Yearbooks and Testimonies 

Many of my Sunday nights are spent with high school youth at my church.  Last month the theme was testimonies. Each week a speaker shared their story. I read hundreds of books, I write my own stories and publish them publicly, but I’ve never written it in the form of a testimony. When the pastor announced the theme and led with a graphic of befores and afters, I hesitated. Suddenly I was back in college, eagerly eating salad at Olive Garden. A friend’s mom was in town and offered to take a few of us out to dinner. I was thrilled to eat anywhere other than the dining hall until she asked, ever so casually, when each of us had “been saved”? I almost choked on my buttery breadstick. I grew up going to church, but this was not the kind of question my family dropped around the dinner table. In that moment, the only thing I wanted to be saved from was our dinner conversation. 

Still, I knew how to answer the way I thought she wanted. I told her about a night at a church camp. One with a band and an altar call where I made my way up to the front.  It was all true, but it wasn’t really necessary. It wasn’t like I didn’t know Jesus before that. And I don’t really think I needed to say the sinner’s prayer to secure my place in heaven. Maybe that works, but I think a hundred other prayers will do the trick. 

Back to Sunday nights, each week a new speaker shared and gave assurance that all of our stories mattered. Even ones that weren’t dramatic. Even if you can’t really remember a before. Still this theme had me thinking of how I’d answer that question without the promise of unlimited salad and breadsticks. I hunted down my high school yearbook and turned to my picture. The girl in the photo was full of contradictions. I cared a lot about what I wore and how my hair looked. I cared about my grades. I cared about what boys said hi to me in the hallways. I cared more about those things than my own heart. Yet, I spent a good chunk of my time pretending that I didn’t care about anything. My faith was black and white. Good and bad. In or out. I bought rap CDs and I threw them away. I made promises and I broke them. At 16 I was full of success. (meaning I had good grades, friends, dates to dances and drawers full of awards), but I was also lonely. I felt unwanted. I felt like my faith mattered, but I also felt like I must be missing something that everyone else seemed to have. Assurance. They trusted what I questioned. To me I thought it looked easier for everyone else. They prayed, my mind wandered. They resisted, I stumbled. They were made for a relationship - but I was constantly battling it. I wanted to be good. But I also wanted to be liked. I knew the right answers but I didn’t always how to feel them. 

When we would get our yearbooks, one of the first things I’d do each year was flip to the index in the back and find my name. I’d go to each page listed and look at the pictures. Then I’d do the same for guys I was crushing on. Our yearbook did a good job of trying to balance coverage, but still some people showed up more than others. A goal I had my senior year was for that space after mine in the index to take up more than one line. I wanted to be in the yearbook so much that it took two lines to list all the pages I’d be on. This wasn’t a goal I wrote down anywhere, but I wasn’t quiet about it. And like most goals I set then and now– I met it. 

I’m embarrassed to think about it. It wasn’t that I wanted to be in the yearbook so badly, but that

I wanted to be seen. To be included. 

I wanted evidence that I mattered. 

I still want those things, I was just never going to find it in my high school yearbook. 

Back then we did not have social media to measure our worth, so instead I used the index. 

I think at 16, I assumed that eventually I’d grow up and figure it all out. 

And by grow up - I imagined this knowledge was gifted to you around 22 with a college degree and if you were lucky a husband. 

I thought that I would stop feeling lonely, even in a crowded room. 

I thought that faith would be easier. 

I thought I’d stop striving to be seen.

I was wrong. The contradictions have followed me into adulthood. 

As far as testimonies go – I’m really butchering this. My before sounds too much like my after. A faith testimony is supposed to have three basic parts: a description of your life before, the turning point and a description of changes made and life after. 

But I think we screw this up. We want it to be dramatic. At 16 (and occasionally still) I had plenty of dramatic moments. Jesus, however, was steady even when I wasn’t. I don’t think I can provide those three parts of testimony. There are plenty of biblical examples. 

Burning bushes, floods, a blind man on an ass and a thief on a cross. 

There was certainly an after for each - but I wouldn’t say it wasn’t always an appealing one. 

Plagues, ridicule and the worst cruise ever, prison and death. 

My story is mostly just a “during”.

Recently I took an online class on personal essays. The facilitator told us that all good essays have to do two things: they answer a question and they show transformation. 

The questions are always changing. 

What is the next right thing?

Where am I supposed to be? 

What is my hope really? 

Is God good?

Does he care about me, specifically?

Which sounds alot like my yearbook quest – Does He see me? Am I doing enough? 

That moment someone awkwardly asked me about my testimony at Olive Garden did not have an answer to any of those questions. Actually I’d grow up and live into a hundred more. 

I’m 44 and sometimes I still feel lonely and left out.

Sometimes I wish my faith was easier. 

Sometimes I still strive to be seen.

If that was all you knew, my before would look uncomfortably close to my after. 

But. Those aren’t befores. Those are just things that make me human. 

As for transformations, in almost all the example essays we read the changes were not dramatic. They were small and subtle rather than giant awakenings. Acceptance and the courage to take the next steps. What If my testimony is less of a before and after story and more of a collection of essays. A small part of something that is much bigger. Room for more questions and subtle transformations. Something that grows and shifts and changes. 

A forever during, rather than a single before and after. 

I started writing online in 2007 meaning there are 15 years worth of essays I can go back and compare to now.

On occasion, I go back and read my writing. 

One of a few things always happens: 

I cringe at both my abilities and some of the content. 

Sometimes I wrote exactly what future me needed to hear. 

Sometimes I hate that I’m still struggling with the exact same things. 

Sometimes I have a whole lot more compassion for past me. 

My old essays are a hint at before and after and during. Every time I cringe is because I’ve grown, either as a writer or a person (usually both).  My essays over time make room for that change and growth, even if the themes often don’t always change. Room for gray and growth rather than the rigid black and white faith that often pulled teenagers down the center aisle. Not a before and after but an ongoing pursuit and examination. A during may feel less compelling. Less dramatic. But you’d be wrong. I’d still have plenty of advice for my 16 year old self. I may still carry many of the same questions and aches, but I think we all do. The contradictions I felt at 16 give way to an adult who can hold space for the paradox and mystery that a life of faith requires. The yoke is easy and the burden is light, but sometimes our hearts are still heavy. The difference isn’t that I suddenly have answers, it is that I have more information. More specifically, I have a hope and assurance that I was still trying to figure out at 16. A hope and assurance that I’m still growing at 44. I’m still in the middle of it. 

But the middle has a few things I want the 16 year old me and the 16 year olds that show up each Sunday to know: 

You may occasionally feel lonely, but you aren’t alone. 

You may wish your faith was easier. It never gets easy, but it does hold. Sometimes you will hold tight to your faith and other times it will hold tight to you. 

Not everyone will see you or want you, but the God of the universe who counts and names the stars also knows the number of hairs on my head. He sees each each freckle and fear and question. My name may be listed over and over in the back of the yearbook, but more importantly it is engraved on the palms of the God’s hands. ( Psalm 147:4, Luke 12:7 & Isaiah 49:16).

One last thing I'd tell myself as a 16 year old...not as important but I'd hate to waste the opportunity... tell that 16 year old to eat ALL the breadsticks. And then order more. Teenage metabolism doesn’t last forever.