So…
Lately I’ve been thinking a
lot about high school: who I was, what I did, who I was with. I don’t think I’m
the only one who thinks back to those adolescent years and feels embarrassed
about one thing or another. But, it isn’t the normal things that are making me
blush. It isn’t the incredibly wrong answer in class, or the awkward
conversation with an upper classman, or line-dancing in gym class stuck on
repeat in my mind. No, in my mind, the thing about my high school self I am
most embarrassed about is the way I lived my faith.
I was a good kid. I don’t say
that to flatter myself or to be self-righteous, it’s just the truth. I had good
parents, and when it came to the stuff that really mattered, I listened to
them. I went to church and I liked it. I didn’t party because I didn’t want
to. I was respectful to my teachers, and
I tried to be nice to people. In general, people knew I was a Christian. I
didn’t go around handing tracts out or anything, but it’s not something I hid.
And that was fine; I wasn’t embarrassed about my faith. I had a lot of friends
who shared my beliefs, and those who didn’t believe the same way I did never
made me feel inferior.
What’s the problem then, you
ask?
I once was blind… but I
thought I could see.
High schoolers think they
know everything, when in fact they know very little. This is a truth generally
accepted by everybody who is not in high school. I was no exception, especially
when it came to religion.
And while there is something
valuable about being sure of one’s faith, so that it can withstand trials and
doubts cast by the world, there is something incredibly dangerous about being
so sure that you understand something that you have no business thinking you
understand.
In my fairly perfect high
school world, God fit into a neat little box, wrapped in a bow of all the
Sunday school lessons, youth conventions, and Christian books I read. I knew
the way the world was supposed to work; I had all the clichés under my belt. I
may not have always been brave enough to “witness” to non-Christians, but when
I did I was sure I knew the God whom
I was sharing. I could work my way through a debate on any number of hot
topics, carefully spouting the words of those whom I had read or heard and
believed because they seemed trustworthy.
I don’t want to be too hard
on my high school self. She was a product of her circumstances. She didn’t have
all the experiences I can now draw upon. She didn’t know any better. And I’m
not saying that everything I was taught about God as a child was wrong. On the
contrary, the foundation of my faith comes from my childhood and I am so
grateful for the people who introduced me to Jesus. The problem with High
School Michelle is that she didn’t know there was anything different than what
she had seen, heard, and experienced.
I once was blind… and now I
know it.
When I left high school, things
changed. I met people whose worlds’ were completely different than mine. I
found new people to disciple me who were intelligent and faithful but believed
different things than I had been taught, and even sometimes disagreed with each
other. I learned that it was okay to question ideas that I thought were
undeniable truths. I discovered that God is so much bigger than my high school
self ever fathomed, and that His grace reaches so much farther than I ever let
it before.
Again the question arises:
“What’s your problem, Michelle?” I’m not the only person who changed after high
school. I can’t be the only one who cringes when thinking about the things I
believed and the way I acted as a teenager.
Yet, I’m still embarrassed
about High School Michelle. Embarrassed because I was ignorant about the world
and about God, but arrogant enough to think I knew everything about both.
I don’t know what my high
school peers remember about me or about my faith, but I so strongly hope that
they have had a better witness of Christ’s love in their lives than what I was when
they knew me. That when they think about Christianity, my naïve 17-year-old
self is not the example that comes first to mind. I may not have gone around
verbally condemning people for their sins, but the limits my ignorance put on
God’s love for His creation are so heartbreakingly clear to me when I think
about it now. I’m sad to think about how my self-assuredness may have turned
people away from God, because the religion I was demonstrating did not account
for the realities of their lives.
I’m not looking for a pat on
the back, or reassurance that “It’s okay, it wasn’t really that bad.” I can
admit my shortcomings because I know God is big enough to overcome the faults
of High School Michelle. And honestly, most of the people I feel I did wrong by
will never see this. That’s okay. I still wanted to share it, if for no other
reason than to humble myself a bit, and then to finally get over it.
I once was blind… but now I
see? I don’t know, I still feel pretty blind most of the time. But I know that
now. I’ll admit to my blindness, and trust that Jesus is restoring my sight.
Slowly, but surely.
