two steps forward.

backwards.

two steps forward, one step back. two steps forward, one step back.

chutes & ladders.

really, truly, the game of life.

i learn and i grow and i become and i am and then i’m not again but i want to be and i live in the awareness of the forward and the backward but i no longer live in the backward.

with every step back, i recognize my steps forward until the forward steps take me further down the road than any backward step i’ve made.

and i am grateful for the backward steps because they help me see the …they keep me, rather…in motion. and i can see where i’ve been and from where i’ve come and, thank you, god, i don’t have to live there anymore but i won’t forget how far you’ve brought me because

OH, GOD.

you are SO. GOOD. TO. ME.

my friend brennan says, ‘the father loves us just as we are and not as we should be because we will never be just as we should be.’

and i see and hear and know in my bones that is true when i am in motion.

swimming in an ocean, i think i’m getting places and then i look at the beach and realize i’ve been swept back further than i realized.

and in this backward swim, i am grateful that the sea is still greater than i am

because throughout it all, it’s all about learning to trust him more, anyway

and he is less concerned with my backward and forward than he is my sinking into himself.

* * * * * * * * * *

every friday, gypsymama hosts five-minute friday. write your own and go link up, or feel free to utilize the space below. it’s a great exercise in stream of consciousness writing. and be sure to read through what other bloggers are saying, it’s a great way to connect to other hearts and minds. click here to read my previous 5mf posts.

have a great weekend! xo

 

 

 

sacred gifts.

like ministry, i come by music fairly honestly. my father was a tremendous musician. he and my grandma both played the piano by ear, which is sadly not a trait i inherited. (in fact, i’m not a good musician at all.) he played the saxophone for different bands from the time he was in high school and majored in music at unc. my mom’s mom, grandma mitchell, was classically trained and sang like a bird. she even had a radio show a long, long time ago. she was a flawless soprano and continued to sing solos in church well into her 80′s when she passed away.

i took piano lessons from the time i was six years old until i was 13, jazz piano in high school and then classical piano again in college. my dad gave me my alto sax when i was in middle school and i sat in first chair for a few years (give or take some weeks) until i went to high school when i discovered just how bad i was. i couldn’t march and read music and play at the same time. i took private lessons from the band teacher but gave up after my freshman year. for my 25th birthday, my dad gave me a guitar but i lack the discipline required to develop any sort of real skill, no matter how many lessons i’ve had (something i’m working on).

so, while i have a deep appreciation for and some understanding of music, suffice it to say i am more of a singer. plain and simple.

i have been a singer all of my life. growing up, my sisters and i would sing together with my dad at the piano. i tell you, there is nothing like family harmony, which is another gift we received from grandma tyson’s country roots.

as a child, i would wake up early to watch kids, inc. (come on, you know you did, too) and practice all the latest pop songs for my audition for either that or the mickey mouse club. (i can’t believe i missed my chance with jt!)

ahem.

in elementary school, i sang in our youth choir and in school choruses. in middle school and high school, i was a member of the select, audition-based, ensemble groups. from the time i was in high school through the time i moved home from new york, i always had a voice teacher. among them, renowned opera singers such as catherine alderman and betty mcdonald. {that link is to her daughter, monique. i couldn’t find anything on betty, sadly.} in new york, i trained with a phe.no.me.nal musical theatre teacher…whose name escapes me…

i started college on a voice scholarship, but my voice is simply not classical, which was sort of the norm. plus, it gave me anxiety to be inside a box for the next four years -and then for the REST OF MY LIFE- when i had so many other interests. so i continued taking lessons and was a member of our chamber choir.

…boxes give me anxiety, by the way, which is why i guess i’ve never fit into one. and why i run from anyone who tries to put me into one. i don’t even mean to or realize i do it but it’s been pointed out to me time and again. which isn’t to say it’s necessarily a bad thing. it’s also not even the point of this post…moving on…

i’m not trying to boast myself. the reason i’m telling you all of this is because, on paper, i might look like i have some experience or know what i’m talking about to some degree when it comes to music. i love all things about it, and mostly all genres save for angry music. i’m not an expert but i know a little bit.

i also told you all of this because it was a good set-up for the thing i’m about to tell you.

here’s the thing: even with all of that training and dedication and years and years of lessons and hours upon hours of practicing and certain encouragements, i would never say of my own voice that it is beautiful or even great. by no means am i a powerhouse, although it has always been my greatest desire to be a big, black gospel singer. my voice is more along the lines of…alison krauss/bonnie raitt/eva cassidy/patsy cline/’annie’-ish. it’s just…different, i guess. i love to sing, i know how to sing. i know different vocal exercises and breathing techniques. nothing happened in my life to make me feel discouraged about my voice, but it’s something i’ve always been insecure about. the reason for this is because it’s…well, it’s the one thing i have that belongs to me and me only. it’s mine. just mine. it is what it is, there’s not really much i can do to change it anymore. you either love it or you don’t like it. but…what if you don’t like it? it’s all i have. please don’t take it from me. please, please don’t take that from me.

i subconsciously left this story out of my week-long series of why i left my particular charismatic church. one night after worship practice, i was really disheartened and told my worship pastor (the same one for whom i worked). he said to me, ‘well, we’re just not sure you’re who we want on the worship team.’ i had been on the team for at least 2 years, which i of course called into question within my own heart. at that point, i became an ‘alternate’ but i was still singing most weeks for some reason so it was another reminder to me that i was not good enough but hadn’t been kicked off the team (yet). i was basically in limbo and it was really uncomfortable.

a large part of why i wasn’t ‘who we want on the worship team’ was because i wasn’t a performer when it came to worship. i wasn’t not trying to achieve stage presence, it just wasn’t my focus. (since, you know, we were there to WORSHIP GOD.) but this all went down just before we moved from our storefront church into our megaloshrine to ourselves and stage presence was exactly what they wanted. it wasn’t enough to simply pour out our affection onto jesus. in order to ‘take it to the next level’ (barf me out), they needed Superstars for Christ, which i was not. (i don’t even say that critically, it just was the way that it was.)

finally, i stepped off the worship team for good. more tragically, i stopped worshiping all together. the whole experience was so disheartening and gave me a general distaste for and eventually robbed me of my worship, certainly the joy of it. not to mention, my heart was broken and my pride was wounded. not because i wasn’t on stage – i knew i wasn’t the performer-diva-worshiper and hadn’t set out to be. what was so devastating to me is that my worship came into question. you don’t like my voice? you don’t like how i worship? what don’t you like about it? if you the worship pastor don’t approve of me, then god must not, either. but i’m not going to put it all off on this pastor, poor guy.

see,  i allowed the devil to needle away at the thing about which i was already most insecure and then he stole it from me.

i heard della reese say to her little counterpart angel (the one with the accent) once, ‘god doesn’t say make a beautiful noise, he just says make a joyful noise.’ and so this is how i justified my apparent ineptness. except for the part that, for me, it wasn’t even joyful for a while. (i still quote this from time-to-time just because it cracks me up.)

