Vulnerability and Unpreparedness.

I'm going to start off with the most cliché blog intro ever. Ready? Read it in a preppy high school girl voice.

{Okay, y'all I know I haven't blogged in liiiike FOREVER but I've just been waiting for inspiration to write!!!!! PLEASE forgive meeee!!!}

Phew. That's over with. I'm so glad I don't actually type or talk like that... it's exhausting. (You can discontinue with the voice.)

But really. Here we go.

Have you ever read that blog? You know, the one where that person has great design, awesome pictures, but no depth? Yeah, I have too. And it gets old. And kind of boring after a while. 

Tonight I've decided not to be that girl but to be vulnerable. 

And it's a little bit scary.

Not to go all Merriam Webster on y'all, but what does "vulnerable" mean? I think that it means shedding light on the skeletons in your closet. Its means being open. It often means surrendering to the truth and putting it all on the line. And as Christians, isn't that what we should be doing with one another? Being vulnerable? Opening up? Showing others the skeletons? The dirt.

What I'm about to write isn't dirt, but it's a weakness of mine. And it's embarrassing. And it hurts my pride a little bit more with each stroke of the keys.

But that's okay.

Because I know I'm not alone. And everyone needs those people who know their struggles and weaknesses. 

For those of you who don't know, yes, I went to traffic school today. Fun stuff, guys. You should get a ticket just to be able to be admitted into that class.

No. No, you should not do that. 

Traffic school was held at a Comfort Inn in the meeting room right down from the front desk. I could feel the judgmental glance of the woman behind the front desk as she directed me to the doomed room. But unfazed and Chick-Fil-A biscuit in hand, I marched down the hall and entered a room full of people like me. Just sitting at tables. In silence. And y'all... Sometimes, life is just awkward. That kind of awkward that's unavoidable. I walked to the front of the room and signed in and payed but in the process I was forced to make the squat/stand/bend awkwardly decision because the table wasn't the right height. We've all been there. You can feel every eye in the room burning into you, waiting for you to drop your pen or fumble with the change handed back to you by the instructor. They had nothing else to do but to watch the ginger in the front of the room ask dumb questions and do the weird squat thing. But when that moment was over, the challenge has just begun. Now I had an even more important decision to make. Where to sit. For a reason I would discover later, I didn't see the seat in the front by the other ginger or the one in the back by one of the girls. I only saw one seat. The one next to Adam.

Adam's a stereotypical tough guy. You know the kind. Tattoos, long hair, black shirt, nonchalant attitude. 

I took a seat and ate my biscuit quietly. This is really awkward. 

He asked the instructor if he could use the restroom.

He came back smelling like smoke.

Ohhhkayy. Breathe in, breathe out. 

Oh. Maybe that wasn't the smartest idea.

But hey, why not make a new friend? 

"Hey, I'm Sarah. What are you in for?"

"Speeding. You?"

And that's how I met Adam.

Adam is twenty. He's not in school right now. Adam is an only child. His mom's boyfriend dropped him off this morning. He doesn't have time for church on the weekends because he's taking care of his grandmother and mom. Adam's mom has cancer. His dad isn't present. Adam's a chain smoker.

Adam's not a Christian. He's confused as to what to believe. 

I'm sixteen. I'm in school. I have an abundance of siblings. My parents are healthy and happily married. In my family, Sunday mornings are specially reserved for church. I would probably vomit if you handed me a cigarette.

I'm a Christian. I know what I believe. 

I approached Adam at the beginning of the 15 minute break we had been given about an hour into the class. 

"Want a smoke?" "No, I'm cool. Thanks though." 

I started asking him about his beliefs. He didn't really have a firm answer for every question. I could tell he had given it some thought but his faith obviously was not a priority in his life. "I guess if I had a religion, it would be Christianity."

Adam doesn't care where he ends up when he dies. When asked if he wanted some kind of assurance of where he would be, he told me that he would just end up wherever he was meant to be.

Adam doesn't think God cares. "So you have more of a deist view? Like God wound up a clock and is sitting back watching it run, uninvolved?""Oh, no. I definitely have a more Christian view." Okay.

Adam doesn't think that the Bible was written by God-inspired men. Well, he does. But he thinks that the men wrote what would keep the peace of the people at the time. That they changed the meaning of things. That they wrote it so it would benefit them.

Adam believes that the Bible has been tampered with over the years. That lines have been rewritten and that books of the Bible have been removed. "Oh, I haven't heard that before. What books?" "Well, I don't know what they're called but they're out there."

Adam doesn't believe he would ever go to hell. He doesn't believe that God could condemn His children to eternal suffering. He's not afraid of hell. He told me that.

And what am I doing during this whole question-and-answer time? Forgetting everything I've ever learned about sharing the gospel. 


Forgetting when it's necessary that I remember.

When I was younger, I spent summer after summer in Summer Mission Adventure camp going places and learning how to share the gospel.

Five+ years of learning and training= gone. Just like that. 

Why? Because I don't know all the answers to his hard-pressing questions. He has some good points. He has some sound arguments. And I can't counter them all. 

Im unprepared.

I feel weak.

I shouldn't feel weak.

I was disappointed in myself. 

I answered the questions as well as I knew how.

I asked him why God would sacrifice His son for us, sinners? Skewed answer.

He's so lost. Confused.

And I feel like I'm not helping.

When it's time to go back to class, I feel defeated. Why did I not know what to say?

At the end, I waited for him and told him that I would love for him to come to church.

"Yeah, maybe. What's your last name?" "Holmes. Like Sherlock." "I'll remember that."

Unpreparedness.

Exposing yourself to these situations will show you your weaknesses, alright.

I need to grow.

I need to learn more.

I need help.

So tonight as I sit here praying for Adam, I would ask that you would pray not only for him, but for me. I want to know the answers. I want to be able to defend what I believe. What I love. I want a yearning for the knowledge.


And even if Adam didn't learn anything new today, that doesn't mean that he's not going to think about his beliefs. And maybe he'll go to church. Maybe.


Even if this day wasn't a monumental one in his searching for beliefs, I planted a seed. 


And to think that this seed was made possible by a speeding ticket and a seat God had saved just for me.

-Sj* 

{{This song came on while I was blogging. It's perfect.}}

"I just spoke silence with the seeker next to me

She had a heart with hesitant, halting speech
That turned to mine and asked belligerently
"What do I live for?"

I see the scars of searches everywhere I go
From hearts to wars to literature to radio
There's a question like a shame no one will show
"What do I live for?"

We are Hosea's wife
We are squandering this life
Using people like ladders and words like knives

If we've eyes to see
If we've ears to hear
To find it in our hearts and mouths
The word that saves is near
Shed that shallow skin
Come and live again
Leave all you were before
To believe is to begin"

-Hosea's Wife- Brooke Fraser