My Moon

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This very real feeling of inferiority is magnified by his childish sensitivity and it is this state of affairs which generates in him that insatiable, abnormal craving for self-approval and success in the eyes of the world. Still a child, he cries for the moon. And the moon, it seems, won't have him!"

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 102

The night is dark and silent as their car meanders through the Texas Hill Country. She stares out the back window and watches the shapes of the trees against the sky. The air in the car is heavy – thick with anger, resentment, fear. That’s why she sat in the back – to put as much of a buffer between them as possible.

She knows she’s drunk. Her mother told her that and justified his anger, and she supposed there was some truth in that. It was plausible, at least. But she also knew it was something else. He’d made plans when she’d said she was going to stay at her mother’s, and when she changed her mind, it had ruined his plans.

She wondered distractedly, in a mostly detached sort of way who she was, and if they had planned to be in her bed. Their bed. She had come to peace with the idea some while back, in a sick way it even brought her some relief, to let go of at least some of her wifely duties. But for some reason today, she had latched onto it when she saw it was a thorn in his side, and even twisted it a little.

Maybe because she was drunk.

“Look! My moon!” The innocent little excited voice pierced through her dark thoughts.

“That’s everyone’s moon, baby. God made it.” She looked in adoration at her little girl – her big brown hazel eyes full of wonder, her sweet head with only whisps of blonde hair still.

“No, my moon!” she insisted.”

“It’s the whole world’s moon.”

“No, mama. My moon.”

It went that way for almost an hour, gentle banter filling the silence. She knew it probably annoyed him, but she was grateful to have that little voice push back the angry silence to the front side and her dark thoughts to the very edges of her thoughts, where she almost forgot them.

Finally, after she heard a large sigh, she relented. “Okay, baby. It is your moon,” and the baby girl was happy.

And that's how I gave my daughter the moon.

My God of Floyd

 

Sometimes I feel an immense sadness that my life didn’t turn out how I dreamed it would. The dream: the white picket fence, multiple kids, loving-devoted-godly husband, Bible studies. You know, days filled with making baked goods, keeping a clean house, decorating for each holiday, scrapbooking each chapter, and writing a novel.

I never feel like I measure up – morally – and truth be told, in the church is mostly what I’m talking about. As I’m putting the pieces of my life together, I realize that that feeling of not measuring up and that feeling of missing out on “the good life” – the remorse and the sense of loss – has always been there.

It’s the exact feeling I had in kindergarten when we attended Central Iowa Christian Academy (CICA), a rigorous Baptist institution. Here I was taught my morality measuring stick, directly out of scripture that we memorized because our very lives depended on it. Sins included lying, drinking, smoking, dancing, women wearing pants, anything sexual outside the institute of marriage (and likely even inside the institution as well), country and rock music, cursing, movie theatres, witchcraft and Halloween and dinosaurs. The list was exhaustive. To sin or to have sin in your life was the road to hell and I wanted to be good. I wanted to be perfect and I wanted God to love me. I wanted to do everything I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it.

But home was different. At home it seemed we followed very few of these moral guidelines. My dad sometimes cursed and he definitely drank alcohol – he even let us drink it if we wanted it (I did not). Mom and I wore pants. Mom enrolled me in ballet. We would go to the movies and my dad and my oldest brother listened to rock and country music. I will never forget sitting in chapel as they told us the evils of rock music and looking back at my big brother back there with the 6^th graders, and being terrified to the very depths of my soul that my brother was going to hell.

Something we didn’t all even know, just I knew, was that sometimes someone would crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night, and what would start as a backrub would end in what I was told was an abhorrent abomination. And part of me sometimes even liked it. No one could know about this – to speak it would give it life I didn’t want it to have. To give it life meant that everything that was already wrong would be even more wrong and I had to fix it and I could fix it and I would fix it. But I couldn’t fix that.

Every day my brothers received spankings (I would even say beatings) – first at school, and then again at home, to show that my parents stood in solidarity with the school administration and authority. I’m pretty sure everyone was trying to beat the sin out of my family, and I knew we needed it. I could hear my brothers’ screams in my classroom, and felt all the eyes on me from my peers as the lesson was halted due to the disruption. They never beat me.  Christy Nether couldn’t come to my birthday party because – well, because we were not good people. I was ashamed and understood the shun. We were outcasts.

And why? Why were we outcasts? Because we were not Baptist. We were Episcopalian. Try as hard as I might – try all I wanted – I could be perfect till my stomach hurt and puke on the floor over my shortcomings – produce straight A report cards and win awards for memorizing the most Bible verses – I would never be good enough. You can’t just scrub Episcopalian off, or even beat it out of you.

It would be okay if I didn’t care. But I did care. Ever so much.

In my 20’s I got angry at God because I could not measure up. A divorced failure – the biggest failure of them all aside from maybe abortion and murder. It was unforgivable (I asked just to be sure) and in the wake of rejection by the Church, I finally said that I didn’t care. Not caring was the only line of defense. I rejected God right back. Tired of not measuring up, tired of trying so hard, tired of failing, tired of no one protecting me, I dropped the measuring stick and considered the entire ordeal nothing more than a fairy tale.

But I would pick it back up, again and again and again and beat myself with it. The more time that went by, the less I measured up and the more outcast I felt and the more I wanted what I could never have, what I would never be. Some people can hide their sins and shortcomings and failures – but I have to change my name every damn time. And I also have a living, breathing miracle to prove it.

