5/21/2004

5/21/04

"Everything feels daunting and frightening and new. It's not that I don't want to do what God requires- I DO! More than anything! And I know its time for us to go. I just don't like the way I feel right now. I feel so uncomfortable and so depressed. I keep a smile on my face, concentrating on all the things I have to look forward to. But, deep down there's a sadness that I can't even figure out.

What will I be doing as I read this entry years from now? Will I smile at my naivety?  Will I nod at what transpired? Will I remember these feelings and perhaps understand better why I feel the way I do?

I hope I remember sitting at our dining room table writing this while two precious, blonde haired little girls are coloring feverishly!

Lord, help my heart tonight." Annie

It has been years since I picked up the old blue journal where I first wrote these words. I haven't looked back at any of my journals for a very long time, but I have to smile at the way God speaks sometimes. Tonight, He won me again. He is teaching me something really special and reflection on the past had a big part in it. 

Around the same table tonight my now teenage daughters started asking me questions about our previous church experiences. They were really pretty small and thankfully ignorant of most of what transpired in our lives. They had felt the effects of multiple moves and loss of friendships, but they didn't understand all the nuances and we were happy to keep it from them in those days. Not today, though. Today, they asked me to fill in some of the gaps of their story and I will admit that it was painful for me. Painful to tell them of the hurt, the disillusionment, the lies and the ultimate end of two ministries that we were linked and bonded to. But, I told them. I told them how their dad and I had almost walked away from everything because of it and their eyes were shining. Like the last pieces to a puzzle, they nodded and smiled at me. They see. Perhaps even understanding their dear dad and me a little better too.

 God has been teaching me for years about His love and His commitment and He has used the broken church to do it in my life. I wish I could have learned this lesson singularly from the beautiful experiences. I really do. But, he has chosen to primarily show me through something hard. He has used the experiences I have had to shatter my misconceptions of having a life that is perfect and righteous and He has done that by peeling back the layers of self-righteousness; showing me what the bride of Christ really looks like. I want to look away, to run. I want to hide and mostly I just want it to change. I want the church to be something I can be proud of and promote and pull people into but in all honesty, I don't feel that way. I feel like warning people that come to our church. I feel like telling them, "this church and its people have the propensity to hurt you worse than anyone has ever hurt you! Trust me...I KNOW. The church is not safe!" 

After my conversation with the girls, I went looking for my journal. I was trying to remember what I was thinking during those days. When I found this entry, I immediately remembered those feelings I had that night. I knew God was troubling waters in my life but I couldn't have imagined how much and why. What I didn't know then at that table in our house at camp was that our world was just about to get jacked. We were headed out of our safe, comfortable home of "para-church ministry" into the war zone that is, "church ministry". We would spend the next six years in two churches where we were forced to face the reality of what broken people can do to one another. It happened so fast that it took three years and several counselors to climb out of it and we have been walking with a limp every since. I don't know if I will every go to church again without my hands literally shaking and I don't know on this side of heaven if my husband will ever not struggle with the debilitating depression that often surfaces with any kind of negative exchange. What I didn't know at that dining room table that day was God was pulling us, pulling me into a deeper understanding of Him that I would have never, ever understood had I not been given the gift of these trials.

A few months ago, Rob and I were doing pre-marriage counseling with a dear young couple. Their faces were flushed with the hope of their future as they excitedly talked to us about their love for each other, their expectations for marriage and their immediate plans. We joined in and assured them that we were also so happy for them to be starting this journey together. That marriage is one of God's greatest gifts in this life and that we were so happy for them and with them.  Rob asked them about some of their past. They shared some of their pain in relationships and how they both needed time to heal or to continue to heal from them and then Rob did something then that was kind of off the script. He turned to the young man and said, "Look at your fiancé." He happily did so. Then Rob said, "she is capable of hurting you worse than you have ever been hurt before. She has the propensity to ruin your life." The young man and women were now looking right at Rob and I as he continued, "You aren't making a commitment to the promise of the best in her. You are making a commitment to the darkest parts of her." He proceeded to do the same with the now wide-eyed young woman. He then said, "This is what God did for you when He sent His Son to the cross. He entered into a covenant with you when you were hateful and dark and He committed to you when your heart held nothing but hatred for Him and idolatrous love for the world. That is what you are modeling in this marriage. God's commitment to His chosen bride."

And here is what the Lord has been saying to me of late: 

The beauty of the church is not that the bride of Christ is beautiful. The beauty of the church is that the bride of Christ is made beautiful by the faithful, consistent love of the bridegroom. I understand this in such a clearer way after God has asked me to take a hard look at His bride. I look at my own heart and I see darkness there. I look around my church gathering for worship and the more I get to know them and their struggles and their joys, the more I realize what He has done and what He is calling me to do. He is calling me to link arms with the rest of the messy sinners that He calls "beloved" and to lean in.  

I am learning to love the Church. I am striving to commit to her. It has been the greatest challenge of my walk with Jesus to not only sit in a church pew again but to sit in on the lives of those who have the propensity to hurt me and slander me again. And they do. They hurt each other a lot too and they make terrible decisions that hurt themselves, but we also have the Spirit of God changing us and as we grow in His love, we have the power to exhibit  fruit like kindness and goodness, patience and long-suffering, love and joy and self-control. This obviously isn't coming from our dark hearts, it is fruit that is coming from the Spirit of God who is more committed to our sanctification than we will ever be.

 I can say with all my heart that I love Him more because of the messy Church. 

Like my marriage, loving the Church has brought disillusioning hurt but it has also given me kinship that sees me at my worst and loves me anyway and I have been privileged to return that kind of love to them.  It is sanctifying me. It is conforming me to the image of His Son and it has given me a much greater appreciation for grace, a healthier expectation of people and their limitations to be my savior, and a liberating, honest worship of the One who is made more lovely every day because of it all. I am leaning in. 

"He makes all things beautiful in His time."

"Out of respect for Christ, be courtesously reverent to one another. Wives, understand and support your husband in ways that show your support for Christ...Husbands go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church-a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty.  Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness... No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body...This is a huge mystery to me and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband."  Ephesians 5 (The Message)