Fearful Confessions

"But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair." -Relient K

I'm a sinner. There. I said it. I do stuff wrong. I do stuff wrong a lot, actually. And sometimes the stuff I do wrong, never goes anywhere. It sits in my heart, clogging it up, being all sneaky and secretive and evil.

This happened to me recently. A sin I have been harboring in my heart for a long time finally found its way out in a text message to my good friend, Amber. It was when I woke up in the morning, and I was lying in bed, thinking, and I knew I couldn't get out of bed until I told her. It was so hard. I probably should have said it in person, but honestly I don't know if I'd been able to. She responded with the love of Christ, not judging me but telling me she would pray for me and be here for me if I needed to talk.

But that was only step one.

James 5:16 "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."

I went to my church tonight, and one of the themes was fear. Which is scary to talk about. (Ironic, right? Or perhaps not so ironic...) After the sermon, Jenny got up and was like, this is what we're doing for confession. You all have fears. And we don't usually tell the whole world what those fears are. We keep it to ourselves, right? We don't put it on a name tag for everyone to see. But tonight that's just what we're going to do.

We proceeded to pass around name tags and pens. I was terrified of putting ink on paper one of my biggest fears, that is, kissing this particular sin goodbye. The fear of confessing my sin was almost worse than the fear of the sin itself. Anyone there who was literate could see my sin, stuck to my shirt. I tried to hold my head high. People were about to judge me...

I did not feel judged. Why should this surprise me? I was in the most non-judgmental place on the planet. The second-closest place I felt to Heaven while still on planet Earth. No one said anything. No one comforted me because they all had their sins and fears stuck to their shirts too. But when I met their eyes, I did not see judgment, I saw love. Understanding. I knew that some of the people who had read mine were praying for me.

I read some other people's. "I'm not good enough." "I'm afraid I'm going to lose my best friend." "Will I ever fall in love?" Uncertainty rang throughout the room. But there was also certainty. Certainty that we could trust each other with these things. Certainty that Jesus would forgive us and take care of us and continue to love us with that unfathomable love.

When we went up for communion, we stuck our name tag sins and fears on the wooden cross that was propped up. They were gone. We are forgiven. Jesus is going to worry about it for us from now on.

It was amazing. People knew my secret, and I felt a little lighter. The devil will not win this battle against me. Not when I have Jesus on my side.

I'm not going to publish here on my blog this sin, this secret. But before you call me a hypocrite, let me just say that I really would rather the spiritual matters of my heart be shared with only fellow Christians, and unfortunately there is a pretty low chance that the only people reading my blog are Christ-followers. This is the internet. I don't mean to be exclusive, but I intend to keep such things on a personal level.

That being said, if you are a Christian, or even if you're not, and you have a sin or anything really that you'd like to get off your chest, I'd encourage you to do so. If you're feeling particularly bold, you can even email me at bennettmk@earthlink.net and I promise not to judge you.

At a different church that I went to this morning, the pastor talked about relationships. How loneliness is not good for people, and that we need each other, as well as Jesus (we have "loneliness for God".) I know it might not be easy, but opening up, confessing sins, griefs, struggles, fears, etc. to one another is surprisingly healing. Difficult as it may be, you need to share your heart with people, to be vulnerable, to trust, even if with just a few very close friends. God made us relational beings for a reason. Reach out and be reached out to. Love. It'll be okay.


God bless.