this week.

I'm struggling this week.

I feel alone here sometimes. Like I can't talk through things with friends inside the church, out of fear of offending them or being misunderstood, and as though I can't talk with friends outside the church about the issues because anything I say would reinforce their negative stereotypes of the church.

It's a sort of self-imposed isolation, I know. The fears are real, though.

People want to understand. They just... well, usually, they don't. Because they can't remember what it was to not have Christ as a part of their psyche. Or they don't know what it is to have had confidence in a completely different world view.

We're all taking refuge in Christ, in the forgiveness of our sins. But, I think it's different to come from not really having formed a well-organized world view, than to come from a lifetime of thought and wonder and strongly-held life philosophies.

It's hard to explain to someone the sensation of sin not having been sinful.

And it's a tough trick to mix certainty in your own experiences with the humility to grow. I've been wrong about so much, but that doesn't make everything I know wrong. There's difficulty in bending to people who really haven't had to bend--I think sometimes, like me, they don't know how. When I moved here, I was shocked at all I never knew, and I think it's the same for some people I've met. They don't know what they don't know.

That's part ego, and part truth, but wholly real.

Believing isn't easy this week.