the reason i left out that part of the story is because it’s still something i consider from time-to-time, even 10 years later…what if he was right? what if i really didn’t have what it took to worship god correctly? (because there is a ’correct’ way to do it, you know.)  i didn’t want to tell that story because i didn’t want to open the door for anyone to say to me, ‘well, it’s true. you really did suck.’ so i just left that out all together.

i finally had courage enough to join the worship team at my church here in eastern nc and was a regular vocalist/leader for a good while. but it didn’t take long for those same voices came back. the last night i led worship, i decided it was just too much. i took myself off the team. actually, it was almost a year ago exactly. the last time i led worship was on a saturday. my dad died that tuesday. and so i thank god for the season he foresaw when i would need space to mourn and grieve his loss.

mind you, i love to sing -in my car, in the shower, i sing disney princess songs to hannah grace- but mostly, i am alone when i do it. i don’t criticize myself when i am alone, only when i sing in front of others. i only hear the ‘you’re not good enough’ voice when i know others have listened or are listening. when it comes to worship, it’s not that i’m afraid they won’t like my ‘performance’, i’m more afraid i’ll get distracted by my own ‘performance’, or lack thereof. i get in my own way. does that ever happen to you?

the whole season of losing my worship and being brave enough to find it again lasted a period of several years. it was in my brokeness, in my desperation and in my utter emptiness and powerlessness that i had to rediscover and reclaim my worship. i had to fight for it against the one who stole it from me. it was my birthright to worship. it did not belong to ol’ slewfoot. once i did -once i joined forces with god and took it back from the enemy of my soul- i immediately recognized his delight, his pleasure over me which, at this point in my life, i wouldn’t trade it for anything. i get more joy out of worshiping my sweet jesus alone, or doing it from the congregation anymore, than from being on a particular team, no matter how much i love the fellowship of a team. this doesn’t bother me. and it doesn’t bother me that it doesn’t bother me. my worship is all i have. and it’s too precious and too sacred; too precious and too fragile for me not to fiercely protect it or to allow myself to be distracted by the voice that says, ‘we’re just not sure you’re what we want…’, which would only cause anyone to compete and compare themselves and i don’t have time in my life for that nonsense. i can’t set myself up to go through another season of not worshiping at all. i can’t afford it.

i don’t want to be the center of anyone’s attention, as long as i can be the center of his.

rather, as long as he is the center of mine.

i don’t need a microphone or a stage.

i just need my audience of one.

worship is one of my faaavorite topics and i’m sure there is much we can all say about it, which we will as we continue this journey together.

 

for the time-being, though, let’s keep our focus on these questions:

is there anything in your life -any particular gift you’ve been given- that is just that sacred?

or perhaps one that you need to take back from the one who stole it from you?

{would you be brave enough to let the rest of us pray for you that it would be returned?}

my new bff’s.

y’all.

last week

wore

 me

OUT!

i seriously don’t think i have any more words left in me.

now we all know that’s not true, let’s just be honest.

listen, thank you all so much for your support and encouragement in telling that part of my journey. i fear repercussions, but fear god more (in a good, healthy, reverent sort of way), and only received positive feedback. truly. thank you. i fully expect that someone somewhere is saying i have a ‘jezebel spirit’ and crying out ‘spiritual attack!’ to my discredit but, honestly, i don’t have that much power. or a jezebel spirit. and, also, i was only telling my experience. i’m not on some campaign to bring that or any church down.

along the way last week, i made a few new friends who came from a group that was affiliated with mine, and if you need to hear someone else besides me say, ‘it wasn’t you. you’re not crazy. you’re not the only one.’ orrr, if you just want to hear some CRA-CRA stories about abuse in the name of ‘spiritual authority’ then check out: www.mycultlife.com, the bishop’s wife, lynde ross and mike ross. seriously, they all left the same totally whack cult church in louisiana. (read lynde’s post today. woah.) knowledge is power, folks.

on a far less serious note,  i thought i would point you toward a giveaway that two of my favorite bloggers are offering.

last spring, i was sitting in my obgyn’s woman doctor’s…would that make anyone uncomfortable?… i was waiting on an appointment when i picked up a parenting magazine. in the back of the magazine was a cute little ad for www.lisaleonardonline.com, featuring her handmade, beautiful jewelry. i came home, perused her website and immediately ordered a few gifts from her. truly, her pieces are so sweet and beautiful and most of them can be personalized just for you.

i found myself reading her blog regularly and realized she has broken places and loves god, too. it was totally meant to be. i’m always, always, always inspired by her simple messages.

one day, lisa’s friend sarah markley guest-posted for her so i went to her blog and knew immediately we would be friends if we lived in the same town.

in addition to both of these ladies’ incredible gift for capturing life through their writing and in pictures, they both have their own stories to tell, which you’ll discover if you stick around there long enough. (sarah & her husband, chad, have an amazing testimony of betrayal, forgiveness and healing within their marriage, which was recently featured on cbn.)

today, lisa & sarah are partnering for a giveaway on sarah’s page - when you comment on the adventure you feel you are on right now, you will be entered in to win a $50 gift certificate to lisa leonard designs.

these amazing ladies don’t know me except that i’m a serial commenter on their blogs. i get nothing for touting their pages. i just feel a certain allegiance to them because they are the reason i ever started blogging. they are worth knowing, so i hope you’ll go see what they’re about and feel lighter in your spirit for doing so.

love you guys.

xo

truth & light.

For a long time, I was just hurt, plain and simple. And I was e x h a u s t e d, too. And I’m not going to lie to you – I was angry and I was bitter. And I did slander and I did want to punish and expose. I was a victim and a martyr and I wanted everyone who would listen to know about it. (This is also when I started drinking heavily, which is another story for another time.)

Karen and I spent the next few months undoing what had been done; speaking truth where I had believed lies; exposing areas of my heart and my life that needed to be cleaned up and cleared out. My healing also came at the expense of certain relationships; in particular, my two best friends, whose friendships God has since restored and for this I am so, so thankful.

I want to be clear: This didn’t just go away, not without hard work. Or without a cost. Forgiveness didn’t come easily or naturally to me over this.

But God.

He healed me.

Entirely.

Truly, truly – I have no bitterness toward the people involved anymore. I don’t have a reason to go back there (like putting a recovering drunk -which I’m that, too- in a bar), but I don’t harbor unforgiveness toward them anymore.

Only because of how much God loves me, I am able to forgive them. And not because they even need it (or have asked for it, because they haven’t…which that alone is a miracle for me because I’m someone who has to have closure. It’s the worst form of torture for me, to not have closure.)

I forgive because I need it, which isn’t to say it didn’t happen. At all. Because it did. But I refuse to hold it against them anymore. I refuse to give it any power in my life because God’s power in me to forgive is much greater than my will to bear unforgiveness.

Not only do I forgive them, but I don’t blame them for anything. I don’t even think they knew what they were doing, that they were hurting me or others. And I believe with all my heart that they didn’t mean to. They just didn’t. They didn’t know any better.

I know that their hearts are for Jesus. They were then and they are now. Something just got a little bit twisted along the way. Okay, a lot twisted. And it’s okay. Because God is in the business of restoring hearts and fixing lives. And He used this experience (and others) to do that for me.

