Stages of Grief/Blogging

Wikipedia, in its article about the stages of grief gives the five commonly known stages that people go through while experiencing grief of all sorts. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Today, while I had a few minutes to catch my breath in the middle of both my busy season at work and my father's decline in health I pondered those stages. Many of you are asking why we are not blogging about the church or our situations as much as we were last year at this time. I realized today that in a lot of ways, the stages of my blogging mirrored the stages in my grief over our church situation. I wonder if many of you are like me too.

In the beginning, there was the denial. I just did not want to believe these people would not turn around and be my friend again. I did not want to believe that they would simply turn away from our leaving without coming to reconcile the seeming dichotomy of what they knew of our lives and what was being said (or not said). I could not believe that if I could figure out the inconsistencies of the doctrine and practice that they would also soon figure it out. Denial was a large part of the beginning of my journey and then my blogging.

Anger. Oh how the anger phase fueled my fingers as they ranted and exposed and cried out for justice. I almost look back on that phase with a bit of longing. I was feeling, thinking, reacting and if nothing else, I felt alive. I tried to "tone it down" because some friends were reading, but trust me, it was born out of the anger I felt for being duped and then in turn duping others as I was their leader. I was just waiting for God to get a clue and straighten them all out and show everyone that we were right!!

I think for me, I skipped right over bargaining to depression. I remember posts that I would weep over. Nights where I would dream of former friends and then spend the next day in a fog. I did not want to do anything. All the pleasures of life were reduced to gray - no color. Even in this phase it fueled the mind to write. I needed to reach out of my pit and at least know that others were around who understood me. You all were great. You reached right back and loved me. I think the time of depression would have lasted much longer with graver consequences if it were not for the online community that I experienced.

The bargaining phase though did pop up here and there. I wanted to offer God something else that might work. I wanted community like I had before. I wanted to belong again. I wanted the "church" to change so that I could belong. I entered a period of wondering how the "church" could be structured so as to prevent any abuse of power. How would we all get together to pray and share and learn?

And then, somewhere in the past few weeks and months I think the last phase has descended. Acceptance. I have learned to accept the place where I am. I have learned to accept my kids, my husband and my friends just as they are. I accept the "church" and realize that while others may go and find a place of community, I will probably not ever be there again. Acceptance that the friends God places around me are the friends that I am to have - no more - no less. Acceptance that the times around my dinner table or out to eat are my church. Acceptance that my kids, their friends and their parents are here for me to love.

Most of all this acceptance phase has decided to accept the path that the Father has seemed to place us on. Maybe we are crazy. Maybe we are hard of heart or even more likely, hard of hearing. But, as much as I may not really love it all of the time, it is where we are.

The thing lately that has brought me peace in this place of acceptance is a memory. When Nathan, (now 14), was born, I distinctly felt that the Father told me that I was to give him a middle name of Dabar. Dabar is a Hebrew word for "a new thing." Of course, back in my old group we were always looking out for the next NEW THING!!! that was just around the corner. I thought maybe he was to be a great leader, prophet, evangelist. But just the other day I was reminded of his name and it made me laugh a bit. What if this "new thing" is the absence of all of the old stuff. What if the Father wants my kids brought up outside the confines of the institutional church? What if He wants to teach them about himself - all by himself - in an organic kind of existence?

I guess I'll never know really. All I know is that today as I look back and evaluate, I am at a place of acceptance like never before. I feel like I have finally sunk to the bottom of a warm ocean, I have sand beneath my feet and I am stable for the first time in a long time. I'm surrounded by the sea of His love. I breathe in the water and am amazed that I can exist in this place with such health.

Not much to write about down here. But it is nice.

Covenant Breaking, Covering Doctrines and Hearing the Voices Again

Grace, at Kingdom Grace today, posted a bit about Covering and what people say when you have a string of bad things that happen to you. It was great fun in the comments as we poked fun at the doctrine and I chimed in with my few cents.

But this is a serious matter people. I still am reeling from this doctrine. I think it has been the hardest one to extract myself from.

See the other day I decided to do a piece on the practice we had in my old ‘church’ of making covenants. In leaving our group we were to have “broken covenant’ with all the people there. So I was going to write about what covenants are and aren’t and how this doctrine was used to keep people from questioning and leaving our group. I wanted to remember all that was preached so I went onto our old church website (now under a new name) and found the latest sermon on Covenants.

Sure enough there had been one preached in June of this year. As I listened I grew more and more disheartened. Covenant breakers were the evil that the Church needed to purge. They were the reason the harvest of souls were blocked. Those who broke covenant had marriages that had failed, children doing drugs and rebellion, insanity promised and the onslaught of homosexuality and other sins that attached themselves to you.

I knew what was being preached was garbage but then my weekend unfurled. I battled with a daughter over a decision that was going to hurt her – a decision that would have been harder to make had she surrounded herself with Christian friends. Then on Monday, TWO TRUCKS in my business broke down. One had the axle (or something connected to the wheels) actually fall out of the truck. Then an irate customer who was threatening to sue my company for something she perceived we had done. By the end of the day I was exhausted.

But more than that….I was hearing the voices again. “All this has happened because you are a covenant breaker.” “If you were in the ‘church’ you would be protected.” “God knows what you have been writing and thinking and talking with people about. You have talked ill of the brothers and therefore all these things are being allowed to happen.”

I was so mad at myself. I was ashamed to admit that I still heard these things in my head. I was flabbergasted that this man’s voice could silence the truth that I knew to be true.

