On Infertility and the Church

Just last year a friend asked me if it was alright for her to talk about her pregnancy. My youngest was about a year and a half at the time. Presumably the pain of infertility is enough in the past that I should be able to have these conversations without holding myself back.

I appreciated the question.

Was it time? Could I do it?

Or would it, like so many conversations that happened during our years of infertility, throw me into emotional chaos?

It only took a few seconds for me to take stock and realize I was ready. This was a friend who had prayed for me, cared for me, loved me, who was now on her third pregnancy and hadn't really felt free to talk about the first two with me because we were still waiting and hoping and experiencing the pain of loss over and over and over again. And she knew it was too much.

It's funny, you know. Looking back on the years of that struggle, there are a few very stark memories that define it for me.

Sitting in a pew at church while pregnant woman after pregnant woman walked by, bellies right at my eye level, and fighting ever so hard to be happy for them, to pray for their unborn children and, honestly, fighting hard not to flee down the aisle and sob in the car.

I didn't always win that fight.

Listening to sermon after sermon wherein the person shared a similar struggle and how God eventually "blessed" him or her with that long-awaited biological child.  Because (a) they finally stopped asking or (b) they let God teach them something they were stubbornly unwilling to learn and so God answered them or (c) they prayed without doubt or (d) they prayed in tongues or (e) they chose holiness in their life and so God rewarded them. It really goes on and on. And not one time did I hear a sermon in which God didn't answer that prayer in exactly the way the person wanted. And yet I know couple after couple for whom a biological child was not "the answer."

Being told that to "be fruitful and multiply" was still God's mandate for how I should family plan. Just trust him, if children are indeed a blessing, then you will have more.

There was no language for what we were going through. There were only stories of victory. Hang in there, I know someone who waited 10 years! Oh, well, you are going to adopt? You know the second you do, you'll get pregnant. That's how God works. Stop asking. Once you don't want it, he'll give it to you.

Friends, come on.

Really?

Can we not do better for one another, here? Can we stop misrepresenting God as a capricious, malicious being who only gives kids to those who pray the right way? Are we really going to tell people there is a way to earn kids? What is that?

I realize that there is no comfortable way for us to talk about infertility. It DOESN'T make sense. In our case, the medical community called it "unexplained." There was no biological reason for it. There was nothing we could "fix." Maybe that's why all the spiritual fixes felt even more unhelpful. Even though we knew we disagreed with the theology of so many of them, we would latch onto the hope they offered. Ok, maybe I am NOT praying hard enough. OK, maybe I AM really being disobedient in some way. What can I change? What can I do so God will stop punishing me?

Maybe it's my fault. I caused it, I perpetuate it, I am guilty, somehow.

Rather than sitting with each other, lamenting the losses, the miscarriages, the unwanted periods...we struggle to find an explanation. And inadvertently heap guilt on one another when we do.

Look, I don't have any answers here. I don't know why it happens. I don't know exactly what God is up to in anyone's journey of infertility. I know the literature says that it can be as emotionally painful as a cancer diagnosis and I know that felt true. It was literally debilitating at times. And it sure as heck was isolating.

And I know the church, where babies are celebrated, longed for, baptized, dedicated and cherished can be the hardest place in the world for an infertile woman to thrive. Sometimes the way motherhood is communicated, the way pregnancy is communicated, can even threaten the very woman-ness of someone going through this. She feels less than. Like who she was created to be cannot fully be.

Can I be honest?

This is nonsense. Utter, damaging nonsense.

I was created to be a daughter of a loving God. That's it. Whether I can produce a baby or not doesn't change who I am or my status before God. Let's cut this out now. 

It's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

What if we talked about that IN THE CHURCH?

What if we started to have a language for women to understand that it isn't about their spiritual effort?

What if we mourned with those who mourn in this particular area?

What if we shared stories from the pulpit that DIDN'T result in a biological child?

What if we talked about adoption not just as the "solution to abortion" in our churches but as a complex and traumatic choice and not the simplistic, unicorns and rainbows, way that we currently do?

What if we didn't talk about adoption as the "backup" plan?

What if we could truly be the church and embrace those couples who feel alienated from a culture that equates blessing with family size?

