I am Dysfunctional

Last January, I had the privilege to visit an outreach center connected to a local church in Rochester through the program I am in at Roberts.The assistant pastor spoke and his message has played over and over again in my mind. I decided to look back on my journal entry from that day to read through my reflection and this is what I read....

"I don't want to forget what the pastor said tonight. He said that the people that come into the center are often living in dysfunction and sometimes that dysfunction feels safer than not living in it. It's familiar to them. It might not be comfortable, but they've learned to be comfortable there. They've learned how to survive there. Sometimes the thought of leaving that dysfunction- that familiarity- is terrifying because it's all they know. He was speaking about people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. People who are stuck in abusive relationships. People who are trapped in cycles of prostitution. But he was also talking about me. I haven't been able to get that thought out of my mind since I heard him say it. I haven't been able to forget that because how often am I in desperate need for a breakthrough or change, but feel the resistancy in my spirit and feel the fear that is shouting out at me that if this really happens, what will that look like? It's scary. Change is scary."

I wrote that on January 21st, 2012. Now fast forward to almost exactly a year later (1/18/13)  and in my journal you would find...

"So often God is knocking at the doors of our hearts with so much to offer that He wants to give us and delights in giving us, but we politely just take a bite because we know if we fully embrace it, our lives will be transformed and sometimes, if we're honest, transformation doesn't fit into our schedules. We don't have the time to grieve or weep or pray or praise and we know those things accompany radical transformation. We are used to our patterns of dysfunction and our busyness and even though we know transformation is GREATER, we choose familiar. We are scared, but we are forgetting that Perfect Love is at our door promising to cast out that fear if we welcome Him in. We are settling for good when the choice for BETTER is longing for us to not be satisfied with only a bite."


It's easy for me to look at the lives of others and pick out what is wrong. It's easy for me to identify patterns of dysfunction in those around me. It's easy to see their BETTER and to overlook how hard it might be for them to take the steps needed to get there, because they've become comfortable in their familiar. Even if their familiar comes with addiction, oppression, or depression.


But if I am really honest with myself, I would have to say that I am only walking and living in a "bite" of what God has said that He has given me. I have settled for patterns of dysfunction in my own life and chosen familiar over better countless times. But Perfect Love is at my door and I am going to answer it.  And in doing so, it's going to require that I become more acquainted with discomfort and unfamiliarity, but I am learning that it is in moments or seasons of unfamiliarity where I become more familiar with God.

I think maybe when God gives us the ability to see dysfunction in our lives and the lives of others, He wants us to remember how scary it is for us and instead of pointing fingers or writing people off, He wants us be people who say "it's going to be scary, but it's going to end in BETTER." I think He wants us to be people that come along side  one another, recognizing our own brokenness, and say "I'm on this journey too. You are not alone. Together, let's become more familiar with God. It might be uncomfortable, but the God of all Comfort is on the throne."

And He makes broken lives beautiful....