So….no big ending here. I am more sane today. Best Friend spoke truth to me, Husband reminded me of times that were even worse – while still in the system, an adopted daughter laughed with me at myself, Grace’s post made me laugh too and another friend made me question what is still in my heart that I don’t really believe about God that shows itself when things like this happen.

I guess I just write to let you know that the journey takes a couple of steps backwards every now and then. I think that I’m not the only one who struggles so don’t despair when you find yourself having to deal with it again.

Broken on the Political Front

As I listen in on the political front I have decided that something is deeply broken in me.

I don’t trust leadership right now - church or state. The hurts of the church have gone deeper than religion. They effect how I view the world and thusly how I view men and women in the world that want to be my political leaders. Ms. Palin might be a very wonderful woman....but I have seen very wonderful women do very horrible things to protect the things that are valuable to them. Mr. Obama might be a captivating speaker but I have sat under captivating speakers before who spoke what turned out to be outright lies.

I wasn’t always this way. I trusted the government to take care of my family when I was a child - my dad was in the military. This breeds a deep trust in your government. I trusted my church and their teachings growing up through my teens and 20’s. That was destroyed but I just thought I had bought into the wrong brand. So I trusted again. I trusted our ‘church’s’ leaders. I trusted their teachings, their vision and their professed love for me, my family and our ‘church’ body. That did not work out so well…

I have seen firsthand what the desire for power and prestige does to a person. Heck, it just occurred to me that I have been that person. It is not so very far away to the core of who I am.

You take a man (or woman) add power, throw in a bunch of money and prestige, shake, and I am left with the bitter drink of distrust.

So I think that is why I am having such a hard time. I believe no one. I trust no organization. I can’t even start to believe that what they say now really reflects what they will do later or what they even believe in their hearts. Sound bites do not reveal the heart and motives. I want to believe them as I hear them speak…but something in me warns me again that I cannot always trust what I see. Great orators have deceived men for ages.

Add that to the fact that I don’t believe that I can start to understand the world in such a way that I could make informed decisions on the basis of my present knowledge - as limited as that is. Our world is too complex. When you think you understand and grasp an issue - there is a corresponding result in another quadrant that you didn’t even see. I don’t have the time to become a political science major. And even if I were an expert in a field such as that or economics or government - who’s to say I would have been taught a true and balanced perspective?

I understand why someone would be a one issue voter - whether it be abortion or the environment or health. Please don’t make fun of these people. Maybe that is all they have confidence in their own intellect for.

I know who I’m voting for. It’s not that. It is just that I don’t trust them, or anyone, anymore. And I really don’t like that about myself.

This is going to be a long few weeks for me.

One For The Leavers - From Abmo

Abmo at Windblown Hope has been blogging one year today. I started to leave him a comment on how instrumental he has been in our lives and it got so long that I decided to post it here. This will give new readers an idea of why he is on my reader list.

Dear Abmo,

On December 12th of last year I left a comment and asked you to TELL ME HOW TO LIVE THIS LIFE!! I was frustrated, running out of hope and didn't know where to turn. I wanted to know what was next. You emailed me back these 7 questions and said the following:

"It is unfortunate that I cannot "show" you how we live or what we do. On the other side it is fortunate that I cannot "show" you. This is a struggle that is meant for you alone. Like Jacob (Gen 32:24) it is a wrestle with God in the dark. BUT I can give you hints in the form of questions that you can mull over in this time...:-)

1)Who is Jesus FOR YOU? What do you know of His character? What did He struggle with? Is He as fickle as us? Does He change? What is His love like? What can you do in order to make Him love you more?

2)If you were the only person on this planet, what would your relationship with Jesus look like? What would you "do" for Him? Could you do anything for Him? What does your relationship with Him look like?

3)Who are you? Have you made peace with yourself? Are you a loved person?.....by Jesus. Are you a liked person?.....by Jesus. What does surrender look like? I like the word "brokenness". Can you tell me why?

4)Time. Is God in a hurry? Is every moment holy? Is there a thing such as a time away from God? Do you have to meet people once a week to develop a special bond with them?

5)What does your everyday life look like? Mundane/ordinary? Is God present in the mundane/ordinariness of your life? He came to set the captives free. Free from what?

6)What is the church? (What you know of church has to die completely).

7)Our struggle is usually between right and wrong. Is there a third option?

A lot of questions. Some answers take a long time to be born. When it is time. Give yourself time. I will be praying for the scary part.

As I look over these questions today, I realize that only through the Father addressing each of these questions in His own time allows me to be who and where I am today. Thank you for not giving my husband and me a plan to follow or even your journey to emulate. Instead you gave the most important questions I have had posed to me - ever - in my life. They were the questions that seemed to be on the heart of the Father to answer in our lives. They were insightful and prophetic. I kept the email and check back to it almost monthly to see what Father has been teaching me about them.

I am grateful to have been able to read along on the window that you (and your wife) have provided. I have benefited so much from your encouragement. I remain grateful.

Barb

The Journey Together

OK, I’m ready to write again. I wasn’t sure I was going to be. Let me explain.

See….. after the last post on God not keeping a list Marshall (Husband) got really concerned for me. He was worried that I was going off into a bit of a ditch and not seeing the whole picture of God. (I’m not going to give his reasons for what he was thinking because that is not really the point of this post. Maybe we will explore that in another post or two as I try and deal with some of his questions about Grace and who God is.)

