Day 649
A guy came to church camp to give his testimony the summer before my senior year of high school. He was probably approaching thirty-years-old, and with a guitar for sound effects he wowed we campers around the campfire with stories of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. I got to spend some time with him during the week and was convinced beyond any doubt that this guy had hiked with the devil before finding Jesus. He was now on a holy crusade to save teenagers from themselves, and he was a pretty cool guy, in my eyes. This was the first time I had ever (knowingly) met someone who had lived so deeply entrenched in the dark side and lived to tell about it as a Christian reborn. I was jealous. I remember getting depressed because I was such a freaking goody-two-shoes that I would never have an inspiring testimony. Neither would I ever experience what it was like to know the kind of grace and forgiveness that this swell fellow was living. I've thought about that a lot over the years, especially as I began going off the rails and wondering whether I would ever find my way back. I never really put any weight on it in terms of how I may have internalized those feelings. Today, I read a story from someone that sounds like me that also allowed that jealousy and self-righteousness to put himself in lonely places isolated from the usual friends, relationships, and activities of a high school kid. Yes, I relate to that, too. I'm not against sinners becoming preachers (all the preachers I know are sinners), and I'm not suggesting teenagers should be wild and crazy. Still, I do wish I knew how to identify which kids were carrying which burdens so we could help them. I suspect that that is not realistic, so I guess the best I can hope for is a message to the world that we all mess up, and help is available regardless of how we allow the burdens to build inside us. Maybe that's why we're here — to mess up, straighten up, get help, then pass it on.
–JR
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