Less Than

March 26, 2015

I've been reading this book over the last week or so.  It has given me a lot to think about.  Not really for myself, but given me a lot of ideas for blog posts.  I'm sure you will be seeing them in the days and weeks to come.

But today the idea of being "less than" has really grabbed at my heart and mind.  Probably because it is something I experience on a near daily basis and have my entire life.


Have you ever felt like you just didn't belong?  Maybe it was on the playground as a small child.  You didn't see yourself as a pretty little girl and because you were a girl, you weren't allowed to play with the boys.  Or maybe you were not all that great at sports or games, so you didn't fit in with that group.  How about in middle school when popularity became the really important thing?  Then there's high school, where more drama ensues in one day than you can find in a years worth of Dr. Phil episodes?  I think everyone at one point in time in their lives have felt, on some kind of level, that they just didn't belong.

But have you ever felt, or been made to feel, "less than"?  Maybe you feel incapable of making good grades because you have been told nearly everyday of your life that you are "stupid"?  How about being singled out because you were a young boy, who had zero athletic ability but could play the keyboard and sing like an angel?  Our society has stereotypes about how young boys should be - how they should act and what toys they should play with.  How about being a woman - a woman in the business world?  A woman in the building trades, automotive repair shop, or engineering division?  Or even, God forbid, a woman in the Church wanting to do more than sit on the pew each week?

I know I'm on a soapbox, but I have to throw these out as well (and pardon me as I focus on Christians and the Church a little more).  How about these "less than's?"  The man that has been divorced twice and is refused a "leadership" role on the volunteer team?  The 14 year old girl, pregnant and on her own because her "christian" parents are more concerned about their perfect christian image than about their daughter's and grandchild's life?  The drug addict struggling to come to terms with his abandonment as a baby and growing up on the streets and bounced around from one foster house to another?  The lesbian college student, labelled as an abomination by her church, her family and her "christian" friends, disowned, abandoned, and laying in the hospital after an attempted suicide with no one by her side, praying for God to change her or take her life?

These are more of the "extreme" cases, but every single one of them, is a human story, a human life, a person with unlimited potential that has been labeled "less than" by a society and by a group of people who are commanded to love without judgment and without limits.

Nearly my entire life I have felt "less than."  Not only have I felt that deep in my very core, but I have experienced it first hand.  I was never the typical, little girl.  I liked sports, and playing in the creek, and out in the fields with the calves with my dogs.  I hated dolls and dresses and frilly lace.  I knew I was "different" because I didn't like all the "real girl" things.  Then in middle school and high school, I was more interested in sports, keeping my grades up, and hanging with my friends than in boys.  It's not that I didn't like boys, I just didn't like all the attention and I didn't have any desire to be like all the "boy crazy" girls around me.  So again, I was "less than" a girl.

I met Jesus as a Senior in high school and felt that I finally had a place to truly belong and I would no longer be seen as "less than".  What I found, after a time, was that, the Church was not really a place for "less than's" to belong, it was just another place for the "greater than's" to tout their superiority.  But I was safe, wasn't I?  I was a part of the Church.  I began to take on the persona of a "greater than" trying to fit in, trying to be a "greater than" but it never felt right.  This was not the Jesus I read about, the Jesus that saved me from myself.  Everything I was being subtly taught went against everything my heart told me.  And it wasn't too many years later that I was once again being labelled a "less than" again (all while I served the Church in full-time Student ministry).

I say all of this, share a small portion of my story, to highlight that of all places on this earth, the Church should never be a place that condones or perpetuates the idea of "less than."  But the Church has been exactly that:

Sixty years ago the Black community were the "less than's," that had no place in the Church.  They could go to "their own" churches, "they" didn't belong in ours.  In the 60's and 70's (and its still prevalent in certain churches and denominations today) that divorcees are not allowed any type of leadership in the local church because they were "less than" what the Church said they should be.  Women (even though no one would ever admit to this one and try to play down this "less than") are not allowed to lead, teach, or be in certain positions or roles within the Church for no other reason than they are women - they are "less than" men.  In the 21st Century the "BIG" issue of the Church is the LGBT community.  In my opinion (and the opinion of many, many others), there is no greater group of "less than's" than this misunderstood, misrepresented, and marginalized group of people (yes, people, flesh and blood, human beings with emotions and dreams and gifts and abilities and a need to be loved and loved in return - they are NOT an abomination).

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment of the Scriptures was (and remember this was the Old Testament - as we know it).  He answered:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  And the second is equal to it:  love your neighbor as yourself.  (Mark 12:30-31)  Not once, did Jesus ever say that because you are His follower are you to think of yourself as "greater than."  Jesus commanded us to be servants, to think and to serve others as if they were "greater than" ourselves.  Why is the Church - the people of Jesus - living and treating others as if they are "less than" themselves just because they have been "saved"?

Why did my cousin drink himself to death (committed suicide by alcohol poisoning, and drowning in his own vomit) because he was gay and my uncle disowned him and forced my Aunt to ignore her own son all in the name of being Christian?  Why are LGBT teens 40-60% more likely to attempt/commit suicide than the rest of the adolescent community?

Our job as followers of Jesus is to love - PERIOD.  Nothing more and nothing less.  That does not mean "speaking the truth in love", or loving the sinner and hating the sin (sorry that is found no where in the Bible...that entire phrase drips of nothing but "less than" connotations), we are not to judge in any way, shape or form (there is only one Judge and His name is Jesus), we are to love our enemies, we are to love without limits or expectations.  It is not our beliefs, views, or opinions that others must live up to (again "less than" language).  It is Jesus view of us.  And all He sees is His most beloved Creation.

I could go on and on and on about this subject and my thoughts.  But I'll spare you.  I hope however, you have gotten the point I am trying to make.

Just know, that I will choose love, I will choose grace above all.  I will, to the best of my ability, never look at someone as "less than". 

Truth is about law, rules, condemnation.  Grace is love, freedom, being "greater than".  I will always fall on the side of Grace.  I will always see that you are "greater than" all you can possible hope or imagine you can be.  I want to love as Jesus loved.  No more.  No "less".

A New Beginning...but it comes with a disclaimer.

March 26, 2015

This is the first post I have made to this blog in more than 5 yrs.  I quit a long time ago because I got to a point in my life (after a horrendously hard couple of years and finally leaving the realm of professional student ministry) that I didn't believe my words mattered to anyone anymore.  I had lost my faith.  Not my faith in Jesus.  Jesus and I were never really at odds.  I had lost my faith in The Church and particularly in Christians.  And truthfully, I still struggle with Christians.

But that is not what this post or this blog is particularly about.  However, I will be challenging the beliefs and thoughts of many I'm sure.  I will be challenging readers thoughts not only of their own faith and beliefs but most likely what readers think I believe.  But what I believe personally is not up for discussion or debate.  I'm here to challenge you, the reader, in what you think you believe and what you think about your faith.

If you are a person easily offended by contrary, contrasting, and controversial thoughts about the Christian faith and/or The Church, I ask you to think, think hard, take time and digest what you might read here...and especially before you speak or try to defend God or what you think you believe.  If you feel as if you need to comment, do it with the utmost respect and decorum.

One last thing before I go and begin this renewed journey.  I leave you with this thought:


If you feel as if you need to defend God or even what you believe about God, then you are worshiping the wrong God.