I listened kindly to his concerns. He was not harsh with me, just concerned that the ditch I was headed toward would become a path away from the truth of the Father – a path he could not walk with me. I totally saw some of the things that I was missing and understood his heart.

I walked away, though, with the wind completely blown out of my sails. I was ready to quit. So many times I just completely go with an idea without addressing the obvious questions that it should bring up. I’m not brilliant at all. I deal with what is right in front of me. I tend to hear something and just jump in with both feet and my mind on auto pilot. Marsh is not that way and so I scare him a bit (a lot) from time to time. So for the past few days I have just cleaned my house, caught up paper work in the business and let the blogging rest a bit. Again, he has been concerned for me. He did not want his actions to result in silencing me.

And the final truth is this: He doesn’t want to end my journey or discovery – just walk it with me.

What is important here in this post is the question of how you walk this journey of faith together as a husband and wife. When we left our “church” and I started questioning everything that I believed, I researched a lot online. It was there that I found stories of many men and women who were not “on the same page” as each other in this journey. One wanted the institution, one didn’t. One was so hurt and mad at God that they had virtually no relationship with Him and the other still wanted to walk with Him. I read of an author who turned away from her husband’s God to follow after other gods. Lately, I read the heartbreak of Michael (I Monk) and his wife and his angst of her decision to walk after God into another religion entirely – one he felt he could not follow.

I don’t want to be one of those couples. I want our lives to be filled with harmony in all the areas of our lives. I’m not judging the journeys of those I mentioned in the last paragraph I just don’t want to live the rest of my married life on separate pages spiritually. I want to walk together with Marshall. I want that walk in every area of our lives - in our finances, in our decisions we make about our kids, in our sexual lives and in our lives with Father.

Now that does not mean that I have to be a clone of what he believes. It only means that as we decide something say in the area of finances, we can do the same in what we are choosing to believe about God or our walk with Him. We can come to the table with the question. See all what we can both see in the factors that need to influence our decision. Sometimes come to an agreement. Sometimes agree to disagree. But the decision to include each other in this process and then walk as one is crucial. It does not mean we will come to the same decisions about God and what He is like or what the Scriptures say about a subject. It does mean that we have not left each other behind and are still walking together.

Has this been an issue with those who read here? Some of you have alluded to it. Would love to hear what your husbands or wives are thinking about what you write. How do you communicate with each other about what you are posting/thinking about?

Free Falling In Life

Tracy at The Best Parts has a series on my favorite book (at the moment) Families Where Grace is in Place, by Jeff VanVonderen. Please go over and read the past few posts and then buy the book. It has been a paradigm shift for me as I re-evaluate my past parenting and marriage and what I want to become in the future.

One part of his book that still has me thinking is the whole idea of what and who we are on the inside and what and who we pack onto the outer core of ourselves that people see.

He addresses it like this (my paraphrase). You have two children. Both children do not really yet know that they are loved by Father (God). Both children are empty on the inside and long to be validated. They both long for belonging. They are both lost. But one child packs on “good behavior.” They get good grades, go to church, are the leader in their youth group, don’t smoke or drink, wear dress up clothes without screaming, and would never think of marriage outside another church kid. The other child packs on “bad behaviors.” They dress Goth, listen to the wrong kinds of music, hang out with “undesirables,” won’t play by any of your rules, bad grades and all the rest.

VanVonderen asks us, which child needs loved, needs God and needs to shed all the outer lining of their lives and become real to know Father in his Love and Grace? Both children are headed toward the same place of emptiness. One just looks better getting there. We are so much more at ease with the first child than we are with the second. (I realize that some of this is because the child with good behavior will not have to face the same consequences as the child with bad behavior.) But the point is – both children are empty inside and need love and need to know that Father loves them. Only then will the outer shell truly reflect who and what they are and healing will be able to happen.

I understand this. I even like this. But I hate living with this. Here’s how:

I feel like I have no measuring stick. No way to determine if my kids are doing well or not. No way to know how to accurately judge anyone else let alone know how to even judge my own heart. It is a free falling feeling with no base or ground. Only God really knows their heart or mine. I, on the other hand, have only the exterior to figure out how someone is doing and now I can’t use that measurement in the way I've been accustomed.

I can’t describe to you the sheer, unnerving frustration of not having any way to measure myself or others (Note: not that I'm saying it ever really worked). In my kids’ lives, if they were doing well – we basically left them alone and felt good about them and ourselves (but sometimes only to find out that they really weren’t doing well at all inside – where it counted). The child with bad behavior got the attention but only to attempt to get them to exchange bad behavior for good behavior. We knew only God could change their hearts but it did not make us stop trying to pack good behavior onto their outer self. I was still sure that right choices would produce a right heart. “Do right, Feel right,” was my motto.

But now that all “rules” are falling off - now that I am exploring walking with Grace, I find it unnerving to lack of a set of parameters to assure myself that all is well. How do I evaluate my own heart today? Am I OK? Should I be doing something more? Less? Am I learning to trust Him today? Should I pray for this or that? And how about my kids? How do I help them “walk with God?” For instance, how do I decide if a man is right for their lives? A year ago this man had a very, very narrow door to fit through to be deemed appropriate for my daughters. Now, what do I judge it by?

Being a Pharisee was so much easier. Now don’t start yelling…I know it wasn’t really but it did give a false sense of security that I found attractive and addicting. A false sense of security that I wrapped around myself with a sigh of relief. The law made me feel more secure. I knew what I had to do, I knew what others needed to do and I knew how to determine if we were winning or loosing.