I can also see how it would benefit the devil to use a place of such magnitude to bring down children of God. So, let’s just blame it on him. Because that’s what he does. He tears down relationships by using words and people to hurt our feelings and offend and point fingers and place blame and hold grudges and that is not the way of God.

And in relationships, there is grace.

And forgiveness.

In Christ, there is healing.

In Him, there is freedom.

In Jesus, there is LIFE.

To be honest, I have no idea what’s going on there now or how they are operating anymore. From what I understand, they’ve undergone their own transformation since then and some darkness has been brought in to the light and some changes have been made and they are better for it. I know this because we are always better for it in the end.

Perhaps the biggest evidence of my healing (to me) is that I accept responsibility for myself. I didn’t know any better then, either. But I do now. I recognize that I was not emotionally healthy or spiritually mature enough then to not place everything I had into people, especially my leaders. Plus, I was just young. And dumb. And I came out of a dysfunctional family. And I was a very typical middle child who just needed to know she was loved and accepted and thrived on man’s approval.

And, by the way, they are only people, you know. Made of dirt and spit like you and me. Fallible, broken children who love God and need grace; fallen and imperfect children whom God loves and offers grace. Fallible & broken, fallen & imperfect children…

Just

like

me.

And I love them and I pray for them and I think of them with honor and respect. And I believe the best in them and for them.

And I would not trade that time in my life for anything in this world because God has used the healing process to draw me closer to Himself.

I hope you understand, friends, that these aren’t just words. Please. I am d o n e in my life with that ‘fake it ’til you make it’ mess and anyone who knows me knows I’ve never been good at that game, anyway. In fact, I can only talk about it so freely because I’m so far past it. At this point, to hear myself talk about it is like I’m talking about someone else - I am that removed from it.

But you’re not, are you?

The reason I felt nauseous telling the story on Wednesday wasn’t because I was upset or going back to that place and remembering or reliving it. I was nauseous because it didn’t feel good to tell it. What good could possibly come from schlepping up all that crap from the dregs of my past? It doesn’t speak very highly of me, and it certainly didn’t paint a pretty picture of anyone else. It didn’t feel good to write it and it couldn’t have felt good to read it. I mean…did it?

I know I wrote it largely for myself. I did. I had never before put it in ink and it was time for me to do that. And I could have written it privately and not shared it with anyone and I would have been none the worse for the wear as a result. And maybe later I’ll wish that’s what I had done because it really did suck to look at all of that and I hope that I’m really blown away by how God uses it.

But I did share it.

And the reason I decided to share this part of my life’s story with you is because I know spiritual abuse has happened -and is happening- to you and it’s kept hidden and it’s not discussed and I want you to know that I know. And I understand. And I’m sorry. And I want you to know that God doesn’t love like that.

And you will make it to the other side because God loves you too much to let you stay in that painful place.

There

is

hope.

Friends, can I tell you? God doesn’t waste our pain, as my precious Melanie says.  He sees every tear, hears every lonely cry. He knows how badly your heart has been hurt. There is not one thing in our lives that He allows us to go through that He doesn’t use for our good and His glory. (Romans 8:28) He doesn’t waste our dysfunctional past or our dark places when we yield our hearts to Him and surrender our lives to Him. And He loves us too much to let us stay in the dysfunction and dark places unless we allow Him to change us, which does require work. There’s no other way around it. I’ve tried getting around it. It’s just not happening.

Kind of like having a gym membership but not using it and eating cheeseburgers and french fries and then wondering why I can’t lose weight. It’s hard work, but the benefits –long and short-term- far outlast the effort.

Because that’s how much God loves us – too much to let us stay in our pile of toxic crap that is our (very real) hurt feelings and offenses. Too much to allow us to lie to ourselves and to others because that’s not His way. It’s not because He’s mad at us or wants to embarrass us that He brings truth to light. It’s because He LOVES us. And sometimes the light is so blinding that it takes some getting used to because we’ve gotten so used to seeing in the dark. But in the light we see the truth and we see more clearly and there are no more shadows or dark places because that’s why Jesus died because He is just that good and He loves us just that much.

And this is how I know I am free.

(Not the ending you were expecting? Me neither.)

Thank you for listening.

xo

why i left.

So, I have to confess, I really just want to get to tomorrow’s post for you but it would be a disservice to you and to the story if I skip over this next part. The part about how and why I left.

To catch up, please read in order:

Might Be Too Much (The Disclaimer)

Young & Dumb

Been There, Done That

Shortly after my grandma died on Father’s Day of 2002, I heard in my heart that it was time for me to move to New York to pursue theatre. I had been waiting for the freedom (or ‘right time’ for those who don’t speak Christianese) to do this since high school when, really, in a moment, my heart had the thought, ‘Mary Kathryn, who do you think put the desire in your heart to even go there? GO!’  When I tell you how happy this made me, I mean…really. I. was. e l a t e d.

I decided to wait until the following summer because I knew my granddad would pass on within the year. It was just a weird sense I had. For the sake of brevity, you can read this story which will tell you about that experience. He died not quite six months after my grandma died.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The Good News about me going to New York to do the thing that was in my own heart to do, the reason I knew I was going up there was…we had also planted a church up there! (You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?)

At first, the senior pastor promised my dad I would receive a salary…

And then they would pay me what they could…

And then I would have to raise support…

Which I wasn’t going to do. Because that wasn’t the reason I was there.

I reached a point when I just couldn’t take it any more. I loooved the church there and made some really wonderful friends there.

But one afternoon, sitting in the home of my bff-New York, I called the senior pastor for whom I had been working all these years (he was head of both the NYC church and the church I attended in NC).

I’m pretty confident I was shaking and most likely crying.

And I just told him I couldn’t do it anymore. That it wasn’t the reason I was there. And I couldn’t afford to volunteer my time because it meant I couldn’t look for a real job. And I thanked him for everything and I was still loyal to the church, but I would no longer be ‘working’ there.

He was very gracious in his response, very loving to me.

And that was last time I really talked to him.

Kind of like, until I started working for him, the last time I had talked to him was after he talked me out of doing missions with YWAM. Kind of like I had served my purpose and that was that and buh-bye.

Kind of like a divorce.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I suddenly found myself back home and not in New York mid-January of 2004. (I know, six months. Can’t say I’m not adventurous or a woman of the Big City!) Long story, one that isn’t important to this one but I’m sure I’ll tell it later. (It involves a weeklong road trip with a bluegrass band and my diet was made up of bad coffee and Budweiser. It’s a great story, the parts I can remember; the rest I intentionally drowned out.) I didn’t know I was about to hit the bottom of my depression that I would come to learn actually began 13 years prior.

I of course went back to the same church, only this time I was just a regular member. I no longer knew my place there; I no longer had one. I would show up on Sunday and people just thought I was visiting from New York. I didn’t sit near the front anymore because I was no longer needed there. It was a very strange time for me. This place, where I had devoted days and hours and years of my life to was like a foreign land. But I remained.

For about 10 months, I remained.

I remained because I had to.