I have to ask myself, is that who the God of my Understanding is? Is this the God of Floyd whom I seek?

 

                                                                                NO.

 

This is not the God of Floyd. It might be the God of Abraham or Isaac – I thought they were the same when I first heard of this God of Floyd, but now I am not so thoroughly convinced. Do we not the serve the same God? The God of Abraham was rigid and cold and demanded sacrifice and obedience - the God of the Baptists for sure. I don’t know – but what I do know is that this rigid, harsh god is not the God of Floyd whom I seek. I don’t even know who Floyd is, firsthand, but I do know his God is the God of my Understanding. How do I know? I don’t know. I just do. My God is kind and loving, full of grace and forgiveness. He holds me inside and outside, all the time.

Have I held myself accountable to Pharisees?

 

                                                                                YES.

 

My life didn’t turn out how I dreamed it would, that is certainly true. Yet the life I have is beautiful and wonderful, and the person I am constantly evolving into being is someone I love and respect immensely. I know that I am beautiful, strong, kind, loving, fun-loving, adventurous and resilient. I am a good friend and a wonderful mother. I run an amazing business and I inspire others. I do not stand alone - my God is always at my side – my Comforter, my Love, my Light. 

And a white picket fence wouldn’t even look right with my house, anyway.

The Window

Her favorite place to sit was in the window seat on the landing. Mama had upholstered a cushion for the seat that had all different colors of stripes in all sorts of colors. The stripes rose up a bit off the main fabric and were slightly fuzzy. She loved to run the palm of her hand lightly over the fabric. The window seat had a smell. Three Boston Ferns hung from the ceiling, and the leaves would fall onto the fabric and also get caught up in the gauzy white curtains. Adults said it smelled “musty,” but Tamara loved that smell. Whatever musty was, she knew she loved it. From the window, she would peer out the window that looked down on the side yard of the farmhouse.

There was an entire world down there that only she could see, but she could see it vividly. There were streets and buildings, houses and stores. Sometimes when her oldest brother “lawned the mow,” as she called it, he would cut in paths for her and then go mow the rest of the yard before finally cutting her kingdom down properly. She loved those days and constantly asked her parents if Abel could lawn the mow, much to his horror. But secretly, she thought he liked it that it made her that happy.

Today it was raining in her kingdom, so she could only look down on it. All the villagers were scurrying about with umbrellas when they came outside at all. She wished her brothers would come home soon from school. Tamara enjoyed the quiet days with her mother, playing Yatzee and helping to cook dinner, but she also yearned for the day when she, too, could get on the bus that stopped at the end of the driveway. Next year, Mama had said. “Next year” seemed impossibly far away some days.

Then she saw it, out of the very corner of her vision, the tiny yellow dot as it slowly grew larger, racing down the highway. She jumped up and ran downstairs, determined to make it to the end of the driveway first. “Tamara, get a coat on!” Frustrated and almost in a panic, she went back to the hallway closet, grabbing whatever her hand landed on first – it was Jacob’s brown corduroy jacket– it was not a rain jacket, but it would do. She pulled it on as she ran down the gravel driveway to the road.

“That’s my jacket, Tae!” Jacob pouted.

“Oh, don’t be a baby, Jacob. You’re not wearing it today.”

Jacob scowled. Tamara loved both of her brothers dearly, but they rarely seemed to love each other. Everything was an argument between them, an unspoken struggle for power. Of course, Abel had the power because he was the eldest, and it infuriated him that Jacob did not respect that fact. What it meant to Tamara was that usually she only played with one brother at a time. She hated it when they fought – it scared her, actually.

“Let’s finish our fort in the barn!” Tamara suggested to Jacob. He seemed the natural choice this time, since it would make him less irritated with her about the jacket, and she could tell Abel’s comments had lit that quick spark in his eyes followed shortly after by a dark brooding. She was happy to see that look melt away almost instantly at her suggestion. They had been working on the fort for two weeks now, and it was almost done. She had talked Abel into stacking the hay bails into a high wall one day when Jacob had to go into town with Mama because he had his tutoring. All that was left was somehow forming a ceiling over the fort and dividing it up into rooms. Maybe they could build a sub fort in the back pen and bury it under some loose hay. Then they would have two houses.

“Let me go change!”

“Come inside!” Mama was yelling from the porch. “You’ll catch your death of a cold out there in that rain!” They all three giggled and started heading for the house. Tamara wondered why adults cared so much about things like rain and cold. It was rather silly. She envisioned that witch in that movie they had watched at church disappearing under water. The movie had frightened terribly her at the time (and she wondered why they had watched it at church, of all places), but now it made her giggle even more as she raced to the house, her skinny legs kicking out behind her. “I’m melting!!!!!” she screamed as she went, throwing her arms up in the air and spinning in circles.  

Lucky Charms

Lately when I look at myself in the mirror, all I can see is that I have this big belly that is spilling out the top of my jeans. I have realized since at least December that I would like to do something about it. The only way to conquer it, really, is to abstain from alcohol, specifically beer. In fact, in December I went 3 days without any alcohol, but then I gave in when I was hanging out with my crew during a blizzard, and someone smacked a 12 pack down on the table at the hotel. And I’m okay with that. I’m glad I joined them.

Today is my 7^th day without having gluten or alcohol. On February 22^nd, I slid my “lucky coin” into my pocket, and told myself, “Let’s go. Let’s do this thing.” And I did. Two years ago I didn’t know that I could do that. The thought of not drinking terrified me, and I did not think that I could not partake of alcohol in my own power. I remember saying as much, on a miserable day in December. Saying it out loud was scary. Saying it out loud with a witness was even scarier.