Now that the false security blanket of Law and Rules is gone – it feels so…..out there. I’m free falling and I don’t have a clue. I hope the “Whoever” that packed my parachute was trustworthy and being particularly careful. He promised He would be. If not, there is going to be a terrible mess.

Picture from here. I loved that there was a community falling together. I think ultimately that is what everyone has been talking about the past few days.

Drifting

Isn't this how you feel somedays?



The tags I added to this post say it all. Doubts, Faith, Fear, Father's love, Shunning, Trust, Depression. They are all with me in my little tub.



I've always seen the ocean as the vastness of God and his love for me. So actually this is a peaceful picture to me. Lonely but peaceful.

(comic by xkcd)

Prophetic Words - The Shaking Continues

Bill Hamon (one the main men in the New Apostolic Reformation movement) just posted a new prophetic word on the Elijah List yesterday. You can read the whole prophecy here.

In the prophecy he gives dates of the start of the third (and final) apostolic reformation. He even uses Daniel and the weeks and years to explain how he ends up at the right year. The year of 2008 is when he believes history will look back and declare the beginning of the Apostolic Reformation Age. Of course he is urging you to come together with him at his conference in March to see how to best align yourselves for this coming move.

The purpose seems chilling to me as he says here: This Reformation will bring about a paradigm shift in the goal and purpose of the Church. Most Evangelical and Pentecostal theologians see no purpose for the Church other than to win more souls to Christ so they are made ready for Heaven. Now we are receiving revolutionary, reformed thinking from the heart and mind of God. The expanded goal and vision of the Third Reformation Church is to co-labor with Christ in His passionate desire for the fulfillment of Revelation 11:15:
"...there were loud voices in Heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!'"
......It is the time to give all of our life and labor to be co-workers together with Christ in demonstrating and enforcing His Kingdom in all the earth. We will not cease until we can join the voices in Heaven victoriously, declaring that the kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdoms of our Lord Jesus and His anointed one, the Church.

(is it just me or do the words, "enforcing His Kingdom," scare you a little?)

What I want to know is why does something like this still rattle me? I read it today and cannot shake an effect it had on me. I feel that in so many ways, I start at ground zero and begin to question everything I have been through and learned in the past 10 months. I hear voices of, “what if I’m wrong.” “How can so many men be prophesying a false message? What if I’m messing with God’s stuff?” And to my shame I even have to battle the voice that asks if I’m committing the unpardonable sin of ascribing to man or the enemy that which is of God.

I know better. I can go through this prophecy and pick out the parts that scripture at least leaves it completely open to interpretation where there is no final word from itself what it means. I know that not EVERYONE on the planet is thinking this way. I know that even good men can prophesy wrong. I know, I know, I know!!!!

Then why do I not know? What is wrong with me?

The Power of Words

"We were told words had power and speaking them aloud gave them a foothold into your life and would keep you in bondage." my daughter writing about the Power of Words.

My daughter has just begun blogging. I have been encouraging her to do this for some time now. It has helped me so much to get my thoughts and feelings down on paper where I can see them. In addition, your reading and commenting have made me feel like I am not as crazy as I might have thought.

I have told her that I want her to keep it personal and not give me (or anyone who actually knows her) the website. I think it is really important for her to be able to say anything that she wants to say without wondering what I or others around her will think or say. But, I added, “If you want me to read a particular post, just email me a copy of what you posted.”

She did today and it blew me away. She was writing about the power that words have and how she has noticed that since she has begun actually voicing her emotions and hurts it has allowed her to gain some space and freedom in her head.

You see in our old church, we were told that words have power over you and your heart. You could, “speak things into being,” or “ruin your destiny” by what you spoke over your life. Some, in the church believed in never affirming a diagnosis of a doctor aloud or else, by your words, you would empower the affliction to become even stronger in your body. Even those that did not go that far still preached about how words could either ruin you and your walk with God or empower you to live the "Victorious Christian Life”. (Why can I not say that last line without hearing Sponge Bob Square Pants "hall monitor" voice in my head?)

Now, I know that there is some nugget of truth in the fact that the spoken word does have an effect in our lives. For instance, I believe that someone who is constantly telling themselves that they are a failure has little hope of being a success. Someone who constantly tells themselves that everyone hates them will end up having very few friends. But somehow, in the middle of those truths, some craziness crept in. We were told not to voice dissension or disagreement with the leaders or else it would poison our lives and lead to rebellion. We were discouraged to voice our doubts about why healing did not always work for fear that it would impact our faith for that healing.

Here is how daughter describes it;

Maybe that's why this tactic was used. To further keep the congregation silent, unsure and ashamed of themselves - a brainwashing of sorts so that no one ever spoke against the pastor (because that was giving a spirit of division power over your life). So we were all kept silent and ashamed of even the thoughts that were whirling around in our minds. We ignored them if we could, and if we ever got so frustrated that we did try to confront the leadership about something, we didn't have anything to say. We had never gotten our thoughts in line enough to make a solid argument. We just looked like emotional fools and their points on thoughts and words giving power to the enemy were only reinforced by our behavior. Wow, what an effective lie.The real power of words is that they hold truth. Not truth as in "this is what is good and right" but truth to what is actually going on. If you are feeling hate or rage or are frustrated, or doubtful, or angry, or regretful, it's ok to say so and not be ashamed or afraid of the fact. I think this will take me a while to learn though. So far every blog I've posted has been accompanied by guilt and fear of saying this stuff aloud. I didn't want to write for so long because I was ashamed or afraid that by doing so, it would only strengthen the doubts and fears and weaknesses that I did have. That I would be giving them power over my life and worst of all, I feared that I would be judged for being so messed up.

