What Salvation Means to Me...

As Christians, we hear a lot about salvation (i.e. "being saved", "getting saved", "leading someone to salvation" "being washed by the blood of the Lamb", etc.)  Some of us even take what we hear and then go out and talk to others about salvation... and we call that "leading people to Christ", "soul winning", "leading them down the Romans Road", etc.   I wonder though, sometimes, if maybe we talk so much about "salvation" that people who aren't already Christians have learned to just tune us out like so much noise.  I mean, we use all kinds of simple-yet-abstract phrases to dance around the topic... "just ask Jesus into your heart", "get right with God", "save your soul", "become a believer", "meet Jesus", and on and on... and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong or false about any of those words or approaches at all; each one explains a certain facet of salvation, and who knows which phrase will be the one that totally makes sense to someone who's searching for the truth about Jesus Christ?

But I wonder if maybe we spend so much time trying to find the right words to say it and the right phrase to summarize it that we never actually get around to explaining what salvation could actually mean to the person we're talking to, and we end up just adding to the noise instead of helping anyone.  And if we're all just so many noisy clanging cymbals, is it any wonder that, when the topic of religion comes up and we say, "Well, I'm a Christian...", no one ever follows that up with "Oh, really?  Why are you a Christian, and what is it like to be a Christian?"  Unless of course they're just looking for reasons to dismiss you as an idiot, lunatic, or fanatic... and if that's the case, then they're going to find reasons to do that no matter what you say, so what you say really doesn't end up mattering in the first place :-/  But that's a whole 'nother topic, and not one worth going into at the moment anyway, so... :-)

So, basically, if you have no interest in my answer to the question of "Why are you a Christian and what is it like to be a Christian?", and/or you don't care to read about what salvation means to me, then that's just fine... you can skip the rest of this post and read about some of my other, less "religious" soapboxes.  No offense taken :-)

But... if you're curious or if you really want to know more about why I am the way I am, then here we go:

What "Salvation" Means to Me

We all strive to fill our days with stuff to keep us busy, to keep us interested, to keep us from getting bored.  We go to school and/or to work, we come home, we eat our meals, we go to sleep.  We read books, watch TV, listen to our iPods, look for YouTube videos, play Minecraft.  We play in bands, compete on teams, work on projects, spend time with our loved ones, relax with friends... well, we try to relax when we're not busy doing all of the other stuff, anyway....   Sometimes we go places to worship those things that are bigger than us... whether they're worthy of our worship or not.

But then, there are those times when we're all alone, when the work is done, the friends have all gone home, the loved ones are all asleep, when the computer is off and the TV is silent.  Those times when we have nothing to distract us from that gigantic gaping hole in our souls that keeps us awake, whispering in our ears...

You.  Are.  Alone.

And we realize that not only are we alone and feeling kind of lonely in that moment, but we are undeniably, painfully Alone as well.  Because there is a difference between simply being lonely and being Alone... Lonely is what we feel when we think no one is around and we wish that someone was; we know that it is temporary and that we will survive.  When we are Alone, we're not so sure about either.  We spend our days trying to convince ourselves and others that that hole isn't there, that we are complete and that we have it all together... but when we are Alone, we look it in the face and know that we are liars.

(OK, so maybe you're sitting there reading this and thinking to yourself, "Oooooh-KAY then...  Let me know when Reality comes calling again, and until then, just keep your little CRACKED self over in that corner way, way away from the rest of us, 'kay?  Thanks..."  And that's fine... I'm not likely to come after you with anything but a dull pencil, so you're most likely safe where you are ^_^  But next time you're alone, and you're thinking about all that big dark Meaning of Life stuff... I'll bet you'll remember this and start to wonder why... o.O)

So, what is this hole in our souls and why is it there?  I would say that it's the spot where our spirit should be, and that it's been carved and shaped and left empty by God so that we would look for Him.  You see, we're like little kids with a jigsaw puzzle... We've got most of the pieces together, we know what our lives should look like, but there's just that one spot we can't seem to find the right piece for.

