Going through the big D and I don't mean Dallas

February 1st will forever be ruined for me. Today is the day when my parents begin the divorce process. I know I’m 30 and out of the home, but my heart is broken. I feel about 6 years old on the inside. I’m scared about what the future of my family looks like. I’m hurt and disappointed in my mom and dad. But more than anything, my heart hurts.

I’ve known this day was coming but still a small part of me held onto hope for the miraculous. I’m forever an optimist and it even surprises me sometimes. I still believed that reconciliation was possible even after 6 years of separation and many years before when they needed to be separated. At this very moment, I believe if they wanted to be married to each other, they could be.

Belief dies inside reality. Each of them wants to go their own way or is unable to bend for the other. The fissure became a crack. The crack became a split. The split will become two halves broken and separated from each other. Each piece maintains broken parts of the other while missing parts of the whole.

My family started broken: his kids and one of hers. I’m the only ours in my family. And now we will be forever broken. Outside of my choice, I will now have to choose. Choose who I see on what holiday. Choose who I invite where. Choose a schedule that includes separate times in separate homes for separate holidays. There won’t be any more family gatherings where all are included. Us will once again be them. Where two became one, there will be one being two. I’ll be in two households for every occasion. Forever broken. Forever with someone/something missing. I’m a statistic.

Why can’t there be forgiveness?

Why is “I’m sorry” harder to say than “goodbye”?

Why does “I’m right” trump “I love you”?

The realness of today flooded me Monday. In chorale practice, all of a sudden the realization of my family tree breaking sent a shard so deep in my heart I almost fainted. Most people think that marriage is between the two of them, but it really isn’t. There are children and grandchildren sitting on the branches that marriage created. People find shade and hope in that tree. Other smaller, weaker branches get broken when divorce happens.

If love is a battlefield, then divorce is a vulture feeding on the carcasses of the dead and wounded.
Children, regardless of age, are the casualties of divorce. My brothers and their families are affected. Their loyalties are torn. I was the glue. The only one vested in both. The implosion of their relationship has sent out shrapnel, and now I am walking wounded in my parents’ war.

I get that not all marriages are like this. I get that there are those who communicate, respect one another, love one another, enjoy one another, but I’m not living in that family. I’m living in this one. I want a home. I want a family that is whole. I wanted ONE Christmas. Today signifies the death of that dream too. Today signifies the death of many hopes and dreams, and February 1st has become a casualty of divorce too.

I could list details and blame, but why feed the vulture? All I desire is for a glimpse of hope in the wreckage that love can bloom in all of this death. I’m squeezing all the faith I can muster into walking in peace through this day and the subsequent days to follow.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

I believe in love. Not out of what I’ve seen but in focusing on Him who is unseen.

I honor marriage. Not as in examples I’ve witnessed but because my spirit bears witness to a covenant that is deeper than a marriage certificate and beyond the reach of court systems and lawyers.

In spite of all that I’ve lived through, I lay my hope in a bridegroom (either here or in heaven) who walks through marriage with sober reflection of eternal vows.

I can’t walk through this without being hit. It is war after all. Marriage was never intended to be conditional or temporal. I recognize I’m wounded. Lord, allow those wounds to become scars; remembrances of war yet without pain or infection.

Lord I want to be a tree planted by your river; a tree with deep roots and leaves of healing.

Not every lost battle signifies the outcome of the war.

Not everything broken dies.

Abolitionist of the 21st Century!

Great Perspective on Jesus

I'm ready to get back in the game Coach!

Somehow I find myself on my computer at 2 am with a real need to express the current (more like rip tide) building in my heart. Not to sound like Bible Toting Betty, but I feel my spirit being awakened. I feel like I'm going through a ridiculously long transitional period. Don't get me wrong, I've found a great community of people. I've got a great life. Things have been more stable and consistent than ever.

Thus we enter into the restless nature of Christen.

It is not in me to be still. God definitely sends me to rural, green pastures but only for seasons. I've always had the heart of a wanderer. Just even the whisper of such things brings a real zeal flare up deep from the center of who I am. Kind of like on the Lion King when the hyena's mentioned Mufasa.

