I need to write my Lancaster column early this week, so I can spend the last half of the week at the PhillyFIT fitness retreat.
I think what I'm going to write about is hard difficult it has been for Christians to admit that they get depressed, or don't always have an easy answer-or that Scripture, although it gives us the outline, doesn't have every detail.
For some reason, Christians, particularly evangelicals, have a tough time showing weakness in front of one another.
I've thought about this while at the gym this past couple of weeks. I am working with a personal trainer, and one of his goals for me is to get me to arch my back and throw my shoulders back. I'm so used to hunching them over-as a tall woman, I sometimes feel a need to seem shorter, to hide. If I walk the way I was designed, I know people will see flaws-but I'll be healthier.
Remember Adam and Eve in the garden, ashamed and hoping God wouldn't see them? When you are feeling grief, or anger, or even confidence, or happiness, it's better to share. Our bodies were made to communicate with each other-they reveal the inner light (or gloom).
What does it mean for you to be a child of God? There's nothing about you that is a shock to God. The challenge is to learn to love yourself.
2 commentaires:
Amen! Yet I also think there's another side to it ... that not only do Christians sometime feel it's "wrong" to be open about what they're going through, but when you do get up the courage to express yourself with honesty, the Christian to whom you might be speaking often can't seem to handle it. Of course, this is just a generalization, but speaking from experience it's a very odd feeling. When we lived through our "nightmare" last year, there was NO WAY I could keep it inside (without some serious self-destruction). I met with a Christian woman to talk, unload, pray ... and she had absolutely no idea what to do (except say repeatedly, "Oh, dear.") Again, this isn't all the time of course, but I just found it to be interesting, that this "inhibition" is not only for the cryer, but for the shoulder as well.
I hope you post this article -- I'd love to read it. We do need to be more honest and be true to how God created us. Thanks for sharing this!
(Best wishes with the trainer!) :)
Sue, if I had that experience, it would have made a hard time worse-because I would have gotten mad at the woman, too! Oh dear, as she so uselessly said.
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