So what do we do?

We take all of the pieces we've got left and try to fit them into that spot to see which one is the right one.  Trouble is (and I'm sure we've all run into this at least once in our lives...  I know my kids did a LOT when I was still running my day care :-D ), all of our puzzle boxes have gotten spilled a time or two, and with this particular puzzle, there's one piece missing.

So, what do we do now?

Well, we can try to keep cramming random pieces into the hole, and get more and more frustrated with each one that doesn't fit.  Hey, we can even go and get all of the other puzzle boxes out, dump them all over the floor, and then try all of those pieces in the hopes that one of them will fit.  Just imagine all the super bonus frustration that you can have with that approach ^_^  And then when none of the pieces fit, we can get all mad and throw all of the puzzle pieces all around the room before setting fire to them in the bathtub.  And then try to explain the reasonableness of our decision-making process to the nice firefighters and the insurance adjusters when they come to call...

Or... We can go to the adult of the house and ask them if they know which piece goes there and where that piece might be.  And if they would be so kind as to help us find it and put it in its place.

See, this is the situation I found myself in when I was 20.  None of my pieces were fitting together, and I knew that I had great big gaping holes in my life where things like hope, security, and a will to live should have been.  I had been trying for years to put myself together and keep myself there, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to work for very long, and as soon as I thought I had it figured out, another piece would fall to the ground and my whole puzzle would shatter.

I was Alone.

But then God was there, and He offered me the piece I'd always been missing.  And once that piece was in place, all of the other pieces made more sense.  Of course, it helped that now I could ask God for help putting the pieces together... "So, hey, Lord... How does this piece with the iguana in polka-dot boxer shorts balancing on a beach ball fit into the whole picture?  Oh, wait... What do you mean it's really a red carnation balanced on the steering wheel of a Toyota Camry?  Well, I guess that does make a little more sense, especially when you put it between those other two pieces..."

But still... What does any of this have to do with salvation?

Well, salvation is the name of that missing piece to my puzzle... No, not the iguana one, the other, analogy-type one, smart-alecks :-P  You see, I needed a savior, someone to rescue me and help me put the pieces of my life together, because as long as I was trying to put myself together on my own, I was doomed to failure.

But what did I need saving from?  What super-scary threat did I need to be rescued from?

Now, this is the part where a preacher would talk about eternal punishment for sins, the death of the soul, separation from God and light and all things that are Good, and unending punishment in a lake of fire.  And all of those things are in the Bible and all of those are gigantically big, end-of-the-world, Meaning-of-Life kinds of things that I am fantastically grateful to be rescued from.  Because it is a huge relief to know that I don't have to worry about any of those things when I die.  But, it seems to me that there should be more to salvation than just the things I won't have to worry about until after I'm dead.  And I'm really not much of a preacher anyway, so...

I think we all get the concept of being saved from a white slavery ring by a devoted father (a la Taken), or being saved from genocide like in Schindler's List, or being saved from a sinking ship like in Titanic, or even being saved from Loki and the Chitauri by Nick Fury and the Avengers.  We totally get that, and we even pay a good chunk of money to see those stories play out on the big screen.  And in Christian circles, we hear all the time about people being saved from addictions, saved from prostitution, saved from disease or infirmity or financial difficulties... which are all amazing and fantastic, but not something we've all gone through.  Most of us live pretty mundane lives, with few or no tales of sinking ships or bank robberies to tell.  But that doesn't mean we don't need someone to save us sometimes.  Here are the mundane little things that I needed saving from:

The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I was too stupid to know any better.
The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I really did know better.

The worry that no matter what I did, I would always be a failure.
The worry that everyone was about to find out that I would always be a failure.

The pressure of trying to be good enough for people to finally accept me for who I was.
The pressure of just trying to be better than I was.
The endless work of getting up every morning and still just being... me.

The suspicion that my existence and my life really was just a random collection of chances with no bigger meaning or point to it.
The fear about what if it would mean if that suspicion turned out to be true.

