4 Quotes by Jennifer Knapp

I had done my best, and it wasn’t good enough. I doubted, I pined, I prayed, and I was still me. I was a gay woman, inspired by Jesus in ways beyond my ability to communicate, who failed to live up to the expectations of all that a Christian was supposed to agree with, believe in, and reenact. I was certain I could no longer be the standard-bearer of an institutionalized religion, but I couldn’t escape the fact that my faith seeped into my art.

The way I saw it, life wasn’t always so clear cut as to call one thing a sin and another thing holy. Sometimes, you just had to give people enough space, time, and grace to find their way to safety. Despite whatever mistakes I had made in my own journey toward faith, I couldn’t see how forcing the issue upon others did much to speed up the process. Still, it didn’t seem to stop some folks from trying.

A dark voice inside me said I didn’t deserve to be here and pointed to the past. Yet, that day, with a surprising new store of strength, I pushed it back. I had the power to stop being afraid of failure. I had failed in the past, I might fail in the future, but I didn’t have to waste energy on being embarrassed about the outcome, good or bad. Even if things were hard or confusing to navigate, I’d be okay, no matter what.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that in the Christian subculture, the biggest criticism to throw at someone is to question their integrity as a believer.