The Honest Truth of What Goes Unsaid

One of the things I pride myself on is my honesty. Today I am feeling a bit cynical, so I apologize in advance. However, I won’t lie to you, and many of these blog posts have come from a similar place in my heart… after I haven’t journaled for a while and though I am being honest in practice, it is what I am not saying that is tearing me up inside. Thus the product seems (to me at least) cynical, and word-vomiting Lauren emerges, but I hope if you read this you can understand me just a little bit better—hold on tight folks.

The truth: I have a BEYOND great life. I have a great job in the field I love and am aspiring to work in. I have awesome coworkers who are quickly becoming great friends. I have a nice house with affordable rent. I have friendships from college and connections in a coveted city. I have more free time, and I have close to ZERO reason to be stressed. Currently, there is no one in my life terminally ill, and my family is supporting me in all that I pursue. Oh, and I am hopefully getting accepted to medical school in a few weeks (aka my dream).

The truth is I have nothing to complain about; yet I warned you… I feel cynical.

I love to be busy. Throughout Westmont I took the most difficult classes, I worked, I volunteered, I met with people weekly, and my phone was always chirping to send me running to the next task. Each thing I was involved in has equipped me to be the person I am today, and I would never change these past four years.

However, there were so many times throughout those four years when I longed for a break. I could barely make it to the next set of days off when I could actually sleep and check in with myself. I was surrounded by people, yet often very alone.

Now here I am officially the “Queen of Free Time!” And I want to give back my crown and return to the busy bee life because I remember it feeling like I was accomplishing something—using my life for something. I am not content to fall into the pattern of binge watching TV or “stalking” people so far on social media that you end up on their ex-girlfriend’s aunt’s cat’s page! (Be honest it happens)

I want more than this. Shouldn't there be more to life than this?

But the more people I talk to the more this seems to be the case for “real life.” We work and we are so tired after work that we sleep or watch TV or mindlessly search social media. Why? What can we gain from this? What purpose does our life hold if all we use our free time for actually serves to disconnect us from what is right around us?  

I don’t know what to make of all this thinking yet, but I am just trying to be honest. Allowing people to know what I think helps me in the accountability of making my time worth something.

And our life should be worth something! If you know me at all you know I am constantly aware of the short span of life we have been given to live.

So here’s what I am going to do about it:

(1) I am done with Netflix.

I am taking a break beginning now through the end of October.

(2) I am starting a new Instagram: @gapyearhighlights

      Now I know what you are thinking, I said LESS social media! BUT since social media is a way to massively communicate the changes I am making, this will be a “count your blessings” page. It is a place for me to remind myself why I am seeking to use my time differently, exploring the things I can choose to do with my time instead! Hopefully that will include many of you as I work to utilize my time to better engage with those who are right around me. 

I want relationships to be the focus of my free time: letters, phone calls, sharing meals, exploring Santa Barbara together, whatever! I have the gift of reduced stress and a year in an awesome city.

 I do not want to waste it. That is the truth.

On the "lasts" of Westmont

Just participated in the last chapel of Westmont for the year, and for my four years. Chapel has always had a sort of mixed place in my heart, with some days being incredibly difficult due to lack of sleep, too much work, or dreading hearing another message about death and suffering; other times I looked forward to chapel as the highlight of my week. It was the place where we were all the same, we were all worshiping the same God—despite differing views, values, and of course, majors. Never again will there be a place of worship, with all of my closest friends and current, awesomely performed worship music, set up for me three times a week. And while this latter fact was often the reason I disliked chapel, overall I am so grateful for the freedom to worship our God multiple times per week.

I have cried in chapel at least once each year of Westmont. I cried today, alongside some of my closest friends from this year. So far in my life these last few have been the best of my life—I know it is because I came to Westmont. Chapel is a reminder of what heaven will look like…and heaven will be the next place I worship with the same combination of people who were present in chapel today.

Life is full of transitions and if we don’t move on, how will we adequately apply the things we have learned from this place? The ways we have been shaped by Westmont and the people here have prepared us to leave. There is a new place being prepared specifically for each of us where we can shine through our new confidence, patience, grace, leadership… or whatever it was we learned while a student at this incredible institution. I know I am a stronger person, more faithful friend, and dedicated disciple as I leave this place. This knowledge, however, does not make the goodbyes and “lasts” any easier.

All I know is that I am thankful for the people who have shaped me here and who will continue to be impactful in my life even when I no longer see them daily, share an office with them, or eat every meal with them.

And, I know there is still so much good to come.

Is Saved the "Right" Language?