The frustration of going to work and to school each day and wondering why on earth any of it even matters.
The added frustration of being told that it all should matter by people who couldn't seem to explain why it should matter.

The realization that everyone I knew and everything I had was, at one point or another, going to leave me.
The panic in realizing that there was nothing I could do to stop them.

The terror of feeling lost and knowing that I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing, or how in the hell I'd gotten where I was.
The quiet certainty that all of that was my fault.

The knowledge that with every day I lived, I risked hurting the people who loved me and the ones that I loved back even more than I had the day before.
The knowledge that even if I tried to explain that to them, they'd deny it to my face and tell me I was just being melodramatic.

The loneliness of being completely, utterly Alone in this world.

The understanding that the only way to end that loneliness was for me to die.

The pain that I knew it would take to get myself there.

The damage I would do to myself if I didn't succeed.

The uncertainty of what was actually behind the dark veil of death.

To sum the whole list up in 7 words or less:

I needed to be saved from myself.

All my life, I had been hoping and waiting for my Bryan Mills, my Oskar Schindler, my Thor, my own personal superhero to come and rescue me from myself so that I could go out and finally be everything I always wanted to be.  None of them ever came.

Jesus Christ did.

And in asking Him to rescue me and trusting that He actually would, I finally found the peace I had been missing.  Which was followed by the hope, the security, and the will to live that I so desperately wanted.  And He has never left me, even in my craziest, my darkest, and my scariest times... and I won't lie, there are still times like that, even now that I'm a Christian.  The difference is that, when things get dark and no one is around, Jesus is still there and I'm not alone anymore.  

I will be the first to admit that I'm not some well-read theologian; I know that there are a vast number of different theories about the afterlife, the soul, the "true" meanings of heaven, hell, grace, justice, redemption, propitiation, atonement, and so on-- even within Christianity alone.  And I don't know much about most of those theories, much less about what other religions and worldviews have to say about such things.... and not knowing much means I should probably not say much, lest I sound even more like a total idiot than I already do ^_^

But what I can talk about is what I know from my own life and what it has convinced me of.  And so, this is what I mean when I talk about "salvation"... I'm talking about the peace I have that comes from being saved from my own self-destructive impulses.  The hope I have that comes from knowing I'm going to be all right after all.  The relief that comes from knowing I have a Superhero who will come to either rescue me from whatever trouble I get myself into or stand guard over me as that trouble blows over.  The joy that comes from knowing that whatever crap may be going on in my life right now, there is something 3 million times better waiting for me once it's over.

So, maybe you're asking:  What on earth brought this particular train of thought roaring through the station at 3:30 in the morning on a night when my youngest child is home sick with the flu?  (Well, maybe you weren't asking, but now that I've brought it up, just go with me on this one, OK?  If for no other reason than sympathy for a sick kid... ^_^)

I've been thinking a lot recently about someone I know who doesn't see the same things I do when they think about God, the universe, the meaning of life, and a lot of that stuff.  This person has become one of my very favorite people in the world, and I care a lot about them and what they think and feel and believe, even if we agree to disagree on some of the Big Picture Stuff.  The thing is, because I care about this person, I want them to be more settled and feel more at peace than they are right now, and all I know is that I've found that kind of security, peace, joy, and meaning in my relationship with Jesus.  What I don't want to do is to preach at them or make them feel like I'm lecturing or threatening them, because I remember what that feels like and I absolutely hate, hate, HATE that feeling... that feeling that because I'm not a saved believing Christian, I'm somehow subhuman and therefore not worthy of value unless I get my act together and get "saved."  But, how do I talk to them about salvation without them thinking I'm trying to change them into something they're not or puff myself up into something I'm not?   And I know that, as I go through this life, I'm going to meet more and more people like this, and I'm going to find myself over and over again in this same situation of wanting to speak but not feeling welcome to... and that doesn't even begin to count all of the people I'll never meet who will get to know me by reading this blog.  The possibilities here actually hurt my brain o.O

So maybe I'm kind of hoping that, even if I never get the chance to tell them my story in person, they'll read this blog, and hopefully, they'll actually listen to what I have to say without shutting me out.  In the meantime, my job is to love them right where they're at, whether we agree or not.  Because really, it's not up to me to "save" them... that's between them and God.  All I want to do is tell them what I know so that they can hear the truth about being a Christian from someone who's been there and has finally found what they are still so desperately looking for.

