I once was blind...

I’ve had a draft of this started since February, but I just never got around to writing it. I suppose that’s convenient for me, not writing the post that might be more revealing than I want it to be. But really, I think I flatter myself to think too many people actually care what I have to say. And, in general, I shouldn’t let fear of embarrassment stop me from expressing something that God’s put on my heart.

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.