Anonymous stranger

My Year of Anonymity

After several years of Christian ministry, I’d slowly and unintentionally gotten myself wrapped up in a giant Christian bubble. I didn’t like it—I missed refreshingly-secular conversations with people who didn’t think like me, and I wasn’t making room for that when my calendar was booked with church services, small groups, outreach trainings, and prayer meetings. I didn’t want to wipe away all Christian influences—I think that being connected to fellow believers helps ground you in your faith—I just wanted to leave behind the bubble that isolated me from people who didn’t share my faith.

And like some other changes I’ve needed in my life, I decided to go drastic for a short period of time. Swing to the other side of the pendulum, so to speak. And later, after I’d experienced both extremes, find the appropriate middle ground for me.

So I took a year to be anonymous.

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Broken Heart Made Whole

The Danger of Guarding your Heart

As an emerging adult, I was taught that one of the most faithful things I could do as a young Christian woman was to guard my heart. That meant preventing myself from falling in love, especially with anyone who could lead me astray, and it basically resulted in me not dating because no one sinless came along. And I was relatively fine with that—I had a lot of other things on my metaphorical plate, so this freed up my time. But mostly I wanted to follow the Bible’s wisdom of not giving away my heart too easily because I loved God, I wanted to obey God, and I trusted that God’s advice would protect me from getting hurt. And I definitely didn’t want to get hurt.

Many years later, I was resisting falling in love with someone, and a Christian colleague of mine asked me why. I had many answers, all of which my colleague shot down, and the most eye-opening and memorable was his response about me guarding my heart out of faithfulness to God and fear of getting hurt.

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Stubborn pug

Being Phlegmatic

A former supervisor-turned-dear friend once described me as someone who accommodates others day after day until reaching an unspoken limit where I can’t take it anymore. He said that’s when I “dig my heels in” and refuse to budge, catching everybody off guard because they had no idea I was accommodating that whole time since I seemed to be participating so willingly. I learned much later that this was classic Phlegmatic behavior.

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Sharing

For the Common Good

One of the few things I remember from my one semester as a Secondary Education major in college was a discussion about the reasons we force kids to go to school. After all, it wasn’t always so. A few hundred years ago, there was no law mandating children be in schools. At some point, however, it was deemed good, not only for the children themselves but for society at large, to educate its young citizens and to help them grow up into responsible, contributing members of society. Educating our kids is for their good and for the common good.

The idea of the common good comes from the village mentality of “we’re all in this together,” rather than the individualistic mentality of “every man or woman for themselves.” It’s the idea that your well-being is essential to my well-being, and visa versa. It’s the idea that the health and happiness of me and mine is not more important than the health and happiness of you and yours, and visa versa. It’s the idea that if I contribute to your ability to thrive, you will contribute to mine.

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Cards Against Humanity

A lot has been said about the controversial party game Cards Against Humanity, some positive and some sharply negative. If you were to ask me what I think about this Party Game for Horrible People (the game’s tag line), here is what I would contribute to the conversation.

Back when I was doing ministry among a very conservative, “innocent” crowd, the family game Apples to Apples was the go-to social activity. I would grin and bear it, but playing Apples to Apples always made me feel so bored. There wasn’t enough spunk or grit to Apples to Apples. Then came Cards Against Humanity.

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