The authentic Christian

When I was a a teenager my favorite book was the dictionary. I loved everything about words. I was passionate about etymology. Every few days I would flip the book open and find a word. Any word. Any length. Any meaning. I didn't care. That word was my "new" word. I used it every moment I could until it became a part of my vocabulary.
That habit did nothing for my popularity (most teenagers don't even know what etymology means, let alone how to pronounce it. Had I been born in my husband's neighborhood I would have sported more than one black eye...) But it instilled in me a deep love for language that manifests itself to this day.
I'm going to share with you my current favorite word.
I've been using this word a lot recently and I think it's an important one for Christians to embrace.
It's a word that seems to have fallen out of favor among the churched.
Authenticity.
I love the sound of it. Say it aloud. Aww (if you're from NY). Then. Tis. Ity.
Lovely.
Authenticity is the quality of being genuine.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I can't stand to watch TBN. Most of those people drive me crazy. I would try to explain my reasons to Shane, but I was never really able to articulate them.
Saying so-and-so was annoying didn't really cut it.
I finally realized one day that the reason I'd rather watch Barney sing show tunes than watch a Christian network was because most of the hosts didn't seem genuine.
I'm sure their faith was genuine. I'm sure their compassion was genuine. I'm even sure they genuinely believed if you sent them your grocery money God was going to heal you of tuberculosis and help you win a new microwave oven.
But the image they portrayed didn't seem genuine...authentic.
My life is very messy. I accepted Christ when I was four.  I've never turned from him, I've never delved deep into the sin culture of Marilyn Manson, pierced my naval or stubbed my toe and cursed without repenting. I've prayed, read my Bible and loved Him. Yet still, sometimes I feel like my world is coming apart at the seams and Christ seems to always be one step out of reach.
I've doubted. I've yearned. I've resisted. I've ignored. I've loved. I've given. I've taken. I've known. I've sought.
I'm tired of Christian ministers who never experience the downs in the ups and downs of life. At least I'm tired of ministers who pretend they don't.
Where are the people like me? Does God just wash His hands of us and consign us to the useless believer's pew? (Or folding chair, depending on your denomination.)
I don't think so.
I think God knew exactly what He was doing when he formed me.
He gave me my mind knowing I was going to question everything and wonder.
He gave me my mouth knowing I was going to open it sometimes without thinking and give my opinion when it wasn't wanted.
He gave me my hands knowing they would very rarely be still.
He gave me my soul knowing the hurts I would endure, the independence I would cultivate and the passion I would display.
He knew me. Even then He loved me.  He may not need me, but He wants me and I believe He wants to use me.
Why?
Maybe because I understand the value of being authentic.
Let me share a few things about myself
Sometimes I let Ellie wear the same teal-tipped lace socks three days in a row.
Sometimes I feel the urge to pray and I roll over and go to sleep instead.
Sometimes I pass judgement on mothers who give their babies mountain dew.
Sometimes I stand at my window and allow anxiety to consume me.
I get bored while reading the Bible and will put it aside for a Ted Dekker novel instead.
I've yelled at my kids a few times to the point that my throat hurts and I'm forced to drink lemon-spiked honey water to soothe it.
It's easy for me to trust in the value of high-vitamin cod liver oil as a healing super-food, but hard for me to believe God will heal my thyroid.
When I hear people talk about how "anointed" a minister is I think it's a really nice way of saying they got goosebumps during the sermon.
I'm quick-tempered, opinionated and definitely not a glass half-full sort of girl.
I distrust people until they prove they're trustworthy and I think most everyone has an agenda.
When I was in India I visited an orphanage run by Mother Teresa and held a severely handicapped little boy in my lap. I prayed for him and spent the rest of the visit hoping one of the lice I saw crawling on his head hadn't hopped to mine.I never went back.
Sarcasm is my default response.
I can be a very ugly person. My faith is sometimes shockingly weak.
I'm just Kim. Unworthy, fallible and fully aware of my faults.
Maybe right now you're sitting in your chair, your laptop overheating on your lap and thinking I won't ever make it into full time ministry. Maybe you're right.
But I don't need a golden throne and $300 haircut to prove I'm special.
I don't need to prove I'm special at all because I already know I'm not.
There's freedom in knowing you're not perfect, you can't impress anyone and yet He still thinks you're pretty darn worth it.
Since I can't prove my significance, turn off my humanness and be a perfect Christian I've decided I'm just going to be an authentic one.
Here I am.

Who am I?

I guess that's the fundamental question every person asks themselves eventually.

Usually in their early twenties.

Sometimes the question is birthed by an emotional breakdown brought on by a breakup, a traumatic event or an unfortunate experience with one too many martinis.

Sometimes the question is ignored. With a sideways glance and a shudder, it's plunged deep within the minds recesses, hopefully never to surface again.

There are those of us that obsess over this question. Hoping the answer is never given, we polish the idea up like a piece of silver and prominently display it on the shelf of our psyche. Idolized, we give ourselves over to the self-indulgent fantasy that who we are is of paramount importance and we must never answer the question for fear of losing our focus...namely, ourselves.

Some may constantly change the answer. Forever working on themselves they evolve into a super-person. Interested in everything. Good at most things. Trying anything.

I've always been able to answer that question definitively.
I'm a Christian.
But lately, I've begun to wonder exactly what that means.

I'd like to say it happened the day I turned thirty. It would be nice to have such a clean-cut reference point. I'm all about bullet-points and organization. I like the concrete.

Unfortunately, I began to question everything about a decade earlier and the story is decidedly messy.

I'm nothing if not deeply aware of myself.
You might say I'm an expert in all things related to me.

I can, in all honesty, tell you my questions began to surface after suffering a devastating miscarriage when I was a twenty year old newlywed.

All of a sudden, life didn't seem so clear-cut. Something really bad had happened to me and I didn't understand why.

As I watched my husband fish a tiny body from the toilet, my faith took a beating.

In all the moments since, I've become painfully aware that life can't be explained by pat sayings and scripture taken out of context.

John 3:16 doesn't answer every question, soothe every hurt and erase every doubt.

So. Who am I?

I can give you the facts. I'm a thirty year old woman. I'm a wife. A mother. A slightly obsessive personality that dislikes clutter and allopathic medicine.

I'm a writer. A procrastinator (especially when it comes to my writing.) A lover of food and old movies.

I can say I'm a Christian, in that I believe Christ died for my sins, I go to church every Sunday and, like good Christians everywhere, tune my radio to K-Love when I'm driving to the supermarket.
I'm not sure that's enough for me anymore, though.

I want more from my faith than a lists of do's and don'ts. I want some answers. I want understanding and I want to know the truth.

Ten years ago I lay sobbing on my bed wondering why I lost my baby and God was quiet.

I did what any self-respecting mother would do...I ran after Him. Really, no one else could give me the answers I needed.

I've been chasing Christ ever since.

Maybe some of you think that's disrespectful. Maybe you think I'm rebellious or faithless.
Maybe I am.

But I'm authentic....and at least I'm not chasing after martini's.