7.13.09

This morning’s classes were extremely difficult for me to get through. The class that I had today hadn’t had me the week I presented the gospel to all my classes. So I tried to explain it…again. [on a side note…I was just called to the kitchen by our Namibian friend, Rian, to try liver and lung. From what animal? I have no idea. The liver tastes like steak but with the texture of canned cat food. I told him that and he asked how I knew what cat food tasted like. His answer to his own question was that times are hard in America, and we all eat cat food and peanut butter. The lung tasted even better and had the texture of fat. Anyway, what I way saying about teaching the gospel this morning…]
I grew frustrated because I’m know I’m not “getting it right”. Not that there is a “right” way to explain it, but it’s just that I’ve made it seem so formulaic. And, you see, the gospel is like this in my life:

My mom mentioned heaven to me when I was like three and it sounded better than hell so I prayed some prayer and began this journey. Then I did AWANA stuff and was homeschooled so the conservative evangelical community “fit” me. Then I realized other people in the world didn’t know God and it made them do bad things sometimes like swear and lie to their gymnastics coaches about how many pushups they had done and listen to music about sex. Then I went to a private jr high where I was told that I to be a Christian I needed to make sure I was doing good when people were watching me and then whenever I did something I was told that I was “extraordinary” but in church words like “God has a wonderful plan for your life”. I got really good at playing church with the “in” people which made me really good at being a jerk to the “out” people. Then, I went to public high school and I was told that to be a Christian I had to tell sinners and evolutionists they were wrong and going to hell, which sucked in the making friends process, but made me good friends with people in the youth group and actually made me a leader. Then I went to this camp in the middle of nowhere, Missouri, and I saw that college students loved Jesus and were so cool because, well, they were college students and one even told me that God used me in her life. That felt really good, so I became “the girl God uses in peoples’ lives”, which was great but hard because I still needed God to use people in my life but people don’t always want to be used in the life of “the girl God uses in peoples’ lives” because she’s an intimidating creature. So I got really good at being self-sufficient, learned not to need anyone, “just Jesus”. Then, I went to Haiti for a few weeks and lived with Barb VanSchoyk who showed me what the servant Jesus looks like in flesh, but I still got a really big head about the whole trip. Then I went to Bible school and I learned a lot of rules about God and became more of a jerk, telling people that they if they didn’t follow the rules I followed we needed to argue until we agreed. Then I came to Africa and thought about Jesus and what He did with people and in people and what people He spent time with and how much bigger the gospel is than I ever thought. I sat with kids in dirt and played with children in abusive homes and realized how helpless I am to do anything but hold them and tell them they are loved and I thought that’s more like Jesus would be with them rather than telling them to clean up, get right theology and go to church.

And then I was told to teach all that to students.

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s far too much for me to hold. I think it bears repeating.