i don't always tell you.

The following was inspired by a post of the same title by Rachel Held Evans (read it here, please - it's breathtaking). This is the most raw, unfiltered, vulnerable piece I've ever written, and it's rather terrifying to post. But I've said over and over again that this is a place where you can be yourself - and that has to include me.

So here's a piece of my heart, in hopes that it can meet you where you're at in your journey.

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I don't always tell you that sometimes when I look in the mirror, it's like facing down a stranger with hints of familiarity, maybe a freckle in the same spot, or a similar twitch of the eye. All I really want to do is break the glass, but instead I just call myself names, like ugly or stupid or nobody likes you.

And sometimes I feel God's peace like a gust of fresh air, and it fills my lungs to the point where I can't do anything but smile and gulp in deep deep breaths because I know he is near.

And other times I try repeating his name out loud, just to remind myself he exists, and it only sounds like I'm taking his name in vein.

OH GOD Oh God Oh God Oh god oh god.

And then I hate myself even more, because what kind of Christian could ever feel this way and still hang onto Christ?

And praying just seems like some watered down way to make talking to myself seem sane, and the Bible is just full of words that get caught on my tongue as they try to escape. Read them, repeat them, scratch them off my heart and smear them onto my forehead. Something, anything to make me feel more alive.

And what do I do when the words that are supposed to be living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword, actually feel like they're cutting small little slits all over my faith, letting the doubt seep in like the smoke lingering after a fire?

I don't always tell you about these cringe-worthy moments, the ones not exactly suitable for a cleaned up and polished blogspot site.

Or a cleaned up and polished Christian, for that matter.

If those even exist.

And so I'll go for a drive, because I like taking long drives with God just to be with him, and we won't say much at all. I'll play a few songs and look up at the sky, usually sunset, and be reminded of how beautiful this life is all over again.

And this is faith, not always feeling and not always knowing, but continuing to show up in spite of it all.

For God is more than a good feeling in my stomach, a quiet voice in my ear, a cardboard pattern in my mind. He's more than the boxes and verses and how-to's of faith. He's more than my doubt, my questions, and my anger, jumbled up fear that wracks my brain and my soul.

He's here and he's present and he just keeps showing up.

So I guess I will, too.

intertwined building blocks of friendship and marriage.

If you couldn't tell from previous blog posts, I really like friendships. The concept to me is mind boggling and glorious and beautiful, but it's even better when it's lived out and felt, really really felt. I think part of the reason I find it so stunning is that there is no power struggle in true, authentic friendships. Both are equals, walking through life side-by-side, able to look at each other eye-to-eye because it's not about who's better or who's leader, but about how each person can better serve and love the other. I wrote in one of my previous blog posts,

"It's a beautiful parallel system that God created here - friendship isn't only about one person learning all about another. It's about two people coming to terms with their identities, together as friends, but also as individuals. We often learn the most about ourselves by learning about other people."

I see this all throughout the Bible, especially in one of my favorite passages, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, where two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help... A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Back-to-back, side-by-side, helping the other stand up when they fall down, bare their soul, and their heart still feels a little shaky.

For I've lost track of the number of times I've heard people say that true romance and true marriages are built on friendship. I've heard that if friendship isn't the rock solid foundation of romance, the relationship is pretty much doomed to fail. If the concept of mutual, life-giving friendship isn't at the center of a romantic relationship, it seems rather forced and dull. Romance has to flow naturally from a place of authentic love (1 Corinthians 13), of the desire to honor the other as above yourself (Romans 12:10) and bear their burdens alongside of them (Galatians 6:2). That's something required of us as Christians in general, not just as romantic partners.

So I get confused when I hear people bring up terms like "male headship" and "authority," "leadership" and "roles," when discussing the elements of a biblical marriage. Like when Candace Cameron Bure states, "It is very difficult to have two heads of authority… When you’re competing with two heads, that can pose a lot of problems or issues" (Bure, Huffington Post). And Bure isn't the only one who holds this opinion. I've heard similar statements from various people in my life, convinced that a solid marriage needs a leader in order to avoid power struggles and chaos.

