Whom do you serve?
Have you ever thought that you’re just spending your life trying to be what you needed and never got? Let me explain.
This is most relatable in the context of parenting. Many folks are trying to be for their children what their parents never were for them. Or, they’re trying to give their children what their parents didn’t or weren’t able to give to them. This is not all bad. You can have great parents and still not want to do things the same way that they did them. Even the best parents make mistakes. But, my point is still valid, we’re spending an exorbitant amount of time just trying to be what we wanted or needed for our children.
This also shows up in our careers. I know people who have become counselors, coaches, teachers, and social workers because they were inspired by someone in their life and they want to be that kind of support and inspiration for others. I love that. I also know people who get into those same careers or others because they didn’t have a good teacher, doctor, boss, or pastor and they want to be for others what they never got.
There is very little that I do that is inspired by the example of others. I don’t know if it’s my strong will, lack of gratitude, or overall sour outlook, but I’m rarely trying to imitate someone else. That is not to say that my life is void of kind, generous, and inspiring people. I view myself, however, not as trying to do what they did, but learn from them in order to do what I need to do. Because I’m much more motivated to be what I needed and never had than I am to just imitate someone inspiring. I don’t think that either choice is bad, by the way. I’m just letting you know where I’m coming from.
When I think about who I want to serve, who I want to bless, and who I want to spend my life encouraging and inspiring, it’s usually some past version of myself. I don’t think it’s a secret that I was a lot to handle, emotionally, when I was younger. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned a lot about why that is and what was missing from my life. By the time I was a young adult, I was no longer emotionally unstable, I was trying to process the wounds from my past in what I thought was a safe community. This might change, but for now, the greatest tragedy of my life is that, when I vulnerably began to share about my life and the ways that I was navigating the world and faith as a result of it, I was met with shock, avoidance, slander, gossip, and shame for not being different or better. I was labeled as harsh and just too much. I was outcast and black listed. I was manipulated and gaslit. Insult to injury, as the saying goes.
A community that had the opportunity and distinct privilege to help me and others like me heal chose to wound us even more deeply because being participants in our healing was too messy and painful.
So. I’m pretty sure that I’ve spent my life, ever since those first few years in Radford, being the exact opposite of that. I’ve tried to meet wounded people with mercy, grace, understanding, and a listening ear. I’ve proven myself trustworthy before I offered advice or alternative perspectives. I’ve never doubted how someone has viewed or experienced their life, even if their view was skewed or wrong - it still felt that way to them. I suspect that I’m going to spend the rest of my life not only healing from the wounds of my time in Radford, but becoming the kind of person who I needed when I found myself lost and confused in the depths of conservative evangelicalism.
I’m here for the outcasts, the ones the church has forgotten. I’m here for the messy, loud, unstable, and chaotic ones. I’m here for the pain and the wounds and the hurt and the injustice. I’m here for the unconventional, the critics, and thieves. Because, if not me, then who? Who else can care for those who’ve been abused by the church better than we who know exactly what that feels like?
As I wrote last week, everyone doesn’t need the same prescription for their ailments. I cannot be specifically what every wounded person needs. But generally, I, and anyone else who’s interested, can do a few things:
We can withhold judgment until we’ve heard the whole story.
We can ask questions and don’t assume that we know someone’s pain or wounds just because they are familiar.
We can refrain from advice and solutions until they are asked for or we’ve earned the right to give them.
We can validate and support and speak out against the injustices that have wounded our neighbors.
We can just listen. It’s not our job to fix our friends or defend the church. Those are both above our pay grade.
Like Frodo, I wish that such things had not happened in my lifetime. I wish that my experience was an anomaly or that I was one of a small minority of people lambasted by the church for having the audacity to have a painful, complicated life. But, alas, I’m part of a growing population of faithful Christians whose faith is being questioned because it’s not neat, clean, and easy. Some of us are even walking away from faith because the very people who could offer us hope and healing are slamming the door in our face.
Jesus and Christianity aren’t to blame here. Conservative evangelicalism’s lack of accountability and monstrous pride are.
Through the series of unfortunate events that was my decade in Radford, I know who God wants me to serve. I think that I suspected I was headed this way all along, but I didn’t know that I’d have to become one of these dear ones in order to love them the best. If I’m talking about you, I’m honored to be among your number.
So, what about you? Who do you want to serve? You can serve people because you’re inspired by the impact that someone else had on you or because you didn’t get what you needed. You can serve because you just want to. You can serve because you need to. Either way, take some time to think about who gets you fired up? Whose story keeps you awake at night and gets you itching to do something about it? Can you think of a specific person that you’re passionate about? It’s okay to literally just serve one person, we can’t save the world after all.
The answers to these questions really matter because, if we don’t know who we are encouraging, equipping, and supporting, then we are going to flounder. It can change and fluctuate throughout your life, but the important thing is that you know who you’re serving at any given moment. If we follow Jesus, we follow a relational God who meets us each individually with exactly what we need. Knowing our people and what they need is a key part, not only of our individual stories, but of bearing God’s image to the world.
So, to bring up LOTR again, “Whom do you serve?” (Please don’t say, “Sauruman”. That guy sucks.)