honesty & hypocrisy.

Sometimes I feel like the biggest hypocrite in the world.

I have a reputation for being "real." Frequent readers of my (other, semi-anonymous) blog tell me how great it is to see someone being super-duper honest about all of the hard things in life. After I spoke at stake conference a couple of months ago, I was stopped by everyone and their brothers and sisters (see what I did there?) to be told how great it is that I was so honest and real. My two best friends in college sometimes complained about how hard it is to get me to lie about anything, even for a good cause (i.e. a successful prank).

I L O V E that reputation. Being known for being the honest one, the one who will tell it to you straight, the one who isn't afraid to tell her story... it can be pretty great sometimes.

The thing is, I don't feel that honest. There are so many things that I've only talked about with my closest friends, Heavenly Father, my priesthood leaders, and/or my cat. (Okay, not so much the cat... she has a big mouth.) Just like anyone else, I have secrets. There are things that are way too personal to share. There are many things that I'm way too ashamed of to tell, and other things I keep to myself because I worry about how they would make other people feel.

Despite what sometimes seems like a huge amount of honesty and realness, I feel as though everything I present to the world is incredibly sanitized. Sure, I'll give a sacrament talk about the struggle of coming to terms with my disability. My struggle with mental illness throughout my teenage years is fair game too. You want to hear about a really bad decision I made and how the atonement helped me fix it? I've got just the story for you. But you want me to talk about what I'm going through right now? You want to hear the stories that I haven't figured out how to wrap up in a bow? Um, I think I hear my cat calling for me.


I don't want to be a hypocrite. I know that some of my friends, reading this blog, might think that I am. Sometimes I let the little devil on my shoulder tell me that I'm just another one of those hypocritical Christians, talking on and on about the gospel while few people know what's behind the curtain. I used to hate those people.

I've realized that sometimes it's okay to keep things between myself and God. Y'all don't need to know everything. I don't have to share the things closest to my heart until I'm ready, and I don't have to put a disclaimer on my blog in flashing neon lights that says "HEY, I'M A SINNER TOO." If it benefits someone individually to know about a sin I've committed in the past or something crappy that's happened to me, I freely tell it. I'm really good at that. Someday maybe I'll be ready to tell those things to the world in a way that glorifies God and doesn't totally humiliate me. ;) But today isn't that day, and that's okay.

What I do want you to know right now:

I'm not perfect, and I don't want to pretend to be. I've made some pretty huge mistakes, and I've done things that have hurt people badly, things that I on my own could never fix. Every day, I feel unworthy of the blessings in my life and especially the opportunity to someday stand in my Father's presence. I'm absolutely blown away by a God who loves me enough to keep on forgiving me and welcoming me back despite all of the mistakes that I make. I'm not a perfect disciple, sometimes not even a good one. But I've been blessed by a perfect Savior and a perfect gospel, and regardless of my own hidden sorrows and guilt, I refuse to stop talking about Him and telling others what He's done for me.

hy·poc·ri·sy noun the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform

I believe that I should be better than I am, and I encourage myself and others to reach towards a goal that we can't possibly achieve without divine intervention. If that makes me a hypocrite, that's exactly what I am.

I guess I can live with that.

OYM... just do it.

As baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ, we're under covenant to tell others what we know. Sometimes, even for those who've spent years preaching the gospel, speaking up can be really hard. I'm as guilty as anyone of looking at someone and thinking, "oh, she has a religion, she wouldn't care about mine" or "that guy would NEVER give up alcohol." Don't ever hesitate to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with someone because you think they won't accept it. Opening your mouth can be scary. It's easy to justify not doing it by judging someone, but the truth is, not one of us can truly judge the heart of the person beside us. We never know what another person is thinking or what she's been praying for behind closed doors. 

A few years ago, I felt prompted to share my testimony with one of my neighbors. Every time I saw him, I thought about saying something, but I always brushed it off thinking that he wouldn't want to hear it. I never said a word, but a year later, he learned of the Church by other means and was baptized. I had nothing to do with it, but I was blessed by the humbling experience of seeing it happen after I decided it couldn't. Heavenly Father didn't withhold any blessings from that man because of my failure to act -- He made another way for His son to find his way home. But I learned an important lesson from it.

Watching that man soak in the gospel and make changes in his life was one of the most humbling experiences I've ever had... yet I'm still prone to do this. To tell myself "there's no way" and comfortably keep my mouth closed. To say "I don't want to be a Crazy Jesus Girl" and keep what I know to myself.

On an even more personal note, I was the kind of person who many would never expect to take an interest in the gospel.

I wasn't just an atheist, I was a LOUD and PROUD atheist. I took every opportunity to slam religion and insult people who believed. I cursed like a sailor and bragged about things my Mormon friends thought of as sins. My beliefs, my behavior, and my words conflicted with the gospel in every possible way.

Yet, deep in my heart, I wanted something to believe in.

It would have been so easy for the Christians in my life to look at me and say, "There's no way that girl would ever want to hear about my faith." Or even, "If I try to talk to her about the gospel, she's just going to argue with me." (And at times, they would have been right!)

When I was 16, I was lucky enough to have a friend who saw past the walls I'd built and recognized my potential. It took me a long time (we're talking years) to admit it, but every time he shared his testimony with me, I was left questioning my most strongly-held beliefs and yearning for more.

How many others out there are looking for truth despite outward appearances? How many people would leap at the chance to put aside their sins to gain the peace that comes from knowing their Heavenly Father?

If there's even one, isn't it worth the risk to try? 

Opening your mouth to share the gospel won't always end in a baptism -- duh! -- but I believe that someday, I'll come face to face with each of my brothers and sisters and remember the promises I made to them before this life. I don't want to be asked "Why didn't you tell me what you knew!?" I want them to know that I tried.