Over the past several months, something has been swirling in my heart of hearts. The whisper that there is more than this. There is more of ME than this. There are more adventures with Jesus than this. There is MORE!

As a beat up ex church/ministry worker, I can assure you that this bring more than a few shudders to the surface. I don't WANT to go back through any semblance of where I've been. I've seen that horror film and I'm ok with not seeing it again. But I think this transition looks different. It feels different. I truly feel like I'm standing in the dead smack center of a crossroad.

What I think is hardest about this choice is that I think none of the options are wrong or will take me "away" from where I am supposed to be. I genuinely feel that these choices are being presented by the Lord as a choice. Which path will I follow?

In true Christen form, I'm in a full blow analytical phase. My thoughts are being tossed over and over again like a Greek salad. What if I do this? What happens if that? I'm pretty much sick of my own voice in my head. As a people pleaser, I want to know what choice makes the most people happy. What choice puts me in better standing with God? At the heart of it all... I don't want to mess up.

The Pharisees and I are more alike than I'm comfortable to admit. Jesus told them, "You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!"
It is as if God's word on paper had become their security blanket. or their get out of jail free card. They were so busy C-Y-Aing that they couldn't see the Savior standing in front of their face.

As I talk to people both churched and unchurched, I find this a consistent problem. It is almost like by validating our choice, we can override any criticism or complaint. Looking back, I've made more than my fair share of mistakes in this matter. I've needed to justify my time in Kansas City or another of other questionable outcomed attempts at doing life. I can What If the LIFE out of any situation until I can't remember why I chose what I chose. Clear and simple, when we work more on C-Y-A we take our E-Y-E off of G-O-D.

Being a believer in God is only complicated when we stop trusting in the character of God and focus on the isolated instances. As an English major and avid book reader, this concept makes a lot of sense. When I read a Tale of Two Cities, I understand why Sydney Carton switched places with Charles Darnay and took his punishment while Charles went free. The why is answered in the character build up. I can discuss several aspects of why a person would do that but the direct answer to Charles and Sydney's struggles are answered in text. How can a mere novel be easily understood yet I am 20 + years in struggling with understanding God's love for me and what my life looks like in reflection of that love?

I simply choose paragraphs and individual experiences over God's Word and His overall character development throughout my life with Him.

Choosing paths really comes down to this. I've got to trust that God is ordering my steps and that I will not fall. I am seeking God's heart so I must trust that I have already found it.

I also have to know who I am. I am a woman of adventure and a pioneer spirit. I don’t really think a quiet picket fence life is my thing. I like to get down and dirty in the lives of people. I feel like God's asking if I want to get off the bench. My nerves are high and my bruises still have color in them but in my heart of hearts, I know that the rougher road is where my adventurous spirit is satiated.

Here's to the road few take. Game on!

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

My wrestling found a rap! POWERFUL message on little church verses THE Church

How to get on a prayer list 101

How do you get your Christian friends in a prayer frenzy? Tell them you don't want to go to church anymore. Ok... so I stole that line from a book but there has been a movement in my heart for awhile now.

I've been "hopping" around for several months... probably closer to years now. Long story short, I burned out from working in ministry/church work. Some scars are less like scars and more like wounds. I felt for a time like I had to stay out of church to seek God again. Call me crazy but I seriously had PTSD. My first time back to THE church, I literally threw up and couldn't go. More than cyberland wants to know but all this to say, I admit baggage and a bias towards what I'm proposing.

Fast forward 3 years or so to present day. I've had several churches that I've felt "home" in. Some surprising even to me. There are some serious issues though when it comes to making it to membership status. It isn't as if I don't support what each church stands for or don't want to be associated as one of their members, but in the membership phase I hear what they are asking and in my heart of hearts I know that I can't sign my name to it.

Church DTR looks as follows:
1) Committed attender to "insert name/denomination" services and events
2) Committed volunteer to "insert cutesy ministry name"
3) Sanctioned money to continue inserted staffing, ministries, building fund, etc.

