the deep end.

My leg hurts. Like, really bad. Because I took a dive into the gravel outside someone's house tonight. A house chock full of Christians.

I'm having an identity crisis.

I don't even know where or how to start to explain, so let me set the scene. We're all playing Catch Phrase after Easter dinner. A friend of mine is up: "Ok, two words, first word--what convinced Eve to eat the apple in the garden of Eden." Crowd shouts snake. Her again: "Second word--Get out of that...! Come on! Get out out of that...!" Someone finally shouts "pit!" eliciting a chorus of "That'll preach!" and "Good word!" All in good humor, by the way. These people are not the caricatures that have been made of them. But the references are there, and so so different from anything I'd encounter with my other friends.

Conversations are peppered with phrases like "Praise God!" and "...if that's what the Lord wants for me..." Sometimes, as in the two previous phrases, they're serious. Other times (like with the snake pit preaching), there's a sort of group-deprecating good humor to the religious language, as when, asked the whereabouts of someone, a girl quipped, "He's taking quiet time with Jesus out in the field."

They are modern, and funny, and smart, and wonderful. And, in the same breath, entirely similar and entirely different from the rest of my friends.

As I sat there, still in the glow of an incredible Easter weekend, I felt all of these emotions jumbling up inside of me. Most of all, fear.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be in a Christian community. There are a bunch of books about Christianity--proofs for faith, and how to get faith, and why you should have faith. But none about what to do once you have it. About how to weather the part where you suddenly find yourself at Easter dinner with twenty Christians, and many looming questions: How do I fit into all of this? Can I fit into all of this? How will I live in two worlds?

See, up to this point, I've been dabbling. I have thought of myself as more of a spectator in the church, than a player. I have even seen myself as an outsider to my friendships in the church. As though I've just been watching. Playing along.

And then this week, something broke, and faith became real, and now things are turned a little sideways. I first realized on Wednesday that James River felt like home, felt like mine. I'm no longer just this visitor passing through. I'm worshiping with my family. And when I talk and laugh and eat with people as I did tonight, I'm no longer the seeking outsider. These people are my family. And they are kind, and they are wonderful, and they love God. And I don't know what to do with that.

I sat with them, silently praying, "God, it's too much. I need you to slow down. Please, take it easy on me. I don't know how to do this."

I wondered, am I good enough for this? Am I too sarcastic? Have I experienced too much? Can I fit in to this? And what about the rest of my life? How will I blend my life with my non-Christian friends, with my new life in the church, while being wholly honest in both worlds? How will I deal with questions about decisions I'm making based on faith? And convince my "secular" friends that my IQ hasn't taken a hit? Deep breath.

This...all of this... it isn't how I envisioned my life. If you had told me eight months ago that I'd come to love a megachurch (a frigging pentecostal megachurch), and God, and His people, I'd have blown you off completely. Or, actually, probably made you sit through a loooooong diatribe about how megachurches are ruining Christianity, and God is a relative concept, and most Christians are buzzkills.

Deep breath.