See, somehow I received the message that if I clapped the hardest…

and sang the loudest…

and cried the most…

and prayed in tongues the fastest…

and got up as close to the front as I was allowed to get…

God would love me more.

That fall, when I just couldn’t take it any more -when not even church was doing the trick- my dad encouraged me to see his friend Karen. She became his counselor when he came home from rehab and they had a really sweet friendship. I had been to see her a few times on his behalf and knew her well enough to know I could trust her. And even if I couldn’t, I was desperate and I needed help.

The first time I saw her was three weeks before my 27^th birthday. Within the first 30 minutes, she asked me when my depression hit ‘It sounds to me like it hit around the time you were 13,’ she said in her kind and quiet voice.  It was like the veil lifted I could suddenly see again.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Over the next few months, we barely scratched the surface regarding the home and family in which I grew up. She only delved into my experience over the last 6 years with the charismatic church as a result of telling her what led me to her door. Y’all.

I HAD NO IDEA UNTIL SHE HELPED ME SEE

just

how

dysfunctional

that body was.

I cannot stress enough to you the weight I had felt of this. Up until that point, FOR SIX YEARS, I believed and subscribed to everything I told you yesterday. I believed that I was insubordinate and unworthy and not holy enough or pretty enough or could sing well enough or pray powerfully enough. I believed that I just needed to have more faith, that I would never be able to reach up high enough to praise God well enough. At least, not enough for Him to be able to see or hear me. I was simply not enough

and

would never be

enough.

It was an old message, one that I had heard all my life and so I do not hold the church responsible.

But somewhere I was given the message that, in this place, if I showed up more often and prayed the prettiest prayers and praised God louder and worshiped Him the hardest, that I would

one day be

enough.

 Only.

The turning point was when I realized that this was the place where I felt the least.

 When the circle slowly came together for me on that, with Karen’s help,

 I heard my sweet Jesus whisper to my heart,

 Mary Kathryn, come away with me. Let ME define you. Let ME show you who you are and who I Am.

 I didn’t ask permission or tell anyone. I just slipped out the back door and I

 simply

left.

 And I didn’t look back.

And I was free.

Not one leader followed up with me. No one called me. It hurt some, but I didn’t care. I was never going back. I would run into people who just couldn’t compute that I had actually moved back home a year earlier and I wasn’t going to church there. I know they thought I had backslidden; rather, I had (ahem) ‘fallen off the bus’. I know they thought this because I used to think it.

That was the beginning to what would become the loneliest, darkest, most challenging season of. my. LIFE.

But I was free.  

I hope you’ll join me here tomorrow for the rest of the story, because this is definitely not how it ends.

The best part is still to come.

xo 

been there, done that.

if you are just tuning in, please read monday’s post (ie, the disclaimer) about this series of posts and also tuesday’s message: young and dumb in order to catch up to today’s post. and, p.s. i keep remembering other things and adding them so keep coming back.  

and in order to stick to my schedule of today being the meat of what happened and tomorrow being the ‘what happened when i left’ and tying it all into a pretty little package on friday, this one is not short. at all. so go use the bathroom and pour a fresh cup of coffee.      

go on, i’ll wait.      

you back? you comfy?      

i’m so glad. thank you for joining me again today. i’m so happy to see you!      

it was not easy at all to write today’s post. as in, i almost didn’t. and after i wrote a good bit of it i wanted to throw up. why drag up what i’ve already dealt with? i’ve been under spiritual attack all week, which i know is a result of putting all of this out there. my prayer is that it will bless and change someone for the better. what would really be amazing for me is that someone would recognize themselves in my story.       

okay. so, here we go…      

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞      

after making the decision to stay and not go to montana with ywam, i drank the proverbial kool-aid of my church family. it was charismatic by design and operated in the gifts of the holy spirit. that is to say, we spoke in tongues and handled snakes. just kidding. (just wanted to be sure you were paying attention.) but we were tongue-talkers and had an office of The Prophet in the at-large church family, prayed with discernment and so on. our own senior pastor was considered an apostle. in some regards, maybe in our own heads, we were a ‘mega-church’, which at that time just meant that we had two services which both maxed out the seating we had in our little storefront church. now, the idea of a ‘mega-church’ makes me tired.       

by the end of the summer of 2000, i had been a faithful member for about two years. i quit my job at the ymca and not soon after that the worship pastor asked if i would come help him from 8-10 five days a week for $200 a month. (2 hours a day x 5 days a week = $200.00 a month / 40 hours = $5.00 an hour. awesome.)  honestly, i would have rather just been called a volunteer and not get paid anything, especially because there were definitely weeks i worked more than 2 hours a day. a friend wanted me to go on a road trip across the country with her and i almost didn’t because i was TERRIFIED of ‘asking for time off’. of my pseudo-job. i did this for about six months before the administrative pastor also asked me to help him from 10-2. to be fair, i don’t remember the rate at which i was hired for this job although i’m pretty confident it wasn’t much more than minimum wage. a few months after i started doing administrative work, the senior pastor also asked me to help him. i was now the full-time assistant to three of five full-time pastors being paid right around minimum wage. of course, the other two knew that the senior pastor trumped them if he needed me, so i primarily served him.      

eventually, i stopped working for the worship pastor and worked solely as the executive assistant. to tell you the truth, i was relieved when that happened because, for some reason, i had had the same anxiety working for him that i had in my home growing up around my alcoholic dad. i just didn’t feel safe.      

when we did finally move in to our megalo-shrine-to-ourselves, my ‘office’ was a desk against a wall in an open area while all other administrators and all the pastors had offices with doors. i was the only one without an actual office.      

mind you, i was the executive assistant at this point.      

and i’m not even saying i care, especially at this point in my life. i love to serve. put me at a desk in the hall if that’s all you can afford – honestly, i really do not care.      

only. it’s not all we could afford.      

actually, that’s not entirely true. we couldn’t afford it. because we didn’t have anymore money. because we had spent it all on the new building. to make room for people that i’m not sure have even filled it up yet, and that was almost ten years ago.      

for me, it was just a clear example of the value they placed on me and my position there, even though to hear them speak, you might think i had lassoed the moon because they were so full of ‘encouragement’.      

{my own situation aside, i will never understand or agree with a church that campaigns to build an $8,ooo,ooo+ building but cannot properly compensate their employees. it is not right and it is not fair. if a church -or any organization- cannot make room in the budget to hire someone at a decent and regular wage and offer an officespace with a door, especially given all the additional time that goes into one’s job, then they need to be able to do the administrative work themselves. besides that, if you have raised $8,000,000 for anything…why wouldn’t you use it toward something like missions? even in your own city? just saying.}      

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one time, the administrative pastor shamed me for being wanderlust.  

