Sunday, February 9, 2014

I'll Go to Church If You.....

Don't deny it. We've all said a prayer that sounded similar to that! When I was in 6th grade, my science teacher told us how tornadoes were formed and it scared me to death! I remember that I would watch the weather religiously to see if there were any signs of a tornado approaching. When it would get hot one day and super cold the next day, I knew there was a possibility of those terrifying funnel clouds approaching my home. There were a couple times that tornadoes touched down in Arkadelphia. In 1997, the entire downtown was flattened completely. I was so little, but I remember driving by and seeing the clock tower blown out. From that point on whenever there was a tornado watch I would grab all of my important memories, put them in a box and go down to the storage room in the basement. 

There was one time that I remember praying during a tornado warning. I said, "God, if you make this tornado go away, I promise I'll be a better person! I won't complain about going to church anymore!" At about the same time, God sent a wonderful person into my life, Mike Meeks. Before I knew it, going to church was actually fun and I was learning scripture in a whole new way! Of course, I screwed up about 99.9% of the time by attempting and failing to re-preach Mike's sermons, but if I would have stopped completely... I wouldn't be here today. 

The past three months of my life have been surrounded by editing, writing, publishing, website building and so much more. I have put so much into my book and I feel like I'm failing. I want this to be my life and my career and I don't know what it is, but its just not working. 

I couple months ago, I was a mess. Instead of doing something that I probably would have not been able to bounce back from so easily, I decided to write about it. I decided to read the scripture and figure out what God wanted me to do. God showed me something. He showed me that no matter what I did, He loved me just the same and I could come back to him because of this wonderful gift called, "Grace." Not only did I write a book, but I published it. People were supporting me left and right telling me to do it and so I did! I got so hyped up on the energy that I went at this project full throttle and right now... I'm at a stand still. I'm not getting support anymore because people don't want to associate with the title. 

I barely ever stand up for myself and tell people how it is, but that's going to change tonight. Here's the deal. My book, "God Knows What Sex Feels Like" follows eight goals that I came up with to live a more Christian lifestyle. Each chapter is one of those goals and within those goals I used scripture that I didn't even know existed to relate back to my life experiences! I learned so much about God and what He wants me to do with my life! Isn't that a good thing? Isn't that something worth celebrating?! A few months ago I was fully prepared to give up on myself and instead I turned to God! Hello world! I'm back in the game! 

This is something that I have heard a lot in the past couple of months, "I would give you the interview if you change the title...", "I would help you out if the title didn't have the word, 'sex' in it."... you can imagine up a million and one circumstances and I've probably been through it in about a three month period. Here's the thing. I could very well decide to change the title and pick something more appropriate, but even if I did do that... something wouldn't change. The content.

I keep going back to the feelings that I had when those tornadoes would come. Some days are warm and give me promise to keep going, but other days are so cold and just make me want to give up and throw this whole project in the trash. When you put the hot and cold together it will make a disaster 9 out of 10 times, but without disaster there would be no community. What are we doing with our lives? 

When did something that God created become too inappropriate for the church?

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding." - Proverbs 3:5

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