I have a close friend and we often do this thing whenever we talk or spend time together. We call it "sharing our crazy." We gave it that title because the crazy is that stuff people think and believe they know isn't true but wrestle with it still. It's also the junk everyone thinks and believes but most days don't admit to thinking or believing.
There's a fancy theological term for sharing our crazy. It's otherwise known as confession. Sharing our crazy became a tag line for us so we kept on going with it. It sounds more realistic to us as sharing our crazy. That's what it actually is to us: getting rid of the crazy to experience acceptance and love.
Confessing my craziness quickly became one of my favorite aspects of this friendship. I also started to share my crazy in other friendships too. It's quite addictive once you begin because you realize how much freedom and joy you experience through confessing. Junk no longer binds you and fear can't take you captive because you receive acceptance first from Jesus and then see his love expressed through his followers. It's miraculous really.
I remember my first experience sharing the crazy. I stood on the stairs with my friend and expressed this fear of growing close to her because of my tendency to run away from intimate friendships as well as hers. We did that in order to avoid pain but wanted to change that habit. I'm still not sure what motivated me to share that with her, especially when I hardly knew her at the time. But in my spirit, it felt right. So I blurted out the crazy, paused to let the craziness sink in and watched her facial expression intently. I held my breathe in anticipation. And then she thanked me, admitting to having the same exact fear. I sighed in relief and smiled, experiencing freedom in letting the craziness out.
This may sound crazy to do. And in a lot of ways it is. Nothing about confession makes sense in the world. Being vulnerable is messy and ugly and straight up scary on most days. You're exposing sin and the all yucky within and there isn't anything pretty about that.
This, however, is the beauty of confession: coming before Abba Father unashamed, bringing light to the darkness in our hearts to receive healing and acceptance. It's living and believing our identity as children. It's sharing the crazy to be captivated by Love.