{since then, it has been spoken over me that god has given me a gypsy spirit and i know this brings delight to his heart.}  

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shortly after i started working for him and before we moved into the new building, the senior pastor and i were talking in his office when he said to me, ‘you know, mary kathryn, we can’t get married if you’re playing the field. you are like a tree planted by a stream and it’s like you want to be uprooted and replanted elsewhere. but if you’ll just stay here and let your roots grow wide and deep, you’ll be able to grow here in this family. you can’t be a part of your family’s ministry and also serve this one.’      

because that’s how it is in the kingdom of god. you just serve one church and only fellowship with the people at that one church. and other ministries and churches are okay, i guess, but really it’s all about your own in the end. oh, and, just make sure you love the people we love. you can be nice to other believers, because -hey- that’s what we’re supposed to do. just come home to us at the end of the day. oh, and be sure to check in when you do so we know you’re here. and ‘listen, there are great churches down the road and if you don’t have our dna then we’ll bless you as you go.’ (that last part really was said in a sunday service.)      

i mean, right?      

right?      

anyone?      

no one?      

oh. right.      

because that’s not how it is.      

not to mention, on this side of it, i am ashamed & embarassed to admit that i wasn’t even offended by this at the time. my family, whose ‘roots’ in ministry go at least as far back as my great-great grandparents. my family, whose ministry had been ‘planted’ in my hometown for thirty years after my granddad had already served the methodist church for at least 25 years prior. the methodist church, whose ‘roots’ go back as far as the 18th century. for me to remain planted by the stream, which jeremiah talks about, and grow strong and wide roots…would have been to stay planted within my own family.      

and yet i stayed.      

i wanted so desperately to please him that i agreed. i was a sponge for his approval. and i never told my family at the time that my loyalties had shifted in the blink of an eye and i was primarily committed anymore to this place of worship and the people within.      

it’s a good thing my family is made of stubborn old oaks.      

they are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.   

{jeremiah 17:8 (nlt)}     

    

but, the thing is, my family wouldn’t have even minded if i had been involved somewhere, as long as it was a place that brought glory to god and i was free in jesus. they wouldn’t have minded because they wouldn’t have asked me to choose between ‘us’ and ‘them’ because that is not how god works.      

and when my granddad died in 2002 and we had just been through a snowstorm, i met my family in his hometown two hours away later that day so i could print bulletins. i’m sorry…? because that was really what i wanted to do. regardless of wanting to do it, it was what a servant like me should do. even though the power went out in our mega-church and i had to spend the afternoon figuring out how to update and change and then print them on a different computer from a desktop printer in our old building down the road.      

by the way, spiritual abuse often comes in the form of manipulating someone with scripture. it sounds right because, hey, it’s the word of god. but why does something not feel right about this? he’s my ‘spiritual authority’, though, so there is obviously something wrong with me. oh well. best i keep serving so i can get more holy.      

and it also comes in the form of being told things ‘in the name of jesus’ a lot. things that are probably okay, pretty harmless…but probably things that jesus wouldn’t wield over another person in his own name. especially in prayer. but, hey, we’ve been given that authority to ask and speak in his name. just speak his name. wave the magic wand that is jesus and we can have or be anything we want, right? no? oh. okay.      

okay if i keep going? take a break and come back if you need to.      

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another time i was in the pastor’s office, he said to me, ‘my wife fell off the bus.’ i asked if she was okay. (i mean, what else do you say when someone tells you his wife fell off the bus?) is she hurt? did she have to go to the hospital? wait, why was she even on a bus? he meant she had gone a little bit crazy and wanted a divorce. hardly anyone knew, and no one knew who else knew, until we all showed up to his house one day to help him move out.      

and i would love to have the chance to ask her to tell me in her own words, now that i’m on this side of things, what really happened? because i know you did not fall of a bus. and i want you to know that i’m.just.so.sorry. and i’m sorry that you got thrown under the bus because you did not deserve that and i hope they reached out to you but i don’t remember that anyone did and, in fact, i think we were instructed not to. and remember that time i had to meet you at the cell phone store? i didn’t know what to say. and you looked so sad and so bitter and so beautiful. even at the time, i just wanted to hug you but couldn’t. i was powerless at the time. and i’m sorry i didn’t know and i subscribed and drank the juice and i believed. even so, i knew in my heart it wasn’t true. i’m glad you got out. i’m sorry for the price you paid. i understand. and i’m sorry.      

at this time, my job expanded to becoming his wife.      

let me assure you that absolutely nothing inappropriate happened. it wasn’t like that. there was nothing ‘romantic’ about it at all.      

i just had a key to his new house and made all of his travel arrangements and picked up his kids from school and did some of his grocery shopping and picked up his dry-cleaning and traveled with he and his four boys to california and new york as their ‘nanny’. you know, the usual stuff a totally emotionally unhealthy and spiritually immature girl trapped in the body of a 23 year old gets to do for her newly single, handsome and winsome pastor who says she’s like a daughter to him. because that’s not weird at all. or confusing to anyone. least of all, said girl. hey, but, thanks for trusting me.      

um. except for the part that…      

the entire situation was weird!       

and confusing!      

and most definitely inappropriate!      

and while the above is where i was at the time, if he really had been ‘like a father’ to me, then wouldn’t he have looked out for my best interest? as the main leader of our church, shouldn’t you -or any of the other leaders- not have put me in such an awkward position? it just wasn’t right. on any level. as my leader, you were responsible for me.       

but i am responsible for me now.       

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we had a school, too. you know, an unaccredited-but-will-get-you-into-ministry-within-this-nondenominational…denomination-family-of-churches, all out school. an ‘institute’, we called it. there was the big ‘institute’ that was on the west coast that all of our campus ministers went to before they began to raise their own support and then there was a smaller version they created for the local church. in any case, you got a ‘degree’ that is only valuable -really- within this business/’family of churches’.      

i hope i’m being fair when i say this…in considering all the ministers i worked with at that local church…i can think of one who was working on his degree at duke at the time, who i hope is being true to himself now and he knows what i mean…and i can think of another who was on staff but not as a pastor and he has a seminary degree from a real seminary and is really only loosely tied to this church anymore, although at one point he was the right and i was the left-hand man to the senior pastor…other than that, all of these pastors just sort of called themselves pastors but i’m really not sure where or how or if they were educated.      

{to that end, i don’t think i made my point very clear yesterday that all of these ‘pastors’ only held each other accountable to one another. they did not belong to a larger, well-established body of churches, which is why i am wary -particularly in a charismatic church, because it is so much more common there- of any church that is just sort of a loose cannon for the kingdom. there is a church in the town i live now whose leadership is members of one entire family and they don’t belong to anyone else. i do not stand against any church that stands for jesus. and i’m not suggesting a church must by quantified by a traditional denomination. i’m not saying that at all. just have some credibility. be accountable to something larger than yourself or your gentlemen’s club. (years after i left, a lot of corruption was exposed within the church at-large and it was revealed that several of the ‘leaders’ simply turned their heads when they knew what was happening.)}      

besides my one friend/pastor who was in school at the time, i was friends with another couple who is also no longer there. the husband-half was working on his master’s degree in theology and would pursue and achieve his phd later. he was actually one of the ‘teachers’ of the ‘institute’ who could point out which teachings of this church were not found in scripture.      

except i wouldn’t necessarily know this because, if the pastor needed me one evening while class was in session, then i was just excused from class and exempt from the hours and, therefore, didn’t learn but still ‘graduated’ from the ‘institute’.      

