It’s okay not to be okay. It doesn’t feel like it, but that’s the truth.

It’s part of being human. Which, unless I’m missing something, means that

CHRISTIANS STRUGGLE TOO.

Believers have problems. Not just ‘Christian’ ones: Skipping the odd quiet time. Forgetting to pray for a missionary.  Young Jenny being passed over for the role of Mary in the church Nativity. Baking substandard muffins for the fete.

No, Christians struggle. With alcohol and money and family and porn and self-harm and depression and addiction and singleness and marriedness and EVERY SINGLE THING THAT YOU CAN THINK OF.  Stuff a church-goer shouldn’t even think about, let alone do.

But it’s not our having it together that makes us Christian. It’s not graduating to a smaller level of sin or investing in a shinier mask.

Jesus didn’t die to rescue us from stealing pic’ n mix.

He didn’t die to give us a good start, providing we can keep up the standards.

For every single thing we do wrong – past, present, future.  Paid for. Done.

Every angry word and questioning thought. Including our doubts: the times when we feel far from God. When we’re cold and dry and wondering if He’s even there.

He has hold of us, even when we let go of Him.

Sometimes I feel like when I put down the mask, I’m abnormal. That real Christians are strong and I am weak. But actually, it’s the mask that’s weird. And church is precisely where someone miserable and sinful and messed-up belongs.

First published at - http://emmascrivener.net/2012/12/breakingbad/
Buy Emmas book at - http://www.thinkivp.com/9781844745869