A single mom to three boys working hard to live my truest life. I hope as I share the beauty, the gratitude, the grief, the hard…you find inspiration + hope to show up to your life as honestly as possible.
All in Church Trauma
When I was pregnant with him, he was referred to as a “sin” so many times. Sure, “they were referring to sex outside of marriage as a sin,” but the product of sin is brokenness & Kahlil is anything BUT broken.
Christianity set many of us up for unhealth inside marriage.
Is this every Christian-culture-raised person’s story? No.
Is it too many? Yes.
Is it possible many haven’t even processed this could be your story? Of course: because… then what?
The obsession of many of our adolescence was sexual purity & dating to marry.
Whether or not you have sex before you’re married has absolutely nothing to do with how your sex life is while married.
Can you even believe that?
Because I sure haven’t for the majority of my life.
It’s Sunday & I haven’t been to church since pre-pandemic, March 2020.
When the pandemic began I was in my 2nd trimester of a mostly-hidden pregnancy.
I was grateful for excuses to not go anywhere while my belly grew & I wasn’t ready to share about this baby.
I’ve been a part of about a dozen church communities.
Pole dancing is helping me heal. I know, I know, I sound like a heretic.
I’m soooo bad at it & that’s not me being “humble” or “modest,” that’s me stating a fact. I’m going to keep showing up anyways.
When I invite God into these softened, honest spaces of seeing abuse and brokenness, I become more sad than angry with those who hurt us. The hardened walls of bitterness are shed and replaced with soft sorrow and an invitation to grieve the loss of what should have been.
Forgiveness is for our healing and wholeness. But I cannot find this freedom and joy until I truly begin to walk through the dark parts of my suffering and pain.
Time and time again, I find I cannot skip the night to arrive to the morning. Joy comes in the morning, but the morning comes after the dark night. Sometimes the night lasts longer than we want it to.
When my husband came home from his meeting only 30 minutes after he had left home for the meeting to "plan our transition out of this city," my heart raced. When the quiet, desperate, pained words "He fired me" came out of his mouth, I felt my eyes widen and my jaw drop.
When the birth experience I had been dreaming about for over 4 years turned into one of the loneliest experiences of my life, I felt guilty.
When we were forced to say goodbye to our first baby too soon, when his tiny body left mine to reside forever below the earth and among filth, a part of me went with him.
While in the thick of grappling with whether or not we were a part of something unhealthy and detrimental, I felt crazy. I started counseling six months before the end of our vocational-career and every week brought tears and ulcers and the unending, ever pressing questions: Am I the crazy one? Does this pain really make me un-Christlike? Is this really all my fault? Is it really my decision to be hurt from this? Is my hurt valid? Do I really just need to suck it up, forgive, and move on?
Fast forgiveness is the way of Christian Culture that I want to help change and transform.
"You're running away from your Calling."
"They really fell off the rails."
"They left for THAT reason?"
Or rather, my husband was an ordained pastor with a Bachelors of Arts in preaching and ministry. And I served right along with him, full time.
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