I also found a lot of old graphic design projects and documents. (Some of my designs I still think were good; some I was like "WHAT?!")
Then I ran across a letter I thought I'd long since deleted. But nope. It was still there. For some reason I kept it. I don't know why, because I was embarrassed about it right after I penned it.
It was a very old letter addressed to a friend. I am so humiliated by it that I will never ever admit anything about who it was addressed to. It was a friend. A long time ago. That's all I'm saying.
(Don't ask me if it was you. I won't admit a thing.)
I had written this letter out of conviction. A friend at church (someone I still love and adore and respect) had recommended writing this kind of letter to our non-Christian friends. I felt convicted after that to do so. I typed the letter up. I saved it. But I never had the guts to print it. I wanted to have the guts; I distinctly remembering praying for the courage to mail it. But I just couldn't. Maybe that's why it was still in My Docs. Maybe I had left it there until God had given me the courage to mail it. But I never did. And very soon after writing it, I was beyond embarrassed for ever even considering mailing it. I was SO FREAKING THANKFUL that I hadn't.
I had not forgotten this letter, by the way. I just thought it had been deleted. But no, it was anything but forgotten. I have thought about this letter a lot, so many times since writing it. I have thanked my embarrassment a gazillion times for keeping me from mailing it. It is terrible.
When I saw it in my old documents folder, a little bit of repulsion rose into my throat. No way I'm reading that again. I CANNOT face reading what I wrote.
But tonight, curiosity, and a little hubris (I finished my book! Feeling pretty chuffed!) enticed me to open up the letter and read it.
UGH. OH MY UGH.
I cannot share all of it. (Identifying details. I'm not telling you or anyone ever who it was addressed to so don't ask. It might have been you, but it probably wasn't.)
I will share some of it though. This, folks, is who I used to be. After finishing the book about my life as a Christian, I wondered if I had made myself sound too religious, more religious than I actually had been. Did I come across as a totally self-righteous prig?
Well if I did, it's because I WAS a totally self-righteous prig.
Here's the proof:
This is kind of a strange thing to do, but it’s been on my mind for ages now, so I guess I’ll just get on with it. For a while, I’ve felt like I should share with you how important my faith is to me. I suppose because you are my friend, and you’ve become one of my good friends, and it feels weird to me that I’ve never really talked about it much...
To sum it up, being a Christian is the biggest thing in my life. It is what makes me what I am. It enters into all parts of my life. I am easily able to talk about Jesus and prayer and what God has been doing in my life with friends from church, but it’s not as easy to do with friends outside church. Yet, because it really is so important to me, I want to be able to talk about it with anyone I’m close to.
Being a Christian for me isn’t just about going to church on Sundays and praying. It isn’t just something I do; it’s something I am. My beliefs enter into everything I do and think. The way I raise my children comes from my faith. The way I talk (though not always perfect) comes from my faith. The way I try to live my life, everything, comes from my faith. Often in conversations with my friends, I feel I can’t say certain things because it’ll sound odd because it sounds ‘religious’. But really, that is who I am. I don’t know why I can be so ashamed of it sometimes.
I also feel like it’s something I ought to share with my friends in another way, because I believe it is so important. I believe that only a life-changing experience with Jesus Christ can save us. I believe in heaven and hell, and I want the people I care about to know Jesus the way I do. This is the hard part, because I don’t like the idea of shoving my beliefs down anyone’s throat. I don’t like telling people what they should or shouldn’t think or believe. But I also feel that if I don’t at least tell them this is what I believe to the be the truth, then how can I really say I believe it that much? If I knew a certain drug or something was dangerous and could kill a person, or if there was a miracle drug that could save a person, wouldn’t I tell you? It’s the same with being a Christian. I believe that we must be saved by the grace of God to have eternal life (and not by any good we do ourselves), to spend it in heaven, so it only follows that I ought to tell my friends that too. Because I genuinely do believe it with all my heart. Would I be able to forgive myself if one of my friends died without me ever at least stating that? After that, it’s up to my friends to want to know more or not, but I should at least say it. So that’s what I’m doing here.
So really, this letter, hard as it is to write, has two purposes. One is to kind of ‘get it out in the open’ how real and important my faith is to me, so I don’t have to feel awkward when I want to say something, however casual , about it, and two is to just let you know that I really believe it’s important for everyone else too. Because you’ve been a good friend for a while now, it’s just been on my mind and my heart a lot to share it.
One reason I’ve put this off for so long is I’ve worried it’ll make our friendship awkward. I hope it doesn’t do that. I hope instead it makes our friendship more real, more honest. Don’t think I’m going to start shoving religion down your throat – that’s the last thing that will happen. I really don’t think that’s the right thing to do ever. I just hope our friendship can be more like the ones I have with people in my church, where I’m able to just say anything I’m thinking without worrying I sound like a weird religious freak... I’d only ever really get into deeper things if the conversation naturally went there. I hope that makes sense.
Okay. So now that I’ve written this, I’m going to go back through it, edit it and then decide what to do with it! My friend recently did this same thing; she had a friend she’d felt drawn to share the same things with, put it off for years actually (for the same reason – worrying it would ruin the friendship), but now that she’s done it, she says their friendship is better than ever – much more real and open and deep. I hope that’s the outcome with us.
I can sympathize with myself for writing this. I meant it so sincerely and so humbly.
But I know for certain it would have been SO SO WRONG to send it.
On the other side of the faith spectrum now, I can assure you this kind of letter would completely undermine a friendship. As sincerely and humbly as it was intended to be, it would have been a giant "DANGER" sign to the reader. With a smaller "THIS PERSON THINKS YOU ARE GOING TO HELL AND HAS ULTERIOR MOTIVES FOR THE FRIENDSHIP" disclaimer underneath.
Please, friends, don't ever do this. Christians, pray for your friends to be saved, as often as you like. But please never send them this letter.
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