But the opposite has happened. With every post I feel more real. I feel more at peace. It is like I'm giving my flaws skin, and space to breathe, and they are healing for the first time in my life instead of compounding and burrowing themselves deeper into my body. I admit to them being messy and ugly when I first let them emerge (my mom can attest to that), but the healing that they undergo after that, leaves them unrecognizably ok.

For those of you who don’t know my daughter or me personally and want to follow along as she writes, please email me at the address at the top of my blog page with your email address and I will forward it on to her and she can give you her blog address. I especially encourage those of you who have had children hurt by the church to follow along or encourage your kids to read too. Beware; it might be very raw and not pretty. But it will be real and hopefully, the words written and spoken will result in healing.

WWJDWTC.....Or….Walking Into The Unknown

(PLEASE NOTE #1: Right off….for those who hate the whole – What Would Jesus Do – theme, bracelets, jewelry, bumper stickers and way of thinking…..I’m right there with you. I’m smart enough to realize that I have NO idea what Jesus would do in any situation. I’m enough of a Pharisee at heart to realize that if Jesus walked through my door today he would probably shock, disturb and stretch me and if I were not careful, humble and teachable; I may eventually want to put him to death.)

That said; Let me tell you why I am participating in a syncroblog entitled; What Would Jesus Do... With The Church. Erin invited those of us who have been looking at the church to spend a month and DO some of the things that we feel the church is not doing. Go here to see the guidelines for this and please participate.

There are two other reasons I am participating.

Best Friend said something to me the other day. She reads my blog hesitantly. I say hesitantly because she is super sensitive to all the negativity that many feel during this time. See, the reason she is my best friend is because she is able to look beyond my faults and sin and annoying bits of personality and actually love me. The only problem with that is that she is able to do that to everyone. Even those who hurt her desperately. So, knowing those that I sometimes write about is a source of hurt for her if she senses that I do not love them in the same way she is able. She misunderstood something that I and another commentator said the other day and told me that, at some time, those of us who had left the church would need to get on with their lives and just live. Even though she misunderstood what I had said, I took what she said and chewed on it. Did I need to move on?

The last thing that happened was something that Wayne Jacobsen said. I was listening to his series on his website called Transitions. He was speaking of sins and those things that we are addicted to. He said that our obsession with anything other than this life in Jesus, is bondage. Our desire and involvement IN sin can be bondage but so also can our desire and involvement to be OUT of sin. Whatever ties up our hearts other than walking each day with and in the love of Father can be bondage. What I felt the Spirit saying was this - being in bondage to leaving a church system and focusing only on that is just as damaging as being in bondage to the system in the first place.

Let me explain, here is the picture I get. Last May, my family and I were in a terrible wreck. (This wreck was all that happened when we left our church.) Everyone involved, everyone, walked away with injuries. Those on each side were affected. It was a terrible wreck. Nothing is or will be the same.

I was not prepared for this wreck. I had no back-up plans. I had not decided to leave with a direction in mind. I had no other transportation ready in case of a wreck. I was left, standing on the side of the road just looking at this mess.

I hate wrecks. I hate that so many had gone before me and experienced the same things. I hated that I had looked the other way and not stopped to help them. I hated that I had blamed them for having the wreck. I hated that I was so much to blame.

I found others who had experienced wrecks just like mine. They were and are invaluable voices for me. They assured me that the injuries I had sustained were not just my own sin. They gave me hope that, in time, the memories of the wreck and those involved would fade. I was grateful.

I did leave the scene of the wreck for a while to ask some people to forgive me. But you need to understand….I had no idea what to do next. Do I look for another means of transportation for me and my family? Even if we found one, where were we to go? Could I ever trust another driver or another mode of transportation? Were we even supposed to have these contraptions that we (the church) travel in?

I started to evaluate everything. Were we supposed to be in this kind of transportation to begin with? What about those who designed the transportation that caused the wreck? Were they to be held accountable? Were there any new designs that would protect us for future wrecks? How about the big transportation companies - the ones who kept producing types of transportation for all kinds of people and the wrecks that they caused? Could we change them? Could we get them to see our point? Was it only the drivers of these vehicles or was it the vehicles themselves? Maybe it was just the direction they were traveling. Maybe if we just went another direction then the wrecks would be eliminated. What really did the original authors mean when they described the modes of transportation that they used? How about we just tweak the accessories on the transporting vehicles? Would that make it better? Maybe different tires, different windshield wipers, different brake systems, different air bags, different forms of fuel. There was so much to evaluate. I could stay here forever.

At Watchman’s View From the Wall’s on What Was That All About, I wrote in the comments last week that it is easier to look backwards and evaluate than it is to walk away into the nothingness of not knowing. In some ways, I have walked away from the wreck but I find that I have walked away backwards, with the wreck always in my sight. And in many ways, I have not walked away at all but only circled it. Kevin says at the end of this very timely article for my life that, “Change can’t occur until we get tired of staying in the same place.” Brilliant stuff huh?

So this month, and hopefully from this point on, I am going to purposely walk away. It is not that I will never look at it again. If it helps someone else to look at my wreck or theirs, I will.

But I need to walk into this nothingness and find out if Jesus, if the Church is really there.

Here is my overall, very simple commitment for the month:
I am going to ask Father at least once a day to show me what he is doing around me that day. If he shows me and if I can be involved I plan to try to act on it.

