Safe does not mean comfortable

“Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary.”

- Rachel Held Evans

Yesterday on the back patio of a brewery that shares their space with us, a group of five courageous storytellers shared the nitty-gritty details of their journeys with addiction. “Addiction, Recovery & Resilience” we called it, and it was part of a series exploring the question, “What in the hell just happened and where do we go from here?” It was a morning full of truth-telling, tears, laughter, wisdom and courage. It was a morning filled with head nods, heart-felt “me toos” and the presence of life-giving community. It was a time of deepening connection for those who shared similar stories and for those who saw themselves in the stories shared.

And, if we are being honest, it was also uncomfortable.

Telling the truth about what we are powerless to overcome is uncomfortable. Hearing stories about being so strung out that you wake up naked in public or unable to remember where you parked your car is uncomfortable. Telling about the time you feared the knock on the door would be the one telling you your daughter or son had been found dead is uncomfortable. Recounting the ways you felt like a failure, hurt your loved ones or kept hurting yourself is uncomfortable.

And yet…

And yet, this is where the healing happens. I can’t explain it; I just know it when it does. Somehow in all that honesty, in that painful retelling and in the sharing of one another’s stories - in that coming out of the dark to say “this is where it hurt and this is what the way forward looks like”, we make more room for freedom, mercy & help to happen here. We make space for all of us to look in the mirror, for all of us to confront hard truths, for all of us to admit our own addictions. We create sanctuary together.

It’s not easy and can be quite messy at times, but it inches us closer to what is Real and what is Good and what brings Life.

Let there be more of this, please. Let’s not get too comfortable being comfortable.