When The Church Does Wrong

This was two years ago. I had the amazing opportunity to preach twice, and it was a blessing, a thrill, a highlight of my life even. But now, today when I see this memory pop up, it feels sour.

Chris knew he wanted to be a pastor before I even met him. We got married and he began 5 years of school, including a semester of internship. Less than a year out of school he got the job we had been praying for, and we moved our family to our small town we still love and call home. Our time at the church came to an end 6 months ago, after 4 years in pastoral ministry. We left feeling sad and wounded from our experience. We have been silent about it though, because as a Christian there is this unspoken rule that you don’t talk trash about “The Church.” If you’ve been hurt, you just hold it all in, because you don’t want to speak out and possibly skew the view of the church as a whole. We assume non Christians can’t separate big C church from little c church. If one church is bad, then the Christian Church as a whole must be bad.   Obviously this is not true, but we can’t possibly confirm the widely held belief that The Church is far from perfect. I think it’s why you only ever hear the bad from people who have walked away from it all- they’ve burned their bridges and they have sworn off The Church altogether, so they don’t care about the unspoken rule.

So we are left with two views being presented by Christians. Everything is rosy, or it’s so bad I left it all behind, God included.

There is another place to land however. You can be hurt by one church- one building that is supposed to represent the character of Christ, but falls short. And you can talk about it. You can trust that the Holy Spirit will not allow your words to diminish someone’s view of Jesus.

You can stand up and boldly say that they should be better, and not feel like you are hurting the work of the church. Why can’t we believe that God is so big and so great, that even if a non believer knew everything about the fallacy of man, they would still choose to follow Him? Why do we have so little faith?

We haven’t been to church since February. Six months without sitting in the pews, worshipping together, learning together. It’s been a time of pain and loneliness, but also growth. It’s been hard- we live in a small town where the church options aren’t that vast, and we feel hesitant to step into vulnerability again. It has forced me to take stock of what I believe. I don’t have someone teaching me each week. I’m not engaging in corporate worship. I’m all alone with my thoughts, a lot of which are sad and angry. Some might say this is a dangerous place to be- vulnerable to the schemes of the enemy to plant seeds of doubt. “What is the point of following Him when his followers are so flawed that they hurt others?” “Is God good, all the time?” “Is He even real?”

It’s a place that can be very lonely without counsel- someone to guide you through it. I know this. But I’ve been persisting in the darkness for a reason. I want to put in the effort to see for myself. At our old church, following Jesus seemed so easy. Effortless. Worship music would start, and without any doing of my own, I would fall into a place of deep worship and admiration of God. Immersed. The teaching was always relevant, poignant, and meaningful. I rarely walked away without feeling like God spoke to me through the words of someone else. The community was authentic. The people were real, and they cared.

Opening my bible feels hard right now. To separate the hurt that the church inflicted from God, is difficult. It’s important work though. It’s hard work worth doing. So, we're taking some baby steps, God and I. God is not the church. God is here with me, and someday soon we can go visit church together.

New Blog Post Who Dis

It's been a really long time since I sat down with my laptop. A really long time since I decided to type out some of my thoughts. So much has changed, I considered starting a brand new blog. Looking back on some of my old posts feels like reading through an old diary. There are moments I feel embarrassed for what I've written. For what I've thought. 

Four and a half years ago we started our life in pastoral ministry. We moved to a small town not far from where we both grew up, and where we started our family, and we started a new chapter. Six months ago we closed that chapter. There were highs and lows. A lot of lows. One of the things I hated most though, was feeling like my voice had been silenced. Being a pastor's family brings along a microscope into your life, and for fear that my thoughts would be perceived as Chris' thoughts, and therefor THE PASTOR'S thoughts, I found myself biting my tongue until it bled.

It wasn't just that though. It's been a few years of a lot of growth and learning, and I just didn't feel like sharing a lot of it. It's been messy, and there have been lessons I've had to learn a number of times. I think I had a fairly narcissistic approach to blogging, and felt like I needed to have something to tell, to teach even. 

