I’m so excited to have my friend Meg guest posting here! Meg is a thoughtful, compassionate, and gutsy woman with incredible insights. I hope you get as much out of them as I do!

Bio: Meg lives in Orange County, California with her one husband and four children. She worked for more than 6 years in the sex industry and, ironically enough, even interviewed for a position as a dominatrix once. Apparently, she was “too nice” and was sent home. She is passionate about caring for women in the sex industry and is a big believer in the scandal of grace and healing power of love.

So, if we’re being completely honest, I know I could’ve stopped reading after the first novel. I mean, I wanted to hate it, I really did. But, I was intrigued (no, it wasn’t the repetitive erotic writing). I read on knowing this book wasn’t just about Christian Grey, but every man.

I was unable to separate Christian from his attachment issues, trauma induced abuse, obsessive stalker tendencies, co-dependency, verbal abuse, and raging case of PTSD, but not for the reasons you might think. Being mad at Christian Grey would have been far too easy (and sometimes I was), but I found no peace in dehumanizing him and brushing all of his human frailties aside. I felt myself wrestling with questions, and longing for deeper revelations about the human condition. I felt myself wanting to understand more about fragmentation and abuse, rage and fear. I felt myself wanting to understand more about those of us who have, at times, felt themselves drowning in all of those things.

11 years ago, I said goodbye to a six year on again, off again job in the sex industry. In that time, I came to understand a few things about longings and needs. Within Christian, there are pieces of every client I ever saw, not to mention many of the men I dated before I got married. I swear, Christian Grey makes some of my exes look like Jesus. I know these men all too well. I have seen, felt, and experienced their woundedness, vulnerability, fear, insecurity, pain, fractured sense of self, anger, confusion, self-hatred and frustration. I have come to understand how deeply men yearn for emotional intimacy, connection, and depth, only to be socialized otherwise. Only to be left with few other socially acceptable options, boys and men quickly learn to sexualize and repress many of their deepest emotional needs. I understand how a splintered self and an inability to communicate builds enormous walls, preventing emotional availability, and fostering emotional distance.

And that’s why Christian, and others like him fascinate and touch me. Even though he is frustrating and offensive, I can see and deeply empathize with his humanity. As I continued through the series, I was filled with great compassion for both he and Anastasia, as they fumbled through the negotiation of relationship. Each one, hoping the other would be able to fulfill and bring wholeness to the other’s heart. It was a wretched and unhealthy mess, flawed and destined to fail miserably… But it didn’t. And it confused me, forcing me to dig a little deeper.

If we’re really paying attention, we can’t help but see some of the very same stories we’re a part of being played out on the pages of Fifty Shades of Grey. They may not look like or feel the same, but the parallels are there, and to miss them is to miss something subtle, but insightful. Despite what half-hour sitcoms and erotic trilogies want you to believe, all that redemptive healing doesn’t happen within a 30 minute or 3 book time-frame. That’s not honest.

I’ve read many of the reviews that some of my fellow believers have offered, some very thoughtful (Jenny’s included), and some that missed the mark (no comment). Some have read Fifty Shades and some haven’t, all for totally valid and understandable reasons. With that understanding, I want to caution my fellow believers against our bias towards pretty and well-packaged happy endings. It feels as if most of Christian culture is just not as interested in redemption or healing outside the “I found Jesus and went to church” context. If we’re to be honest with ourselves and others, many of us have a hard time wrapping our minds around the notion that God works OUTSIDE the realm of the church, and that He brings healing and wholeness to those who will never acknowledge or worship Him. And why shouldn’t He? Musn’t He? Does that detract from the beauty? Does that make it any less significant? Don’t we believe that God’s good gifts are for everyone? Love stories, healing, and redemption aren’t reserved solely for Christians. When we fail to recognize this we’re not only robbing God, but those He’s moving within and loves deeply.

I understand, though. It’s hard to see good things come to those who oppress and inflict pain on others. Is there anything inside of us that is capable of demonizing the evil men do, instead of the men that do it? In Fifty Shades of Grey, we are challenged to move beyond the neatly packaged, holy, happy ending. We are challenged to cheer for the messy, fractured, not-pulling-it-together-fast-enough guy. And that’s perplexing. It messes with our heads, and I think it’s supposed to.

But there’s nothing like a good, old fashioned paradigm shift, and so I agree with Shane Claiborne: Jesus should wreck us. The Gospel should mess us up, turning everything upside down. In THAT context, I am reminded that we are all messy, fractured, and not-pulling-it-together-fast-enough redemption stories in the works. And, no matter where we are in our story, that should probably remind us that we’re all a little fifty shades of… well, you know.