Being Seen in the Dark

In the previous blog I talk about how God is present with people, including the stories of persons who have been assaulted or harassed.  I talk about regardless of whether people are believed, God is present in the dark moments and will be made known.  I end the blog with this statement:

"God was present in these stories when people violated the sacredness of other persons' bodies...."

I thought I should honor such a statement with a full blog post.

God being present in the darkest moments of the human experience is a truth I believe in.
 

God's presence is attested to by Scripture and affirmed by my tradition (Presbyterian U.S.A.).  While preparing for ministry, in my internship and a class called "Pastoral Care" it was emphasized to us that part of our job was to be present with people in order to represent that God was present especially during the moments filled with the most pain and most darkness.  These moments usually meant pain and suffering of the body, the loneliness of assisted living and nursing homes, and the death of loved ones.  As pastors we were to be the calm presence and hopefully remind people that they were not alone or forgotten or forsaken, but that God still loved them and was present with them.

At the same time I was going through therapy to deal with a set of memories that caused me to have crippling panic attacks and struggle with trusting in relationships.  A set of memories that made me super sensitive to stories of rape and assault, especially when dealing with young persons.  A set of memories I did not want to have and spent my entire life trying to repress and making myself believe that I had made up. However, I had to face the reality that a child could not make stuff like that up. No matter how creative.

I am not going to go into details of what happened to me. I do not owe them details to you and the purpose of this blog is not to prove to you that what happened to me is true.  First because it will be distracting from the point, and second because I cannot prove it beyond memory and my story.

Balancing the work from therapy and the work of seminary created an interesting and difficult sandwich of introspection.  Eventually I realized that if I believe God is present in the darkest moments and if I am going to tell other people that God is present, then I needed to see God present in my darkest moments.  I needed to work on seeing God where I literally could not.

I would not suggest doing this unless you are in partnership with a certified therapist.  Because I spent so much time being angry and feeling betrayed.  How come no one saved me?  How come no one knew what was happening?  How could God let this happen to me?  I hated the exercise of sitting in a moment that was so repulsive and gross I almost vomit every time just so that I could look around from God.

I would love to say that it only took a day or a week.  It didn't.  It took a good year of actively working on imagining God present with me for me to begin to see God there. And when it happened it caught me off guard.  I remember the first time it happened because it made me gasp out loud.

 I would love to say that now those memories don't hurt anymore and that I never deal with panic attacks or depression anymore. I can't.

I would love to end this blog with a great token recipe of how to turn dark moments into an evangelical fix, filled now only with light and no more darkness.  I can't, and I won't.

Seeing Jesus present with me doesn't make the darkness disappear or the dark moments good. It doesn't make it easier to stomach or any less repulsive.  It didn't take away the triggers for my panic attacks. Rather, seeing Jesus present with me makes me feel less forgotten, alone, and unloved.  It reminds me that I am seen. 

I do not see light, but I do see that I am not alone.

So to anyone who had dark moments or is currently swimming in one, I have nothing to say that will make it make any sense.  All I can say is that somehow, somewhere, God is present. You are not alone.  You are seen.

The Danger of Spoken Stories

Things seemed to have grown a bit quite in regards to all the sexual assault allegations and the MeToo movement.  So the logically thing might be for me to do so as well. But I can't. As the news outlets and social media feeds moved on, consumed with the latest bit of kryptonite and/or drowning in the madness that can be the holiday season, I keep thinking about the MeToo movement, the solidarity I felt knowing I wasn't alone and that someone would believer me.  I kept thinking about the many women who came forward to speak against the men who had assumed rights over other people's bodies, particularly women's bodies.  I kept thinking about all the people (mostly men) who were upset that know they had to be conscious of respecting the bodies of the women in their lives.  And I especially kept thinking of an article I had read in which the woman author argued the MeToo movement and the sharing and telling of stories was dangerous. 

My mind was rather persistent in returning again and again to the concept of stories spoken out loud being dangerous.

