romans road: you are good

Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” 

There is a deep part of me that tells the other parts: You are evil. 

I don’t know where these words originated from. I don’t know why they haunt me. But they do.

You do bad things. You are a bad person. 

It’s very uncomfortable. 

You are worthless and not good. 

I try to go about my day. I pump my gas. I go to work, smile into the faces of children and hold their hands. And I remind myself over and over again that those words are wrong. I am made of love. I am good, I am bright, I am Brooke. I am a beam of God’s very own light, and that is more than enough, and I was made to exist in the world, to dance and laugh and delight in His name. 

And that works, for a little while.

Until I do something I think is bad. It might be being too harsh to a child. It might be too obviously revealing the anxiety I try so constantly to hide. It might be missing a deadline, or speaking badly of another person.

It’s enough to start it again.

You are evil. You do bad things. You are a bad person. You are worthless and not good. 

And once those words come because of something I’ve done, they’re especially hard to dismiss. 

I struggle with the doctrine of original sin. 

I know my heart will forever hurt if I believe I was made bad.

I am thankful that Scripture grants me another lens to view my deepest self. Adam and Eve did choose sin. But first, God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our own likeness,” and made Adam, and then Eve to share in the joy of Creation (Genesis 1:26). The first word about humanity is how God planted God within us, and declared divine blessing over us (Gen 1:26, 28).

We started with wholeness. We started as mirrors of the divine image. We started with communion with God and one another. 

The story tells us that Eve did choose to listen to the serpent, to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree so that she might have knowledge that only our God was meant to have (Gen 3). And I feel that I cannot truthfully perceive the world without the acknowledgement that there is evil both outside and within me. But I have to believe that we, all of us, all of Creation, was first made good. Sin was and will always be secondary. 

Partially because I listen to my thoughts that tell me I’m evil, I go to therapy.

Today we talked about how a person is made up of many parts, and that we have to see them all if we are going to recognize the whole. She explained that people hold both good and bad parts, and that one harmful part doesn’t have to define the whole. It’s a part, but it’s just a part.

At first we discussed it was true in people I loved, and in people who had harmed me. I thought it through in the complex people who are most dear to me, and in those who had harmed and mistreated me. I imagined parts in them that were dim - character flaws, prejudice, fear. But then I backed up and saw the bright, beautiful parts, too - the fierce, glowing love for their loved ones, their smiles, their will to do good that brought them to believe so strongly in the very things I disagree so strongly with. And in each case, it brought me to the same beautiful conclusion: They have sin, but I believe that in God’s eyes they are defined by the unshakable love He has for me and the goodness He created me in. 

Recalling it now, it makes me think of myself. 

I see parts of me that are dim. I see my penchant for anger, my constant tendency to judge. I see my pain, and how it strains to infect others with its darkness. 

And then I back up again. I see the bright parts, the parts so bright that they outshine the darkness. I see the yellow of my hope, the warm red marks of my passion for good, the deep blue of my love for others. 

I have sin, but I believe that in God’s eyes I am defined by the unshakable love He has for me and the goodness He created me in. 

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes that, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” 

And I believe that. I know I have fallen short of the glory of God. I have hurt others on purpose. I have willingly turned my anger on myself and others, knowing it would only do harm. I have projected my fear and confusion onto others, making people who I love and who I don’t know the enemy, even as I knew that the true enemy was hatred itself. Nearly every day I choose to harden my heart and exclude part of humanity through my words and actions. 

It hurts to admit that, to put it into writing. But it’s true. I have done this and so much more.

I don’t believe the trick is to ignore my dark parts, to deny that they exist. That seems like a sure strategy to perpetuate the very pain and prejudice I have suffered from. I believe I have to see my whole self, the good parts, but the bad parts too. I have to choose to love better. I have to choose to process my anger in ways that are healthy for myself and others. I have to choose to identify with those want to exclude, to fight my tendency for hatred by growing my tendency to love, to soften my heart.

To do this, I have to recognize my own brightness. I have to remember that at my core, I am good, and believe that I can be restored to that goodness. I have to understand that my sin is a part of me, but not the defining part of me. When I do that, it gives me permission to identify with the light enough to choose to bring it into my darkest corners. 

This, I believe, is Christ. Christ is the reconciling force, the tendency towards wholeness, the impulse within humanity and all of Creation to pull ourselves back together. 

When I choose to face my darkness by bringing in light, to grow trust in my gardens once abandoned in fear, I choose God. I choose to acknowledge my sin and fall into the grace-filled, whole-making way of the One I believed created me with joy and blessing. 

And it is through this gentle way of Christ that I am able to lovingly see myself enough to light my way as I continue to help Him create the holy city He is determined to build. 

Note from the author: One of CCW’s core values is Generous Orthodoxy, which means that we accept and embrace that our members have many different beliefs about God. I have expressed my belief in original blessing, but there are members of our community who believe in original sin, and many who don’t know what to think about that or any doctrine. Our hope with this series is to encourage students to find the theology that fits their heart, not to completely adopt ours. I pray that you will choose the great journey to find your beliefs and fully claim them as your own.