Christina A. Harcharik
Professor: Henry Reyenga
Ordination

“Girl, You Need Jesus!”
Life and living are about choices and choices are about free will. All of us have free will to make the choices that will have an infinitive impact on our life and those who know us. In my rebellious season (isn’t every journey we take, nothing more than a season?) of life I chose to rebel against anything that remotely involved God. In my rebellion I chose to rebel against anything that stated I had to be normal and go by the status quo or anything that involved God. If the life I had been given was indicative of what was right, normal or God blessed, my anger, hurt, grief and pain urged me to rebel. If this god my God loving grandmother constantly spoke so highly spoke of, this god who was so loving, so fatherly; why wasn’t he being that father to me? Why wasn’t he there for all the pain, shame and anger a young person like me had to bear? If this god loved me so much why he let those who hurt me survive while each day my spirit died a little more inside? Why did he take those who loved me away leaving me alone? If God protected his little children then why wasn’t I protected from the person who took my innocence leaving me feeling less than human?
When you’ve been hurt and your psyche bruised sometimes the only source of relief you may have is anger and rebellion, just to keep a portion of sanity, and that it may be fragile. You move through the world with your shoulders squared, chin out, head up and you survive by what you feel is your own strength. Certainly no god had his hand in something like your strength is what you tell yourself and others. Life has dealt you an awful hand and you have learned to live by your own wit, and you say that you depend on nobody, certainly not a somebody you can’t see or feel and you tell yourself that I can by my own strength and sheer determination get through life on my own. To those who don’t’ know you personally and those who think they do, you’re an inspiration, someone that has true grit. Look at her! She’s tough and she’s determined and she’s accomplished so much for someone so young, considering her background! If these people only knew that it’s only a charade. These people don’t know about the hurt and pain that seeks to boil a little more each day to the surface, you’re a chameleon that blends and adapts, hiding in plain sight.
There’s never a mention of the emptiness in your heart, the fragility of your weary spirit, the longing for something very attainable, yet it seems miles away. The world you have outside of your broken heart knows nothing about all the other twisted emotions; these longing, desiring, aching needs that seep with the rest of your emotional stew waiting to boil to the surface. No one will ever know, no one ever sees the hungry child that is lost within your polished façade of composure and strength.
People in their pursuit of completeness, of becoming whole seek relief and redemption in many places. We all look for love, for that one something that completes us. We want to know that there is something that defines a revelation that is deeper than mere words and human action, something in us, something in the madness of living that we can come to throughout the days of our lives and to our end also. We as mere mortals seek something that says it is well, it is well and that are souls are rested and there is no more worry, and no more pain. As seekers some of us may look love, acceptance and peace down broad and rugged paths that are spirit draining and that cause only injury. As seekers we will blindly refuse seeking the narrow gate that will lead us directly to our right path. As lost and rebellious seeks we seek things of this world and make them our god, be it money, material things, drugs and alcohol and other people. As lost seekers we never take the time to look up, we never stop and hear the gentle whisper of the one that can give us eternity, everything our