No Apologetics for Me

I hate confrontation. I may be burning inside, seething with anger but I will not say it to your face. Instead I blow a gasket in front of hubby and rant and rave. I'm guessing I'm like most people in that respect. I don't personally know anyone who gets off on yelling at people and instigating fights. At least I hope not.

My fear of confrontation permeates every part of my life. You bash a friend you know for expecting her husband to cook and clean? I'll say, "That's nice of him." You tell me my daughter is wearing the wrong size diaper? I'll quietly respond something along the lines of, "Oh?" You tell me a degree in a theology is useless? I'll smile politely and change the subject.

But inside I am raging.

My blood pressure has just skyrocketed. You have touched on each of the things that I hold dear: my husband, my child, my passion. Maybe you didn't mean it maliciously or maybe you thought you were "helping" or maybe you thought I would agree with your assessment. I don't.

So it stands to reason that my faith is something that I also hold close to my heart. It is probably the one subject I find very difficult to keep quiet about when I hear someone disparaging Christianity and faith.

Hubby once asked me why I get so flustered. Is it because I want them to think like I do? After thinking about it a little bit, I realized it's not because I want them to agree with me, but because they are often mistaken in their assumptions or they have been misinformed. Perhaps if they knew... I have generally found it to be true that educated people (and not necessarily "school educated") will not mock a person's beliefs that differ from their own. They may not agree but they will not think less of them or say terrible things.

So I have always felt as though I had to defend Christianity. Which, really, is rather impossible. There are so many Christianities with so many differing creeds that I couldn't possibly know them all. 

And then there's the bigger, grandiose questions about why God let's bad things happen and how I can believe in God when so much hate exists.

I feel like I have to know the answers. Maybe this comes from my half Evangelical upbringing and the belief that there are answers and that my personal testimony of faith should be well-known to myself so that I can share it with others. I need to be at the ready.

I've started shifting from this understanding, though. It's my hope and challenge to myself that I start listening more rather than trying to defend or explain. I don't have the answers to everything. I can't explain the ins and outs of Christianity. I probably couldn't even express my own faith journey properly.

At the end of the day, each person is searching for peace. Will I be giving anyone peace by arguing or sputtering some explanation? No. The majority of people just want to talk and have some really listen. Sometimes they've been hurt by the Church and even though I didn't personally cause that pain, they need someone to say, "I'm sorry you were hurt."

With God's help, I can do that.