless them. But they knew that you can’t make anybody see, people have to come to things at their own time.

I had other friends, however, who didn’t understand, even though they tried. A close friend felt this pressure more than anyone. When you put your salvation onto another person’s shoulders it will destroy them and you. Our relationship ended badly. She sent me a long email the subject being all the things I had ever done that had bothered her and basically that I was an unloving, fake, terrible person. To think on what is written in that email still makes me shudder.

The pain of once again failing at a relationships was almost unbearable. Why am I always left alone? Why couldn’t I sustain relationships? Where is the love? I felt hopeless and almost gave up caring about anything.

I had to do something to keep from this path. I hadn’t read my Bible or gone to church in months. One sleepless night my mind went to it so I dug it out and started reading. Again I started studying and going to church and this time I wrestled and found that what shook me up most about my friend’s email was that she held up a mirror and it showed an ugly reflection and, here is the worst part, a lot of it was true. I thought, and you claim to be a Christian? You have turned into one of the people who make people turn from Jesus because you say one thing and act out a complete other. You think of nobody and nothing but yourself and how everything affects you. You don’t truly love others. Damn…

So I started over. I was scared but the Bible says that if you ask for strength and wisdom you shall receive it. And I did. I was given strength to go get therapy and a new job and get honest, especially with myself. And this time I got it. Things started to change in me and around me. My Mom had become a believer too and the amount of healing and love in our relationship is a miracle. Slowly I am getting it. I finally stopped trying to take control and let Jesus in for real and BAM. Jesus didn’t just die, he also rose. He is not was. He stands for me in front of God and because of that I am perfect in God’s sight. Beautiful and awesome, like I was meant to be. And he does this not because of anything I do but because he loves me. Just like I am and just like I am suppose to be. Past and present and future. The Jenny from the email my friend sent and the Jenny from kindergarten and the Jenny from high school and the Jenny sitting here writing this to you. And he does this and feels this for everyone, even the people who don’t believe. Even Judas, even Hitler (I struggle with that one but yeah…anyway).

I mean if you look at dudes in the Bible like Paul (who before being blinded by Jesus on the road was happily on his way to go humiliate and kill some Christians) the greatest ‘evangelical’ of all time, and Peter number one disciple guy (was not the brightest bulb in the pack if you read closely) were murders and losers and cheaters and prostitutes. Jesus goes after the broken hearted.

Even the Pharisees, he loved those guys too. He just gave them tough love because he knew what they needed.

Jesus “doesn’t go around sprinkling love dust on everyone” and look angelic and perfect. I read this today; what God said, through the prophet Isaiah, about what Jesus would be like before he showed up: Isaiah 53:2 “There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected-a man of sorrows, acquainted with the deepest grief.” He is a carpenter’s son. He is a strong, not so attractive guy, who flips over tables fighting for peoples souls. Damn I love it.

I read and study from Genesis to Revelation. And nothing in it is easy to understand, you have to search and pray and seek relationship and have faith; but not the blind kind. The seeing kind.

And sometimes, the peace I feel. Shit. It is so good. And the love, oh the love. And the hope, oh man the hope. I still struggle but now I have HOPE. I wish you could see me. I am sitting on the couch in the dark with the biggest smile on my face. Thank you so much for asking me this question.

Right now. God is working with me on the fact that the world is not about me. This is great because that world would be really…boring. I have got to spread the love baby. Go out and love others the way he loves me. It turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds. Mainly because people are unpredictable and so am I. But it is a journey.

Right now this is the Psalm on my heart Psalm 139:
O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

This is probably more then you asked for, poor you, forgive me. I had to stop myself, but I am so joyful at this moment. I hope this answers your question and if you have any more please don’t hesitate to ask.

Be Well!!

Jenny

In the movie UP an old man named Carl goes on an adventure to carry out a long-awaited goal and instead finds love, family, and hope. Carl learns to let the past go and face the future with laughter and courage. He learns that a coward is someone who keeps themselves from moving forward in life.

Coward is a strange, negative, word. Almost more offensive than most curse words. I called someone a coward recently. I was angry for being dismissed again and I had no problem with letting them know who I thought they really were.

What right do I have to call someone names? Everyone has suffered and felt fear only to overcome it and move on. Every person has shown courage at one point or another. Who am I, who have let fear and anxiety govern most of my life, to make someone feel less than they actually are? That is not my place. God is in charge of each person and their courage or lack there of. It is cowardly of me not to turn to Jesus for my answers, instead I shake my fist at him and go my way, baking up the hottest batch of crazy cakes this side of the United States.