I have two concrete plans:
One is to make an effort to meet other believers. I have one that Father has urged me to ask out for coffee and I plan to do that this week. I have a few others that He as asked me to make appointments with to see what their lives are involved in now. I will call this week to make those appointments.

The other plan is to go and sit with those who want to be loved. My daughter works at a downtown, late night diner. Many of her friends, who came by our home when she lived here, work there also. They know me. I’m going to go down once a week or so and drink a cup of coffee and see if Father is doing anything among them. It will mean being out after 11:00 one night a week. But I like coffee. And I love these kids.

That is my plan. I will update the blog this month as I walk away. You are invited to read along with me and I hope to also participate.

Please let me know in the comments if you read my blog and are going to participate. I would like to also keep up with your stories.

PLEASE NOTE #2: Father has us each on our own timetable. This happened just when I needed it. Do not participate out of guilt. I could not have done this last month. You may just need to read along and be encouraged for the time when Father asks you to walk away too. The day will come.

PLEASE NOTE #3: If you feel called to look at the way we do church and evaluate it, please do not take this post as a judgment on what you are doing. I am grateful to you who are doing this. I just don't think that this is my platform for right now. There are better and brighter minds out there already working on this. They don’t really need me.

The kids at the diner do though.

Living His Life

Depression

I’m going to be honest here.

For the past month or two I have, for the first time that I remember, dealt with depression. No, that is not entirely true….I am depressed. (See how in just a few words we can distance ourselves from what we consider “wrong” in some way and make it sound so much better?).

I admit it. I exhibit all the signs of it. I checked. Everything is so easy to find nowadays on this thing called the Internet. Actually I did not have to look it up. I just knew it.

I’m sad. I cry a lot. I have lost a lot of desire to do much of anything that I found satisfying before. I’m dreaming a lot when I do sleep. I dream constantly about running into different members from my CLB. When I don’t sleep I am besieged by thousands of thoughts. What if? What about? Why? What can I do? What will they do? What will they say? I swing from anger and then back to compassion and then to sadness and then to numbness with startling quickness.

It is hard to admit depression. It would be easier to admit it much later, after, hopefully I have figured out what exactly is wrong with me and “conquered” it. But I need to admit it now.

But you know what? I can hear the voices screaming in my head how wrong it is to feel this way. Some of them sound a lot like my own as I have leveled some of these words at others. Voices that say things like:

Just be happy for crying out loud.
You need to get your head wrapped around the “truth” of the Word
Just get up, take a shower, put on your makeup and you’ll feel better.
Just set up a time with me and we will pray against this spirit of depression.
If you would just get back into fellowship with the believers in our church you would feel better.
Of course you are depressed. Look at your giving. God is not blessing you.
Maybe if you spend some time, early in the morning, in prayer and connecting with God, you'll be better.
You say he is depressed? Well of course, he broke covenant with our body and is now out there all on his own.
You just need to speak the Word. God’s promises will not return void.
Get under our covering and God will rebuke this demon of depression.
We have been given the spirit of an overcomer. You can do this.
We have a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind so if we are truly walking with God the spirit of a sound mind it will keep away any depression.
Don’t hang around people who are depressed. You will start to believe that the gospel does not work. They will steal your faith.
Depression is a sign of a very unstable person. Certainly not mature in the things of God.

Shall I shut them up now? You get my point.

I’m sorry Daughter….many of these were leveled at you. Please forgive me.

One of the funny things about living in this kind of toxic church belief system is that for some it was the CHURCH that caused their depression. Or at least what we were teaching in the church. Did we ever step back and say, “Oh, my God, what might we be doing that is causing this person to struggle like this.” Would that have been a good question to ask ourselves?

Another reason it is hard to admit being depressed is because if my old CLB ever heard that I was struggling with depression right now they would have been given the match to light the wood stacked at my feet. It would prove just how wrong and unstable and full of demons that I now am. My one ray of light has been Husband, who has been so patient with my tears and crazy – unlike me – behavior. He has said time and time again, “Honey, you are right where God wants you. He has something to teach you and show you about yourself and him.” I don’t know what I would have done with anyone less understanding. Best Friend and one or two others have also been so encouraging and not judgmental in this whole process

But then yesterday I looked onto my computer and read a bit of what someone else is going through. Heidi at Live With Desire was one of the first people that gave me hope that I was not crazy in coming out of our CLB. Monday, she again did that for me. In her Thoughts About Depression she says some simply amazing things. Please, please take the time to read it.

If you have ever struggled with depression, or are depressed now please read her post.

If you have never struggled with depression – you too need to read it. It will keep you from saying all the stupid things above and wounding people even more.

Thanks Heidi…And Husband….And Best Friend….And all the friends who now surround me. Your grace to me is amazing.

Faith With Her Sleeves Rolled Up

I love reading others' thoughts. You never know where Father will feed you from next.

I got this piece from a blogger that I am reading - Redemption Junkie. Heidi Renee got it from a blogger named Max Hsu. I don't know who he is and have never been to his site (except for this post) but these two paragraphs have captured something in my heart the past few days that have kept me coming back to read it again and again. I am assuming that he wrote it. He writes:

Eventually we will walk into the light

Hope and faith seem related, but faith is the one who stays when hope has left with a whimper. When hope gives up, faith rolls up her sleeves and asks; " What needs to be done?". Faith is the strong one. Faith does not have the luxury of self pity and despondent despair. Faith is what makes us put pen to paper when we feel like we have nothing left to say and there is no ink in our proverbial pen. Faith pushes on when hope flees. Doubt is hope's other face and who knows what face will show up because hope and doubt are flip sides of an emotion.