I have nothing to teach. Very little to offer anyone that reads this actually. It's laughable to think that I would write anything with the intention of it being for others. Instead I'm writing for the joy of writing, and the comfort that it's always brought. 

I'm keeping my blog name the same, because if there is anything that is true, it's that I'm just stumbling through life, and the only thing graceful about it, is the grace that Jesus shows me everyday.

Marriage Monday

Marriage Monday!

This morning I crawled into bed at 5:45 with Scarlett, hoping I could snuggle her back to sleep. We had been up since 5. She blew bubbles while I laid there attempting to accept the fact that she wasn’t going back to sleep. Chris rolled over, and I apologized for waking him up. He asked what time it was and sympathized when I told him how long I had been awake. And then he offered to get up for a bit until I needed to get up for the first dayhome kid’s arrival. I closed my eyes and was back asleep in seconds.

I’m telling you this story because while it is SO NORMAL for us now, it wasn’t always. When Elliott was little I would sometimes be woken up 5-6 times in the night, and up for the day well before 6. And I did it all alone because I didn’t know how to communicate my needs, and I sort of thought that night time/early morning parenting was a solo sport. I grew up with a Dad that was mostly a spectator in the parenting game, and while I didn’t consciously think I wanted the same thing, my actions created a similar environment. I often took on all the hard parts of parenting because I was afraid that Chris would resent our choice to have kids if it was too hard, and in the early years I was afraid he wouldn’t want more kids unless it seemed easy.

10 Years Of Being Loved By Him

It was in March of ‘09 that we went on our first date. Or “non-date” as we called it because neither of us really knew if it was a date or not, and when we ran into a mutual friend that point blank asked us if we were on a date, we both kind of choked. . We went to our first show together - Christian Hansen at the ARTery. It was a high intensity, crazy, jump up and down and dance kind of show, but we stood awkwardly together at the back. Then finally we just sat down near the door and talked and talked for hours. I told one of my best friends the next day that I had just been on the best date of my life... even though I wasn’t sure if it was a date or not.

If you would have asked me that day what I hoped for 10 years down the road, I could have never imagined this life. I probably could have pictured the marriage, house and kids. I was in my early 20’s and knew I wanted all that in my future. What I couldn’t foresee what just how madly in love I would be. Anything I had felt before Chris was a spark in comparison to a bonfire, but the real surprise is how our years together have turned into embers that burn hotter and brighter than I ever imagined. 

Marriage, Seven Years and Two Kids In

The last time I wrote exclusively about marriage was when we were blissful newlyweds. I think we had been married a year or less when I first started clickety clacking away about all my thoughts and ideas on marriage. I remember a friend commenting on a post on sex, saying something like "I can't wait to hear your thoughts on all this once you've had a couple kids." There was probably a winky face in there, because I'm pretty sure she had two kids and knew what I didn't... kids really do change everything!

So here we are. Seven (and a half) years in, and two kids later, and I still have a lot of thoughts and ideas about marriage (and sex!) So many, that I thought I might as well write a whole series of posts about it. Some of you may have seen my Instagram (@Melissa1014) story where I asked for suggestions on what specific marriage issues to write on. I got some great suggestions! I'll try my best to touch on all of the questions I had throughout this series, as well as some things that I consider to be very important in our marriage.

Less Netflix, More Chill

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking to a group of women in our church at an event. This is a copy of that talk!

So something that has interested me for quite a while now is STRESS. 

What is stress? According to the dictionary Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.

I looked up some stats, and apparently when asked to rate our stress from 1 to 10, the average answer given is 6. So, it sounds to me like we want to be clear that we’re ok- we have it together… but don’t expect too much out of me because I AM just slightly more stressed than I should be. Women report on average, a 5% higher answer than men. And I’m sure none of you will be surprised that generationally speaking, Millennials report the highest levels of stress. 

So, what are we all so stressed about? Beats me. That’s not what I’m here to talk about tonight. The truth is that stress is there in all stages of life, and its real, and it’s probably not going anywhere. 

