smiling addiction

this video is a sermon illustration created by Crossroads Community Church. they won “best in show” at the Granger Film Festival. read my additional comments at the bottom after viewing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moxQMTfclLQ]

how stinkin’ REAL is this? it brought me to tears.

too often we appear happy when we are not. when we’re actually depressed, scared, angry, anything but happy on the inside. we put on a happy face and go on our “merry” way. we live with the notion that our self-medicating is “helping” – whether it be porn, drugs, promiscuous sex, over-eating… these aren’t all touched on in the video, but you get it. and you probably relate… relate too closely.

have you been in a conversation lately that sounded like this? “how are you doing?” and you just quickly replied “good” … but you longed for someone to ask you… “are you really?” stop wearing the happy face. be real. get help.
answer me this… “how are you doing… really?”

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by the way technorati is full of crap. I believe their database may be inaccurate. That’s all I am gonna say about that. :) also, i’ve added a bloglines link to the left side-bar … in case anyone wants to subscribe.

By Crystal Renaud

Crystal Renaud is the Founder & Executive Director of WHOLE Women Ministries whose projects include Dirty Girls Ministries and WHOLE Women’s Conference. She is also the author of Dirty Girls Come Clean (Moody Publishers), a speaker and student who lives in the Kansas City area. Follow @crystalrenaud on Twitter and visit her website for info on coaching and speaking at http://crystalrenaud.com.

10 comments

  1. Woot! for the linkage. I updated my blog roll today as well. It was long overdue.

    As far as your post, it was sad. Our “Christian culture” has created an environment wherein it is better to lie about how your feel for the sake of being “appropriate” rather than creating a place for those who are hurting to come for prayer. Its delibitating and has no place in the kingdom.

    I can remember a time when someone close to me thought I had a juvenille opinion of what the real Church should look like. That we should all be open, transparent, confessing our sins. My friend told me that in the end, we are still humans and can’t just trust everyone. My response is that we aren’t just dealing with people. We are dealing with Christ filled people, who longs for intimacy and unity. When we become transparent we allow the healing process to begin.

    Sorry for the long comment. But you always ask good questions.

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  2. Nice post and great video. We all need those people that we can really talk to. Thanks for the reminder. I actually feel that life gets so busy sometimes that we just hit the “auto-pilot” button, sometimes for years and forget who we really are, what we really want, what we actually like and dislike…It’s time to wake-up.

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  3. Thank you for always willing to update for everyone. You are such a serving person. Is that proper english? I so don’t care. But you know what I mean. Anywho, I love you and love that you are you. I am so blessed by the woman God has made you to be. You are amazing.

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  4. This goes beyond religion and spirituality. This has to do with psychology and the human condition. Philosophy. suffering as a fact of life and it’s repression represented as an escapist falsehood is even discussed in Buddhism.It discusses how medicine can be viable to provide a state were everyone in uniformly feeling the same. Which doesn’t imply that medication is wrong, it’s a possibilty that can lead to an erroneous denial of guess what, individuality and inability to diagnose the real problem by just attacking the syntom.

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