Get Real

Ignorance may, in fact, be bliss. I have days when I wish blissful ignorance would descend upon me. But, once exposed to the truth, God's truth, we are no longer ignorant and we become continually challenged with the need to be real and accept the "realness" of others.

I'm glad to live in the space where the curtain has been pulled back some...but it isn't easy.

Consider this past Easter weekend...

1. I had the privilege of helping a woman publicly tell her story of sexual abuse, turning her back on God, and looking for love in all the wrong places -- including alcoholism. After 40 years, God's truth has restored her to the woman she was intended to be. Powerful; but so real it feels like taking a gut-punch.

2. One of my dearest friends shared her own powerful story at her church in California. Also a childhood victim of sexual abuse and abandonment, she too has only recently become fully free by the power of God's truth. It was "the best day of my life," she reports. Still, someone she had counted on to support her, didn't show up. Another punch.

3. I learned today that my professor and friend Bob is in hospice care. Losing another precious friend to cancer is sickening, but I must sit with the pain and loss.

4. My cousin broke her ankle last week. And while for healthy folks this would be a painful inconvenience, for Jill medical complications made it a life or death issue. The reality of that fact is frightening.

5. I also "got real" with my 14-year-old stepson this weekend as we watched "The Passion of the Christ." The impact of the senseless violence that preceded Jesus' death was real to him. "I can't get the blood out of my mind," he said the next morning. I reminded him that he'd seen bloody scenes on TV and in movies before, and he said, "This is different. I didn't really care about those people." The Passion wasn't a made up event. It was real and so is its gut-punch impact. I thank Jesus so much for the sacrifice, but feel saddened to know (as much as a human can) the depth of his suffering.

No wonder many people choose to live at the surface. It doesn't cost as much as diving deep and getting real. The problem is that life's value is in its realness -- pain and all.

Today my prayer is to embrace what's real instead of bracing for it. Getting real isn't for faint of heart -- and it rarely garners applause. But it pleases God as we learn to mature and obey regardless of the cost.