Faith is knowledge and action and faith remembers that we've seen hard times before and that in those hard times our needs were met and the water flowed and we had what we needed when we needed it. Faith knows what hope forgets. Faith is what enables us to become more than we are because faith is belief in action. Faith and courage are the true cousins. While we may doubt that we can cross the desert, faith knows that we can take the step we need to take today and that with enough steps, eventually we will walk into the light.

Create and live in faith.

I just love the words that when hope gives up, faith rolls up her sleeves and asks: "What needs to be done."

Another blogger was talking about faith on his blog the other day (John Carnes - Notes From the Journey) He was discussing the passage where Jesus was rebuking the disciples for their lack of faith. He points out that it was in response to their question to Jesus of, "Teacher don't you care that we drown?" that Jesus tells them they have little faith. Could it have been Jesus saying to them, "Don't you even have enough faith to know that I care for you?" (I have always understood it to mean that Jesus was ticked that they did not have enough faith to calm the waves and perform the miraculous - things that I usually suck at and thus felt guilty for not having enough faith.....sigh....it was such hard work being 'church lady')

So when I see the words that Faith says - "What needs to be done?" I realize that much of her job is to help me walk into the light that Father really does care for me - even amidst the waves and uncertainty of this life.

And maybe, if I absolutely know that He loves me - no matter what - I will maybe even - sometimes - be able to rest in this love and perform the miraculous.

Drive By Random Doubting

For the past few days, actually a couple of weeks, I have been having “second thoughts” that on occasion blast through my mind and try to shake my peace. Like "drive by doubting." They drive by, blast their ideas into my mind and leave me with holes to mend. Those in our old church (CLB) would point their finger and say, “See, we told you they would start to come to their senses.” I don’t believe that though. I realize that doubts are not a bad thing. It is only harmful if you suppress those doubts and pretend like they don’t exist. I was an expert in this field just a mere 4 months ago.

I wanted to start and maintain this blog for one reason. I wanted to have another story out there where someone could happen upon it and realize that they were not alone – that someone else was going through something similar. This helped me so much in the first few months of leaving our CLB. The ones who went before me were so honest. Their honesty helped me – even when they posted about their doubts. So today is about doubting our decision. I hope it helps someone else know that it is part of this process…at least for me.

I don’t want anyone to think that once we made our decision, there were no other doubts or thoughts or emotions that wanted to call into question our decision. The truth, at least for me, is far from that. There are times when I wonder, “What in the heck did we just do?” “Are we crazy?”

Listed below are some of the thoughts I have encountered in the past few weeks in a messy and random stream as thoughts often are.

What did we just do to our lives?

I want everything to just go back to the way it was. I want lots and lots of friends. I want to feel useful. I want to be busy. I want to feel as if I belong.

How am I going to make any friends at all outside of going to a service at least once a week to meet people?

I am not helping anyone “build the Kingdom of God.” I am not doing anything significant.

Are my kids going to be ok? How will they have friends that are good for them?

I feel like I am just treading water. What should we do now?

Who are we going to invite to my daughters wedding next year? What once was to be a huge gathering of friends is whittled down to a few. They have known her all her life. We were to share these things.

I hate to call people on the phone. How am I ever going to connect with people without that one or two services a week?

It is coming up on 3 months and there are women I would love to talk to. Should I call them? Should I ask their permission to call them? What if they won’t talk to me or their husbands won’t let them talk to me?

Should we start to do something more “formal” for our family on Sundays? Sometimes I hate the “non-structure” of this whole time.

Should we visit other churches?

Why isn’t God saying something? Why isn’t He instantly filling our hands with stuff to do? Don’t we need to be ministering? Building?

Can you hear the panic start to rise?

Of course it only takes a few minutes before reasoning sets in.

I know I can’t go back. I don’t really want to. I know that in all those years of “building the Kingdom” what was really happening on my part was not really that. I know I could never fit in again. I can’t even listen to Christian radio without cringing sometimes. I can’t go back and not question. I can’t be one of the followers who doesn’t make waves. I know I am in a process of the Father. I know I need to wait right now. I really am ok.

But today, I wanted you to see that you were not alone in your doubts. I’m sure you will feel this way too sometimes. If you don’t – good for you. It must be nice to be you where truth triumphs over feelings.

I’m not that way - at least not yet.

In closing, can I share with you something that I read this morning? It is from Inward/Outward. It brings truth, which for the moment, brings peace and helps to heal up the holes.

Trust in the Slow Work of God
By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are, quite naturally,

impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the wayto something unknown, something new,

and yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability - and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,

let them shape themselves,

without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today

what time (that is to say, grace and

circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make them tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of

feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Speaking of Brokenness

In my browsing today and in light of what I wrote the other day, (Good Enough To Lead?), please check out this article from The Internet Monk entitled, "When I Am Weak."

It will bring reality to your Sunday.

In case you don't have time to read the whole article, let me paste here a few paragraphs.

Indeed. Why are we, after all that confident talk of "new life," "new creation," "the power of God," "healing," "wisdom," "miracles," "the power of prayer," ...why are we so weak? Why do so many "good Christian people," turn out to be just like everyone else? Divorced. Depressed. Broken. Messed up. Full of pain and secrets. Addicted, needy and phony. I thought we were different.

