Family Time

I've been on Spring Break this past week, which I chose to spend with my family. Ah, my family…where the boys play football, the girls sparkle and cheer, the food guarantees early diabetes, and the cars are as sacred as those who love the Lord. I've concluded that there are two types of people in my family's mind: those who love the Lord and those who do not. I can at least thank Him that a snow storm cancelled our trip to the Creation Museum.* We're all still praying that their struggling Christian bookstore sells—soon.

And yet…

And yet something happened on this trip. In the midst of the stark, cutting, black-and-white worldview, I was unexpectedly reminded of some insight into the world. (Shocking, I know, that another worldview would give new insight into the world. So I'm slow, cut me some slack.)

Support

Finding your world view shattered on the ground isn't exactly fun. But for an extrovert, infinitely worse was feeling as though I were a fish out of water on a sweltering desert island in a sea of well-intentioned sharks. Overstatement? Sometimes. But only sometimes.

My parents didn't get it. My mom was devastated, and my relationship with my dad deteriorated into long arguments. They warned me not to talk to my cousins because I was "such a good role model" for them. My counselor, dean, and professors were very supportive of my questioning—up to and until I stopped arriving at the correct answers. (I've found that such answers, of the sort which are also used in Bible studies and devotional books, can be terribly mundane once one has mastered the various formulae.) After many months of supporting me, my boyfriend (understandably) came very close to ending our relationship. One friend informed me that our friendship was over unless I wanted to continue listening to his views on the topic. After that I mostly stopped talking to people about it.

But there were a couple distinctly bright spots.