Yet no one preaching on friendship would ever claim that one friend has to be the servant leader, and the other has to submit. No one would claim that friendships digress into nothing more than chaotic power struggles if one person isn't put in charge. I'm guessing authors such as Candace Cameron Bure wouldn't post interviews on why she submits to her best friend.

Why? Because friendships aren't contractual. Christ-like friendships are about doing life together. They're about side-by-side community, about friends leading in their strengths and submitting out of love, not because the submission is demanded or forced upon them by Scripture, but because it is a natural outpouring of loving someone as you love yourself. That kind of love isn't just used to describe marriages - it's the same kind of love used to paint the picture of David and Jonathan's covenantal friendship, where Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself (1 Samuel 20:17).

Here's what I'm saying: I don't think there's one right way to DO marriage. Something as holy and mysterious as the marital covenant can't be reduced to a set of rules or roles or several bible verses taken out of context. Just as I have seen many glorious marriages based on mutual submission, so have I seen marriages with the man as the head that are still radiantly beautiful.

At the same time, I think the 'headship' and the 'leadership' language starts to sound more and more like an employer-employee relationship, a business leader and an administrative assistant, rather than a husband and wife one-flesh bond of love and unity. Since when did Christ become not enough as the head of a relationship?

Authentic friendships don't leave room for hierarchies, for static leaders and helpers, for legalistic rankings of authority. And from what I've come to learn so far, neither do marriages. With Christ as the head, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, become one in Him, taking turns leading and helping, showing weakness and showing strength, because in Christ there is no fear. There is no shame. One is not pigeon-holed into a specific role, but allowed the space and fluidity to grow into who he or she is in Christ. 

God is constantly creating us into beautiful things; beautiful things that are organic, not forced or hurried, beaten down with never enoughs and just not theres.

And for most of my life, I've heard sermons preached on marriage that only left me feeling restricted, like it was nothing more than a cardboard check list of dos and don'ts, impossible standards with no room to be afraid and vulnerable and simply HUMAN. But I've also heard those same pastors talk about friendship, about David and Jonathan and Ruth and Naomi, about carrying each other's burdens, and it was like breathing in fresh air that felt FREE.

Now before you go off saying I'm scared of commitment, let me tell you that I only felt this way because I continued to box off marriage and friendship as two completely different concepts. Because that's how they're often talked about, right?

"Oh, they're just friends."

I still catch myself saying this now. Just friends, like the friendship is either ten times less than a romantic relationship, or a simple stepping stone leading to eventual marriage.* It's easy to paint marriage as the mountain top experience of all relationships, often times diminishing friendship in the process.

But that's the thing - marriage and friendship aren't in competition. They aren't two separate concepts on opposite sides of space, racing against each other to cross the finish line.

They're often interconnected and intertwined, constantly intersecting to reveal a breathtaking paradigm of mutuality. It's a paradigm where both are equal and Christ is the head - one that most are quick to allow into friendships.

And if friendship makes up the building blocks of healthy romantic relationships, wouldn't that same paradigm carry over into marriage?

*For more of my thoughts on platonic, male-female friendships, read my post here.

why i am getting married young (guest post by shelby grosser).

Shelby with her fiancee, Patrick.

I am overjoyed to introduce Shelby Grosser as the guest writer for today's blog post. A few months back, I wrote a post on singleness and why I have found joy through it in my personal life. That being said, I very much tried to uplift both marriage and singleness as beautiful, glorious things. So, I thought I'd ask Shelby to write a post on why she has found joy and beauty in marriage, as she is engaged to be married to Patrick Ray in a little over a month.

I've known Shelby for a few years now, and she is such an encouragement to be around. She is absolutely in love with Jesus, and out of that love pours a deep love for all people, which will become clear as you read her post. She is an urban studies major at Northwestern College and a church planter in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a radical heart for hospitality. I'm so blessed to have her featured on my blog. Also, make sure to check out her own blog, Letters from Phalanges. It's beautiful.

