Kathleen

She had messy down. In fact, she was the first person I had ever met who made messy look acceptable somehow. 

It was the early 2000s, and culture hadn't really hit the "it's okay to not be okay" movement yet. Nobody was talking about messy being normal, let alone good. We were a world torn between an older generation that was quite a bit more stoic about these sorts of things, more proper, more put together...and this almost championing of dysfunction that we have now. You know, where it's kind of trendy to be a train wreck and unapologetic for it. 

At the same time, my world was torn between everything I'd always known and the things I was coming to find out. I was just starting to commit myself to Christianity, still wasn't entirely sure about this God, and was perfectly certain that my life wasn't clean enough to ever really fit in here. I was simply too dirty, simply too broken, simply too...lost. 

Enter Kathleen. 

She was one member of a traveling troupe of Christians known for their drama skits. This troupe showed up at nearly every event that my youth group attended, so I became very familiar with them very quickly. 

Kathleen's characters in their skits seemed to frequently be, well, messy. The girl with questions. The girl with a past. The girl with a story. The girl that would probably be shunned everywhere. In fact, the girl who talked about how friendless and shunned and lonely she was. 

The girl who sounded a lot like me, although I wouldn't have said it out loud. Not back then. 

But I'm thankful for her example. In a time when we weren't talking about how it was okay to not be okay, the way Kathleen portrayed her broken characters on stage made me feel like maybe there was a place for me in this Christianity after all. Maybe there was a hope for me. Maybe there was a love for me. (And shout out to Ryan and Drew, who so very often played the Jesus characters, for loving Kathleen out loud.) 

I think about this example often. I try more often even than that to copy it. It's because of a witness like this that I understand how important it is for us to be real about ourselves, about our lives, about our humanity. When we are authentic about who we are, we give others a welcome into their life, as well. When others see me living my messy, broken, weird life and I'm just real about it, they understand how real Jesus is, too. 

They understand that maybe there is a place for them after all. Maybe there is a hope. Maybe there is a love.

I want to give that gift to them...because I know what it feels like to receive it. 

Interesting how that all comes from the example of a woman who was real-ly just playing a character, isn't it?