Within a week of that day, I found myself in an AA meeting. I had thought of attending AA (or Al-Anon) several times over the years – I had a morbid curiosity of it. But I also had a fear of it – that is not the type of person I wanted to be, and I imagined a room full of losers. If I was honest with myself, it is the last place I wanted to be. Going in that New Years Eve was terrifying – I was literally shaking from head to toe. An exceptionally good friend (who is to remain anonymous ha ha) went with me. I remember being so wound up I thought I might vomit, and I prayed no one asked my anything. But then a thing happened: as I listened, I heard myself in some of the words – both the words of the people speaking and in the passages they read. I felt some camaraderie and less alone. I found myself going back, and in short order, I fell in love. I fell in love with the people, the stories, the similarities, the laughter, the honesty, the willingness to be introspective. It was like church, in a way, but in a better way - it became my church. Even though we were not the same in age, color, religion, political affiliation or socio-economic status, I had found my people.

I went 7 months without drinking, for the most part. There was a week I took off – we were skiing in Colorado and I had some beers (gluten free!) on that trip, but when we came home, I went back to abstinence. I was learning that it can be like a faucet, and I can indeed turn it off and on. I didn’t regret my choice to drink on that trip, except for the fact I never did get a 6 month chip. It’s okay though – the 90 day chip is turquoise and beautiful and I loved it.

After 7 months, I went back to drinking, with a newfound respect for alcohol and a better understanding of my own relationship with it. While I enjoyed AA, I could not bring myself to call myself an alcoholic, and so I felt like an imposter of sorts. To me, step 1 is admitting you are an alcoholic, and I just could not do it (my exceptional friend points out that what it actually says is that you admit you are powerless over alcohol, not an alcoholic, and my brain says ‘Tomato, tamata’ to him).

I have thought about it like a toggle switch that only has two options – either you are an alcoholic or you are not an alcoholic. I have spent hours and days and months trying to decide if I am one or not, trying on the words when I am alone, having them spit out of my mouth like sawdust. This morning it occurred to me that maybe it could be more of a sliding scale – like introverts and extroverts. I have always been on the line between introvert and extrovert, where Edith is at 110% on the I-E scale. As I have evolved, I would now place myself at the 75% mark (toward extroversion). What if alcoholism were a sliding scale? Where would I be? I think I would be at 60%.

I told one of my pastor friends last week that I could see alcohol in my mind – that it was a real, live thing. He asked what it was like. I told him it is hard to explain - it is like a viny fog that is alive, almost like in a super hero movie or even Scoobie Doo. I finally told him, “It’s like a fog in the streets of the city that’s alive. At first it’s just a haze, I can hardly see it. Maybe it isn’t even there. And then it is there, but I think, it’s not that bad. I can live with this. But then before I know it, I can hardly see. It wraps around me, like tentacles. It suffocates me. It seeps into everything. It becomes everything.” And then later I told him, “It’s a demon.”

I told my therapist (and we have talked about it a lot over the past two years), that it just takes over. At first, you just have a drink someplace where everyone is drinking – an outing. And I tell myself, okay, I am going to drink, but only at functions – and only once a week. I am not going to bring it in the house. But then it is Friday after a long week, and I think, I deserve a drink, so I buy a 6 pack and I bring it home. I say then, just on the weekends. But then, soon, I have a bad Tuesday, and I tell myself, no more than 3 a night. Then I have one at lunch. Then 3 becomes 4 a night. And then it is 6. And then it is 10 am on a Saturday and I am the only one home, and I think, who cares? Does it really matter? And before I know it, it has seeped into every corner of my being, and I start scheduling my life around it – where it will be or will not be. In short order, it makes me its slave.

When I stopped this week, this time, to lose weight, I was told by many people that I am overreacting and that I am beautiful the way I am. I am not obese, by any means. I am between a size 6 and 8; after 6 months of not drinking I was a sub-4. What they do not understand is (and I do not generally tell them) that it is not just what it does to my outside, it is what it does to my inside.

In the past two years there have been several sections of time that I refrained from alcohol use. It is interesting looking back – I mostly do not regret when I did or did not drink. But there are a few situations of both extremes that I regret. I regret times when I did not drink? Yes. One in particular is when a friend came down to Texas to visit that I had not seen in 20 years, and I think she expected us to have a drink, and I did not. I wish I had. That might be the only time I regret. There are only a few times I really regret drinking, too – there are just a few isolated incidences. It is more the big picture than the details.

My therapist doesn’t think I am an alcoholic, because I’m hyper aware of what it does to me and I know when it’s time to stop. I also go slow and steady when I drink – a beer an hour. I don’t run off to Mexico and go to donkey shows or drink and drive. I do my chores and go to work and do the things I am supposed to do. But he also cautions about the sign that hangs on the AA hall wall, just over the righthand exit door that reads, “Not Yet.”

This is a subject that is taboo. This is a subject that makes others uncomfortable to talk about. I am not “supposed to” talk about it. I certainly should not publish it under my name. Some people worry that if I share it, it will hurt my business. But I find when I share my story with my friends, many of them identify strongly with it. One friend said she had the same issue with both wine and sweets. It is not just alcohol. It is addiction, which comes in many forms.