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I am in an interesting stage in life. I am nineteen years old (though almost twenty). I am a full time student preparing to enter my final year of undergrad this coming fall. I am a church planter. I am a regular overnight volunteer at a homeless shelter. And I am thirty-eight days away from being married. I was asked by a friend to write a post about why I have chosen marriage, and young marriage at that. So here I am.

Most of my life I assumed I would get married, be a mom, and a loyal member of the local church. As I grew older and wiser, these desires only grew, but their shape has changed with the seasons, molded by the knowledge acquired and the passion placed in me. One important thing for you to understand about the shape of my life thus far is that the Lord has seemingly walked me through experiences a bit ahead of the normal curve, quite consistently. I have always felt too old for the short years my body has lived, and I think this has partially influenced my contentment in pursuing young marriage.

But let's get down to the basics.

I have chosen to marry Patrick when I will be twenty and he will be twenty-one because I genuinely believe that he and I will be able to glorify the Lord more together than apart, and to delay the marriage would be to delay a beautiful partnership.

When I met Patrick we had a long string of conversations and experiences where we found likemindedness in each other that we each craved, but had yet to find. I believe the Lord called me to be a church planter my junior year of high school, and until I met Patrick three years later I had never met a peer who had a similar passion or call. Likewise, we bonded over a common heart for the city, orphans, adoption, hospitality, and those experiencing homelessness.

You do not need everything in common to choose to be married or to make a good marriage. In fact, Patrick and I don't even have a majority of things in common, but we do align beautifully on the big things. Patrick and I both find worldview and values to be crucial commonalities in order to pursue a lifelong covenant with someone. As we grew in friendship we found great likemindedness in values, faith, and in the direction the Lord was asking us individually to go. It fell beautifully into place that we would walk into what God has asked us to do individually, together.

I cannot fully articulate the blessing this has been in my life. To have found someone with such a similar passion for life, Christian ministry, and love for our neighbors has brought such a sincere joy and a beautiful trust in the strong cornerstone of our relationship.

We each separately are sacrificing several things in our decision to marry young. At an obvious level, we are giving up some freedom in relationships with the opposite sex. Though we will joyously continue our friendships, there are necessary boundaries now put on my relationships with men and his with women. Additionally, we are choosing to learn to live with the same person for the rest of our days. We will sacrifice our "normal" way of life to adjust to someone else's. We will surrender much of the freedom of singleness and independence. But I wholeheartedly believe that the cost is minimal in comparison to all the joy of our young marriage.

In marrying young we will have the pleasure of growing into each other as adults, rather than growing older separately and then learning to live in such an intimate relationship with someone. We will be able to adventure into a life on mission in Minneapolis, Minnesota, planting churches, serving our neighbors, inviting in the stranger and the friend in a way that we cannot do to the same extent as just friends, or individuals. In getting married young, we are choosing to form our lives and our adult years around the Lord and around a life long covenant to love and submit to another well.

I am getting married at the young age of twenty because I truly and wholeheartedly believe that Patrick Ray is someone who will grow me in my love for the Lord, serve me in the hard and easy places, and be a phenomenal partner in life and mission, enabling both of us to do more than we could have imagined being able to do for the Lord. I am getting married young because the cost is well worth the joy and beauty to follow.

As a disclaimer, when I talk about the joy and beauty of marriage I am not simply referring to the happiness and fun times. I am referring to the hard places, the soul work, the brokenness and pain of surrendering your life and trusting someone in hard places. I am referring to the holistic picture of the life long covenant, with circumstantial beauty and joy, and circumstantial pain and struggle.

roller coaster journies and sexuality spectrums.

For those of you that pay particularly close attention to my blog, you may have noticed that I took down my 2013 post on homosexuality entitled, "christian-homophobe-stereotypes and gay-people-projects." It was actually my most popular post with the most comments, but I can no longer keep it up with a good conscience. The more recent World Vision fiasco has brought me back to this topic once again, searching, wrestling, begging God for some clarity on such a polarizing debate.

