As I sit down to type my last article for the Odyssey, I’m struggling to write down what is actually going through my mind. Personally, I want to write about something funny that people will share, laugh at, and hopefully relate to. But I also keep coming back to the fact this is my last chosen week to write. It’s time for me to leave. So what has God whispered for me to hear? “Do not waste your last opportunity to write publicly through the Odyssey." Instead, I am going to share what has been on my heart, and what I’ve been challenged with recently.

Someone told me that honesty, sincerity, and genuineness are the hardest words. She also challenged us with those words. When she challenged us, I was sitting in a group of girls squished together on futons and bean bag chairs. We had previously shared where we were in life and then asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how hard we found it to open up to any sort of group of females to share when we struggled, what we struggled with, or just generally telling them the truth in love. In my mind, I was going to be nice and say a 7, but someone piped up and said 9 and we all agreed. Why?

Because the church community has become a bunch empty words, happy facades, and worldly ideas. Most of us felt we would rather tell each other, “I’ll pray for you” than drop a couple things from our schedule to stop and sit with each other. We’d rather put on a happy face and not mention that we are struggling inside because that is not socially acceptable. But last time I remembered, Jesus did not follow the social rules. And we aren’t supposed to either. We are supposed to follow Jesus.

I have never felt more alone than when I am with a bunch of Christians. Somehow, we’ve adopted this ideal that we are supposed to have it all together. If we have it together, unsaved sinners will see our persona and want to know this Jesus who picks up every single piece and glues us back together perfectly into a person who never struggles and never quits smiling. Only simply, that is not the truth. When we are saved, by trusting in Jesus and accepting His gift of forgiveness of our sins, we only start following Him. By following Him, our pieces might come together, and they might not. We may always struggle with a thorn in the flesh like Paul did. Those struggles, however, are only our weaknesses that are the lenses through which we see the mightiness of God’s strength.

After the meeting with the other girls I had been challenged with, there was one girl who I just knew had a similar heart as mine. The only thought I had was to tell her she always blessed my heart when I saw her. I did not know that my sitting down with her would bring me to an honest friendship with not only her, but the girl sitting next to her. It brought together a community of three.

Is there lost hope? No. There is always hope in Jesus. There can be change. You, the reader, you can be the change. Hebrews 10:22-25 says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith… Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.”

Let us put away the social rules, the facades and deceptions. Let’s be sincere, genuine, and honest with others, with ourselves and most of all with God. Because He loves us exactly the way we are. He loves us enough to send His Son to die on a cross a few thousand years ago for sinners—dirty rotten sinners— like me and you.