Holy and Holistic

So in the year since I have last blogged (sorry!) I have taken a full course load including two Greek classes, been on student council at my school, cooked healthy meals for myself, and learned a super important lesson. This lesson has led to a new way of understanding myself within God's ultimate plan.

I discovered that I have a very weird habit of compartmentalization. Everything goes into boxes that do not touch each other. Just like I wouldn't put chocolate and broccoli together, I wouldn't put school and family together for example. Everything is neat and tidy. Gradually this year, I realized that I have done the same process with myself.

I performed this dissection theologically. I understood from Christian tradition that I have a sin nature and a spirit nature. When humanity was made corrupt by the Fall, our very nature was split so that we desire sin as well as Christ. I am 100% sinner and 100% saint as Nadia Bolz-Weber would put it. So, I deduced, that there is a "Bad Laura" and a "Good Laura". The latter looks like Jesus when He was on earth but manifest in a small ginger girl. The former is all my anger, bitterness, and destructiveness when put into action.

In essence, I believed that there was a part of me that was irredeemable.

I would not have spelled it out that way before but it was definitely evident in how I prayed and lived. I wanted to be free from "Bad Laura". Any problems that I had were from "Bad Laura" and I just needed to control this part of me because it would lead me to death.

I'm just going to be honest with you, I was feeling broken and stressed this year. There was a lot going on that felt out of my control and I did not like that feeling. So, after being convinced by a friend, I went for counselling. I really don't like counselors or therapists. However, this guy was sarcastic and made Big Bang Theory references. So we got along great.

He told me something that I had never known. I really wish I could remember the exact words he used but I assume counselors get a bit weirded out when you take notes when they are speaking. Basically, I am a whole person. When I try to divide myself, I pull myself away from myself. (I picture the Robin Williams' movie Flubber's green goopy protagonist becoming two or more little Flubbers) That is when you have mental instability. Out of context, I think of the verse a "household divided against itself will not stand" (Matthew 12:25, NIV).

I learned that I am a whole person, fully redeemable by God.

There is no "Bad Laura" or "Good Laura". There is just Laura. She makes some bad choices but she also makes good ones. Why did I have to make it so complex? This was because of Christian dualism. Brian Walsh defines dualism as identifying “obedience, redemption, and the kingdom of God with only one area of life. It sees the rest of life as either unrelated to redemption, or worse – under the power of disobedience, sin, and the kingdom of darkness”. That's what I was doing. Looking back, I can see how discouraging it was to see half of myself as an agent of  darkness.

That side of me that I was pushing away and shutting up? That anger and destructiveness that I have? When it is redeemed in Christ, it is passion! It is a sense of justice! It is that part of me that will not sit down and let evil win. Yes, I have equal leanings to both sin and spirit, but as a whole person who can be redeemed.

I don't think that dualism has any place in the heart of Christ. Jesus was a big fan of unity; unity of believers, unity of the Trinity, and bringing us back into the dance of the Trinity. When I came to Bible College, I fell in love with the mystery of the Trinity. The Christian God is three in one, holy, holy, holy. He is so simple and yet we make Him so complex with division and hierarchy. God is whole and unified and desires for His followers to be likewise.

Understanding that I am a whole person, means that I see others in the same light. There is no person who is irredeemable in Christ. Now there's a statement. No one person, including myself, has made so many bad choices that any part of themselves is irredeemable. If I choose to see others in that way, the people who annoy me, the people who have hurt me, then I see them the way Jesus does. Redeemable and wholly loved.

God's ultimate plan is redemption and unity restored. No one is beyond the reach of His grasp, not me nor anyone. We are whole people, complete in Christ.