That pink piggy bank was where I saved all my coins. I saved for longer than I thought was possible—as an elementary aged kid. Then, one otherwise ordinary afternoon, we marched up to a giant green machine and dumped them all out: my savings. My hands were dirty but my eyes bright after pushing coin after coin into the slots. In the end, I was handed a few big, but light, crisp bills—everything I had given came to this? Was it worth it?

“YOU TOO CAN BE SAVED…” bellowed the preacher on Easter Sunday morning. This time I was older, sitting between my Jesus following parents and my Buddhist best friend at Easter Sunday service—the latter was present mostly because the Jonas brothers were performing. I prayed silently for her to understand, but she was too analytical for this: “saved? But my life is fine; I do not need some prince charming to come “save me,” let alone god.” I knew that’s what she was thinking…she just played games on her phone.

Saved by grace.

Set free from sin.

Saved and free and…now safe?

A Christian: some one saved by grace, released from the punishment of death (the side effect of sin) and eternal separation from Christ, brought into a new life, new family, and new identity. Saved: this language reflects the dramatic shift from old to new, redeemed to restored, and sinful to righteous—where people who profess belief in Jesus have entered into a new hope. Accepting the free gift of eternal life by believing that Jesus unlocks people from the confines of sin they were previously powerless against enables one to be “saved”. This word reflects the choice we have made to accept the free, undeserved gift.

The language of saving and safety selects to promote the magnitude of grace, goodness, and power of God over sin. Alternatively, it connotes our powerlessness, general weakness, and inability to untangle ourselves from the bonds of sin that so forcefully enslaves us. It reminds us the victory has been won—it is finished. Belief in Jesus allows freedom to live new lives, unhindered. The language of being “saved” by our Savior, fully acknowledges sin as the problem. Sin is the thing from which we are saved and made safe!

However, it is this intense focus on sin that can be problematic for the “good” nonbeliever who does not see their life as entrenched in inescapable sin from which they need saving.  This “saved” language also conjures up images of knights in shining armor or months worth of pocket change, effectively deflecting the messiness of life that remains after conversion while emphasizing the initial moment of rescue. Yes, we are now loosed from the bond of sin, but we have to now train ourselves (thankfully, with the Holy Spirit’s help) to consciously avoid temptation and sin—sin that does not just disappear with one’s acceptance of the gift of grace. As imperfect people, this is a difficult process filled with failure, backsliding, and the messy effects of residual sin. The new believer who has been “saved,” may feel guilt or doubt or shame as they face daily temptations and learn the daily re-commitment to Christ and process of being saved (sanctification).  The sanctification process is often neglected from the pulpits of fire and brimstone preaching. For not only did Jesus’s death pay for our sins and save us the moment we believe in him, but his death also saves us daily, molding us into his likeness, as we rely on him to guide us in conquering the sin in our lives. We are already saved, we are in the process of being saved, and, one day when Jesus returns again, we will be saved and set free from the guilt and shame, forever.

Biblically, the language of “saved” is derived from a first century Jewish context—where the politics of the time utilized “saviors” to create “concrete changes in the lives and the world [and lives] …of the first century…” people (Watts, 157). These saviors were people who created economic and political change, they brought peace and created lasting, effective transformation. They were supportive in transition, firm in implementing their changes, and faithful in redeeming people from their alternative ideologies. It is from this concept we derive the characteristic of Jesus as “Savior,” connoting the in-progress redemption of the world that will be fully saved upon his second coming.  However, the modern understanding of saved, looses the lasting impact that the first century’s term implies.

To restore meaning to the saving process, “redeemed” conveys better terminology. Redeemed reduces the fairy tail connotations of saved, while imparting the notion of being “bought back” through Jesus’s sacrifice in the process of being “made good and freed from slavery” (Oxford English Dictionary: redeem). To be redeemed by the love of God through the gift of the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ, indicates the power of God’s ownership of us, our continued need for him, and the process of being made more like him through sanctification. In being redeemed, we have gained more value, been cleaned up from our sin, and are in the process of being made fully new. While “redeemed” is seemingly the more appropriate terminology to draw nonbelievers to the full, lifelong truth of the power of Christ working in them, the history of the “redeemed” terminology can be traced only to about the fourteenth century (as opposed to the first century history of “saved” via the political “savior”) (OED). As such it seems that both words are employed well in understanding God’s actions of reconciling us back to him, if “saved” is understood in its original, first century context.

            Upon the second coming and return of Jesus Christ, we will be ultimately, saved. This will not be unlike the child watching her hard earned, dirty coins drain away—only to be handed clean, crisp, cash and an empty bank with which to start fresh.