I have grown up in the church, my dad's a pastor and I have spent my life either in the mission field or in a private Christian school. That is to say, Christianity has been my life. Now, I am lucky to say that I have two wonderful parents who brought me up in the church, but never forced any decisions on me. And I can also say that my experience with the church has been a positive one. But, there is one trend I have seen, and it has mostly appeared in the schools I have gone to.

Over the years, I have made many wonderful friends in the two private Christian schools I attended. As I got older, though, and I entered high school, I began to crave something my close Christian friends just didn't seem to be providing me with. And that was a safe space to talk about life.

Now, I don't mean to say I could not share about my life with my friends, what I mean is, all of my friends' lives seemed so perfect, so put together, that there never seemed to be a conversation where we would (or could) admit failures, temptations, or problems in our lives. It didn't seem like that was acceptable. And why would it be? When all your friends are so Christian and so good, why would they ever need or want to have a conversation like that?

So, I began to reach out to those in school who were not as Christian. And I found them to be much more real, transparent and ready to talk about struggles or failures in ourselves, or in friends and family around us. I felt less judged like I could relax around them. If life wasn't perfect, it didn't seem to faze them.

I saw this trend here and there in my church too. And I found out that others had noticed it. A lot of those non-Christian friends I had made had experienced church and then proceeded to run the other way because everyone seemed too perfect and those expectations and judgments that would follow (due to those failed expectations) turned them completely off to Christianity. Sin was unacceptable and talking about sin was even more unacceptable. How can this be when we are all sinners? How can this be when we are all human?

I discovered this trend once again when I came to Eastern. I have found amazing friends here, many of which I can be honest with. Yet, it is still hard for me to see people, whom I love, who seem to be extremely committed to the church and to God, refuse to share their burdens. Refuse to be truthful about their shortcomings, or their struggles. Who either are clearly not transparent or prefer to fake being transparent.

In Acts 2:42 it talks about the early church, "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." True Christian community means studying and teaching together, praying together, sharing your lives with one another. It goes on to talk about how their numbers grew—people wanted that. They wanted a safe space to talk about life, they wanted the passion for growth and for God that was so catching, they wanted the community. And by definition, a community is imperfect. Because a community is made up of people, and people are imperfect.

So, why do we as Christians try so hard to hide our struggles? Why do we never talk about them? There are so many reasons for this, mainly that we will be judged, and partly because being vulnerable is difficult, it gives the power to the person you are sharing with. Now, we cannot be real and vulnerable with everyone, but what we can do is fight against an attitude of self-righteousness. We can fight against giving off an air of perfection, we can choose to squelch judging others or thinking of ourselves higher than others. We can choose to pop that, "Perfect Christian Life" bubble.

Instead of being fearful of these conversations or wondering if my Christian friends even have issues in their lives, I want to commit this year to initiating these uncomfortable (but extremely necessary) conversations. Conversations where we can talk about the hard stuff in life. We can talk about why we're angry with God or why we feel disconnected to Him. Or why we are doubting. Where, we can confess where we have gone wrong, and where we need help. What it all comes down to, is that Jesus was the most transparent and honest man out there and though he always made corrections in love, he always chose compassion over judgement. I think it's time we follow suit.

Life isn't perfect, neither are we. And we were never meant to lead our lives pretending to be perfect (especially as followers of Christ).