But I'm still here...

This past couple of months has been full of what Mark Lowry would call "life... more abundantly".  What he means by that is that life is full of ups and downs... it's not a plateau by any means.  And (further paraphrasing Lowry), if Jesus came so that we might have life more abundantly (John 10:10... pretty easy to remember, if I could only remember to remember it...), then this logically means that instead of life being happy little series of hills and valleys...


life should be more like this...


... crazy, chaotic, completely out of our control at all times.

This is how it works.  I get that.  It keeps things interesting. 

Over the past couple of months, I started and finished my first bout of full-day student teaching... 3 weeks in a second grade classroom, which has in itself its very own microcosm of ups-and-downs.  This was a higher point in the crazy roller coaster ride of the past few months... the kids were overall pretty sweet, they theoretically learned some math, and I got 27 construction paper "thank you" cards at the end of the last week (plus a Dutch Brothers coffee gift card from the teacher :-D)  And now it's back to regular college classes for another 6 weeks or so... happy happy joy joy ^_^

Of course, there's no point whatsoever in mentioning everything that I wrote before that last paragraph unless I'm now going to talk about the abundant downside of life... but at least you can go into reading the rest of this post knowing that no matter how it might seem in the moment, there ARE still high points to life...

Recently, not one but two teenagers within our family's circle of friends have threatened or attempted to commit suicide.  Both girls survived, but to say that they are "OK" would be a huge mistake and would actually be a lie.  Physically, they look fine... "no permanent damage has been done" as the doctors say.  But still, they're not OK.

I know because I've been there.

The biggest question that people keep asking is "Why?"  As in, "Why would she do such a thing?  I mean, look at her... she's beautiful, she's got such a nice family, she's smart, she's got friends who love her...  There are thousands of people out there who would gladly trade their life for hers, or who would gladly take the years that she's willing to throw away... What on earth could make her think that suicide is ANY sort of an answer to the momentary troubles of this present life?"

Let me tell you why.

You may have a great family, with a mom and a dad and a nice house in the suburbs.  Maybe your family has been attending the same church since you were a baby, or at least since you were old enough for Awanas.  Maybe you went to the good schools in town, and maybe you've always gotten good grades and made everyone proud of you your whole life.  Maybe you have awards on the wall for your art, or for your band solos, or for your writing... maybe your name has been in the paper as an Academic All-Star or as the top finisher in the long-jump or the 500m dash.  Maybe your friends are all good kids with the same sorts of awards on their walls and the same badges on their Awanas vest.

Or, on the other hand, maybe your family is fractured beyond fixing.  Maybe your mom and dad spend equal parts of their time fighting and making up, making peace and raising hell.  Maybe your mom tells you that you're stronger than your past and your dad tells you to make sure you go farther than he did.  Maybe life is tough, but you know that you'll make it if you're tougher.  Maybe you've had to work hard for your good grades (or your not-so-good grades), and maybe you're just hanging onto your spot in the Jazz Band or on the soccer team through the kindness of people giving you rides to practices and events.  Maybe you're even good enough to someday get a scholarship to a college that's somewhere far away from this godforsaken town you've landed in, and then you will make your own decisions and run your own life.

Or maybe your story is somewhere in the middle, or a mix of both.

Either way, it doesn't matter.  Because none of it does.

Your church attendance, your Awanas awards... you know it's all a scam.  Underneath, you know how messed up you-- and your family-- really are.  You know that the thrill of winning first chair in the band or first place in the art fair will wear off after a day or two... and then everyone will expect you to top yourself next time.  You know that no matter how tough you are, or how good you look on the outside, nothing can fix the things that are broken on the inside.