What if, like Jesus did, we could just sit with a woman in pain and offer her love?

Man, that would be a beautiful thing.

Friend, if you are going through this silent pain, please know that I'm safe. I would be happy to listen, to cry, to lament, to yell.

And I promise not to offer you any solutions. Just love.

When the Church Is

I find myself glancing up at the tiny screen to the left of the stage less and less often these days. It's been at least a month since someone has had to call us away from the service. Since our son's number has flashed. Since someone has tapped us discreetly on the shoulders or found us in a Sunday school class, an apologetic but nonetheless clear look on his or her face.

We need you to come. We need you to pick him up. The teacher can't handle him.

You understand, right?

And we do. We know. We understand the challenges. We know that what feels like a no-brainer to many families - dropping your four year-old child off at Sunday School - feels like a tremendously risky act to some people. We know what it feels like to be called again. To pick up again. To have to work ourselves up to the point of being willing to try it - again. And we know what it feels like to have to pick your kid up after only 3 minutes in the special needs class because even that isn't working.

Talk about feeling like you are out of options.

But a month ago, our family pastor ran into me when I was alone at church on a Wednesday to co-lead the small group we attend. She caught me on one of THOSE days and innocently inquired as to why she hadn't seen our son recently.

Well.

Because it isn't working. We can't really trust that it will go well. We're taking turns staying home with him because at least our other sons can get there and one of us can go and not live on eggshells that we will be called out of service again. And yes, it is exhausting. And no, it's not sustainable. But it is what it is. And that's what we're doing.

And she looked me in the eye and said "No. It doesn't have to be. We love your son. And we love you. He is my baby. They all are. We are going to do something."

I held back tears and thanked her but moved on with the night. It's easy for a church to promise something. Really, it's easy for any of us to promise something and not follow through. The church has so much to be going on with. And we are only one child, one family struggling among so many.

But friends, listen up. So many of us have wounds. CHURCH wounds. I have them. They sit on my shoulder whispering lies to me all the time. They cause me to shield and to run and to hold back. To offer cynicism rather than teachability. To sit rather than kneel. To fold my arms rather than lift them in surrender. Those wounds want me to leave. To hate the church and the people. To assume the worst. To believe I can find what I need by myself. To be my own church.

Those wounds are real and they are powerful. The wrongs done to many of us in the church - they can be some of the hardest to heal because it makes no sense that we would have received them IN CHURCH. I don't know if I'll ever fully process the ridiculous things said to me in the church during our long struggle with infertility. I don't know if I'll ever forget what it felt like to be told I was lying by an elder of a church because the pastor falsely accused me of something and I chose to defend myself. Church wounds are betrayals because they never line up with who God has called us to be as a family to one another.

And with each new church we find because of how often we have moved, I have to steel myself to take risks. To show up. To hope. To ignore the whispering.

But this time? This is a time where the church has been the church. Has been a family.

Twelve hours after I ran into her, I had an email in my inbox with a plan. GUYS. You know how much this lady loves a plan. And the plan included a plea- for us to let them help us. GUYS. You know how good I am at letting people help.

But I chose to say yes. I said yes for the sake of our whole family. I said yes to shush the whispering demon on my shoulder telling us they didn't really care. We needed to be able to go to church together, friends. We needed that to not be another "divide and conquer" moment for us. We needed it to be a win.

And so we said yes. We showed up that next Sunday. We prepped him and prayed and did everything we could to prepare him for that plan.

And guess what?

It was hard. He wasn't into it that first week. I could hear him losing his ever-loving mind as I walked away from drop-off and had to fight tears of exhaustion for the entire service.

But I knew that they weren't moved. That they weren't judging us. That they had prepared for a tough transition. And so I went to service. And glanced roughly every 7.5 seconds to see if his number was flashing.

It never flashed.

The next week I probably made it a few minutes between each glance.

Then maybe 15 the next time.

And this past week? I'm not sure. But I know I breathed. Maybe for the first time in a long time. Because when I dropped him, he wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but he wasn't upset. And he wasn't waiting by the gate when I came to pick him up. He was smiling and laughing and enjoying the beautiful humans who had spent an hour and a half with him. Who had loved him so well so we could be a family on a Sunday morning.

