When Choice Is Costly: The Price of Faith & Why I Do Not Belong in a Box by Lauren Carrier Horton

There has been a cost to her. This woman right here – the cost of words and decisions has been something she has felt within her soul these last two years.

Honestly, it’s something my husband and I have talked about so much, the cost of one's faith. Because words and actions, and ultimately a faith worth living for, a faith worth truly showing the world exists, is extremely costly.

I think of what has been lost the past two years by not staying where we could have stayed because, by God, it would have been far more comfortable for our family of four. I think of us not remaining silent, though it would have been easier. And of not aligning ourselves with those on the margins because then, we too, wouldn’t find ourselves on the "outside."

But what faith is that? What man would we be following if we did all of that? Certainly not the radical, brown-skinned, truth-speaker and system-shaker man called Jesus. Not the man that refused to stay in a box limited by empire and government and power and religious leaders. Not that man.

When I look at my life and where God has led me none of it has put me in a box that makes sense. I’m a Northerner living in the South. I’m a charismatic, white, Holy Spirit-filled life-long registered Democrat woman (yup, let that sink in). I’m a organizer and activist in my community, and a Bible Study leader in my home. I speak words of life over my kids and husband, and speak truth to those on platforms God has given me. I’ve worked in a politician’s office in Harlem and a cubicle at Billy Graham headquarters. I come from a West Coast Lutheran Dad and an East Coast Italian Catholic mom who both met Jesus, left religious institutions and showed that social justice and Jesus and civic duty can go hand in hand.

I do not belong in a box. My faith and my Jesus will not fit in one either.

If my not conforming to your religion and your interpretation of a faith that has leveled Jesus to be a white man who carries a cross in which an American flag is tangled, then we do not have the same way ahead of us.

But if you too follow a radical man like I and my family do. If you too find yourself paying costs that though hard, are so worth it, then I’m your gal, and I stand in solidarity with you.

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