Let’s be honest, this trip is freaking nuts. The preparation itself is crazy, let alone the 11 months where I’ll actually be carrying everything I need on my back.
I could never have imagined that I would be sitting here, 7 months from giving up my cozy apartment in Clarendon & wearing the same clothes over and over and over and over and over.
But here I am, months away from embarking on the greatest – and most insane – adventure of my life. So what in the world happened?
Let’s start from the beginning (but the Cliff’s Notes version, because if you’re anything like me, you have a rather short attention span):
I grew up in a great family. We went to church on Sundays, we prayed before meals, we made lunches for the homeless. Morally, I got it. …it was just all the other stuff that I didn’t understand.
I attended a Bible Camp when I was in the 7th grade and I guess you could say that’s the first time I really heard the Gospel and got “saved”. But then I went back to living my regular, morally-upright life – without a hint of the life changing power of Christ visible in my life.
Now fast-forward to the summer after my senior year in high school. I was getting ready to go off to the University of Delaware, enjoying my last summer before leaving home… and then everything changed. My life, in an instant, changed forever.
The specifics aren’t really that important. All I know is that my life was laying in pieces around me – and I felt as though I couldn’t tell anyone. So I pretended like nothing happened. I went on with my life – and continued to slowly die inside.
I spent my college career searching for something, anything that would heal me. I looked for affirmation and acceptance in all the wrong places – and did a really good job hiding my behavior from anyone who really cared about me. I fell into a world of alcohol and guys, desperately hoping that one day I would wake up and everything would be okay. Somehow, I would be whole again.
But I never was. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how many places I looked for freedom – I never found it.
And then one day I hit rock bottom. The life I was living, the mistakes I was making… all of them came crashing down on top of me. I was lost, and I had no idea how to get out.
Randomly, I picked up the Bible. And I started to read. I think God was whispering to me, telling me that the Truth I had once encountered was real – and it was life changing.
As I read through the Gospels, I met this Man who was radical and crazy. Who ate dinner with tax-collectors and hung out with prostitutes. Who challenged every societal norm of his day.
And then I read the story that changed my life. It’s a story you’re familiar with – and it’s found in John 8.
2At dawn Jesus appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery.
5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin."
As I read those words, something clicked inside of me. All of a sudden, I saw it. The woman in the story was me.
I could put myself in her shoes, standing there, staring at the God of the universe. He knew everything. He knew all the mistakes she had made, all the ways she had messed up. He created her – and He knew intimately all the ways she had traded the gifts He had given her for the fleeting pleasures of this world.
And He stood there, telling all of her would-be killers to drop their stones, to not-judge-lest-they-be-judged. But He was still there. He was still holding that stone. He was the one – the One who knew her, who created her, the One who was sinless – who was ready and able to condemn her.
And so she waited. I waited. She ran through the list of never-ending sins in her head, remembering all the ways she had messed up. Remembering how good she was at hiding.
I'm guessing she knew she deserved it. That judgement, that death, was inevitable. I'm guessing she knew that death was where her life had already taken her. How can you not know, standing there, looking directly at the Christ?
He was looking at her, seeing everything. Everything she's always tried to sweep under the rug. He knew it all.
And then, He spoke:
"I don't condemn you."
That was it. Those few words. I love you. I don't condemn you.
He knew it all, and He still loved her. He saw everything, and He still wanted life for her, not death.
And somehow, I knew I needed that.
I was that woman.
And more than anything, I needed that, too.