I am certain I will not go for forever without alcohol. I know I am just on another pause. But the pause feels good – like a demon’s claws lost his grasp on me. There is some mourning that goes with it too - and drinking dreams, night sweats, digestive changes and sugar cravings. I am currently working my way through a pack of Sweet Tarts Ropes.

One thing I struggle with is attending meetings when I know I am not doing this for forever. Can you say, “Hi, I’m Ami, and I’m 60% alcoholic”? The Blue Book would call it a heavy drinker. The Blue Book has a lot of wisdom in it. It feels a mockery to attend meetings when you are not 100% on board. Not 100% on board at all. I probably put way more thought into it than anyone else does about my being there or not being there. Sometimes I miss my people.

Lieutenant Dan!!!!!!!

 

Running my own company has been the most difficult thing I have ever tried to do. I hide most of my heartache about it, except from my 200 closest friends. I am definitely one of those where for the most part, according to Facebook, I have the picture-perfect life. But behind the scenes, I am often crumbling.

When I broke off from my brother’s company in 2016, I felt like Alice falling down the eternal rabbit hole. I was scared out of my mind. And when I am scared, I often turn to the wrong things – and it ain’t Jesus. My blood pressure skyrocketed. I ended up in my doctor’s office, curled in a little ball in the corner; she turned off the lights and just let me try to find myself while she went and saw other patients. This was when I was first prescribed medication for anxiety. My, how those sweet little, tiny pills have saved my life.

Over the next 4 years, I saw 3 AM more often than not. In 2017, my CPA made a $500k error that I struggled to recover from. I am actually still recovering from it. At one point I consulted with a bankruptcy attorney but chose not to declare. Cash flow has kicked my ass. There are weeks when I do not know how we will survive, but we always seem to, somehow. Recently I discovered one of my employees was embezzling from me throughout this entire time. And another pursued me to try to bankrupt me on purpose. The sense of betrayal has been a force to be reckoned with.

There have been so many times where I have considered giving up, but when I consider what else I could do, I cannot think of anything else I want to do. I love what I do. And I am good at it – except the cash flow part. I have prayed so many times over the past few years to God to let me know if this is not what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I continually get the unspoken affirmation that I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. “But God, why are you making it so hard?” It seems I can never catch a break, and I am just so tired of struggling. I have struggled to see God’s purpose. I feel like I have a target on my back. Is it a punishment? All around me, I see people succeeding, while I am failing.

In this journey I have learned some recovery speak, as my pastor calls it. I am sure most people have heard, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” Another is, “Let go and let God.” I have tried so, so hard to turn my burdens over to him. In my mind, I visualize physically giving them to him, along with my anxiety. Yet it does not work - the next 3 AM comes along, and there I am again, brain spinning. Yet every day brings new blessings and mercies, and every day I survive that day.

I worry my expressing this will make me look weak. Maybe I am weak. I constantly ask myself what is wrong with me. I am smart, educated, capable, kind, generous – but life just keeps kicking my ass, over and over and over again. There has to be purpose in it, surely. So I search myself – what is the lesson I am supposed to learn in this? What am I not grasping? What am I supposed to be doing?

There have been times I have been angry with God, but then that faded away. Obviously, I have something to learn. I trust Him in that, even though I do not understand what it is or why it has to be this way. I can see my blessings and have gratitude – a beautiful daughter, a house, pets, a sense of humor, an amazing support system filled with tons of friends. I can see all that and I can appreciate it.

I realized yesterday that I have mostly stopped waking up at 3 am. I guess some might say I have become resigned to my fate. That’s true – somehow, I have accepted it. The world might take that as a negative, a loss of hope perhaps, but it is not that. It is actually a well seated knowledge that no matter what happens, I will be okay. I am taken care of. I trust in God that whatever the path is, He is going to be there with me. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” I do not know when it happened, but at some point I transferred a good amount of my anxiety burden over to him – maybe just in the action of trying to turn it over so many times, maybe each time I tried He took a small percentage of what I was handing Him. There is an eerie, exhausted peace in the wake. Sure, sometimes I take it back – but it is not every 3 AM anymore.

This morning’s sermon felt so spot on for me. Our pastor spoke about Peter, who bumbled everything. He was outspoken and arrogant, always putting his foot in his mouth. After Christ died, he chose to go back to fishing, because that was what he knew – it was his career – it was what he was good at. He was disillusioned with the fact he had spent the last three years of his life following someone who he thought was God, but who was now dead. As he casts his net, he catches nothing. I so know that feeling – the despair, the self-criticism, the shame. Then some dude shows up and tells him to cast his net on the other side of the boat, and they get more than they can handle. Peter realizes it’s Jesus and pulls a Forest Gump when he saw Lieutenant Dan on the boat dock.

Peter had denied Christ three times prior to his death. As Peter sits with Jesus on the shore over a fire, sharing a meal of fish (where did Jesus get those fish?), Jesus asked him exactly three times if Peter loves Him. Peter gets insulted because Jesus keeps asking. I know the story well, but I have never noticed it was three times to match the three denials. Peter was a hot mess, yet God built His church on him. Peter was ready to give up. Peter was dead wrong. Peter was weak.

It just fit. I am that. This is me.

An Excerpt on the Church and Divorce and Grace

I woke up before the alarm went off, but only by 15 minutes. I glared at my phone and resented it. I contemplated strongly turning the alarm off and rolling back over and going to sleep. Today was the first time in a week I’d slept in my own bed, and it felt good. Not only that, after a weeklong ski trip and traveling all day the day before with a family of five, losing one hour due to time zones and another hour to Daylight Savings, I felt totally justified in going back to sleep. I also knew no one but me wanted to wake up and go to church – it would be a fight all the way – and I really didn’t want to go either.