I have heard an old, old story or two, of how a people were enslaved in Egypt. The story told me how the people cried out for deliverance and that God heard their cries.  The story told me that a prophet and leader was chosen by God to lead the people out of Egypt.  This prophet went to Pharaoh and told him to let the people go.  The prophet told Pharaoh time and time again of the power of God and of what would happen to the Egyptian people.  The Pharaoh did not believe their stories.

And yet, God still showed up.  God freed the people with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

A while later, the same people were in the wilderness, fleeing from Egypt. They were afraid, and bitter, and hungry.  The prophet told them that God was with them, that God was leading them some where better, that they should not return to Egypt.  The people didn't believe his words and his stories.

And yet, God still showed up.  God came in a pillar of fire.  God brought them water and manna and quail.

A little while later, a young shepherd boy armed with stones and a sling stood in front of a mighty and skilled warrior armed with a shield and a sword and a spear and armor.  The large, mighty warrior laughed at and threatened the boy.  The boy told the mighty warrior that his armor, his weapons, and his army were no match for the LORD God.  The boy told the might warrior that the battle belonged to the LORD and that the mighty warrior and his army would fall.  No one there believed this boy's words and stories, not his own army, or the mighty warrior, or the mighty warrior's army.

And yet, God still showed up.  God smote the might warrior through the stone the boy slung.

Much later, another prophet named Amos went to the people of Israel.  Amos told them they needed to change their ways.  Amos told them God had said to stop exploiting the poor, and to take care of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan.  They did not believe his words or his stories.

And yet, God still showed up.

And after that time, as the people were separated from each other and from the homes, they thought that God had abandoned and forsaken them.  Their Scriptures told them how much God loved them and was with them, but they did not believe it.

And yet, God still showed up, right where they were at and right where they didn't expect or believe God to show up.

Again and again, words and stories of God were spoken.  Again and again, God still showed up regardless of whether or how much the people believed.

And now, standing in the wake of Christmas Day, still a bit damp from swimming in wrapping paper, cookies, shiny ornaments, and swarms of eager, last minute shoppers, the Christmas story is newly fresh in my mind.  Looking at the manger, I cannot help but agree that the stories told by women can be dangerous.

You see, I heard a few more stories. A long, long time ago, in this very galaxy, in this very solar system, and on this very earth, a young woman was told she would give birth to a son. What made this particular instance peculiar was not simply that it was an angel telling her this and was not simply because this male baby would be the incarnation of God made flesh, but because this woman was a virgin who was engaged.  Her body did not belong to herself.  Her body had belonged to the patriarch of her family but was currently under the dominion of her soon-to-be husband.

At some point, Mary told her story to Joseph.  She told him about the angel and the baby growing inside her belly.  She told him about how she had consented to the Creator who had sovereignty over all the created order, including herself and including her womb.  I'm not sure how exactly the conversation went, but what I do know was that Joseph didn't believe her.  He was going to end the agreement for their relationship quietly, either to delay the punishment for her "unfaithfulness" which was death or to hide his own feelings and shame.

Even though Joseph didn't believe her story, God still showed up.  God sent angels and God sent Jesus the Messiah, born in the flesh.

And a little later after that, after Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, some women went to his tomb.  To anoint and care for the dead body of the one they cared for.  When they got there, the body was gone and two angels were telling the women that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Mary Magdalene encountered a man in the garden and eventually saw it was Jesus the Messiah.  She ran to tell the other disciples.  She told them Jesus had risen from the dead.  They didn't believe her.  They ran to the tomb and found it empty as she and the other women had said, but they did not believe her story and her words that Jesus had risen from the dead.

And yet, God still showed up.  Jesus appeared to them again and again for the next forty days until his ascension into heaven.  Jesus touched them, talked with them, walked with them, and cooked food to eat with them.

Stories are powerful, and stories that are spoken out loud are even more so.  I believe that because my entire Holy Book is based on stories that were spoken again and again, and those words changed people.  Not because of the person who spoke them but because of the God who was revealed and made present within and through them.  And while stories of the bodies of black and white women, Native American and Latinx women, old and young women, able and disabled women, may not be the same grade as Genesis or Amos or Luke, but these stories are still dangerous because God still show up and wreck havoc on our assumptions and our hearts of stone.  Because God was present in these stories when people violated the sacredness of other persons' bodies, and even if you or I don't believe their stories God will show up.

