(Note: occasionally I curse. This is one of those times. Here’s why.)
I want to be careful with this series. I’m worried it might get chirpy on you.
“Just depend on Jay-sus!” “God is good all the time!” “Can I get an Ay-men?”
I mean, those things are true. Except sometimes, their cheerfulness makes you want to poke your eyes out.
This is a post about those times.
I asked some of my friends to write guest posts for this series, and a few turned me down. Some of them told me, a bit ruefully, that the theme didn’t resonate with them.
“I’m not in a place to write about an easy-yoke faith right now,” they said. “It’s just not where I am.”
I was really honored by their honesty. It did that loveliest of things, make me ask myself questions.
Because if this series makes anyone, anyone feel bad about where they are right this stinking moment, I will have missed the boat.
The question my writing buddies raised is a really awfully good question: how in the HECK can easy-yoke faith feel like such a burden?
I think it’s like those tousled hairdos that actually take three hours to achieve. In our culture, effortless is about looking effortless, not actually walking out of our houses wtih bedhead.
When I say easy-yoke faith, I mean actual bedhead, with spittle still streaked down our chins and sleep in the corners of our eyes. I mean letting our standards go out the window. I mean going rogue in the most freeing way.
I mean we are acceptable, enough, okay. Right now.
If this good news is not good news NOW, when our lives are to hell in a hand-basket and we don’t feel like praying, and we’re so frickin’ tired of the Bible we’d rather read old statistics textbooks, and church gives us hives, then it is not good news.
If it’s not good news all the time, ALL THE F-ING TIME, IT IS NOT GOOD NEWS.
Sorry to shout at you.
When I was going absolutely insane after the birth of my first child, my sister called. I started crying on the phone with her. I was incredibly bewildered, sure that my insomnia, anxiety and rage were my own fault.
And she said, “You aren’t doing this wrong, Heather. Motherhood is just hard.”
Her words made enough space in my chest that I could breathe. It saved me.
You’re not doing this wrong.
What if, at every moment faith was not working, was not giving you shiny results, you reminded yourself that you are not doing it wrong, that it’s just hard?
What if you weren’t trying to manage or correct or explain away your penny-ante spirituality, but accepted it instead?
What if you recognized that belief in God is a gift, not a prize for the hard-working?
What if when your faith feels like shit, it’s because sometimes life is shitty?
What if Jesus is a companion, not a drill sergeant?
I have friends who have lost their faith. I did not do faith better then them. Frankly, I’m bewildered why I still have this niggling feeling that Jesus is Lord. It’s not because I studied more (I didn’t), because my initial conversion was more sincere (it wasn’t) or because I know something they don’t (I really, really don’t).
The faith I have is a mystery and a gift, and I am done thinking I need to maintain it like hair color.
It is going to grow just as God gave it to me, with cowlicks, tangles, and frizzy patches.
If this faith-is-easy series is making you feel less-than, I am really, really sorry. Please, know this. You’re not doing faith wrong. You’re not messing it up. You’re not somehow clueless while everyone else has figured it out. You’re not.
If you do lose your faith—if you walk away—it is not because you didn’t try hard enough. I will grieve with you, because loss is loss, but I’m not thinking it’s because you didn’t do your faith pushups on-schedule.
That kind of thinking is poison.
Where you are, right now, that is the place to find easy faith. To admit, crouch down, cry out, and grieve. To rejoice, celebrate, breathe in, and listen. Right now. Right where you are.
I’m there, with you. But more importantly, so is Jesus.
If faith doesn’t feel easy right now, and you’re bewildered about why, may I suggest you check out my this newsletter? It’s gives six reasons your faith might NOT feel easy, and I think it will be helpful. If you like it, subscribe—you get some goodies. Join in—it’ll be good to be real together about how hard faith—even easy-yoke faith—can be.
Want to see all the posts from this series? Go here.
Image credit: Evan Long
What I Wish I’d Known About Friendship After College
When I first quit drinking, I remember hearing people with more sobriety say “The worst day sober is better than the best day drunk.” It took me a few one day at a times to finally understand that. Life is hard. Some days seem so dark and devoid of any kind of higher power. AA claims the 12 Steps are the easier, softer way, but they don’t until you begging working them. I’ve found the same to be true for following Jesus though for a different reason. He’s already done the really hard work for me. Which doesn’t mean there is no effort on my part, but my motivation is (sometimes) different and the perfectionism (when my motives are about doing the next right thing out of live rather than performance) isn’t all consuming.
This really resonates with me. Reading LIT by Mary Karr and hearing her journey to sobriety I was really struck and impressed by the 12 steps and how well they echo the way of Christ. I think many people who deal with addictions are knitted into Jesus like crazy because of the surrender involved in facing such a huge problem. I’m so glad you found sobriety.
Heather, your series always makes me feel better – iike “wow, someone else gets it!” This from your newsletter…”The problem is that self-loathing is a kind of control. It gives us the sense that we can, eventually, demand the change in ourselves we’re desperate for. It’s hard to give up control. It’s hard to be stuck with just your plain old regular self and be kind to it. It is a kind of death. It’s worth it, though. Oh, dear Lord. It’s worth it.” Oh man, how I want to change myself. Thank you for being so to the point. I need someone to remind me to be kind to my regular self:)
Hey, thanks! Gosh when I wrote that, I didn’t even know I thought that, and then I realized what I was saying and I was like ooooohhhhh. The control is so insidious, and so hard to get rid of, because it masquerades as humility. I hope we BOTH can be kinder to ourselves.
I’m a little afraid my Twitter followers are going to get sick of me saying “YAS THIS” every time you post. But that won’t stop me.
Because this series is an effective summary of everything I’ve been learning in this past season of my life. It’s like the capstone on a course that has included years of late night chats with friends, a little medicine, a bit of therapy, books and TED talks, sermons in a converted Alabama warehouse and blogs like this one that speak straight to my heart.
So thanks. Again.
Your tweets are my happy place 🙂 Sorry, followers!
Your mishmash of healing places sounds like mine–I’m so thankful to be able to access resources that are so freeing. Some are explicitly Christian, some not, but all are talking about gracegracegrace. thank you so much for this, Jenna.
Thank you for writing the words that make enough space in my chest that I can breath. 🙂
Oh, man, Johanna. This is high praise. Thank you, m’dear for the encouragement. So glad it connected with you.