I hate that. Even that feels wrong, a debate. For the LGBTQ community isn't a debate. They're more than a theological disagreement or a raging sermon behind the pulpit or cardboard projects to twist and mold, tear apart.

They're people. Living, breathing human beings, created in the radiant image of God, knitted together with quirks and favorite colors and deep dark secrets and laughter to laugh and tears to cry.

Now, I'm not going to dive too deep into World Vision's decision, as that's not the main purpose of this post. Instead, I'll redirect you to a superb post by Jen Hatmaker that faithfully explains the dilemma and moves forward from there with grace and gentleness toward all sides. I will say that I agree with Rachel Held Evans when she said, "I had not realized the true extent of the disdain evangelicals have for our LGBT people." And while I believe World Vision should've expected the mass divide that making such a statement would cause, I'm still confused as to how withdrawing one's sponsorship of a child is a beneficial way to express one's opinion on same-sex marriage.

As I was searching for answers, I came across this blog post by Benjamin Moberg. While I don't agree with everything he talks about (more on that later), it hit me hard enough to lead me to take down my initial posting on homosexuality. Give it a read before continuing on.

Before I say anything else, I'd like to apologize for adding to the oppression unknowingly. There I was, trying to reach out in love to both sides and not alienate people and walk on the eggshells as lightly as possible. And in doing so, I created my own polarizing divide - the gays vs. the Christians. It's ironic, because I mentioned in that very post just how easily Christians make such ostracizing polarizations, not even realizing that I was doing it myself. In fact, reading through "The Accidental Oppressors," I actually felt like Benjamin Moberg was writing about my specific blog post at times. I continued to situate all gay people next to the woman at the well, simply because they were gay, and all Christians next to Jesus, doing nothing more than nicely rewording love the sinner, hate the sin, which, as penned by Moberg himself, is "lazy pseudo-progressive theology." I wasn't being progressive. I wasn't taking the middle path, no matter how many times I used the word "love."

Here's what I'm getting at - the LGBTQ community and the church aren't going to get anywhere together if we keep seeing it like that - the church people and the gay people, the saints and the sinners. Sexuality is not a dichotomy, not an either-or question that can be marked A or B. Even among the LGBTQ community, there are fiery activists who want nothing to do with Christians, but also couples passionately committed to Christ, radically working out his love into the hearts of others. And somewhere in between all of that are the gay Christians committed to celibacy. This can be seen throughout the church as well, from the stereotypical 'Bible-banging homophobes' to the full-fledged LGBTQ supporters to the ones standing in between. It's one big spectrum and I'm just now trying to figure out where I land on such a wide open field.

That is what I failed to realize in my original post. I unknowingly equated all Christians with 'anti-gays' who needed to love better, while making all gay people out to be the sinners in need of that loving, as if Christians weren't sinners and gay people couldn't be Christians. I think it's especially important to remember that, as a Christian, being a child of God becomes one's main identity. Sexual orientation, gender, race, class - none of these things make up one's entire identity, nor are any of them the most important part of one's identity. Whether you're a straight Christian, a gay Christian, a bi-sexual Christian, etc. - our most important identity as Christians is as children of God.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with everything Moberg writes in his post. While I do believe that the Bible is filled with stories of God stepping in for the marginalized, I don't think it's enough to stop there. To me, the Bible tells the story of humankind choosing to turn away from their Creator, and God choosing to respond with love and reconciliation, stepping in for all people so that all may experience His Peace That Surpasses All Understanding.

Still, most of Moberg's main, overarching points are so beneficial to hear and learn about. I now can see the laziness behind the "just love" argument that so pervaded my initial post. It's almost like a cop-out to the truth, something to fall back on because I was scared of taking a side or admitting something vulnerable like I don't know. There. I said it.

I don't know.

