new life.

Friends, I am in uncharted territory.

Yesterday, I sent out an email to the influences in my life (Christians and non alike) asking them to read and comment on a new blog, in which I am very open about my personal interest in God, and my identity as a Christian. I posted the link on my Facebook profile. Oddly--despite the extreme anxiety I wrote about in this blog the night I first made that new blog public, I'm incredibly calm about it. Something happened.

The counter I put on it tells me that it's being pretty widely read. So I know it's being found by friends, and family and classmates on Facebook. But I don't feel anxious. I'm not kicking myself for confessing my Christianity.

I am scared. I will admit to that. But not in that frozen, oh-em-gee-what-have-I-done-my-life-is-over, kind of way. I'm scared because I am smack dab in the middle of something I know nothing about.

Suddenly, I'm a Christian in public. I guess I've been a "Christian in public" for some time. My spirituality is no surprise to friends, or family. But, my candid words in the first entry of that blog are uncharacteristically vulnerable. I'm not used to being a vulnerable Christian in public. Not used to showing any part of my heart for God.

And then, there's this other part. My Dad commented on the post, with some ideas about living our faith out in the world. And um, well, I don't know when I got a father who says stuff like that? I don't know how to have a dad who is interested in living out his faith. This is all kind of new for both of us. So I'm transitioning from having crazy parents, to having Christian parents, and realizing that I need to learn to respect and trust them as they are now, not as they were when I was growing up. I need to learn to trust that God is doing something inside of them that is re-establishing (or, establishing) them as Christian parents, with valuable perspectives and a Godly presence in my life. In short, I need to let them be who they are becoming, and re-learn interactional patterns and attitudes that fit those new identities.

Here we go.