See, I speak Christianese. None of these commitments are wrong. Most often than not, I believe in what these churches are doing and join in. I really find my issue as that I know in my heart, I am a girl not ready to settle down.

I've always had a problem with signing something I'm not in agreement with. I remember my sophomore year in college. I was in this bible study. Southern Baptist born and bred, I had found my way into a full blown Pentecostal boot camp of sorts. A tight knit group of us were meeting, praying, learning, and challenging most everything we were raised on. To be in the official leadership, I was supposed to sign this declaration of sorts. It spelled out all the theological principles and outlined a very bible verse filled version of what I was supposed to believe and portray. I remember looking at it. All of these people I loved and respected looking at me with anticipation. I mean, why wouldn't I sign it. I was one of them right?

Hardest thing I had done at the time. I couldn't sign it. I appreciated where it was coming from, agreed with a lot of it, yet to sign my name to such a specifically outlined version of faith... I just couldn't do it. What was ironic though in hindsight was that My Baptisty friends were pressuring and upset because I still went to group studies and because I was asking questions and the Pentacostally folks were doing the same pressure and anger displays because I wouldn't sign for leadership and because I was asking questions. Let's just say the vice in all my relationships would have been relieved if I just conformed to what seemed to make sense... but whose sense?

I have yet to meet a church staff type that didn't believe that membership to their church was biblical. Verses get whipped out, warnings about falling away are brought out, and the building of God's Kingdom/Christianity are pronounced.

Before you rush to the comment section with a seminary degree worthy answer to this, seriously pause and question with me.

Why? Why are we Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.? Why must we diligently sequester ourselves to one group of believers? Where does the dissection of the body of Christ fit into our over churched streets and under reached world at large? Is it possible that we are so consumed with doing church and producing ministry that we have forgotten to BE the church and minister?

That last phrase fits me. Ministry and the act there of has been my identity as long as I can remember. I was going to be a missionary in a hut. I was going to sacrifice as much as I could for the sake of the Gospel. I was willing to work in the trenches of youth ministry, girls home, urban ministry, fill in the dream. Not one of those are wrong or outside of God's heart but the fact that that was my goal IS outside of His heart. How can a bride spout poems about this big love affair she has with the Groom and neglect to actually SEE Him, TALK to Him, and especially MEMORIZE His details. I don't want to get caught up in Christianity and miss CHRIST!

So, I don't want to go to church anymore. I don't want a Sunday to be a place I have to be with things I have to do or to be so filled with obligation that I miss the delight of fellowship and the anticipation to actually seek God.

To me, writing and saying these things feels so much like I did back then when all were waiting for me to sign my name. The disclaimers come like you have to be accountable, how can you be fed, how can you wounds heal without a leader, etc.

True. People avoid church to hide sin. People avoid consistent relationships to live in pretense and seem right. People bounce and stay stagnant and immature in faith.

I argue that people are in church doing the very same thing.

For believers, if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, all of your sins get exposed, all your lies find the light, and all of your faith grows or dies.

This back and forth is mostly for myself but also puts in words what I wish I could explain to my friends. I guess there is a part of me that needs permission to think with my heart and not my head. I'm fully churched. I know all the right answers. I know what I'm supposed to align with but I just can't sign my name to it anymore. My desire is to step away from the coffee table and explore past my comfort zone with God. (Sunday school lesson... don't really want to rabbit trail more than that)

Lord, I commit to YOUR church. She has many steeples and some not at all. She meets inside and out. She sings standing up and sitting down. She dances. She reads prayers. She has a building or a front porch. She has a staff or none at all. She is all of these and more or less. I'm ready to step out of what feels safe to me and what looks right and step beyond to flow and find those who call you Lord. May these words challenge me to again hone in on your still small voice. May you challenge one more life to do the same.

Radio Silence

Do you ever have those moments (or if like me months) where you really don't have much good to say? I mean, it isn't like you haven't had good times or blessed moments but your overall outlook is well... better left unsaid.

Well, if you said no... stop reading now because you won't get it.

Yes folks... keep reading.