Jesus felt fear. He cried out to God to take the burden of saving the world from him. Instead, God gave him the courage and strength he needed to take the cross. I don’t like to think about what my life would look like if he hadn’t.

I always say that when people irrationally lash out about something someone else is doing; it is usually because they know that darkness in their own heart and either can’t see it or fear it. I forget where it is in the Bible but there is a passage where it basically says: stop trying to take out the speck in your neighbors eye and worry about taking the tree out of your own.

I found mine. I was hurt, and what the person did to hurt me was wrong, but I found a little place in my soul that still needs sweeping. Which is a gift. The ability to see and correct and let go and move forward.

Like the character of Ellie in UP, I hope to one day find my Carl. And together in Christ we will go on lots of adventures.

There are many things about the nature of God I don’t understand. Some Old Testament stuff, all seeing all know stuff; just examples. But I am not afraid to find out. Because I love Him.

Fear can keep us from doing stupid things that would hurt us and/or others. But it can also keep us from doing the things God calls us to. One of those things being diving deep into another person’s soul. They may seem to have a lot of baggage and scary issues, but if we are meant to help, God will give us the strength and courage we need in order to do the helping.

If a person has something in their past and we feel like it is too much for us I think we need to take a look at why it bothers us so much.

Maybe it is a clue as to why we are being held back in some way.

We write because we have to, because we have lived through something that has to be spoken of, and we believe we are the only ones who can write it. We don’t know the answers. That’s why we write.

-William Archila

We write to discover, to relate, to share.

We write because our mothers are really special to us and we want others to know that.

We write because we feel our world is crumbling down around us and we need help dig ourselves out.

We write because we are unbelievably, sometimes completely contrary to our circumstances, happy and we dream of others feeling the same.

We write because God has given us the ability to express ourselves with language.

We write because we have been given second, third, and forth chances and we are truly grateful.

We write because we just don’t get it.

We write because we are horrible employees and our bosses give us hell.

We write because of love.

I write when my head feels full. Some thought rolls around in my head and multiplies and fills me to the brim. I need to be tipped over and poured out. And when I look back on my writing, whether not I grimace at what I put down, there is who I was staring back at me. I am then better able to see who I am now and compare.

I use to write with other people in mind, and they are still very much part of why I put fingers to keyboard, but mostly I write because God has called and writing gives me courage. In my journey to make my life less me centered I have felt a deep need to share what it has felt like to have my heart and mind turned. Share with myself being that, most times, it takes me years to understand and follow through with the message. I want to make sure I know the amazing feeling when the Holy Spirit is working in me, the utter sadness when I have fallen short in someway, and there is also the relief of grace and hope which have taken over anger and depression.

I write to remember. Even the embarrassing, cruel, heartbreaking stuff. I try to remind myself, no matter how bad it seems/seemed, redemption is/was right around the corner. And even if not right now there is always the hope of later. Writing helps me remember that.

And I want to laugh. Jesus made laughter and it is the best sound in the world.

So I write.

No other book has presented me with such a challenge as the Bible.

No other person has challenged me as much as Jesus.

I have learned this so far:

The Bible is a story about God (Jesus) not about me, humanity, us.

God is to be enough for my heart, soul, life.

Days when I do not grasp the love of God I feel alone, cold, unable to understand and love others.

Hitler I hate.

Emma Thompson I love.

And God I just don’t understand.

I feel like I am making his character, promises, and love a whole lot more complicated then they actually are.

Or maybe my self-centered and lazy nature is just getting in the way.

Probably.

Tonight I go to bed with a heavy heart and a desperate feeling that I haven’t felt in some time.

Tonight I have turned my back on God and am afraid to turn around and find that he has left.

Which so far he has not done. I know he has bigger plans for me than I am letting myself be lead towards. But fear binds me. Binds to my bed with the hope that tomorrow will come and go without me having to leave it.

My weekly meeting with my sistas.

Tonight we realized that, and this is truly horrible get ready, tonight we realized that the last thing every human does before departing to be with Jesus is poop their pants.

And it made us laugh till tears came out.

You don’t see that s#$% in movies. Literally, you don’t.

We hope that when the time comes for us we remember our conversation about it and go out laughing.

I don’t remember how the conversation got started but, tonight we learned, Meliza’s mom once hit a deer’s butt with her car. Causing it to fly through the air and get its head stuck between two trees.

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.

We talked about when we are old and “Eh? What’s that you say?” We will live in a big house together and drive each other nuts, and love each other, and make each other laugh till the end of our days.

Oh and we talked about making out. Yes, that is right. I made a face like this:

Alhhhhhh alllhaaaalh!