(isn’t that how they do it at duke?)      

i do realize i could have made up the hours but, again, for where i was in life and wanting to man-please and be approved of and be thought of as holier and healthier than i actually might have been…i just didn’t. because it wasn’t necessary or required of me. should i have felt privileged? i did at the time. but i shouldn’t have.      

and it upset me when people on the ‘outside’ called us a cult.      

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in addition to not having accredited pastors, we also had unaccredited counselors within the church, whom i went to see regularly to deal with my family-stuff. they did everything they could to help me see that it was me and not the church. that something was wrong with my family, so stay at the church. that i didn’t have enough faith, that i wasn’t serving enough. i even brought in my mom and my sisters to a few sessions and they tried to convince them that they needed to start coming to our church. i love this couple and i know that they meant well but karen had to reverse a lot of damage that was done in my sessions with them.      

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we held conferences for the whole ‘church family’ a few times a year. my best friend was the primary administrator for these conferences, but we both slaved away to make them happen – i at my desk where i would find other people’s empty coffee cups waiting for me in the morning and she in either the work station (which had a door) or her office (because she had a real one when she worked part-time on conference-stuff).      

[p.s. i don't blame her at all for any of this. she knows that.]      

one of my jobs for the conferences was to make name tags and label the first few rows of chairs for the president and other…officers?…of the church family/business and their families. they were larger than life and intimidating and unapproachable and unrelateable and unavailable  and untouchable to anyone who wasn’t sitting on one of those few rows. i hate to say this, but we really worshiped them. we would clap til our hands hurt when certain leaders got up to preach. one would think that jesus himself had just stepped on to the stage.      

only. it wasn’t jesus. in any way.      

oh, and all of their first names were ‘pastor’. pastor keith, pastor joe…as in, ‘hey, pastor joe, i just washed your car for you!’ ‘hey, pastor keith, beautiful day outside, isn’t it?’ (by the way, we didn’t have a pastor joe or a pastor keith.)

and everything had to be done with excellence! and if it wasn’t excellent! then we would hear about it through ‘gentle rebukes’. nevermind if something happened outside of our control or if it was just a simple oversight or mistake. there was little margin, if any, for error. because we had to be excellent!

and our sunday services, because now we could seat everyone with one service with our 2800 stadium chairs, would generally start at 10 (10:30?) and end around 12:30-1ish. we would spend about 20-30 minutes worshiping real big and loud and then about 45-60 minutes on announcements and praising one or all of the pastors for something wonderful they did for jesus before there would ever and finally be a message.      

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on top of being a full-time employee who worked 8-5 every day and then, of course, would be at every wednesday night service and thursday night practice and saturday morning meetings and sunday from the time the door opened until the last person left…i was also an ‘intern’, leading and training the worship team for the youth group and attending whatever else the interns had to attend, and i remained on the sunday morning worship team for a while, too. plus, i say i ‘discipled’ some girls but i didn’t. not really. not in the way of just letting the real them spend time with the real me and letting them follow me as i messily follow god. and the one girl i really was devoted to, sadly, i haven’t really seen or spoken to in probably ten years. i was also on call 24 hours a day, pretty much. it was not unusual to get a phone call from the senior pastor late at night to tell me something i needed to do the next day.      

because god loves a servant heart. and the more we serve, the more he loves. that was the message i received.      

and.i.soaked.it.UP.      

i had a friend who i heard on multiple occasions call herself my ‘discipler’. for one thing, i already had one that i hand-picked. and when they moved, i found a new one. and, anyway…i thought we were just friends…? i didn’t realize there was an agenda…? i certainly didn’t sign up for one, i don’t think…?      

[p.s. again, i don't fault her for this (anymore). she was just doing what she was taught to do. she definitely had her own struggles there.]      

remember, i was a people-pleaser with no real sense of who i was in general, much less in christ, being led by people who were either themselves hurt or simply false teachers.      

shamefully, i did not lead one. single. person to christ while i was there. not. one. not only that, but i hurt the feelings of old friends who either did or didn’t believe because i had to be at church. so, not only was i saying ‘no’ to my family for important things, i said ‘no’ to my precious friends that god had given me – all for the ‘sake of the call’.       

what the hell kind of call is that, anyway?      

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and women in the church? oh. right. that.      

it was told to me that the church didn’t have a formal stance on women in the church. but it was whispered to me both inaudibly and also behind closed doors that women were subordinate. that the men were the leaders of the church and the women weren’t meant to lead. (jesus does say that, doesn’t he?) they certainly can’t pastor. oh, and if you are a woman fortunate enough to get selected to lead so they can back up that there really is not a formal statement on women within the church…? best not upset the applecart. just nod and stay quiet and you’ll keep your job and the pastors will like you better.      

because that’s what the informal and silent statement was: that women didn’t have a voice. and if they found one and tried to use it they were found to be rebellious or crazy.      

there was most definitely an oppressive spirit over the women within that church, even though there wasn’t an official statement on the matter.       

to me, especially the pastor’s wives, looked haggard and -honestly- unhappy, fake smiles and teacher sweaters and red vans and ‘what homeschool curriculum are you using?’ and all. there was not a single marriage among the pastors that i wanted to model mine after nor a single pastor’s wife that i hoped to one day become.      

not.      

one.      

i watched marriages suffer for the ‘sake of the call’ and have vowed never to enter in to a relationship that looks like that because that is not how christ loves the church.        

‘no amount of success in ministry matters if your ministry at home is suffering.’       

{beth moore}      

to that end, all the single people were afraid to date! i can only think of one person from my old small group who is married now, and he was the leader of it and is now a pastor in a different area. and they’re all older than i am! and all unmarried! and if anyone did date, they sort of became outsiders to the group and we just prayed for them because, clearly, they had to be having sex -or something- because it definitely was not a right thing to do. date, i mean.      

in fact, there wasn’t really any sexuality at all. i wore cordurory pants and turtlenecks in the wintertime. god forbid we wear anything that would ‘make a brother stumble’. no wonder the guys there dated outside of our church (if at all).  

the men were given false examples of what being ’men of god’ really means and were not taught how to be Men. and the example for the ladies was that we had to be meek and servanthearted. when it comes down to it, we were all pretty much asexual beings.  

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oh, and definitely don’t be gay. (and, really, i apologize if this offends your sensibilities – take it to the lord.) i had two friends there (only two that i know of) who, one struggled with his sexuality and he went to his ‘spiritual authority’ and they hid it and dealt with it behind closed doors. the other acted out on it, went to his leaders about it, and was basically going to be shipped off so he could be straightened out. they were not loved through any of it. as a result, this one who is so unbelievably talented and once knew he was precious to jesus is not even walking with the lord at all now, which is a grievous tragedy to me.       

as a matter-of-fact, it was really difficult taking any of our struggles to our leaders because we were, again, found to be rebellious or – the worst crime of all – we didn’t have enough faith. we need to ‘faith our way through it, champ.’ ugh – and to THAT end…      

so, we didn’t call each other by our god-given names there. to some, this might seem cute. to me, it makes me want to scream. the leaders (and by ‘leaders’, i mean The Men) called each other ‘hero’ and ‘champ’ all.the.time.       

pleeeaaase. just be reeeaaal! i wanted to scream. show me your hurts and i’ll show you mine and let’s go to god together because that’s what families do!      