Believing is Seeing

It's a line from one of my favorite Christmas movies.  In the movie "The Santa Claus" starring Tim Allen, he becomes the next Santa through a series of events.  At the beginning of his introduction to the North Pole on the fateful day he becomes Santa Claus, an elf by the name of Judy is discussing with him the reality of magic, the North Pole, and Santa Claus.  Tim Allen's character (Scott Calvin) looks around at the wonder that surrounds him and says that though he sees it, he doesn't believe it.

Judy responds, "Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing."

I have no doubt some pastor (or two) have used this movie bit as a sermon analogy about how believing in God is seeing God at work, or something.  Rather than talking about that, I am going to take it a different direction.  I am going to talk about believing women who have had their bodies violated and used without their expressed consent.

Before I go too much further, I know that my curtailing the conversation to focus on women is going to bring people who say that boys and men are violated too, which is 100% true and equally as wrong.  Not all sexual assaults are reported, and the number of reports is lower amongst male identifying persons, and that is heart breaking.  But this blog is about believing the stories of the victims.  In the outpouring of sexual assault instances that are coming to light (as they should) there is one prominent male figure who has shared his story about assault.  Actor and former NFL player Terry Crews spoke out about his experience with agent Adam Venit.  Because I read the comment sections like a troll, I couldn't help but notice most of people who saying how brave he was, how courageous, how inspiring.  I noticed it, because days before the comment sections and FB conversations I glanced over in regards to the allegations about Harvey Weinstein were filled with people demanding the women prove it, calling them sluts and whores, and saying with a sense of all knowing that these women were just looking for attention.  Or all the women who came forward about Bill Cosby and the people who still denied the women were telling the truth.

As proud as I am for Mr. Crews speaking out about his experience, I cannot help but feel a deep sadness at the contrast of the conversations. No one doubted him.  No one asked him to prove it.  No one accused him of slander.  No one asked Mr. Crews how much he had drank or what he was wearing or if he was asking for it. 

He was simply believed.  Through belief in him people stated they saw his pain, they saw his experience, they saw how vile it was, and that they saw his personhood.

When we don't believe women, we are saying we don't see them. 

When we don't believe women we are saying we don't see their pain, that we don't see how vile it would be to have that done, and that we don't see them as a person.  When we don't believe women, we don't honor their personhood, their ownership of self and their own bodies and that their bodies bear the image of Christ.

But when we say we believe women's stories, we say that we see them. Not only that, for by believing them we begin to actually see them, to see any pain or anger or confusion they harbor.  We begin to understand them and to care about them, to open and transform our hearts and let God do some long over due housecleaning.

Yet I want to dare us to take a step further.  I want us to believe women without demanding the ransom of their stories.  When we see a scar on the skin, we do not need to hear the story to know that it hurt.  And the hardest part about scars we cannot see is we do not know if it is healed or if it is still bleeding and scabbed.  Or if it is like a phantom limb that will randomly itch and ache with no ability to relieve it.  There is so much we don't know, but I am fairly certain about some things, one of which being that believing a woman leads to us seeing them, seeing their bodies as sacred, caring about them as persons, and slowly building space for the Healer and Sustainer to do the rest.

So if we are to be better at seeing, we need to start by being better as believing.

How to Talk to the Single Women in Your Life

As soon as I got old enough, the questions and conversations I would be engaged with during the holidays, whether it be family gatherings or church social functions, were stripped down to three basic questions.

  "How are you?"

"How's school?"

"Do you have a boyfriend yet?"

At first it was flattering. The simple act of initiating conversation was thrilling to me because I had understood it as people caring about me, wanting to get to know who I was and who I wanted to be. Eventually through the complexities of social interactions and patterns, I came to understand the first two questions were never as important as the final questions. The older I became the more it seemed to be that those initial questions in the sequence were simply a means to an end - to the knowing of my all too important relationship status.