Almost a Year Down The Road

I can't decided where to start or what to write, so I'm just going to start typing, and we'll see what comes out. Sound good? Great. My last post was on October 23rd. Almost 8 months ago? I'm pretty sure I was a different person on October 23rd. I wrote about post partum depression and how I had just started taking medication, which if I remember correctly, was in late August of last year. So now I've been on medication for nearly a year. 

I want to be very careful about how I share this journey because I realize so much more now than I ever have before how insensitive it can be to make claims on mental health. Whether you admit it or not, we all have preconceived notions on what mental health struggles are like. I'm sure if you hear the words depression or anxiety you have ideas of what those things are, and you likely even have a person in your life that struggles with one or both. You probably also have idea of what medication for these things is like, and/or what it is like to be on these medications.

Coffee Grounds and Post Partum Depression

                                              

"Oops" he said with a nervous little voice.

I turned around to see our refillable K-cup spilled onto the ground. Elliott had tried to help me by taking it out of the machine and dumping it into the garbage, but it was too hot for him and he dropped it. Two months ago I would have reacted in anger. I would have exclaimed "Elliott!! What did you do?" and caused him to flee the scene in fear of a time out or having me tell him in seventeen different ways why he shouldn't have touched the k-cup in the first place.

Today was different. Even though I had two whiney one year olds in front of me, both upset at my lunch offerings and protesting loudly while throwing food on the floor... today was still different.

"Oops! You dropped it! I said in a calm voice."It's ok sweetie. It was an accident. Mommy makes messes too sometimes. Here let me help you clean it up." 

He happily helped me wipe up the mess and remarked at how tiny the coffee grounds were. 

"I need my magnifying glass!"  (I surprised both him and I by agreeing enthusiastically.) 

I asked him what he could do differently next time so this didn't happen.

"Ask Mommy" he said sheepishly. He gave me a big hug, and we both smiled and squeezed.

I would love to say that this is a result of the Positive Parenting seminar I recently attended (and I'm sure that in part it is- SUCH a good seminar!) but the truth is that two months ago I walked into the emergency room in my small town and nervously told them that I thought I needed to go on medication for Post Partum Depression. 

6 Hours

Looks like it did take an entire month for this post to happen. Sorry guys. It was a mixture of busy-ness and honestly just having trouble typing this part out. I love writing and I love sharing all the vulnerable parts of my life. I find it freeing and cathartic; I always seem to find a part of myself that I didn't know quite as fully before. So perhaps that's why I've been putting it off. Sitting down at my laptop and typing it out means that I have to really explore my heart and put words to how I'm feeling.

If you haven't been tracking along with the story about my Dad you can click on these links to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 first. We left off with the day my Dad moved into his own apartment. He had previously been staying with my sister Nicole, but that arrangement wasn't working out very well, so they found him a tiny furnished apartment in Chinatown. Nicole and her husband James dropped him off at 1 pm.

The Rehabilitation Stage of the Story

Well, it looks like I'm right on track for my monthly blog post. You probably can't tell, but that was sarcasm. I used to write *at least* one post a week. Life was... simpler back then (read:no kids)

Anyways, I suppose I should pick up where I left off in the story with my Dad. I've spent a lot of time on the details so far. The details of his accident, and then his first couple of hours, days, and then weeks in the hospital. For the rest of this story to make sense I'm going to have to give you some more details about his (and my) life.

My Dad is an alcoholic. Diagnosed? Admittedly? No, of course not. But make no mistake about it- he has an addiction. I'm not sure how much I want to share, but I can say that my relationship with him for as long as I can remember was shaped by his drinking. And then like a piece of clay that was shaped, it had hardened over time and through fire. And it was shattered, more than once.

The Next 11 Days

We left off the day of my Dad's accident. I was 11 days away from my due date, but had been expecting to have the baby early, as I had with Elliott. As my sisters and I parted ways that night they both told the baby to stay put for at least another day or two. We left dad still in the ER, but we were told he would be having a drain placed and be transferred up to the Neuro ICU within an hour or two of us leaving. They hoped that once the pressure was relieved that they could take him off sedation and see how he was from there.

