A House With Open Doors

"If everyone knew who I really was, they wouldn't want anything to do with me."

I've thought it, you've thought it, I think deep down if we're completely honest everyone feels this way. If people knew all your secrets, who you are when you're alone, what you think deep down in your heart, what you've done in your past, what you're doing now that no one knows about - admit it - you think that people would reject you as too much of one thing or not enough of another. I struggle with this every single day. It is constant. 

The weird part is this - for some weird reason, I can completely accept that God knows all of that stuff about me and loves me unconditionally despite all that, but because people sometimes do love with conditions? It is really hard and scary to be honest with people sometimes. Like, stupid hard.

In the last couple weeks this has been a recurring theme among some friends and co-workers in our conversations. We feel insecure sharing ourselves wholly with others because ourselves are, let's face it, messy. There's no getting around it. I'm getting some new roommates here in the next month and we talked about this over the past weekend - we struggle with different issues. All of us have messy family backgrounds, all of us have messy struggles with emotions, our psyche's. We are all messy. We've been joking around a little about coming up with a name for our house, once we all move in, and one of the ones I threw out there was 'The House With Open Doors.' It digressed from 'The House With NO Doors,' because two of us work in childcare, but it turned into something deeper than a joke about tantrum privacy.

These ladies and I want to live in a house, in community with each other without doors. Without trying to hide or apologize for who we are and where we've been when there is no need to apologize for the mess. God has taken care of all of us before, in, and now after those circumstances. It is scary to share ourselves. But all four of us have learned time and time again that when we step out in faith to share those messes in our lives, God has blessed that. When I've shared about my struggles with depression, an eating disorder, porn addiction, relationships, when I've been real enough with people about the struggles I've gone through or am going through, instead of running people have opened up and been able to say - "Hey, I have a lot of struggles, too. Can I be real with you, too?"

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible -- and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Ephesians 5:13-14

You are a mess. I am a mess. But Christ makes beautiful things out of the dirt, the dust, the chaos of our lives. He takes all those cracked pieces, all those dirty, damaged feeling parts of you and can put you back together and shine through you - it doesn't matter who you've been, it matters who you are. YOU are a child of God.

When my roommates and I share about our dark places? That is what shows. God. Healing, restoration, beautiful things out of horrible ones. That was not any of our own doings - if we had kept going the way we were to try and be better, to fill all the places in our hearts that were longing, were sad and hurt - we would still be in those same dark places, slaves to trying to fulfill ourselves.  We are houses with open doors by choice, and believe me, Christ shines through those open doors. I know you might be afraid to open your doors, but trust me, what's outside those doors is so much better than staying shut up inside.