Why, you might ask, “Awkward for Jesus”?
For the simple reason that this title, in some ways, describes an important aspect of who I am and what drives me.
When I use the adjective “awkward,” I’m not talking about the time I sang for a Divine Mercy Sunday celebration with my zipper down the entire time. I am not even referring to the time I acted imprudently toward a fellow lector after he had read at the Easter vigil and then sat down beside me. Yes, the church was darkened and we were bathed in candlelight at the time. Yes, he was the husband of a friend of mine. And yes, after I patted his knee, I immediately wished I hadn’t. But, what can I say? He had filled in as lector at the last minute, and he had done a fine job.
Being awkward for Jesus doesn’t translate to “weird” (I hope) but it means that I need to be willing to go out of my comfort zone…to take a risk for God out of love for him and others. The beautiful thing is that, even when we walk away from a situation looking or feeling somewhat uncool, we have taken a risk for our Lord. We can leave the results in his hands.
I may not yet be capable of big sacrifices for the Lord, but if I start out simply willing to be awkward for Jesus, he will one day give me the strength and the virtue to glorify God when the cost is much greater. This is my supreme hope!
Read more about being awkward here. Read more about the kinds of things I write about below.
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About Christine
I am a writer and catechist who helps other Catholics to continually reorient themselves to Christ and to glorify God with their lives.
From a young age I have witnessed God’s faithfulness and learned the connection between reckless confidence in God and a life worth living. Jesus is my hope, and it is my life’s work to share that hope with others and teach the Catholic faith through my writing—in clear, light-hearted, and useful ways.
And the following quote from Peter Kreeft incapsulates the perspective from which I write and teach:
Though the saint knows the mountain of God’s love from having lived on its heights, the pilgrim in the valley can at least see the mountain and appreciate its grandeur from a distance. He or she can call out to other pilgrims and tell them of life lived on the heights.
I have had some very low points in my life, and I’m far from perfect, but I’ve never stopped jumping up and down and pulling on peoples sleeves saying, “Look, look! Let’s go this way!”
My husband, Patrick Sr, and I met and married at Franciscan University of Steubenville over 30 years ago, and have since lived in Nicaragua, New Mexico, Maryland, New York, and Colorado. Recently, we moved back to Steubenville, Ohio in order to live closer to our children and their families. The older we get, the more clear it is to us that life is an adventure of love. Heaven or bust!
