We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Our Sacred Scared

Day 5/365 - Night Terrors

Tom Lin via Compfight

Glennon Doyle Melton is the voice behind Momastery. She is a brave, funny and challenging writer who has decided to tell the truth after years of drug and alcohol abuse and bulemia. Recently, Glennon has invited a series of men and women (including Rachel Held Evans, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, Tara Livesay, Sarah Bessey, Nate Pyle and others) to share their sacred scared, the thing they are most fearful of. You should check out these short confessions. You’ll feel less alone.

Glennon did this to prove that we’re all messy and scared and radically imperfect, but that doesn’t have to stop us from getting out there and making a difference. In the relentless pursuit of self-improvement, we just might miss out on the life God is calling us to.

Listen to what she has to say about this:

I kind of wish we’d stop obsessing about improving ourselves all the time. I’m simply suggesting that maybe you can show up for life as you are. Maybe you don’t need to wait till you have it “all together” to follow your dreams and serve other people. I’m worried that if you wait ‘till you or your people are less messy to start showing up –  you’ll never show up. Because life never, ever stops being messy. It’s messy the whole way through. And so I think we gotta show up in the middle of the mess. We gotta raise our hands and say “HELLO, EVERYBODY! I’M GLENNON! IM A LITTLE CONFUSED AND TIRED AND IMPATIENT AND MY PEOPLE DRIVE ME INSANE AND I HAVE ALL THESE VARIOUS DISEASES AND MY FAMILY’S A LITTLE BANGED UP- BUT I’M PRETTY SURE THAT’S JUST LIFE – SO I’M HERE TO HELP ANYWAY.”

So go ahead, do it scared.

Related Reading

The Call to a Cruciform Life

Jesus repeatedly taught that following him meant that one had to be willing to “pick up their cross daily and follow [him]” (Lk 9:23; 14:27). Picking up our cross is the centerpiece of following Jesus because this was the centerpiece of what Jesus was all about. The thematic centrality of the cross is also illustrated…

A Restless Heart

What is the “good news” of the Gospel? How can we find rest in Jesus? Here’s another video from The Work of the People that examines these questions.

The Image of Cross-Like Love: God’s Self-Portrait, Part 6

In the previous blog I argued that God is cross-like love. In this blog I’d like to take this a step further by demonstrating why the cross alone could function as the definitive revelation of God’s true character and by showing how this revelation weaves together everything Jesus was about. If you want to know…

Sermon: The Salt and Light Revolution

What does it mean to be the salt and light? In Greg’s sermon last weekend, he explores how followers of Jesus can step out of the crowd in ways that bring these good things to the world around us. Visit the Woodland Hills website for this week’s sermon resources.

On Driving and Unsurpassable Worth

Our friends the Livesay’s live and work in Haiti, and their blog is amazing. They posted a reflection today entitled On Driving and Unsurpassable Worth. It’s so worth reading. From the article: Annoyed with someone?  Repeat after me: Unsurpassable worth, unsurpassable worth… Unsurpassable worth. Fine, be annoyed … but if keeping the annoyance from turning to rage…

Change That Is Real

With the coming of Christ, which we celebrate during the Advent season, the Father, Son, and Spirit made a way for us to be incorporated into the triune fellowship. We are placed in Christ through the power of the Spirit. This doesn’t just change how God views us and relates to us. It changes who…