Up until the other day, I thought I needed to preface/finish everything I spoke and wrote with Jesus.
But here's the thing, Jesus is in me always. I can be honest.
I went for lunch last week and was honest with a friend about some areas I'm wrestling with lately.
Then I went for drinks with friends in the evening and was honest about how I was feeling about singleness.
(note: I don't think I've been making a habit of lying. I think I just tend to keep a lot of myself hidden for protection. Some of which is natural and normal, and some of which is rooted in fear of man.)
I've gotten excellent, as I realized last week as I wrote the coffee date post, at not being honest with people.
I'm working at fixing that up. I'm not quite sure how to be honest. Sometime in me decided that if I acted selflessly, (read: not telling the people who are supposed to know how I am actually doing in life) people would want to be my friend.
And if I acted strong, maybe I could convince people that I was.
I've been trying to hold my life up on my own strength.
I want to end this post with Jesus.
Not because I have to, in a if I don't write His name enough in a post, you might think I don't actually love Him enough but in a I NEED JESUS right now because nothing else works.
I'm working on things but all I can do is surrender.
How do I reconcile these desires? Desires to serve with needs to be honest? Desires to love with my apparent need to gain love?
I sent an honest email to one of my pastors this week and his reply started with this:
Nadine,
Take a deep breath. Now, exhale, take another deep breathe and exhale again.
(And then don't stop that, because breathing is important...:) )
You're fine. Wrestling with God is good, resting in his mercy is better. . . .
As his email continued, he pointed me to Jesus and just encouraged me to ABIDE in God's love.
Sounds like a plan, eh?
What do you do? Do you try to put up a strong front, be fully honest, or find a middle ground? What's the right thing to do?
I lived the first 18 years of my life on rules. Then I spent 3 years breaking them. Now I've spent 3 years relearning Jesus and lately found myself living by them again. Whoops!
You ? What do you do?
P.S. I'm been writing my testimony out. It's taking me some time because it's scary to share the parts of my story where I didn't love Jesus. I'm praying over what to share, how much to share, and how to share. Pray okay? Cool.