I have said in a prior blog post that relationships are an important and healthy part of the human existence, including the human existence of single persons, but it was disappointing that every conversation seemed to be focused on the need to talk about me in relation to a romantic attachment. My identity as a human was bound up solely in someone else. It didn't matter what I was studying, what I was passionate about, what I was struggling with, or what gave me joy or pain. All that mattered was having a partner. It also caused me to be this strange tangle of sad and angry, because regardless the answer I gave there was the secondary assumption of how I felt about my relationship status (or lack thereof). It was assumed I was sad if I was single (and that it was never a choice), and happy if I had a someone.

I am not saying that having a someone cannot make a person happy or that single persons are never sad about being single. I am also not trying to say that family and friends should never inquire into the personal, relational aspects of the single people in their lives. What I am attempting to point out is that in very small, simple questions, a single woman can be reminded of her lack of voice and personhood in a place where her voice and personhood should be uplifted and honored as a complete human experience. In only listening to her when she is talking about a romantic partner, we teach women there are limits to where their value is.

When I began to voice my complaints about only being questioned about a partner, it was explained to me having a someone would mean that a new persons could be introduced into the social circles and they wanted to know as much as possible before they met the person (if they ever did). That explanation did not lessen the disappointment. Quite the reverse actually, for right before their very eyes was a young woman who was constantly changing, constantly becoming new, and they seemingly had no interest in who she had become or was becoming into. Here, before them was a new person, and they were more interested in someone else, a person that may not have existed or that they may never meet.

So when you find yourself in a conversation with a family member or friend or church member who is a single woman, I beg you to ask her a question about who she is. First, get to know what makes her tick and thus honor who God has uniquely and wonderfully made her to be. Ask her what God is up to in her life, where she has seen God or where she struggles to see God.  Ask her about her prayer life or her passions.  Ask her if she has created something.  Ask her to teach you something.  Ask her if she's read something, or what her favorite movies are.

And if she has a significant other, go talk to the significant other directly.

Loneliness

As I sat at my kitchen table, laptop humming and warm underneath my hands and fingers lightly tapping the keys without making any definitive decision as to which letter to press first, I discovered speaking about loneliness and my loneliness eluded me.  Yet it was there, churning and contracting and constricting inside of me like a deep muscular knot.  And will still be there after I have clicked the publish button.  My loneliness shying away from the limelight reminded me of an Emily Dickinson poem:


The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --

The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --

I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --     


I've discovered that loneliness does not want to be known or spoken about.  It wants to remain secret and unspoken, simmering just under the surface of my skin.  I've also discovered that loneliness is a really good seamstress.  It weaves within my tapestry the lies that I am alone.  That I am the only one who feels this way.  That no one will understand me.  That no one will love me with the loneliness I feel.  That everyone will leave me if I'm not who they want me to be.

That doesn't mean I am never happy or don't feel joy.  Also being single doesn't automatically mean you are carrying loneliness.  I have been in good, healthy relationships and still felt lonely.  I have been surrounded by people and still felt lonely.  I think that's another one of loneliness's threads - it makes us believe it looks a certain way, distracting us from what's really behind the curtain.

The only way I have figured out to combat my loneliness is to speak about it.  But it's hard. It is hard to say that you are lonely if you are a woman.  Because sometimes it happens that as soon as you've gathered up the strength and courage to address your enigmatic house guest and as soon as the words stumble across the threshold of your lips, people will want to fix it.  Like a tear in the kitchen wall paper.  They will scramble to get their glue and patches and quickly put the wall paper back were it belongs, glowing with pride at their accomplishments, all the while forgetting that I was the one who peeled back the paper to begin with.  Forgetting I wanted them to look beyond the paper into the structure of my home.  For they can't fix it. It is not one persons whole responsibility to sweep in and Deus Ex Machina.  I wanted them to see it, see me, and still love me.

