It turns out that things are not quite as they seem, or at least they weren’t. Of course, I say that a lot, but apparently it’s a good lesson because it keeps coming up.

Case in point, I was recently reacquainted with a boy I knew from high school. Well, to be honest, I didn’t know him but rather of him. At any rate, during the course of this late night online conversation, I began to think that maybe he wasn’t quite the person that I’d believed.  In part, that was because we weren’t actually friends so all I knew of him was what I gleaned from I think a shared math class maybe and numerous hallway passes during which I was pretty oblivious, which was typical of me and probably still is. It was nothing drastic, no deep dark buried secrets or anything like that. But in feeling, it seemed as though there was a different air and flavor to who he had been than I was aware of, and that almost made it seem more important somehow than if he’d revealed that he’d been a teenage arson or had had a scandalous affair with a teacher. But through this, I realized that I was guilty of the usual high school sin of lumping everyone into only two groups, the first of which was made up of a couple of people who took pity enough to hang out with me but weren’t quite as dorky as I was; The second was everybody else.

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If you really wanna know, you’re going to have to know it all.

So I’ve been working over at Writers’ Grope on Livejournal on the prompts from the JulNoWriMo website. So far I’ve done . . . two of them. But! I’m getting there. The reason I bring it up is that in this last exercise I was writing a letter to someone from highschool and I realized that there was a lot of my experience that this person didn’t know, and couldn’t have known. It was suddenly apparent to me that a lot of my life has been an exercise in duplicity.

Is this the common experience? What are those things that we’ve never told anyone? And is now the time to let them breathe?

I’m thinking about it. I’m mulling it over. Should I embark on recovering the past and recreating it to be what it really was? In some ways, I was probably doomed to be, well, something of a hypocrite. This won’t make sense now, but I believe it will become clear. Regardless, I’m not going to be that anymore. God is truth, and I love him. And so I will love truth as well.

I have a confession of my own: I heart St. Augustine.

We’re like soulmates seperated by hundreds of years, and by class, gender, education, and age. We’ve both been foolish, we’ve both been degenerate. And yet God in his infinite wisdom and grace was kind enough to show us fully what kind of jerks we really were and grow us into something better, more in keeping with who he is. And it is encouragement to me now to read the words of someone who has sought, as I myself need to continually seek, the absolute truth.

<—–see the resemblence?—–>

” Entrust to truth whatever truth has given you, and you will lose nothing. What is withered in you will flower again, and your illness will be made well, and all that was flowing and wasting from you will regain shape and substance and will form part of you again, and they will not lay you down in the place where they themselves descend, but will stand fast with you and abide with you forever before God who stands and abides forever.”

May I say it? HOT.

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There are some of you who may assume that I suffer from some sort of mental disorder that includes violent moods swings and illusions of grandeur. But those are only the people who know me well. For the rest of you, my insanity will have to be proven. And, let me wager, proven it shall be.

Insert Jarring Subject Change Here.

I was talking with Stephen tonight after we saw Fireproof at the Danberry Dollar Saver (not as bad as I thought it might be, I’ll be honest). He was remarking on how some (private and not to be disclosed here) things in the past had really injured him but that he wasn’t angry over them, and I mentioned that it’s very difficult to be hurt by someone or something and not become angry. I know this because I’ve been in that place before and had to recognise the true source of my upset. I know this because I’m there now.

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I confess.

Confessions are so intimidating. As was said in a Charade (a totally class movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn), “People usually lie because they want something, and they’re afraid the truth won’t get it for them.” How apt. And, quite frankly, how surprising that Hollywood at one time came up with something true. And it really does seem to be the case. In confession, we are (or should I say “I am”?) afraid that we will be seen differently than we want to be, that no one will give us the benefit of the doubt, that no one else will understand the things that we were dealing with that caused us to make such a blunder. And usually, they don’t. But I’ve got a secret weapon.

When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter what other people’s perceptions are of me. As a Christian, I am not so much even myself, but rather a conglomeration of the work that God is doing in me. And so I confess, not to show how great I am in overcoming the person that I once was, but to give a record of all that Christ’s blood has bought and saturated and made his. I confess to bring to light all that God can redeem and has redeemed and continues to.

And here are my confessions:

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So, how am I to be in the world, being a Christian young woman? Understanding that the reason I live is only by the pleasure of God in allowing me to breathe this day? Understanding that the purpose of that breath is to bring Him glory? How do I be a woman of God without becoming a Jesus-bot?

Not that there’s anything wrong with being obsessed with Jesus. I mean, as the bride waiting for her groom, it makes sense to be overwhelmed with thoughts of the Beloved. But the Jesus-bot is different. It’s a robotic version of love, or so it seems to me. Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong.

But . . .

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