It's remarkable, considering the tone of so many Christian sermons and messages, that any church has honest people show up at all. I can't imagine that any religion in the history of humanity has made as many clearly false claims and promises as evangelical Christians in their quest to say that Jesus makes us better people right now. With their constant promises of joy, power, contentment, healing, prosperity, purpose, better relationships, successful parenting and freedom from every kind of oppression and affliction, I wonder why more Christians aren't either being sued by the rest of humanity for lying or hauled off to a psych ward to be examined for serious delusions.

And later in the article,

We need our brokenness. We need to admit it and know it is the real, true stuff of our earthly journey in a fallen world. It's the cross on which Jesus meets us. It is the incarnation he takes up for us. It's what his hands touch when he holds us. Do you remember this story? It's often been told, but oh how true it is as a GOSPEL story (not a law story.) It is a Gospel story about Jesus and how I experience him in this "twisted" life.

In his book Mortal Lessons (Touchstone Books, 1987) physician Richard Selzer describes a scene in a hospital room after he had performed surgery on a young woman's face: I stand by the bed where the young woman lies . . . her face, postoperative . . . her mouth twisted in palsy . . . clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, one of the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be that way from now on. I had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh, I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut this little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to be in a world all their own in the evening lamplight . . . isolated from me . . .private.

Who are they? I ask myself . . . he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously. The young woman speaks. "Will my mouth always be like this?" she asks. "Yes," I say, "it will. It is because the nerve was cut." She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. "I like it," he says, "it's kind of cute." All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with the divine. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers. . . to show her that their kiss still works.

This is who Jesus has always been. And if you think you are getting to be a great kisser or are looking desirable, I feel sorry for you. He wraps himself around our hurts, our brokenness and our ugly, ever-present sin. Those of you who want to draw big, dark lines between my humanity and my sin, go right ahead, but I'm not joining you. It's all ME. And I need Jesus so much to love me like I really am: brokenness, memories, wounds, sins, addictions, lies, death, fear....all of it. Take all it, Lord Jesus. If I don't present this broken, messed up person to Jesus, my faith is dishonest, and my understanding of it will become a way of continuing the ruse and pretense of being "good."

Good reading for a Sunday Morning - Especially for Church Lady.

Blogging Anonymously

Why do I blog anonymously?

This question was asked the other day on my Person Formerly Known as Your Leader. She said, “If this is a confession, why is it anonymous?”

I answered her in a vague but unsatisfying paragraph or two but the question has really been bugging me. I have left. They cannot do anything more than dislike me or my opinions that I hold more than they do now. So why do I still not want to go on record as saying that all this is wrong?

Let me just talk for a while, maybe I’ll figure something out in the writing.

Our leaving is still very fresh. It was only in the middle of March that I started to really look at some things in Scripture. Up to that point I was not questioning anything except some behavior that I thought was just fleshly. Even then, I was still under the impression that God had to deal with that in my leaders.

During the month of March and into April I became convinced that we were in a very toxic church. BUT I still didn’t believe that we (my husband and myself) could really be right about it. It was like there were two halves of my brain. One that understood that we were in a bad situation, the other half still didn’t want to believe or leave and was afraid that I was missing something. I tried over and over to convince my husband that somehow we were the ones who were “maybe” deceived. If I did not keep the list up (the facts of what all was really, really wrong) in front of me, I would fall back into thinking that we might somehow be in the wrong. . I would swing between total conviction and anger at them at how awful it all was, to defending them, all in an afternoon. Some days I wanted to take out a full page add in the local paper and some days I was trying my hardest to find any flaw in my husband’s attitude or thinking. This drove my husband crazy. At one point, late one night he said to me. “Honey, you remind me of a woman who has an abusive husband. He beats her every week. She knows he should not hurt her, but when she is confronted with his abuse by anyone else, she makes excuses that somehow she is the one in the wrong.” He said, “Someday you will have to admit that we are not the ones who are wrong here.”

I remember crying that night because I knew he was right. I had protected these people for so long, had made excuses for their behavior and had actually aided them for so long that I could not get my mind around the fact that I was not somehow in the wrong and had no right to say that they were wrong. But why did I still feel like it was wrong to stand up and say stop? Why does that feeling still linger. Why do I blog anonymously?

It was not until we actually looked at them in the eye and told them that we were leaving, told them that we were not afraid of loosing our destinies, told them that we were not afraid of all the bad things happening to us, told them that we were not afraid that our kids would run off to heathenville and ruin their lives, that I could stand up and say to them, “No you are wrong.” That was a very freeing moment.

But even that is still new to me. If I am honest with myself, I think I am still afraid. It was never ok to question the leaders in public. It was never ok to appear disloyal. It was never ok to “touch God’s anointed.” I’m still wrestling through these if not mentally than emotionally.

I know if those from my CLB (church left behind) ever found this webblog they would say it shows my deception because I do not use my own name. Yet if I did, they would say it shows my deception to publicly expose them. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t with them. But that is nothing new.

There is something in me though that says that it would not be wise to publish with my name or my church’s name. Most all blogs that I have read are not “outing” their church or using their own names. They must have reasons too.

Anyway, I would really like to know what you all think. How much is it up to God to expose these churches and how much responsibility do we have? Those of you who blog about this kind of thing, are you using your own names? Those who are reading this, - I would love your take on it too. Am I being wise or living under fear? I don’t promise I will do anything yet about it. Just want to think more and have more imput.