When the alarm went off, I only hit snooze once, and grudgingly rolled out of bed and sent the family down the It’s Time To Get Up and Take A Shower and Get Cute No Writing on Your Shirt You Have to Look Decent Put a Smile on Your Damn Face No We Don’t Have Any Groceries Hurry Up So We Can Buy Donuts Trail. By the time I walked into church, maybe I was ready to pick a fight. I started thinking about an email I’d sent to someone asking them to make our blended family correct in the computer system, and I was guessing no one had fixed it. When we went to sign the girls in, my suspicions were confirmed, but the youth pastor was standing there, so I casually mentioned that our family needed fixed in the computer system, and that I had sent an email. He knew JUST who I needed to talk to, and summoned her right that second. We all stood around while I explained that Edith and I had come here years ago and decided not to make this our church hoe, and now we had decided to come here, so everyone but Edith was under one family, and she was under another. Some jokes were made – it was actually fun and funny – and we were promised that it would get fixed. On the way up to the sanctuary, two people said “Hi” to us, and I thought, this might be getting better (we have only attended this church since August). It felt good.

But then, as we sat in the pew, and praise and worship started, I started wondering what those people down at the kid check in thought about us now. Obviously, we were remarried. So obviously, we are probably divorced – maybe widowed – but probably divorced. And it was like in that moment a huge scab was yanked off of a huge wound, and my tears started just flowing, and I could not stop them. My brain started sifting through all the painful memories, one after another. My heart cried out to God, “God, I am so tired of being rejected by Your Church. Why do You let Your Church reject me?” And I heard or knew or felt God in the very heart of my soul, and knew that He does not reject me. Jesus loves me, this I know. I said, “I know God. I know you accept me. But Your Church rejects me, and it hurts.”

I’m going to tell you about a few of my memories that my brain sifted through. This is not to throw anyone under the bus, but just to explain. In that moment this morning, I knew I was going to blog about this. Why? Not for attention, not so that I would be accepted at my church (I probably actually already kind of am), but hopefully to (A) let people who feel the same way know that they are not alone and (B) maybe raise a little awareness to people who have never been divorced of how much their judgement hurts.

I found myself going through a divorce at 21. It was a mistake. My dad told me not to do it – my best friend told me not to do  it – but I was stubborn and hell bent and wrong. A lot of what was fueling me was being raised in the church, and knowing that sex outside of marriage was a sin. 11 months later, I was in a world of hurt. I knew that divorce was a sin – not only a sin, but an unacceptable sin – and I believed I had to decide between divorce or death, because I could not live with where I was. I’m not going to get into all the nitty gritty, but for a while I chose death as my way out of my marriage. With some help and soul searching and a little medication, I wrapped my head around choosing divorce instead of death. It was a hard fight.

I went in to tell my childhood pastor – not only my pastor, but my swim coach, a father figure, my employer (I babysat his kids for years) – what I had to do. I felt I owed it to him to tell him, since he had married us. He made it clear that day that if I did not stay in the marriage, I was not going to Heaven. I tried to tell him this was life or death, but he argued yes, it was more than life or death – it was Heaven or Hell. After I had some time for this to settle in my heart and mind, I finally came around to the conclusion that if that’s what God was – if that’s what Heaven was – I didn’t want it anyway. I rejected my faith. Honestly though, my faith had already rejected me, or so it seemed.

(Years later I revisited this church and talked to the pastor. He was cold like a fish when he shook my hand. I decided to write him a letter and begged him to tell me that I had misinterpreted his rejection – to please tell me that I had been a child and misunderstood him. I told him how much the rejection had hurt me. It was a letter that was never answered.)

Fast forward four years. I met a pastor and somehow I was just drawn to him. We started conversating about God and church and rejection and faith. He talked me into giving church a try again, once I moved to Texas. He also asked me not to tell anyone that he talked to me or met with me – which was a huge red flag that I ignored. My heart started to heal, I came back to church; I even started teaching Sunday school. And then again, short version here, but he told me that he was going to leave his wife and reverse his vasectomy, and we were going to get married and have children and this was God’s will for our lives. Again, my world spun all over the place. I quietly finished teaching the Sunday school year (there were only a few weeks to go anyway), and left the church. Again, feeling very done with church and God and faith.

I got married again. I did not marry a believer. I wasn’t sure I was one at that point myself. I got divorced again. If you think I felt like a failure after one divorce, I felt like the scourge of the earth after two. What is it, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?” I mean, there’s just no excuse for that!!! But again, I found myself making a choice between what was likely leading to death or divorce. Maybe that’s dramatic – maybe it wasn’t leading to death – but maybe it wasn’t dramatic and maybe it was – I decided not to continue to find out. I had a child to protect, a child that was my entire world. During this time, I got convicted about her not being raised in the church. We started shopping churches and finally found one I fell in love with. At first I was just going for her, because I knew that I had already made choices (twice now) that made Heaven not available to me.

