Monday one minute before the bell rang I got a pretty amazing text.

“I have an extra ticket to see Glennon Melton, you want it?”

Um. Yes. I was going to buy a ticket for myself when I got the email for pre-sale (if you want to see the heart behind Momastery it is best to be on her email list. Sometimes the tickets sell out before she even tells the public.) I thought Oh! I should ask Christian about that. 30 dollars is currently a lot of money at our house and I just wanted to check. Also, I needed to make sure he was available to be the parent at home. By the time I got around to asking, tickets were already gone. I shrugged. I would just catch the YouTube clips. So, duh! So, I checked with Christian who told me there were plenty of leftovers, he would man bedtime, and PS the dog rolled in cat poop but he already handled that stiuation, and I went to see Glennon Melton.

It was good. I see why her tickets sell out. She is the exact same person online as she is speaking in front of a crowd, and I imagine as she is hanging out in her pjs in the hotel. It was good.

But it wasn’t, for me, the spiritual experience that so many people speak of when they go to see Glennon. It was just good. Worth the money and time and quick text to my husband, but not life changing. I think that is because the thing that makes her different is a thing I already do. A thing I already have.

Glennon is deeply vulnerable in her writing and social media. She tells us like it is, even when it is bad, even when it is hard. Her brand is truth telling, and so she goes for it. She tells us when she is joyful, or hurting, or wrong. I am most impressed by her when she tells us when she has gotten it wrong.

I think for a lot of women, Glennon is the first woman they have seen stand up in a church and choose to be fully herself.  

Through out the night she told charming and self desparaging stories about times she came on too fast and too honest when people asked her how she was. I have very many of those same stories. My friend was once explaining the difficulty of a new Bible study she was in.”During prayer time, we still only give requests about other people.” I told her I had never been in a Bible study like that, and she laughed. “Yeah, that is because you lead with I’m Abby, here is my underwear.” She isn’t wrong. I don’t actually show people my underwear (usually) but I do tend to get real, real fast.

Every time, every single time I publish something kind of vulnerable here, or I get real with my prayer requests at church and things get a little too quiet because I said something that freaked someone out, a few weeks later someone pulls me aside to thank me. Then they tell me their stuff. Every single time.

Being vulnerable and telling the truth is the hard and holy work of community. It is what the church is for. I am grateful to Glennon Melton for modeling that on the internet over and over again. But I am telling you right now we don’t have to wait for Glennon to come to town to have the vulnerable truth telling moments we all so desperately need to have.

We just have to go first. I absolutely promise you people won’t be far behind. If they are, email me. I will give you my “me too.”