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and so you ask me why i call myself a recovering charismaniac?      

because i don’t want your bright lights or big, dumb stage or your ‘faith, champ, strooong, hero’ or your GINORMOUS BUILDING or your stupid approval or loud music with your pretty smiles and fake tans and fancy cars that i just don’t believe were given to you over and over while i sit facing the wall and can’t pay my bills and your staff is clearly unhappy but you do not see them. and you do not hear them. i don’t want any of it if my friends feel like something is wrong with them because you aren’t loving or listening to them. i don’t want any of it if it’s not pointing me to jesus. which none of it did. it drew me farther away from the real him than i had ever been.       

to me, anything else is superficial and artificial and i just don’t have the e n e r g y to do that again.       

been there, done that.      

put me in a living room with folks who sing out-of-tune who worship the same sweet jesus that i worship and are asking real questions and seeking the lord together and we are crying and laughing and telling each other our deepest secrets because we trust each other to love us through and that is church enough for me.       

just.      

give.      

me.      

jesus.      

{anne graham lotz}      

       

 

young & dumb.

To the best of my ability, I have tried to state the facts and withheld my own side-comments, thoughts and judgments other than what I might have been thinking at the time, or to point out how silly something might have been. Or because there just needed to be something funny to say about something so heavy, let’s just be honest.  I have them but it just wouldn’t be fair at all to share them. I know there are three sides to every story and that it can be argued that my experience was based on my perception. It is not my goal to lamblast anyone and to take ownership of my own part for where I was spiritually and emotionally at the time.

I pray that God would give you the eyes to see and ears to hear it with a heart full of grace and understanding and without judgment toward me or anyone else. This is only my experience, from which I hope to offer you encouragement, strength and hope (like we do in AA).

{If this is your first time joining me, please read yesterday’s post for a better understanding of why I’m telling this story.}

This is the first of a few parts of the story of why I now call myself a recovering charismaniac.

Young and Dumb: Our History Together

The church that I left began as a campus ministry in the early ‘80’s. (I was not a part of it in any way at this time. Plus, I was, like, 5.) It belonged to a larger body of non-denominational churches that…basically was its own denomination, if that makes sense. This larger non-denominational…denomination…dissolved about ten years later because it was realized that there was a spirit of control among the leadership-at-large. For example, some of the early campus pastors had to ‘submit’ their ministry/love/partner-interest to their leaders and, basically, receive approval to marry that person. They never dated. And it had to be mutual. As in, the other person had to ‘submit’ that person to their own leader and then the leaders would get together and talk about it. So, lots of those folks met, ‘courted’ (what they called it but it has never sounded romantic in any way to me, even learning about it years later) and married within a few months so they could continue their lifetime of Christian service in ministry together. Many of these marriages stayed intact. Some did not.

After this non-denominational…denomination…dissolved, several of these pastors went on to start their own churches and they held themselves accountable to one another. Eventually, they established a new ‘organization of a family of churches’, each non-denominational. There was a President and a Vice President and so forth. You know. Like a business. If memory serves, I started attending when the new version of this church had been around for about 10-12 years.

At the invitation of one of my older sister’s precious friends from college who is still one of my sweetest sisters in the Lord, I started attending this church the summer before my senior year of college because the church I had been attending did not have a college ministry. This church would have been considered ‘cutting edge’ at the time – it was alive and loud and everyone smiled and it seemed like a happy place. It was sort of at the beginning of the new wave of charismatic churches. We met in a storefront and it was really wonderful at the time.

Not soon after I started attending, I joined the worship team and became ‘plugged in’, as they say, to the small group my same precious friend attended. I was being ‘knit into the family’. The pastors knew I was Tommy Tyson’s granddaughter, in particular the senior pastor. In fact, one time my grandparents attended church there with me and he acknowledged my granddad and even asked him to pray over the service. Looking back, this period of time was really sweet for me.

During my senior year of college, it was really on my heart to do a DTS with YWAM after I graduated. In fact, it was something I felt pretty strongly about. I didn’t have another plan, my older sister was still out in LA with her YWAM team, loving it, and my little sister would later have an incredible experience at her base in England. I asked my worship pastor for a recommendation, thinking he would be thrilled. To my dismay and great discouragement, he told me he to pray about it some more, make sure I had heard the Lord correctly, and to ask him again in a week if I still felt like it was the Lord’s Will. On the mission field. After I felt a prompting in my heart to go. And prayed about it. For six months.

I started second-guessing whether or not I was capable of hearing from the Lord myself – did he think I had not heard from the Lord? Wait…had I heard from the Lord? Forget the part that I had known the Lord all my life. Nevermind that it had been on my heart for about six months already, committed to prayer…when it comes to service – if I want to go, which is what the Bible tells us to do, then shouldn’t I just go?

{By the way, when I say, ‘hear from the Lord’, I do not mean audibly. It’s more of a nudge or prompting or thought I have that I know I’m not smart, clever or creative enough to have made up on my own.}

The next Sunday after I really did go back and pray about it (I mean, it was what he told me to do, so I was going to do it!), I went back to this pastor and asked him again for a recommendation, secure that it was what I was supposed to do. He half-heartedly took the form. I came home from church that day and there was a message from the senior pastor (the one I told you seemed to have respect for my family). In his message, he said that the other pastor had told him I wanted to go, that he hoped that I wouldn’t, that he wanted to raise me up as a daughter of this family and to let him father me. It was a sweet message, one that made me cry and decide not to go. I think I called him back later that week, or maybe I saw him at a mid-week service, and told him what his message meant to me and that, no, I wouldn’t be going and, yes, I would allow him to father me.

At that point, I was in search of someone like that – a father figure, if you will. I had two teachers in college who really fathered me (whether they knew it or not) and was desperate to have that relationship again, that man-pleasing approval that now turns knots in my stomach.

Only, I didn’t really talk to him much after that.

I’m going to stop here for today and ask you:

In your own story, how have you overcome people-pleasing vs. being satisfied with knowing God’s delight is over you?

Have you ever questioned your own credibility?

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my experience working there and then on Thursday about how I reached the decision to leave. On Friday, I’ll wrap up with what I learned and what the Lord has done in me as a result of that experience. I know – exciting, isn’t it? Hang on to your hats, folks.

might be too much.

I was recently asked by a reader why I don’t go to church and what I have against charismatics (short answer: on the whole, nothing – absolutely nothing). I’m also not against church – at all. At all, at all, at all. At. All. I just don’t go regularly right now is all, which is just part of my personal quest and journey. However, I faithfully attend my small group every week, which is where I believe God uses me and He certainly uses my precious sisters there to minister to me.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m an open book, which you may have gathered by now.

My life is wide-open.

I have nothing to hide and nothing to prove.

I (thought I) made up the term ‘charismaniac’ years ago but I need to let you know that, in my head, this term is defined by ‘charismatics gone wrong’. I do not personally have anything at all against the charismatic church. At all. I love charismatic believers like I love all believers (and non-believers) alike. My little term there has nothing at all to do with doctrine. It is strictly a superficial term that I made up because it’s what I do.

