First Do No Harm

By:  Jana Greene

I’d written the post I’d set out to write for the blog, but hesitated to hit “publish”.

It was a pretty raw piece about addiction and motherhood; two things I have experience with that often end up awkward bedfellows in my writing.  Addiction and motherhood don’t belong in a single story, but long ago they had an affair, and the resulting lovechild was a story about my grieving choices I had made but reveling in the grace of Christ.

Still staring at the glow of the laptop screen.  Perhaps I shouldn’t put this ‘out there’, I thought, finger hovering over the enter button.

Some Christians will be offended.  They will judge me twice; once for being the person I was, and again for admitting to being that person.  They might think I am playing fast and loose with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a poor representation of a Christian.  I would never want to do that.

And – far more importantly – what about those who don’t know Jesus yet?

Still, I can’t shake the urgency to write about these things, to ‘put them out there’.  So I pray….

”God, first let me do no harm.”  A spiritual Hippocratic Oath of sorts –“ let me do no harm to Your name”.

Be the beggar, I feel Him saying.  Stop trying to “bake”…..

Sometimes, writing, I feel like a rebel deserter of my formerl self;  a New Creation counting on Christ to do the jousting because I am rusty from old war injuries.  A grateful and humble flawed veteran…not measuring up to what the world thinks a Christian should always be, but gratefully not of this world.

Old war stories sometimes need to be told, and telling half-truths distorts history.

I press the Enter button to Publish.  And revel in the grace of Christ.