The next morning Gloria and I drove to the hospital together. We talked about our expectations for the day, which were largely about how we would have to figure out if Dad would be able to attend the reunion the following weekend. It was 7 days away. Would he be out of the hospital yet? Could he maybe attend if he was in a wheel chair and took it easy? Gloria seemed very skeptical he would be out that soon, but I thought it was possible. We agreed we would have to talk it over with Dad and his doctors.

91 Days

91 Days.

I hadn't spoken to my Dad in 91 days and now I was driving frantically to the U of A Hospital where he was being transferred to from Red Deer. All I knew was he had fallen off his roof and hit his head and the injury was bad enough that he needed to be transferred. Sometimes it takes a crisis to learn how calm you can or cannot be, and I think I did not too bad. It was about 3:30 pm. I had Elliott with me, and had packed him a sandwich, snacks, his water, pencil crayons and a toy car. I picked up my oldest sister Gloria on the way because she was too upset to drive, and off we went.

I wasn't sure if he would be happy to see me. We hadn't spoken in so long, purely out of stubbornness. It all started on Father's Day. I had spoken to him two days before, but then forgotten to call on Father's Day. It was not an intentional slight, and I only learned about it a few weeks later when my middle sister Nicole mentioned it. She actually asked if it was correct, because our Dad is known to forget phone calls if he has had too much to drink. I realized right away that she was right- I had forgotten. I felt terrible and planned on calling him later to apologize profusely and ask forgiveness.

The Day I Stepped Out Of The Fog

Bit, rudder, fire. Bit, rudder fire.

I repeated it over and over to myself for days. In the book of James it says;

"A bit in the mouth of the horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem like no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything- or destroy it!

It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that..." (James 3:3-6 MSG)

Out of (seemingly) no where I had remembered hearing a very smart woman speak on controlling your tongue. The context was completely different. She wasn't talking about parenting, but God used her words none the less. 

Explaining the Fog

When you're in the middle of a thick fog, you can't see much else around you. I would sometimes hold my hand in front of my face, just to see if I still existed in that place. Because it's all around you, it's hard to see or think of anything else; but there isn't much to think about in a fog. It's like the color white - it isn't really a color, simply the absence of color. Fog is isn't something you focus on, it's the absence of focus and clarity. It's disorienting too, because you don't know if it stretches for only a few feet in front of you, or for miles.

The Beginning of A Journey Back

As we laid there beside each other in bed I wanted to apologize. I wanted to say that I was sorry for the last few months. Maybe even the last year or longer. I have been feeling so good this last week or two and it's actually been sticking. Not like the other times where it seemed like the fog lifted only for me to wake up a day or two later in the deep again. I wanted to apologize, but I was scared to. It felt like I would be claiming that I'm all better now, and then what if there was an expectation of me to be better. I didn't feel ready for that expectation, and I didn't trust the good feeling yet. So we laid there in silence, and once again I thanked God for how I was feeling better, and begged Him to let it stay.

I'm not sure where to start in this story, given that the story is my life. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when I went under the water, but I can recall many days of drowning. Drowning in depression, anxiety and feeling overwhelmed by the smallest of things. It was long before Audrey was born, so I'm hesitant to claim PPD. In fact, pregnancy ended up being some of the hardest months of my life, and I struggled with so much guilt for not feeling joyful and elated for the baby growing inside my womb. And while I wasn't depressed because I was pregnant, it still it felt very wrong to be depressed while I was pregnant.

Our Small Town Life... First Impressions

Ok, we've been here for over a month now, and I figured it was time to jot down (well, type) some of my first impressions. Things I like and dislike, differences and similarities to St. Albert, and just some random thoughts.

People look you in the eye a lot more, and smile a lot more. I could probably write a whole post all about this, (and maybe one day I will!) but for now I'll just say that I like it. I really like it. In the grocery store, on the street, in the coffee shop, and *especially* on the street- people look up when you walk by, smile and say hello.