And frankly, you get tired of keeping up the act.  It gets harder and harder each day to keep everyone from seeing the real you, from seeing how you're barely holding on, barely holding it together.  You feel like one of those plate spinners in the circus... You have to keep all of the plates spinning, because if one plate falls to the ground and shatters, people will notice and you will be a failure.  And you can't just stop, because then all of the plates will fall and shatter and no one will notice anything but your failure.

And when your life is reduced to the spinning of stupid china plates, you realize that none of it has any meaning.  That your life is meaningless and empty.  Nothing-- not your good grades, not your nice family, not your reputation or your status or your trophies-- has any worth or any value.

You have no value.

And when you have no value, your life has no value.

If your life has no value, it is insignificant.

If you're insignificant, then no one would notice if, suddenly, you weren't there.

So, you start dropping hints... "Imma gonna kill myself.  I know where they keep the guns."

"What do you care... I'll be gone soon anyway."

"No one lives forever, you know..."

"I wish I were dead."

And then you wait and see what people do.   You hope that it will make a difference, that someone will notice you and ask you how you're doing... and actually mean it.  You hope that, finally, someone will look behind the mask and either help you spin the plates or take the plates from your hands before they fall.

But instead, they tell you you're just being melodramatic.  You're just young, and you don't know yet that it will all pass.  You have your whole life ahead of you... don't sweat the small stuff.  When you're older, you will understand how silly your life right now really is, and you will look back on these days and laugh.

No one takes you seriously.

Unless you actually go through with it, that is.

And then, when they realize that they could have stopped you, but didn't... when they realize what a great and priceless treasure they let slip through their fingers... when they finally realize all that you could have been was lost because of their inaction... then they'll finally understand and take you seriously.

Death not only is supposed to make you a martyr, but it's also a way out of the meaningless endlessness of spinning all of those stupid china plates.  It's a way to say, "I quit... this is stupid...", without anyone calling you a failure or a waste of space.  It's a final rebellion against a system built on fakery and mindlessness: If you die young and leave a beautiful memory, you win.

Game over.

But... I'm still here to write this.  Apparently, I was such a failure that I couldn't even succeed at suicide... which is the same spot that these two girls who have been weighing on my mind so heavily these past couple of days are in right now.  What was supposed to be a final victory over an unfair world has now turned them into victims and prisoners and (according to their parents and the "professionals" who have been charged with watching over them) "persons who cannot be trusted."

But... I'm still here.  Let me tell you why.

This life we live... all of the status, all of the activities, all of the homework and practices and awards... in and of themselves, yes, they are meaningless.  No matter how much we do, or how well we do it, or how many awards we get, there will always be something left undone, or something we're not perfect at, or someone else who tops us.

All of our nice houses, or our nice families, or our nice friends... Some of that niceness is a facade, just like the siding on a house or the paint on a car.  It makes it look better on the outside, but it doesn't do a thing to fix the rusted engine, or the leaky pipes, or even the squeaky garbage disposal.

Without a real meaning to life, life is meaningless.  Without a good reason to spin those plates, there's no point to spinning them.  In other words, if you're thinking your life has no meaning, no purpose... you may be right.

Which is as scary as standing on a cliff and getting ready to jump.

But... what if there is a meaning to life?  What if there is a reason to get up and go out and be?

What if you are valuable because, out of all of the possible combinations of eggs and sperm and all of the situations in the world, someone chose the specific time and place and matter to create you?  What if you are not a mistake, not an oversight, not an accident... What if you were chosen to be born into this world, to live in these times, to know these people... for a specific purpose?

Think about it this way.  Think of everything you did today, all of the choices you made and the choices you didn't make, all of the things you did and the things you forgot to do, all of the things that were awesome and the things you wish you could take back... somehow, all of those random bits of circumstance ended up with you sitting here, reading these words right now, and thinking about a couple of girls who you've probably never met and who probably won't even read these words themselves.