It's also hard because we have raised our daughters and women so well to care for the needs of others, placing their family and partners first that they don't know how to speak their needs.  As much as women are needed, we don't want them to have needs or to reversely need others.  We want to be strong, not needy.  We drown ourselves in tending to the needs of others, in needing to be needed, without having to have needs ourselves.  So not only do we not know exactly how to ask for our needs but we also feel extremely guilty and selfish.

And if I am going to be completely honest, I think another reason it's hard (at least for me) can be summed up in the beginning line of anther Emily Dickinson poem:

It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness --
I'm so accustomed to my Fate --


I don't know if that sentiment is me or the loneliness or both.  I'm not exactly sure whose threads are whose in my tapestry, and maybe part of me is afraid of what I will look like without it since it has been so long - I'm not sure what I would look like.  Or who would still love me.

And yet, even now, even in light of the loneliness I have confessed, I want to be done with this burden.  And all lonely people are asking you to do is see us.  And if you feel extra kind, to reach out a hand, gently feel the rough and jagged edges of where we tore away the wall paper and lovingly call it a beautiful broken and let it remain. 

Then someday we will show you a new room.

Preaching on Singleness

Five minutes before service and I was still sitting in my car.  I had spent the last five minutes, after I had parked and turned my car off, wondering what had I gotten myself into.  The profile of the church building stood in the corner of my eye and I tried very hard to ignore it.  I looked over the sermon outline I had prepared, scrawled down in haste as if the Spirit's inspiration would evaporate if I wrote it down slowly and neatly.  I could have re-written it, made it nice and neat and organized. Proper, like a lady pastor should be.  Looking back now, it was comforting to have something that looked on the outside as anxious and nervous as I felt inside.  It was a physical companion I carried with me as I walked into the church as I surrendered in obedience to the Holy Spirit.

I have spent the last year and half doing the ministry of guest preaching to churches in need. Some of the opportunities were from pastors who needed a vacation, but more often than not these were churches who needed a pastor.  For over a year, I heard their anxieties, their fears, their joys, and their struggles.  I heard about their physical pains as they avoided telling me about their emotional or spiritual pains.  When a member died, I could tell they noticed how much space was in the pews.  I could see their fears of their church dying when they asked me to pray for the families of the deceased.  I could see the stress from shouldering the responsibility of keeping the church doors open when they apologized for the small attendance of 25 or 10 or 5.

I never felt uncomfortable preaching to a choir (no literally, sometimes it was only a five member choir in attendance), because where they (or others) might have seen death, I saw life. I saw a steadfast devotion to God.  I saw a willingness to risk being the only one present.  I saw devotion to God even when all their friends were absent by death or sickness.  I saw a great witness to the hope of the resurrection even as my voice echoed in the nearly empty space. And every day, every time, I was honored to the point of tears to be in the presence of such faithfulness.

But I am not writing about their devotion, at least not this time.  Instead, I am writing about how I failed to speak to their fears of their church dying, their anxieties of being without a pastor, and their pain from feeling unloved and abandoned, and especially the pain of seeking a new pastor.  I failed to be faithful to them as they had been faithful to God through the gift I had been given of singleness.

You see, in the Presbyterian Church (USA), the process of matching pastors and churches is a long and laborious task.  Eligible pastors make an online profile, and newly single churches make their own profile, and potential matches are made.  If one party is interested in the other, they begin talking.  The talking may lead to meeting, perhaps over coffee.  The meeting may lead to more meetings, which may lead to a match.  Or, it could lead to one not being interested, one not being picked, or one ghosting with no explanation.

So basically, it is like online dating.  For years I have jokingly described it as such for it is the easiest way to explain my job search process to my non-church or non-Presbyterian friends, but the analogy is pretty spot on.  And it's a process I understand, having willingly put myself through the torturous process of online dating.  The ads make online dating seem so simple and pleasant, but those ads are lying.  Online dating is exhausting and it sucks.  You can spend hours looking for someone to see you, to be vulnerable with, only to have your efforts shoved back in your face.  You can end up feeling more belittled, more alone, and more abandoned than before.  And no matter how strong or self confident of a woman you are, it still hurts.  It still gnaws at you.