Also, spiritual abuse is not limited to one particular group or sect of the Christian faith. Sadly, it happens in a lot of churches in different ways. It is real and it is wrong. Simply, my experience happened to be within the charismatic church. My very primitive definition is: ‘mistreating people ‘in the name of Jesus’.

I rarely talk about this part of my journey because it is so private and personal. I have never put in ink my experience of spiritual abuse. I think because, for one thing, I didn’t think anyone would believe me (even though I have a therapist who can confirm.) It’s the kind of thing that’s (ahem) not really up for debate or discussion because no one can tell me I’m wrong or that this wasn’t my experience. It just is what it is, for better or worse.

I have never wanted to slander the particular church I left –or any church, for that matter– or disrespect anyone involved. The church that I left still exists. I have several friends who are still faithful members and many, many people love and respect the leadership there. I have been very careful in choosing my words when I talk about it for these reasons.

Around the time that I left, others were leaving, too. For a while, I would run into some of these folks and we just recognized each other’s wounded-ness without talking about it.

I am not trying to convince you of anything.

I have no agenda.

I am not a victim, a martyr or a hero.

I am no longer angry or feel hurt or burned by this experience, although it was very painful for me at the time and for a while thereafter. I spent a lot of time working on it with Karen because a.) a lot of damage had been done and, b.) the ‘damage’ that had been done brought up other issues that needed to be addressed. I do not blame anyone. As a matter-of-fact and after some hard-looking, I see now where I myself was at the time, why I was vulnerable to the events that occurred and why I would not have the same experience at this point in my life if put in the same situation because of what God has done in my life since then.

If anything, I am thankful for this part of my journey because the Lord used it to draw me closer to Himself and it is a part of our story.

I started writing this last week even before the question was asked of me but then decided not to share it. ‘Might be too much’, I thought. When the question was asked, I felt defensive and vulnerable. On the whole, I don’t like confrontation and I try to keep life simple and drama to a minimum. I veer far from controversy. But it’s just time. If I can’t tell my own story on my own blog for myself and my 7 readers then where can I tell it? It may take a few days to break it up into the right amount of pieces and I will try to leave you encouraged or at least pensive at the end of each message.

Please feel free to respond with your own stories. I would looove to hear them.

But please refrain from making a call about my story until you’ve read through til the end (I’ll tell you when it’s the end; like I said, it may take a few days to get through it. ) Encouragement is welcome. Thank you for praying for me as I talk about this.

My own prayer is that God would use my story to help set someone else free as He was faithful to do for me in the way that ONLY He (not anyone else) can.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Love you.

the onion: layers two and three revisited.

i talked to karen the other day. you know, my therapist?

can i just tell you…i immediately feel better after speaking to her. always. always. i don’t even see her on a regular basis anymore, i just check in with her every few months to make sure i’m still not crazy. we only spoke on the phone yesterday for about 20 minutes and my world changed. ah…therapy. i think i’ve already told you that, for the last six years, karen has been the singlemost person that god has used to change my life.

i recommend therapy for everyone. everyone. karen is licensed, has a degree and is a christian but not a christian counselor (big difference), which i would also recommend (especially if you yourself are not one). but…oh. therapy. wow. yeh. highly recommend it. do yourself that favor. you deserve it. (just be sure you find the one that fits for you – and make sure they have a degree and not just a certificate they bought at some camp or on-line. just saying.) you know how i said yesterday i can’t endorse anything in which i don’t strongly believe? yeh. therapy. wow. get yourself some. you’ll love it.

thank you for joining me for that public service announcement. now on to my regularly scheduled blog.

when i last left you, as you may remember, i was worried that i had built up walls since my dad died about going to church and getting married. blah, blah, blah.

in a word: i haven’t.

karen reminded me that my dad’s never died before. and everything -everything- i do in my life now is filtered through that lens now. it hasn’t even been a year since he just up and left us out of the clear blue. and even if it’s been ten years, it takes as long as it takes to get through it.

the bottom line is: i’m just not ready. for either. and that’s okay.

{read here for a list of stupid things people say to single people, lest you try to ‘encourage’ me}

i spent last sunday afternoon with my amazing friend dar, who talked about seeing life through the lens of an eternal perspective. as soon as my dad died, it’s like the dial on my camera through which i look at my life shifted to a different perspective without my knowing.

it’s not that i’m opposed to either church or marriage. i promise i’m not. i love the institution of both because god made them. i’m not suggesting they are not valuable because i know that they are. there’s not a rebellion in my heart about either, which is why i’ve had such a hard time accepting where i am right now - like, it was bothering me that i haven’t been more bothered that i’m not compelled toward either right now the way a good christian should be. (i really, really hope you know when i’m being facetious by now.)

the real truth is, i’m not willing to spend my time doing things that are not of lasting value anymore. my church? my small group. i would not trade the time i spend with the girls in my wednesday night group for anything in the world. that is more ‘church’ for me than anything i could do on sunday morning because all we do is show up, just as we are (some of us just a few minutes late and usually smelling like stank because we have just come from the gym), in all of our guts and glory and just ask questions and hug & encourage each other and get to know god better together. leslie is an incredible leader of that group. right now, conventional church is just not for me. and that’s okay.

and marriage? i think i’m just worn out. in the last eight years or so, i’ve danced through my ‘parade of fools’, as my bff-karen says, and it’s just not worth it anymore to date just to date – or ‘to date with the potential for marriage’ (blech, christian cliche…sorry) someone who…well, i guess let’s just say anyone…with whom i’m not on the same page, if i’m going to be diplomatic about it. and that’s okay. paul said in 1 corinthians that it is good for us to stay unmarried if we can (7:8). right now, i can. and i wouldn’t trade that for anything. i’d rather be single for the rest of my life than to be married to the wrong person.

and right now, my abundant life means i get to go visit all my married friends with kids and move in with my co-spouses of sunday funday fame, the cobb’s, once our baby is born and i get to drive up to new jersey this weekend to marry off my heterosexual life partner & bff-amy to her wonderful jabazz, and go see my sister and brother-in-law in the city…or i can just go sit on the beach and feel the sand in my feet. alone. i realize that between marriage and singleness, marriage is the least reversible of the two. one day -maybe- the door to the other may open up. (maybe.) but for now, i’m okay with my lot in life as is.

and so, i’m okay. you’re okay. we’re all okay.

okay?

love you guys.

is there anything you’re wrestling with that makes you uncomfortable? have you considered that maybe -just maybe- you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be? that perhaps you’re okay exactly as you are?

the onion, layers two & three: revelation.

so, i’ve had a revelation. just a little one. like, tiny. tiny. not a big one at all. at…ALL. in fact, just forget i said anything. just

forget

i said

okay, so here it is.

singleness & not going to church & my dad’s death.

just this week, i realize i’ve put up these walls since my dad died but i don’t know what to make of them.

which is why it’s time to call my therapist.

(i’ll let you know what she says.)

what are you guys doing this weekend?

love.

xo