Better than a Hallelujah...

How many times have we been to Church on Sunday, done all the 'right' stuff, raised our hands and/or voices (depending on the tradition!) in worship, smiled happily at our brothers and sisters in Christ, "yes everything's fine" - when in reality, physically, spiritually and emotionally our lives are far from fine?

I was chatting with a non-church friend the other day about a time when I fell apart in church - interestingly, her comment was "Well, if you can't get emotional and feel safe in church, where can you do it?"

So even some non-church people recognise that church should be the one place where we can express what we're really going through.  Not that church should become a vast counselling centre or anything like that, but I do believe that we could be more open with each other - and then we might just get the answers to our as yet unanswered prayers, through the support of the very community of which we are part.  We can't help one another if we won't speak openly and honestly with one another.

We seem very adept at hiding our true feelings from each other, but we can't hide them from God, so maybe it's time to take a chance and get real with Him.  The challenge is that getting real with God might mean getting real with each other too.