It is the same in the pastor search process.  No matter how strong or faithful you are, hopelessness and fear still gnaw at you.  Pain and unanswered questions echo inside our minds and hearts, and we try to never show it.  And it is especially hard when we are happy for our former pastors.  It is hard to hold both happiness and sadness together.  We think faithfulness is not worrying and not doubting.  We think the best way to preserve the church is to not grieve.  We think we need to pick either joy or sorrow.

And for the past year I talked to those fears and anxieties but never talked about them.  I never named and addressed their pain directly.  God worked through me regardless of my failings to be faithful because that is the kind of God we are dealing with - One who uses broken and messy humans.  And in the forgiveness I have received from Jesus, I responded with faithful (nervous filled) obedience. I walked up to the pulpit, set my messy scrawled outline of a sermon in front of me, and looked them each right in the eye as I told them how well I saw their pain, their fears, and their feelings of anger, frustration, and brokenness. I told them it was okay to feel both happy for the former pastor's new position and sad that the pastor is gone.  I told them I could understand how exhausting and tired and abandoned they felt.  I read the beginning words of Habakkuk, in which the exiled people who feel abandoned and forgotten cry out to God, and how God hears them and speaks to them even in their abandoned state because even in exile God had not abandoned them.  God stayed.

You see, I was able to do this because of the gift of singleness.   I knew with confidence no other preacher spoke directly to their vulnerable, soft spots because no one preaches on singleness. 

And through this gift, I knew better than to promise them an easy road to a match, to a pastor/partner.

I knew better than to say that if they are perfect and pure that then and only then will God give them the reward of a pastor/partner who will lead them.

I knew better than to say this is all a part of God's plan, for as much as it is, those words are more hurtful than healing.

I knew better, because through the gift of singleness by the grace of God, the faithfulness of Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit I have been able to see that the promise of the gospel is not the promise of a pastor/partner but the promise that God stays.  That God IS present.  That God's faithfulness is not evident only when times are good or when the church's pews are over flowing with bodies.  God's faithfulness is not given if we are well behaved and have the right people in the pews.  No, God simply IS faithful.  We cannot earn it, and bad times are NOT a sign of a lack of it. 

I was only able to speak to the truth of God being present when things are crappy and how God does stay in our moments of greatest pain because that is the promise declared in the empty tomb that God stays with us - Emmanuel.  And I am only uniquely able to speak to this promise in this way, to beckon persons into moments of vulnerability because I am single.  Every time a married person speaks to me about singleness, it is aggravating and distracting because since they are no longer single there is the unspoken illusion of a partner being the reward and not God's presence with us.  But I make no such illusion or promise other than pointing to the gospel.  In being a single person preaching, I made no such promise that they would be happily wed aka that their church wouldn't die or close down.  I simply said I knew a part of their pain and that I knew God was still present, some how and some where, and would be present regardless of what was to come.  I told them I didn't know how God was present. I just knew God was and is and will be.

I am not saying that marriage is bad or that married people are not faithful to God - this is not an either or situation.  Marriage is indeed a gift, and so is singleness, and this is one of the ways I hope I have been faithful to honoring my singleness as the gift it is.

Love in What You Leave

The coffee shop was filled with the expected Saturday afternoon buzz.  It was April 30th. My mother's birthday, and it was lovely and temperate. The windows were open, allowing the unfiltered sounds of the city to pour in with the breeze. 

Some caffeine seeking cliental walked in and out, ordering their espressos and iced lattes and some snatched up any available real-estate they could. I had arrived early to insure we had a spot.  The only available one was a small round table, close to the register.  I set my hot tea down after trying (and failing) to sip it without burning my mouth and the table teetered ever so slightly, squeaking loudly in protest to my liquid burden.

