I love Sundays. I love the unexplainable feeling of waking up on a Sunday morning and just being giddy. Maybe it’s the anticipation of what cute heels I’ll wear to church or the perfect excuse for indulging in my sugar-filled latte at Starbucks. So today, like my normal Sunday ritual, we all head to CityPlace, galavant to Starbucks, and then trickle into church to mingle with friends and get our weekly check mark from the Big Guy. So here I am…. cinnamon dolce latte in my left hand and my right hand raised as a sign of worship when it hit me. I’ve crossed a lot of lines in my life, some worse than others, but most resulting in the inability to cross back over to the other side. You see, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, in fact, it is often very brown and deceiving. My line is this. My pastor is not a pastor to me, I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way at all, I LOVE my pastor, I wouldn’t leave his church for the world. But when you become friends with your pastor it changes things. Then there is the rest of the staff and volunteers…all of whom I am friends with, have traveled with, giggled over coffee with, shopped with…you understand. This puts me in a different place. I feel like I gave away my card to be real and struggle once in awhile. It’s almost like at the end of the message I hear, “We’re here if you need to talk to someone or if you need prayer…. except for Laurie, since of course, we’re friends and that would be awkward and she’s got this Christianity thing down.” I am positive PJs (as I call Pastor John) did not say that this morning to the congregation but that is what I heard.
How can I hang with all the leaders, pastors, and staff one day and joke around, go to movies, keep my “I got it all together” face on, and then BAM line up with the other “got everything together” people to pray with them? Won’t they think, “weird, why does Laurie need to pray with someone? She’s got this down, she’s been a Christian for a good amount of time. She’s got tons of friends, lives with a great family, and travels on regular mission trips. I mean she worked at Christ Fellowship, what could possibly be wrong?.” I guess I hide it well. I can stroll in with my pink heels, bright colored Lilly Pulitzer dress perfectly fit and the ever perfect touch of accessories to top it all off. Add in a pink bible and a Starbucks latte and we have the “perfect” Christian girl. Well, not so much. I have reached a level with church and church people where praying with all of them would be like a pastor approaching a first time church attendee and asking them to pray for him. We think because they are pastors they don’t need prayer and don’t have struggles. Or my all time favorite, she’s been around church forever, we can scratch her off the “to-do” list…aka: the unsaved list. It seems like once people get saved, start to volunteer or hang around on a regular basis we check them off our imaginary list and they are doomed with the title of “being saved.” Well, I am saved and I get this whole Jesus thing but that doesn’t mean I don’t have crummy days or days where I wonder what in the heck is going on here. I don’t have the slightest clue about what God is doing and to be honest, I don’t think many of us do. I won’t put on my “I got it together” face anymore because honestly, I don’t got it together. ONE thing reigns true. God has it together and I am thankful for that.
