Hi, it’s me, grown up girl woman still defining her faith! I love when I meet or read about or Terry Gross tells me about people who believe in God in a true yet unconventional way.  Most recently: I caught an interview with this incredible woman, Nadia Bolz-Weber, an addict turned Lutheran preacher.  She’s redefining what it is to have faith, and re-invigorating a group of people who have felt pushed out the organization surrounding faith. That’s what church is, at its heart: faith. So many factors complicate that simple core.  Christians are pressured to present that they’re perfect, forcing all human flaws into the closet until said closet door bursts and out pours buckets of sins.  But she admits that it’s meant to be messy:

That’s what is challenging to me about Christianity is that exact thing — being forced to look at your own stuff and being pushed into a space of grace that’s really, really uncomfortable.

Isn’t that great? It’s not meant to be effortless or wonderful or dreamy or cloud-like. Faith is the discomfort of therapy, of looking at old pictures of your self, of reading old poems you wrote,  confronting head on the weird things you cling to, your own igornorance and fears  — then letting them all go, and looking Up.