He had arrived ten minutes ago, ordered his drink, and joined me.  I braced the table, trying to muffle its protestation.  Immediately he had begun to talk about....I can't even remember.  This was the café in which we first met which is why I had picked it.  As a theatre artist I enjoyed the poetic symmetry it established.  As he talked, I wondered if he noticed or would notice, since he heralded himself a great theatre artist.  Since it wasn't really about him, I doubted he would. 

Stopping himself, he asked himself what he was talking about and why, and then asked what I wanted to talk about.

I pulled a deep breath in, gathering as much strength from the sweet, warm spring air as I could and looked him straight in the eyes.  I let my heart peek out from behind the walls I had built in order to protect it from him. 

I said that we were done "seeing" each other, or whatever term ambiguous term we were using. 

I said that I had loved him.

He opened his mouth to begin what he would do - tell me I was wrong and manipulate my emotions with his words to eventually make this all my fault. Make me look and feel stupid. Small. Weak. Unwanted.

I cut him off, my tone slicing through his words.  I said this was my truth and he could not tell me what it was I felt. 

I said I did love him, but that if this is what love looks like, I want no part of it anymore.  I said he no longer gets to touch me. He no longer gets to use me. He no longer gets to make me feel little and insignificant.

He told me he wanted to be friends.  He told me he cared about me.  He told me that he wouldn't have come here at all if he didn't care about me.

Guilt began to rise from my heart up into the back of my throat like bile.

I swallowed.

I said if he really cared about me, he would have ended it with me when he wanted to see other people rather than cheating on me.  I said if he cared, he wouldn't be trying to make me feel guilty.  I said if he cared he wouldn't have been such an asshole.  And I said that I didn't want to see what friendship looked like if this was how he did relationships.

But I couldn't stop there.  For months I rooted through myself looking for the weeds he planted in me.

I found the one that said being in an unhealthy relationship was better than nothing, and I told it that it was wrong. And pulled.

I found the one built on loneliness, that cultivating the lies that I was alone, isolated, and no one understood me.  The one that told me the best way to fix it was to ignore it. I told it no, and pulled.

I found one with that said I was worthless and unlovable, one that was able to grow deep roots from all the years of memories from other people doing and telling me the same. I told it no, that it was bullshit. And pulled.

I found the one that told me it was all my fault, and that I deserved this.  And I told it to shut the fuck up.

Thing is, this garden which flourished under his care was not originally planted by him.  It had been tilled and tended for years of people saying directly or indirectly that my worth as woman was tied up and summed to a romantic relationship.  What he encouraged to grow were seeds dropped from the words of people assuring me that God's faithfulness to me would be evident in me having a someone.  And each person who would nod their heads in agreement that singleness is a gift but then want no part of it, who wanted to cure my singleness with their grandsons, made me feel like I was worthless and unlovable.  This garden was able to grow because we as a Church spend so much time telling women to be in relationships rather than telling them how God loves them, just as they are.  We don't face the actual pain of their loneliness, their additions, their insecurities, and their failures.  We would rather don't teach our girls and women to love themselves with the love that God has for them, which beckons us to leave our Egypts behind.  I'm not trying to place blame on one person or one group of persons - the responsibility for our neglect is all of our to bear and wrestle with.

It was hard.  I thought many times it would break me. There were moments when I almost went back because having something (even something unhealthy and destructive) seemed better than having to learn to love myself.  But with time, tons of tears, and a wonderful therapist, I was able to leave them behind. 

And any time they grow back, I pull them up again and leave them, some easier than others.  You see, I leave these things, this relationship and even harmful friendships, because no matter how deep these lies get planted in me have grown, deeper still was God's love for me.  And I am only able to leave not because of my own strength or because I innately understand my value but rather because of God's steadfast love for me.  A love that wants me to leave Egypt, to leave behind the things that weigh me down and the lies that keep me enslaved.  A love that wants me to find healing and wholeness in ways that may hurt but that are truth-filled and healthy.

Beloved sisters who are reading this and struggling, you are worth being loved.  It is not your fault. You are not alone. You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to pretend to be perfect.  You are loved, and I pray that you trust in God enough to start loving yourself by leaving the garbage behind.