Ask me what I did last night.

A few of us have been wrestling a little bit lately with what it means to live in the grace of God. What does it mean to live fully covered by the Gospel? To embrace the freedom Christ secured for us on the cross?

For me, last night, it meant big hair and hard rock.

See, over the summer, I'd started to get a little self-conscious about my holiness. I was part of a study at church that consisted of mainly older, wiser, more conservative and traditional women. While I still felt largely like a voice of dissent - a raging postmodern compared to this crowd - there was a certain feeling starting to set in. An old nemesis. I can't believe I didn't recognize it, as we' spent so much time together in the past.

Guilt. Guilt that I wasn't the teetotaling, perfect homemaking, gentle-speaking mother that I was being mentored to be in this class. I used my powers of wit and sarcasm to mask and suppress it, but with each chapter and interaction the guilt seeped deeper...without me noticing.

This week the topic of freedom entered a few more of my conversations and even though my tongue could speak the words of freedom, my actions betrayed my guilty spirit. I hid the bottle of wine on the counter from visiting eyes. I kept my facebook status silent about my plans to attend the concert last night. I disclaimed before telling people where we were going... 'oh, it's just a silly concert, sounded like a good idea a few weeks ago...'

I actually had kind of a pit in my stomach in the car on the way there, until we remembered that we'd read somewhere that one of the bands' lead guitarists had become a Christian. Oh, okay then...we were going to watch a brother on stage... I could share that with people if they questioned my choice to attend... (guilt makes you irrational).

But at some point - maybe watching the groupies in front of us and the stoners they'd attracted - it hit me. THIS is living in freedom. Guilt by association does not apply in the Kingdom of God. In spite of what is going on around me here, in spite of what is going on on stage or behind it, in spite of the drink I am drinking or the food I am consuming or what I have chosen to wear, I live in the righteousness of Christ. God may look down on this event and see total depravity - I sure did - but speckled throughout the crowd he sees people who look just like Jesus.

Oh, the freedom. To stand in that crowd and love them, to love their wackiness and their passion and to pray for that energy to be directed one day toward Christ. To sing along with these meaningless lyrics and know that my hope is in something other than this, that I believe in a love that doesn't bite, and a kingdom where no roses have thorns. For a few hours last night, in that crowd of old rockers and former groupies and 20-year-ago middle schoolers finally living their concert fantasy like me, I felt more relevant than I have in, well, maybe ever.

So, ask me what I did last night.

I saw the Rock of Ages at a Cheap Trick/Poison/Def Leppard concert.