Two Christmases ago, my church included 'cardboard confessionals' to the docket of a holiday gathering. A cardboard confessional is a simple way of announcing to the world that your life was somehow changed, altered, and or improved by God. With the simplest tools of flattened cardboard boxes, a Sharpie(c) or two, and volunteers who possessed the needed gumption and boldness to stand in front of hundreds of friends and family alike.
I had planned to step up and so to speak 'air out my dirty laundry' that God had--somehow and in His timing--made clean.
But I overbooked myself. I missed the requisite meetings to participate in this project. I recall it clearly--I was rather disappointed with myself, but I had been consumed in the last battery of exams that comprised my undergraduate degree.
So, I had a choice: to pout or not to pout? To support my fellow church-goers or silently boycott the whole episode due to my internal frustration.
I chose to have a "good" attitude and quit grumbling to myself. After all, it was no one's fault but my own that I missed the meeting.
The night of the Christmas gathering came and as the volunteers paraded to the front of the room, I felt a twinge of jealousy. I still wanted to be up there. Still. Even after I internally convinced myself that I was sitting where I was supposed to be: between an ex and a good friend whose husband stood in line with his cardboard in hand.
As soon as I realized this, I noticed tears in my friend's eyes. My gaze followed her's and rested on her husband's lopsided but unmistakable grin as he held up his Sharpie(c)-written confession above his head for literally hundreds of people to see.
My jealousy fled the room like as fast as a rodent being chased by a feline. I felt something damp on my cheeks. What was this? I am not a crier. But my friend's words, not even a dozen of them, glared at me. The message was clear: get over yourself. You will have a time to be honest, vulnerable, and confessional. This is not your time. Be patient. Grow. Learn. Love. Be honest.
Nearly 2 years later, I find myself in Prague, with a flattened cardboard box announcing in black Sharpie(c) to anyone willing to read 6 words that describe part of my past.
I have realized that it does not matter that I know less than 20 people in this city of 1.3 million. It does not matter that millions of tourists (an annual 2 million to be exact) daily walk the same streets that I do.
What really matters is that my patience paid off. That I have grown, learned, loved, and have been more honest in the last 2 years than ever before. This was not my timing.
This timing is of God, so if you see me wandering the city with a piece of cardboard, I am supposed to be there.
And so are you.
And so were a group of German tourists last Monday near the John Lennon wall and where visitors and natives alike place locks near the Charles Bridge.
One of the tourists asked questions and translated for this group on their behalf as I answered. I was asked what religion I affiliate myself with. Honestly, I cannot say that I affiliate myself with any single religion. Or denomination for that matter.
I affiliate myself with Jesus.
Who do you affiliate yourself with?
Tell me on the streets of Prague or answer here.
I am beyond interested.
My life has been altered, changed, improved by God.
And in His timing.
What about your's?
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