Come Out, Come Out Wherever I am!!

This journey to shed oneself is painful.

I don’t like it.

But it is necessary if I want to really KNOW not only who I am, but who my new Husband and Abba is. Where did that little girl go? I remember her as being a bit of a tomboy, very verbose (my parents would say CONSTANTLY chatty), very strong-minded (my parents would say stubborn), and quite unconcerned with what others thought of my favorite tennis shoes with holes in them, the fact that I hated to comb my hair, or my muddy lizards named Cinderella (I named them all Cinderella…I don’t know why).

Where did she go? (Me not Cinderella) I think she went in to hiding the first time my father asked me to skinny dip in front of him. I vividly remember arguing with him, telling him “That’s sick! I will NOT do that. It is wrong!” I will never forget how I felt when he yelled back at me, “Well if you think it is wrong, then YOU are the sick one.”

I didn’t want to be the sick one. I wanted to be like every other tween/teen. I argued with dad some more, but the little girl retreated behind a wall and only peaked out to quietly proclaim her right to keep her clothes on. More words, more retreating…until finally the little girl was gone.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties and my dad committed suicide that the impact of what he did really reached my soul and burned a hole right through it. For the majority of my life I didn’t want to be the “sick one”, so I gave in to just about every dysfunctional relationship that surrounded me. Financial and emotional abuse in my marriage, spiritual abuse in the church, and that never-ending fear of what people thought of me.

I think I’ve spent many of these dysfunctional years either wondering where God was or projecting on to God’s personality that of my abusers. I have seen Him in my minds-eye as a strict, harsh, disciplinarian who only gives us wonderful things when we do everything right or when we don’t sin “too much”. I’ve never really understood grace the way Christ intended it to be.

I want to.

I want to embrace it with the tenacity of a pit bull in a fight to the death. I want to understand and KNOW the Love of God in such a way that I don’t…no…I can’t waver when some pious, religious, self-righteous or just plain mis-guided Christian tries to explain why my decision to end my marriage is sinful. I don’t want to hear the continual recorder going round and round in my head saying, “You are the sick one,” when someone doesn’t understand or see the complete brokenness and inability to stand up and take it in my marriage because a chronic deceiver said, “I’m sorry,” one more time.

When I consider the judgment I will get when news of the divorce gets out, it is the same fear that rises in me when I heard those fateful words as a young girl. I don’t know why I think of those words, but I do. This is why the little girl hides.

I love what Brennan Manning says in his book, Abba’s Child. “Christians who remain in hiding continue to live the lie. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others. We cling to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with the past when what we should do is let go.”

I have utterly and completely forgiven my dad for everything. How do I know this? Because, after I run to my Jesus, I want to run into the arms of my dad and tell him how much I love and missed him. Because when I think of him now, a sweet reminiscent smile graces my face.

You see, he was a frightened little boy retreating behind a wall only to peak out to quietly proclaim his right to not get beat in the garden shed by his dad. That is how I see him now. That is how Jesus saw him thirty five years ago.

Now…I’m off to find that little girl and bring her from behind the wall.

Come out, Come out, wherever you are!

Shedding Titles for a Testimony

I’ve come to believe all pastors and church leadership are suspect. Of what…well that depends. Pastor Tom was the only pastor in MY church history that truly deserved the title and role. His name is synonymous with integrity, grace, kindness, and a million other adjectives that really don’t do him justice. I describe him to people as “the Holy Spirit with skin on.”

He recently became my champion and my hero when, after months of being separated from my husband, I’d told Pastor of my decision to divorce. I remember sobbing in his office just a month ago saying, “I just can’t take it anymore, Pastor!” My husband, still holding out hope, told Pastor that he still loved me. I told him that wasn’t enough.

Pastor Tom, in his infinite – ok…finite, but great – wisdom looked at my husband and said, “What if one day you asked your wife to go jogging with you. While you were jogging you tripped her and broke her leg. You said, ‘I’m so sorry’ and she said, ‘I forgive you; however, my leg is broken and it needs time to mend. After it mended, you asked her to go jogging again and again tripped her and broke her leg. Again, you profusely apologized. She said, ‘I forgive you; however, it will take longer for my leg to heal. Then, when she was healed you asked her to go jogging a third time and again you tripped her and broke her leg. You, again, profusely apologize. She says, ‘I forgive you; however, my leg has been broken too many times and I can no longer jog with you.”

Then he looked at me and said, “What if we lived in a land that had a law stating you MUST jog every day? What if you went to the law-giver of this land and stated, ‘My leg has been broken too many times, I can no longer jog.’ The law says you must jog…but Grace says, ‘your leg has been broken too many times, of course you cannot jog.”

All the pain and heartache somehow had words that night. Words and a picture so vivid, it quieted my soul. It quieted my husband too! I think at that moment, he got it.

Yes, Pastor Tom had always been a great man, but that night he became my hero. In a later conversation when I told him of my fears of judgment from the Body of Christ, he said, “You will never hear judgment from me. I do not blame you for divorcing and if anyone speaks judgment to you send them to me.”

We buried my hero today. He died on May 20.

There is no earthly hero to champion me in the face of human judgment for what they call the great sin of “Divorce.”

At the funeral, a pastor gave a beautiful eulogy stating, “Tom was not about titles. He was about his life being a testimony.” That hit me between the eyes. I have lived my whole life seeking titles:  Dance Teacher, Wife, Mother, Pastor’s Wife, Teacher/Speaker, Writer, Author, recently a Zumba Fitness Instructor. Now I was adding one…Divorcee. Ok, if you want to be really technical it would be Co-dependent Divorcee. Sounds more…trendy.

I have been hiding behind one or more of these titles for the majority of my life and somewhere along the way forgot who I am. When I first thought about starting a blog about this journey I was considering some pithy titles like, “I’m wearin’ Big Girl Panties Now” or “Christian, Co-dependent Divorcee seeks Sanity.” Something catchy, innovative, provocative. You know…a title to describe where I was at in life.

A title.

The last thing I need right now is a title. It is time to shed titles and search out my testimony. There is definitely a whopper buried under six feet of child molestation, being the daughter of an alcoholic, surviving a father’s suicide, two public ministry scandals, and living with a deceiver for the last 24 years.

I just have to dig a while to find it…and me.