I'm not totally out of this valley so the insight I have is very limited but a few things that I have picked up on the way have been pressing in and need to be said.

I've been watching Hoarders. People who know me might laugh (especially if you've helped me move). I'm an avoider hoarder. I've gone through plenty of phases in my life where I've moved over and over again using the dump method: last minute packing where things, papers, trash, whatever get dumped into boxes/containers/bags and moved. As we speak, I'm currently avoiding boxes from my old office (going on 3.5 years ago) and random "organization" attempts gone terribly wrong.

While understanding some of the chronically disorganized thought process, what really struck me was the emotion of the process. As I was tearing up at a family literally being ripped apart because of stuff, the Holy Spirit began downloading some things that I really wasn't expecting to hear.


hoard
   [hawrd, hohrd] Show IPA

–noun
1.
a supply or accumulation that is hidden or carefully guarded for preservation, future use, etc.: a vast hoard of silver. (dictionary.com)


A sudden realization that while the people on the show had an outward display of stockpiled junk, I have an inward one.

Watching these people so trapped in deception and denial walk in tight paths as prisoners in their own home, I realized that I was doing the same thing internally. Where they have trash, clutter, and boxes, I have hurt, anger, and bitterness. I've attached my identity to things that have happened. I know it is trash. I know it is stinky but yet somehow I move it to the side, reshuffle, and keep it for just in case or because I don't know what else to do with it. Deception isn't something that is thinly veiled. It might start that way but like calcium deposits in a pipe, lies create layer upon layer until a full blown clog has settled in.

So many highs and lows. So many disappointments and failures. So many mud holes that weigh you down and draw you deeper and deeper into more despair and heartache.

These wounds have become my treasures. But as a hoarder of these, my eyes were (sometimes still are) unable to see the junk piles for what they were: Trash! It is amazing what we can assimilate to. It is astounding what we can rationalize.


No matter how comfortable and used to our junk, you and I were never made to live in 10% of our life. The problem with unforgiveness, anger, and bitterness is that it takes up precious space. The more we hold onto them, the less space there is for you. The less space there is for other people. The less space there is for you and God to commune. I always thought that whole "don't let the sun go down on your anger" was more like your mom saying "you better have your room cleaned up before I get home". It always felt like a huge task where you kind of get the gist but are left with lots of room for interpretation and are most likely going to procrastinate and or fail at doing it. It can take me weeks to process my feelings let alone work through forgiveness. Am I already in the doghouse with God because I feel hurt and pain?

I'm starting to get another view. I'm starting to see releasing anger as a way to keep your house free. Life is alot like having an 8 year old son. No matter how clean you send him out, he always comes back torn, dirty, and with crazy stuff in his pockets. Everyday, people are dumping stuff off at your house. Drama, judgement, friendship, love, pain, you name it. We are CONSTANTLY bombarded with situations to clutter up our heart. When we release hard feelings, it is like throwing out a box of junk. When we forgive, it is like removing a garbage bag. The sooner we do this, the less rot and decay happens. No matter how hard we strive to look clean, bitterness and unforgiveness will rot and decay and eventually all who come near you will smell it (even if you don't).

A situation today taught me more than I wanted to know. It taught me that I'm not as healed as I thought. I've hidden and pushed down so much into the closets of my heart, that I had actually believed that my house was in order. Someone pulled a string hanging out and the whole closet fell open.

The Holy Spirit will never force your hand or toss your junk for you. He understands that to take control like that would rip and scar you so brutally that you might never recover. Instead, he gives you dignity for shame and victory for defeat. He'll talk you through every box and help you handle every bag. He'll listen to your reasons and he'll hold your hand as you weep over your junk. I don't want to let junk rob me of a clear path. My issues nor my hurt are friends. They are merely trash heaps that have piled up long enough.

I'm not sure that it made it to scripture but I'm very certain that God is the King of Organizing. He supplies our needs and helps declutter the buried alive. We are more than conquerors over this stuff that is piling and rotting.

It is so reassuring that it is not up to me to know what to do. I have no game plan but Jesus. But with every removal, a little bit of path appears. That in and of it self makes the effort worth it.