Slowly, this church taught me about grace. I had heard the word grace, but I’d never really understood what it meant. It took me months of intense conversations with the pastor to wrap my brain around grace – I had definitely always been firmly footed in legalism. Grace is getting something we don’t deserve – forgiveness in my case. I cannot explain how life altering this was when I finally understood. I had great healing. For a while I felt accepted, kind of, mostly. Kind of depends on who, honestly. I was the only single parent I knew of in the entire church, and that felt ostracizing. I’ll never forget taking a parenting class – I was all excited about meeting some other people with kids my age and getting to know them – and on the day of class realized there were twenty-ONE participants. One guy gave me some compassion and said he admired me as a single parent and that someone should mow my lawn or something, but no one ever did. It was a nice thought though.

In this church I wrestled with God about re-marriage. I can tell you I know every verse in the Bible upside down and backwards about what the Bible says about divorce and adultery. I have read blogs and articles, aside from the Bible itself, and sought council from a few men of God whom I respected. I can even make a strong case that the Bible never says that divorce is a sin (GASP). I can also make a strong case that remarriage is indeed adultery and adultery is sin (GASP from the other side). There are a lot of opinions and arguments on both sides, but at the end of the day, what it really boils down to is that it’s between me and God. Or you and God. Whatever, you know what I mean. After years of wrestling (and celibacy -  TMI I know), I decided that I was going to remarry. At first, I didn’t know who, but I decided (with God) that I was going to remarry. I finally rolled with 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 which states “For it is better to marry than to burn with sexual desire.” I went through one relationship in the process that was a Complete Wheels Come Off the Truck Blow Out. A Blow Out that happened before marriage, praise be to God.

But during that Blow Out, I found The Limit of (my Church’s) Grace. Getting remarried was a sin, and my pastor would not perform the ceremony. I was devastated – I thought of him like a 2^nd father. We were very close – very good friends. Now, I understand his side, and I’m not throwing him under the bus. He believes remarriage is a sin, and it goes against his beliefs, and he does not want to be a part of committing that sin. I get it – my brain gets it – my heart was shattered though. When I finally did find my spouse, and we decided to get married, I had to leave that church – the church where I had found so much healing and learned about what grace was had ultimately rejected me, and my new spouse, without ever even meeting him. I realized bitterly that they probably had rejected me all along, and I just wanted to believe that I was accepted. That’s harsh though – the truth is probably somewhere in the middle – part of the church’s people loved me unconditionally for who I was and part of them judged me.

So that was all what was circling my brain this morning and I could not get it to stop. The kind lady behind me handed me the Kleenex. That’s when you know it’s bad! “God, Your Church HURTS. I know you want me to be here, but I don’t want to be today anyway.” I just knew that either the sermon was going to be tailor made for me today and it was going to have nothing to do with me today. Because that’s how sermons work on days like this.

The sermon was about lepers and tax collectors and Roman centurions, and how Jesus loved them. Divorcees were never mentioned specifically. (Sidebar – it reminded me of a sermon I heard years ago where the pastor said that Jesus loves all sinners – “even murderers and rapists and divorcees” and I thought to myself oh my oh my oh my. I’m in quite the company!!!) It was about inclusiveness.  The leper in Matthew 8 was completely shunned by society – Jesus touched him and healed him and made him feel included instead of shunned. Then the Roman centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant just by the power of his words alone, and Jesus says he has greater faith than anyone in Israel (including the Jews). And the verse I loved the most this morning was Matthew 9:13. “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I have come not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Jesus loves me. Jesus wants me. And His Church should spend some time learning “what this means.”

BAM.

It really was an amazing sermon, and one I needed to hear. If you need to hear it too, I’m sure it will be available at www.rcnb.org sometime soon (March 8, 2020). It was not about divorce. But it was about inclusiveness and dropping your judgments at the door.

I do have to say that through all of this, I have learned so much, and God has softened my heart. I don’t think without going through this personally that I would have ever wrapped my heart around LGBT issues within (and with-out) the church. I will not get into all of that, but this group is also rejected very strongly by a huge portion of the church, and it isn’t right. It isn’t Christian. And we should knock it off.

That was my little LGBT soapbox.

Our church says every Sunday, “We are badly broken. We are deeply loved.” That is very true. I know this is true. I want this to be true. But I’ll be honest, I have a hard time trusting that. I generally hold back now more and more in religious settings, even though that isn’t my nature. When I do reach out, I often feel rejected. I know my life choices are obvious and not acceptable to many. I read rejections probably often where it isn’t – I know that. But I also have felt firsthand open, blatant rejection, so I am highly attuned to it.

I write this not for sympathy. Again, I hope through my story that others in my shoes find some solidarity. And I hope others not in our shoes can re-examine the love of Jesus Christ. 

Disclaimer. The image I used is taken off of the internet and is in no way mine. I cannot draw, let alone do computer graphics. It is an image of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and I feel that I am wearing one often when in a church setting! I might get one made ha ha ha.

Travelers Guide to How Not to Do a Big Bend Vacation, or Memoirs on How I Finally Found the Edge of My Husbands Patience

I find there are two types of people in this world – I call them Planners and Wingers. I am decidedly a member of the Winger clan, taking life as it comes at me, with a slight bend in my knees. I also have a love of travel though, which requires some level of planning on my part. Honestly, I have not found it to be totally overwhelming – I generally get the general gyst planned out – a place to stay, something to drive, a few things I would like to do – and then let the rest happen in Winger fashion. 