Stupid Boots

"Your boots are a little bit stupid"

He said it quietly, with no inflection, and I could hear the caution in his voice. It almost sounded like he just wanted to hear himself say it, to see what it might sound like.

It was my fault. Moments earlier, in a fit of frustration I exclaimed "These stupid boots!" as I attempted to shove his almost-too-small winter boots on his feet. The weather didn't demand them- his rubber boots would have sufficed, but it was Easter Sunday and he was wearing his dark blue dress pants. His winter boots, also dark blue, seemed to look better than the black and yellow tractors on his rubber boots.

I regretted it immediately. Stupid is a word we were taught to never say. I often joked as a teenager that the only two words that were forbidden in our house were the F-word and Stupid. The details are fuzzy, but I remember a story my Mom told of how she knew a girl growing up who was called stupid, and so she never wanted that word to be used. My Mom never swore. I don't swear. But apparently I do say the word stupid now, and now my 3 year old says it too.

I Just Knew We Were Home

The bed seemed bigger. It wasn't. It was still the same queen size that we had in our old room in our old house, but still, it felt bigger as I laid there on our first night in our new house. Our first house. We've been married almost six years, and the whole time until now we had been living in the house I grew up in, which we rented from my Mom.

It might have felt bigger because the room itself is bigger than our last bedroom. It's hard to say though because the floor was covered with boxes so it certainly didn't feel too big.. until I looked up. The white popcorn ceiling looked just massive with the soft glow of our essential oil diffuser on the floor; the colours fading in and out, the scent making it feel like home already.

Either way, something was bigger and even in my exhausted state I suspected it was more than square feet. All I had done all day long was lift heavy things, and so the absence of weight in my soul was tangible. It felt like hope. There is still so much hard work to be done. A change of address can't cure everything, but it may just serve the purpose of shaking me out of that place that felt like my feet were firmly planted in drying cement.

Then I heard it; not as loud as I'm used to, but still there it was- the unmistakable sound of a train whistle.  As I listened to it I could hear Chris' breathing change to the deep ins and outs that sleep brings, and I just knew we were home.

Hobbies and Lacy Under-Things

"You need a hobby" he said.

It was said in the middle of a mini-argument. The details aren't important, but you know the kind - there was nothing actually wrong, and we weren't actually fighting, but things were tense. I had probably just brought up the budget or had criticized something he had done with Elliott. At least I'm guessing that's how it started, because this was his point- all I ever think about is the budget or parenting. And so therefor all we ever seem to talk about is the budget or parenting. And so therefor we have a lot of conversations that sound the same.... nothing is wrong, but it doesn't feel quite right either. As a side note - who knew that parenting would be something that we disagree the most on? Sheesh, I think I'll need to write an entire post on just that.

Minimalism, OCD and Digging Up The Foundation.

I'm in a season of change right now. I considered waiting to write about it until I felt as though the season was over, or at least until I had it figured out more than I do now, but instead I think I'll just bring you all along with. Chris always says that you are under no obligation to be the same person you were yesterday. It's true, but how many of us hold an obligation to ourselves to continue being the same person? Or maybe we hold an expectation to be "better?"

Ok, so in the middle of the soul wrestling I've been doing, I have tentatively jumped on the minimalism train. Like... I'm on it, but it's still moving slowly as it leaves the station and I still think about jumping off if it starts picking up speed too quickly. When I told Chris that I was starting to get excited about minimalism he looked at me like I had three heads and asked if that meant we had to take down the gallery wall in our living room? Because minimalism looks like a room with white walls and a wooden chair in the middle, doesn't it? Well... no. I don't really know how to do it "right" but I do know that when I went through the kids' closets and dressers, I felt a significant shift inside myself. I don't want to sound like a weirdo, but I also can't downplay this because it really felt... significant. Then a week or two later I read a blog called "Using Minimalism to Balance Your Uptight Soul" and I read a quote that says:

"If you're like me, you spend a lot of time up there in your ever-whirring brain. It might even be why you like to keep your physical environment so neat. The calm around you balances out the chaos inside"

Whoa.