As I type this post, I am sitting in the atrium of my church’s original campus, which is about 55 minutes from where I live. Somehow, I ended up spending the entire day here due to two appointments at the bookends of my day. I can’t complain, however. I’ve been quite productive and gotten to talk to people I wouldn’t normally just run into throughout the day. This is the two-sided coin of working at a multisite church.
I have two things I want to take time to reflect on. First of which is the fact that my health is a little wonky as of late. I have been blaming my backsliding on a series of unfortunate events this year. In Spring, I developed a sinus infection that held on for dear life, then I got Covid, then I faced the loss of a friend. It was a wild summer…not in a fun way. That said, my good eating habits went out the window. This has all been exacerbated by my new job at a gluten-free bakery. I’ve gotten a bit bolder in the kitchen and this has not played out with me trying new ways of cooking kale. I have gained a few pounds. It’s nothing making my clothes fit differently, but I feel differently in my skin and I don’t like it. I have a pretty bad sugar problem, which has not always been the case. I am in the progress of working on this, but man! It is taking a ton of self-discipline. I will be completing a third Whole30 in January with my husband, which frankly cannot come soon enough, but I am indeed worried about how I will faire while working at the bakery, breathing in the smells of delicious mini chocolate bundt cakes, garlic bread, brownie cookies, etc.
Something else that I keep coming back to is that the world just lost Aaron Carter. It’s surreal. I’ve dug deeper into his life in the last day than I ever had. I didn’t know he had a twin sister named Angel. I didn’t know he had a son named Prince. I didn’t know much about his drug problem(s). In my search to know more about the man who gave me such sick tunes as a kid, I saw a post where he was thanking God for his (on-and-off-again) girlfriend and his son. This is where my big realization came.
All my life, I’ve made such a big deal out of celebrities naming or thanking God but it’s not a grand gesture and it’s not necessarily an indicator of devotion or gratitude to the Creator. Naming God is not the same thing as knowing God.
I think part of me just gets excited at the possibility that someone living in the spotlight has an authentic relationship with God and in some way, is “just like me.” That’s innocent and I don’t feel guilty for that, but the truth is that people throw around God’s name like confetti – carelessly and thoughtlessly. I’m going to try to first of all, read less of what celebrities think, but stop making every mention of God (that isn’t profane) a big deal. I can pray for them, though!
SARAH HARPER 