This does lead to some unfortunate events – like arriving at the San Jose Airport at 4 am with a husband and two children and all of our luggage, and discovering, after dropping the rental car keys into the unmanned box, that we were really supposed to be at the San Francisco Airport. Whoops. My husband is amazingly patient in this (as he should be, since he doesn’t plan these trips either). I was blown away in San Jose when he just said, well, call the Uber. I had braced myself for a tongue lashing at least – that’s what I’m used to in past relationships – but it never came. I married a saint.

So Big Bend. I’ve taken the kid(s) to all these national parks all over this beautiful country of ours – Glacier, Yellowstone, Rushmore, Denali, Yosemite, Joshua Tree, etc, but we never visited the ones in our backyard. It seems a shame. Edith and I had camped on the back side of Big Bend with my Rotary group when we went on a mission trip to Mexico a few years ago, and it was indeed beautiful, in a desolate cowboy sort of way.

We actually know the head park ranger (Keith) at Big Bend and his wife. I asked her about coming out a couple years ago, and she said not to come in the summer – it’s just too hot. So Thanksgiving came around this year, and I thought to myself, let’s go. I contacted her again to try to get the low down. This is how I discovered that there is a Big Bend State Park and a Big Bend National Park – who knew? But no worries, I pulled out the map, and they actually touch – like, overlap even. The National Park camping was all full, but Keith found us the very last spot at the State Park and we I booked it. He was super excited about the location. He did warn me it was primitive  there wasn’t any water or electricity at the site, but he said we could schlep in some water. I laughed in the face of primitive. He laughed at me when I said we were going to pack everything into the Jeep – he insisted we would want a trailer. I insisted we didn’t need a trailer, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I should trust the Park Ranger over my naïve self who has never been to Big Bend nor ever done primitive camping. I rented a U-Haul.

I ran a half marathon on Saturday. That should have some foreshadowing all of it’s own – nothing good ever happens after running a half marathon. We spent all day Saturday getting the trailer and packing. I asked Alice’s little friend Ellie if she wanted to go with us – she had never been camping at all in her entire short life. Since we had the trailer we threw in everything – and still only used about 1/3 of that trailer. We even took the dog, against Cory’s better judgment. We meant to leave at 7 am on Sunday, and left by 8. Which really isn’t too shabby, with all these people I live with that have no concept of time.

I had always heard Big Bend was 8 hours from us. Well Big Bend STATE Park is more like 10. It is southwest of us, and both of our map programs took us in the west entrance of the state park (all the way around). I always think the map knows something we don’t know, so I don’t worry about it too much, nor did I give it much thought. The trip was pretty okay – fun even – and our spirits were joyous as we got closer and closer to our destination. I wondered if we’d have time for a hike before dinner? At 5 pm, our map and all the signs took us down a gravel road. This was the first sign of discontent, as Cory mutters to me, “You are shitting me, right?” I was a little shocked. According to the map and various Google searches, we were now going to travel 60-90 minutes to get to the park entrance on what was indeed, a gravel road. All there is to do is to forge ahead at this point. And 60-90 minutes while annoying with gravel fog surrounding your vehicle and your tires crunching so loudly you can hardly think, is not the end of the world. I think at this point I realized there would be no hike before dinner. During this 60-90 minutes we lost cell service, which we had expected. I occupied myself with following our little dot on the map program and very much looking forward to the entrance popping up on the horizon any moment now, that never seemed to come.

We came to a sign on the right hand side – a map - at about 5:45. It was not grand – it was not what I thought we were driving toward. No ranger station. We just sat there for a few minutes, befuddled. Finally, with an impending sense of doom, I got out of the car and studied this map. Apparently, the park ranger station was another 45 minutes or so in front of us, and closed at 6:00. Two other stations closed at 4:00. If we wanted to, we could camp here for the night, but we could not have a fire. I prayed for a bar of service and dug in my email and found out our camp site was named “Panther Javelin.” Staring at the map, south of the ranger station, I found an area that said Panther Creek and some camp sites with the name Javelin in them. I didn’t see “Panther Javelin” per se, but I was pretty sure, after scanning the rest of the map with no relevant names, that that must be our destination. I took a picture of the map. (THANK GOD, as we soon lost all service entirely).

Cory was not pleased when I cheerily informed him that I had found the camp site, the ranger station was closed, and it was for sure another hour of driving. At this point, we were racing the clock of the sun going down, and knew we still had to set up camp.

As we drove, the road conditions deteriorated. It really wasn’t a big deal with the Jeep, but the U-Haul trailer had an estimated 5” of clearance at the axle. Somewhere along this road I discovered with my one bar of service that it really is not recommended to come to the park at this time of year and that there was no guarantee at all of the road condition. I decided to keep this nugget to myself. I also think it was along this road that Cory first started mentioning leaving first thing in the morning. Leaving???? We had not even gotten there yet, and he’s talking about leaving? I ignore that, and focus on the task at hand – arriving.

The drive was pretty. The sun was setting, against our wishes, and it set off a beautiful display of lights, shimmering through rock formations that were unlike anything I had ever seen. I refrained from asking to stop to take pictures. The car was pretty quiet – tension was brewing. But we were almost there and all of this would soon be behind us. I also remembered Keith warning me it was primitive, but I shooed those thoughts from my mind. 

