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I wrote this opinion piece this week in a personal journal. At the Corsair (PJC's paper) yesterday we were short on on stories so I adapted it to fit the newspaper. None of the content was changed, only format.
"Changing in a safe place, guided by a dangerous message"
Joshua Encinias
We were strawberry picking in Slocomb, Alabama's muddiest field when my cousin Skyler fell hands first into the fruity puddles. Mom and I had just arrived in their sleepy town not too long before Curtis and his brother carted me off for a tour. We coasted through their neighborhood as the only car on the road. Curtis gave me the low-down of every passing home's meth lab and addiction story. At 12 and 13 these two boys 'get' what raging gossip does to people, but what else is there to talk about in a town that's struggling to build a public library?
We came home to find my uncle distraught. He wanted to sit everyone down and spell out the burden on his heart and mind; he needed to thank us. For the last five years we've struggled through the slow death of my grandmother. I'd blocked out most of what he was reminiscing, I had to in order to get an education. My family's had a terrible 10 years with one divorce, three deaths, boatloads of shame.
My uncle knew this, everyone did, but no one had the ability to come in and aid us, no one had experienced anything like this. We beat out a path of hatred, displacement of feelings, disillusionment, addiction, revelation; turn around, commitment, discernment to come full circle at the death of my grandmother, Betty.
We're becoming a family like we've never been, all under the direction of Christ. He's led me to reconciliation within my heart. He's leading me to reconcile the heart of my family. Knowing God and knowing of God, knowing Christ and knowing of Christ, going to church and knowing about church are worlds apart.
If you ever walk into a church and it's not like an adopted family, get out. Get out fast. You can't know about Christ but not his redemption. When you do, it's robbing Peter to pay Paul. You've taken one for an immediate payoff, but you have to keep running around to make up for everything you owe Peter. You have to keep yourself steeped in legalism, hatred for yourself and people to find any kind of peace in Christ, what you think is peace in Christ.
We need a trade-off and we're going to make it. We're going to invest in someone, something. We've got to be destroyed to be whole, but we can't do it faithlessly. You'll lose everything if you destroy out of hatred for yourself. You've got to do it in spirit. We cannot be half a person, we have to be full.
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