Hammer on Anvil '

Our church has been doing a study about what you need to carry around with you in life, taking Colossians 3 as its base scriptures. The sermons have really been hitting home and it's been awesome watching God work in our individual lives as a body of believers.

Also, it's been incredibly painful.

"Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful" (Colossians 3:12-15).

"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid" (Proverbs 12:1). And if that one doesn't smack you in the face, read Proverbs 13:4, too.

Have you ever been lied to? No, like, "Whoa. There is no way anything you're saying is right" kind of lied to?  I have. Honey, I grew up in church. We are all magnificent liars.

It's easy to lie, because we do it every day that we pretend we don't have a problem. We want to make church and Christianity look like that one R.E.M song sounds, but believers, we are not all Shiny, Happy People. We all have battles.

Sometime the hardest thing to be is transparent about the things you are still fighting.

1 John 1:8- 10 says, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Don't let my cartoony nature fool you, sucka. I still wear the scars from when I found some kind of comfort in a razor across my skin. I like to pretend that you all don't know I'm crazy, but the truth is this girl was Mayor of Crazy Town. I went there. I got elected. I made Britney look like a little case of PMS.

I don't diminish what God has done in my life, but I want you to know how badly I still need the Lord. Friends, I've been to crazy and back, and it's way to easy to hop on the train back to crazy town. I have to submit to the Lord and daily ask for His strength and guidance. And the one thing I learned is that regardless of how much I love Jesus, I can not change myself. So I lied, and hid, and cried. And when people asked me how I was doing, I learned to say, "Good. And you?" And then I learned to do that with enthusiasm. It's a coping mechanism. You become a character. And then it's easy to pretend that you aren't struggling with something dark, dealing with something mean, dying on the inside. The world is your stage. The church is full of actors.

I played that part for 15-plus years, but God never wanted me to play that part. God helped me break through this cement mask. I opened up about my rape and the hurt I still carried and my life began to change. I am still Hannah, but I have hope. I found that opening up helped others begin to open up. And then my church, where I've been attending for nearly 12 years, became less like a country club and more like a support group of weirdos, ready to bond together and go where God leads. And when my church started clearing the proverbial stage, things got real.

God becomes real with you when you get real with God. Admit, confess and do that daily. Find others believers who can admit they're broken, too, and then pray for God to bind you together, to weather this storm. I've been reading Colossians 3 a lot. Read that.

Listen, I've played church my whole life. I've seen every sin in the book, and I've done most of them, and all within the church. Let me assure you that your personal struggles do not Houdini out of your life the minute you admit that you love Jesus. Jesus is magic, ya'll. He came to show us how to act and direct us to the Father, but we are still the same people. God can't make us new until we confess that the yuck we are carrying around is getting real old.

And we don't want to admit we're broken and hurt. We have learned to adapt to this kind of hurt,  to survive, not talk about it, and pretend to fit into the mold of  "We don't rejoice in struggles, because we have no struggles." The truth is, we're all a hot mess. Everyone is dealing with something, and it's easier to pick out the smudge on your brothers face than deal with your own gaping wound.

We've been lied to, guys. And we've been lied to for so long that we've begun to get comfortable with lies. We think this is how the church looks, how Christianity should feel. We play church, pretend through faith, and honestly, it's starting to look like we've just become comfortable with being miserable.

And yet, we still don't want to admit we're miserable. "Nah, I got this." Guys, God is not glorified in the pretty picture you pretend and project. Remember what Paul said, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Maybe it's time we get real, honest and transparent about the fact we are still people. People who still need the Lord. People who love Jesus, but still have addictions, hurts, failures and faults. Don't fear who you are, fear the Lord and what He says will happen if we don't turn back to Him. The Lord means it.