At 6:30 pm or so we came to a fork in the road where the ranger station should be. According to my calculations, at this fork we should hang a right. The issue was there were two “roads” to the right – or a dry creek bed and a road – or two dry creek beds. By taking a left we went around and found the now closed ranger station. We were ready to be done. It didn’t help any that there are cabins and bunk beds at this location – that were not for us. We drove back around to the creek bed road enigma. Cory parked the car and we walked down both for about 100 yards. It looked pretty sketchy. We were not speaking at this point, unless we had to. I was of the fake it till you break it mentality – everything always works out in the end Pollyanna mode - and Cory was in the what the hell was I thinking when I married this girl mentality. We were definitely in different places. The biggest concern, aside from getting stuck or flipping the car or being held at knife point by drug smugglers or something crazy like that, was just taking the wrong road and then having to drive in reverse with that trailer on. Impossible. So we stood at the impasse. I didn’t think it looked that bad. Cory thought I’d lost my mind.

Suddenly, a couple pulls up in a white truck. They needed fire wood – we informed them the ranger station was closed. We told them our predicament about the roads. The husband offered to drive Cory down a ways in his truck to see how bad it was. I was relieved. For what seemed like an eternity, I waited with the wife and three girls in the jeep, in the middle of nowhere, trying not to think about serial killers and illegal immigrants that might be creeping through the bushes. Finally, the guys returned, with the prognosis that it was indeed a road (the one I thought, for the record) (I love being right) – and it wasn’t that bad. I was so relieved! We only had to go 5 miles down this road, and we’d be at the camp – maybe – if I was right about that being our camp. I kept my uncertainty to myself as much as I could. You have to say a little in case it turns out to be a disaster later.

The first couple of miles were okay. Not great. Okay. After two miles we came to a set of camp sites, and this was about half way. In hind sight, we should have camped here. But we were so close at this point, and the road wasn’t that bad – we both thought so. So we plodded along. It was now 8 pm and completely pitch black. I was beginning to see that there would be no dinner.

The road turned into what I can only describe as hell. I can still see it in my mind – but I don’t know if I have the words to tell you how bad it was. Without the trailer, it would have been terrible. With the trailer, it was absolutely ridiculous. And we were now committed – we could not go in reverse. There were ruts the size of the Grand Canyon – okay, I’m exaggerating with that – but they were gihugic. I am now seeing my husband truly angry for the first time in our marriage. He’s not really saying much, but there’s this glow coming off of him, and not a happy glow either. I’m clutching the Oh Shit Handle and praying quietly but fervently with white cramping knuckles – “Please Lord, let this be over. Please Lord, keep us safe. Please Lord let us get out of this alive. Please Lord, don’t let him kill me in front of the kids.” 

Ellie had had to pee for two hours now, on the bumpiest “not roads” in America. There was no convincing her to pee outside – she never had, and she was not starting now. She was insistent she would wait for the camp site, which we feel fairly strongly about it should have at least an outhouse. Even Alice was saying, "Ellie, you might as well just pee. We won't look." But Ellie was not having it.

OH I forgot to mention about two hours ago those three darlings were listening to Hamilton for the 16,849^th time, and Cory had told them to turn that shit off. You can only take so much “1776” and “Eliza” while back roading in what is not Big Bend National Park. The kids are at this point pretty quiet – you could almost forget they are back there. Cory and I are talking in bullet points now. “I think that’s the road.” “No, it isn’t.” “We’re leaving in the morning.” “Can we talk about that later?” “We’re leaving.” “We’ll talk about it later.” “We’re leaving.” SILENCE. And suddenly Alice says, “Are we going to die? I want to go home!”

I think we both realized at that point we needed to stop fighting. It was a weird fighting. Full of silence and tension with a smattering of rifle shots, I mean conversation. We were at a junction where we didn’t know which of two choices was the road again. We reassured Alice we were almost there and everything was going to be okay, and then both exited the Jeep with flashlights (one flashlight, one phone) and decided to again walk down these two road creek bed thingies to see which one looked more likely. I was a little scared for my life – a little – I don’t think my husband appreciated my presence or existence even at all in these moments. I truly felt awful – I had not done any of this on purpose. At all. I thought I had even got sound advice.

Outhouse or no outhouse, I decide that the next wide spot in the road, we are camping. I cannot take any more of this. The road splits all out again – this time there seem to be roads in every direction. I take my flashlight to the right, C

ory goes left. It’s not “our camp site” but it is A camp site. I tell him I think we should just camp. He tells me we are leaving first thing in the morning. I am starting to want to choke him. I announce to the children that we have arrived! I hand them some paper towels and wish Ellie good luck on her adventure of peeing outside for the first time ever.

It goes on. That was the worst of it, but not the end of it. We set up camp, we cooked. My foil packets actually did work, which was a huge win, but the girls were pretty asleep when dinner was ready. And we did, indeed, leave first thing in the morning. Not to go home, but to another camp site, and another dirt road, at dark. Also, at some point I realized that while the state park and the national park do all but overlap, the only entrance and exit for the state park is out the west side, down 60-90 minutes of gravel, and the national park is to the east. They are about as close to each other in reality as New York is to Delaware.

But I was happy, in hindsight, to find the edge of my husband’s patience. Boundaries, even ones out in the great deserts of Texas, are good to establish and know. Ellie hates camping now, but she still comes over to play from time to time. The kids let me know it was the worst trip ever, and it really hurt my feelings. I teared up. Cory said, “Don’t listen to them. I had a great time,” as he grabbed my hand and squeezed it reassuringly (we were on a paved road when this happened).

Oh, and the view I had at 6 am one morning, when I’d climbed a little hill to pee in peace, was absolutely fantastic. I don’t typically think of deserts as amazing or beautiful, but that morning it was simply glorious.

And in that moment, I was glad we came.