If that ain't random, I don't know what is :-)

But I actually don't believe in randomness.  Because when I was at the point where my life had no reason to go on, and where I figured I had nothing left to lose by committing suicide, I discovered that there really is a God, and that He really does love me... not because I was an amazing plate spinner, but simply because He chose to create me in the first place.

I had been told the "good news" countless times by countless Christians growing up... but not one of them could give me a reason why they thought that their God would love me.   Sometimes their spiel was, "God loves you... Won't you make Him happy by getting saved today?"-- as if God's love was a limited-time, call-now-while-the-operators-are-still-standing-by sort of offer.

Other times their routine was, "God would hate for you to be cast into hell... If you choose Jesus today, God won't have to do that to you..."  Which always made me imagine God standing there, wringing His hands and waiting indecisively for me to let Him off the hook on the whole casting-into-Hell-business.

And then there was always this one: "God loves you.  He sent His son to die for your sins.  If you ask Jesus into your heart today, all your sins will be taken away and you will live happily with Him for all eternity."  To which I had one question... Why?  OK, two questions, really... Will Jesus make the kids at school quit picking on me, or make my mom and dad stop fighting, or give me an immunity to head lice?  Which is actually more like four questions, but you get my point...

By the time I was 16 or so, I had my reaction to these oh-so-concerned soul winners down pretty pat.

Them: "Hello there, young lady... We're from that (fill-in-the-denomination-here) church just down the street.  Do you know for sure if you died today that you would go to Heaven?"
Me: "I don't believe in Heaven."
Them: (Pause... for some reason, this must never have been the next line in any of the scripts they rehearsed back at the church.)"Well... if you don't believe in Heaven, you'll end up in Hell, then.  You wouldn't want that, now, would you?"
Me: "Don't believe in Hell either."
Them: (Another pause... usually accompanied with frowns and blinking eyes as well.) "Well... if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, I guess you'll end up in Hell, then.  Have a nice day!"

Which always made me laugh... If their God was so concerned about me that He sent them to tell me about Him and rescue me from the eternal torments of a lake of fire and sulfur, why were they always so quick to leave me once their script ran out?

But...

God-- the real, true God who really did create the universe, and who really did create me-- is much, much bigger than any of the so-called missionaries who tried to boost their own spiritual self-esteem by converting one more angry, hurting teenager for their church.  God really did send His son Jesus to die for me... not because I owed Him one for creating me in the first place, but because He loved me and wanted me to return to Him and be a part of His family.  God already knew all about my screw-ups-- after all, if He didn't, then He certainly couldn't have been much of a God at all-- but He also already knew about why I was so screwed up in the first place.  God already knew about all of the people I had hurt... and about all of the people who had hurt me.  He already knew that I couldn't keep the plates spinning... and He knew which ones were about to fall.

God knew all of this all along... Even when I didn't.

All I knew was that I was at the end of everything I had, and it wasn't enough.  All I knew was that I had nothing left to lose, nothing left worth keeping, and nothing left to live for.  I figured that, if this "God" or "Jesus" or "Whoever" was real, then great... Maybe He could save me from myself.  And if He wasn't... then I was no worse off than I already was, and suicide would still be there tomorrow.

So I kind of put it to God this way: "OK, Jesus... fine.  Save me... I dare you."

For the first time in years, I found peace.  And for the first time in four days, I was able to sleep.

The next day, I woke up.  Nothing in my circumstances had changed... same apartment with the leaky window, same crummy minimum-wage job, same classes that I was struggling to care about and pass, same insecurities about who I was supposed to be and whether I was doing any of it right.

But for some strange reason, now I had hope.  And that was what made all the difference.

And so... I'm still here.  And now I can see that God let me go through all of the crap in middle and high school-- including my 6 suicide attempts-- so that I could stand here, on the other side of darkness, and say, "Hey... I'm still here.  Let me help you across."

As I was thinking about what to write here and driving my daughter back from Youth Group, I heard this song, and it just seems to fit... Yet another example of the Randomness That Isn't that is God ^_^