I'm currently on my own journey of searching for the truth, of being curious and looking in those small spaces and cracks often covered up by anger, by fear, by sheer cluelessness. Benjamin Moberg writes about this journey in his article, about studying the Bible and different theology and talking to gay people and always remembering to praypraypray. To pray "for an ear that pricks at divine revelation." To search out what God wants, rather than what gay Christians or traditional Christians or progressive Christians or anyone else want.

That is what I'm trying to do. In all honesty, I'm still a college punk trying to figure out who I am, so it feels like a bit of a roller coaster at times. Or all the time. I'd like to invite you along on this journey with me, as I know it'll be so much better in the context of community, with different voices to hear, opinions to sort through and stories to treasure.

Right now, I think it's good to stand in the tension. That heavy, kind of uncomfortable feeling that comes when we acknowledge the humanity of the entire spectrum, from the far left to the far right and every nook and cranny in between. Moberg absolutely nails it on the head when he writes in his article, "May We Never Stop Speaking,"

I am a gay Christian. I have come to feel the destabilizing truth of this declaration. It packs a punch. It pisses off the gatekeepers more than anything, and evokes a call to love and learn from those with searching hearts. It provokes conversations that are fruitful and drop seeds, into both our souls, as we learn the difference between hate and disagreement, gay pride floats and committed relationships, as we, as I, ply apart the person from the, now inflammatory, Evangelical.

I still have so much to learn, so many conversations to have. But the term gay Christian doesn't come up a lot, especially in the evangelical church, and so I think it's good to sit with that for a while and refuse to ignore the feelings it brings up. For me, hearing those words brings up so many different voices that I've recently been hearing, ones who identify themselves as gay Christians and ones whom I always associate with so much love. People like Justin Lee of the Gay Christian Network (and author of the phenomenal book, Torn), or Wesley Hill, author of the fantastic, Washed and Waiting. People like Benjamin Moberg himself - I have learned so much from simply reading the blogs of these people and listening to their stories, their points of view, their perspectives.

And since I've come to learn that being gay refers solely to one's sexual orientation, not their sexual behavior, I am more than fully convinced that one can be gay and a Christian.

I consistently find, not just through reading online, but from listening to the people around me, that some Christians associate being gay with having sex, objectifying gay people and reducing them to nothing more than sex acts. And it strikes me as strange, seeing that no one ever does this with straight people. When someone admits that he or she is straight, people usually don't assume that they're  running around having sex all the time. It makes sense, seeing that having a sexual orientation is not inherently sinful. It's what one chooses to do with those desires and attractions that determine whether or not it's considered sinful through the lens of Christianity.

So, I will say it again, this time louder. I'll shout it from the mountain tops, because I just don't think enough Christians are comfortable embracing and supporting this belief, even if they agree with it. It's more of an under-your-breath, hope-nobody's-listening kind of thing. And that's got to be discouraging to the GLBTQ community. So, once again, I fully believe one can be a gay Christian and that there's nothing sinful or damning about it. 

I'm not going to go beyond orientation and get into the debate over sexual behavior right now, because I've already admitted that I don't know. I'm walking this path slowly, steadily. But just because I took my initial post down doesn't mean I disagree with its main point of loving one another as Christ has loved us. I still plan on loving all people regardless of orientation, religion or stance on homosexuality, and I will try my best to weave that love into a consistent picture of grace and humility that is quick to listen and slow to speak.

But what does that love look like? What does it smell and feel and taste like, how is it spoken about and lived out in this life of Joy and Gentleness and Peace? I know there's so much more to sexuality and Christianity than what one measly blog post can contain and that's what I'm trying to work out, piece by piece and word by word, through the hearts of people and the Love Light of God that speaks deep into souls with its soothing, healing voice.

I'm going to be curious, I'm going to be relentless, I'm going to keep pushing and pushing some more and then when I'm so tired and worn down by God and think I finally might be getting somewhere helpful, I'm going to push some more.

And maybe then, just maybe, I'll catch a glimpse of what this love looks like.