Breaking Stereotypes

I find hilarity in breaking stereotypical views, and yet in the same sense I see in it such beauty. In many aspects of my own life I have consistently tried to break stereotypical views, while at the same time trying to show others that we do not have to fit into such molds that people make us into. Yet still, I try to show others that people are not always as they seem, that they are really the same as we ourselves are. All of us are people; we have the same feelings of regret, fear, stress, and pain. Our experiences vary but we are all indeed people and all part of a beauty greater than ourselves.


While on the outside I have tried to break stereotype and show others to do the same, I find myself somehow still fitting some of the stereotypes. As a Christian, young woman trying to grow up in a secular culture, where Christianity is looked down on in many areas, I find it increasingly more difficult to live as such. People love God but hate the people claiming to do things in his name, and they have much right to do so. In the hilarity of breaking such stereotypes of Christians being hypocritical, judgmental, and condemning, I find myself in some ways living up to such stereotypes that I try so hard to break. So, if you saw me walking down the street, in my “hardcore” style of dress, with my dark makeup, lip ring and whatever I feel like wearing for the day; you would NOT look at me and think to yourself, “good girl” or “Christian image”.

In this way I have broken a stereotype, I have a tattoo (heaven forbid) and piercings, because this is the funny part of me that likes to shock people, or make them rethink their stereotypes. On the outside I have attempted to break an image of Christians all looking the same, acting the same, and thinking the same, but on the inside is a different matter. While I may look like the type of Christian that if put into a category by looks, would be called “liberal”, on the inside I struggle with the same things many Christians find themselves struggling with. I speak of the love of God and his son dying for me, not to condemn me but to bring me to him. While turning my back and many times nearly pushing new Christians away from the faith, because I expect them to be “perfect” the instant they come to know Christ. Forgetting my own faults and failures, I attempt to pick a speck from a friend’s eye with a giant plank in my own. And for this I am saddened, but also for this I have great joy, because I remember in such times that my goodness and my love, is not of myself but comes from an amazing God. This is the very reason I can preach the good news!

The thing is I am a hypocrite and without God I am judgmental, and I do condemn people. This jar into reality is why people come to know Christ, not because of how good we show them we are, but because we show we are real people, with real struggles, just like their own. So we relate in our humanity.

 I am friends with a girl whose favorite color is pink, because we realize it does not matter how we look, but what matters is much deeper. So my hardcore style and her very cute girly style does not get in the way of our strong bonds as friends. God has brought us together, because often times God has greater plans then our own, he sees beyond the way we dress and do our makeup. He sees our true personalities and our honest broken and bruised hearts.

 We are all in need of a savior, a savior to break the walls we build between one another. To bring us into the one body we were intended to be in from the very beginning of time.