Friends. The church gets a lot of flack these days. And much of it is deserved. We have not always done right, done good, chosen grace the way we should as those who are stewards of God's community here on earth. We don't always act like family. But this moment, this victory, is huge for us. Huge for me. It's not just a moment to be grateful that my son is loved but it's also a moment to remember that God can heal wounds. Even church wounds. This moment rebuilt some trust for me and that's no small thing.

So right now, I want to place an ebenezer here and say that my church was the church. They loved us in this - loved us like family. They aren't asking for public recognition in response. I'm not filming some artsy video to put on Upworthy.

But I AM saying thanks. Publicly. Not all churches would look at one sweet boy and one struggling family and say "we can change something so you can stay."

Thank you, dear church and beloved pastor. From a tired mama and a boy who is now, finally, looking forward to church again. Thank you.

After This I Looked

20,000 people standing together in a great crowd, singing without the help of guitar or drum, just voices. People from countries all over the world. From every state in the union. People who spoke English and Mandarin and Spanish and Igbo. People who were joined together, in all their beautiful differences, by their belief in a good and beautiful God.

I once stood in the midst of such a gathering.

Putting that moment into words is nearly impossible. That many voices joined as one. To be able to hear the solitary voice next to me while at the same time hearing the words "Hallelujah, salvation and glory" sung in glorious harmony by thousands of others, a song that literally shook the rafters of that colosseum, well, there are really no words.

It was a taste, just a taste, of heaven. 

And it was a taste that I know has driven much of who I have become. 

Revelation 7: 9-11 says this:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”

That scripture, that perfect picture of humans, fully reconciled, fully themselves, worshiping together in harmony. Not in one assimilated "heavenly" language. Not as ethereal whitish beings floating around. But as God's glorious creation, without hatred, beautiful in their outward differences, free from division, worshiping as one.

That picture is beauty my friends. 

And that scriptural picture is one I hold tightly side by side with my shining earth-bound moment of tasting it. I let it drive what I see and what I hope for. I let it color my conversations and anchor my faith. I learned at some point to pray the Lord's Prayer often and fervently. To pray it as more than a discipline, but as a declaration. The calling down of God's presence here on earth. Saying over and over again "on earth as it is in heaven" and believing that even though we know the world will always be broken, that God is active and loving and calling us into the work of hope and action that believes we can see the beauty of heaven in the everyday. 

For the last three months, I have been privileged to co-lead a group that is trying, in our tiny little corner of Virginia, to be a part of inviting God's will for reconciliation and diversity into our church. 

For three months, we have studied the scriptures and talked about justice and oppression and hope. For three months we have talked about slavery and the Native American Genocide, about power, about Black Lives Matters and police brutality, about unfair housing practices and redlining and whitewashed school curricula and segregation and white supremacy. We have talked about awareness and self-education and lament and repentance and forgiveness. We have shared our own experiences of race in America and in the church. There has been anger and defensiveness and tears and frustration and guilt. And sometimes, yes, even joy and laughter.

It has NOT been easy. 

Why? 

Because it is not supposed to be easy. 

in his book "Coming Together: The Bible's Message in an Age of Diversity" Curtiss DeYoung says this says this:

"Systems of injustice in society and in the church exact a heavy cost on those outside the centers of power and effectively block reconciliation" and "declaring that we are equal without repairing the wrongs of the past is cheap reconciliation."

The true work of reconciliation is deep, hard, soul-wrenching work. 

We could have sat around and declared our equality in God's sight and charged forward together singing Kum-Ba-Yah. But that is what churches have done over and over again and change never happens. It's cheap reconciliation that is not founded on repentance and hope. It's cheap reconciliation that seeks action without personal and communal repentance. 

We wanted better for our church. For our tiny little piece of heaven on earth. Our emotions in this process don't scare God. The Be the Bridge curriculum we have used says that the "ultimate aim of reconciliation is the restoration of broken relationships, whether between individuals or entire communities. True reconciliation requires commitment and sacrifice from both sides." 

As anyone knows, the work of restoring relationships is some of the hardest work we are ever called to do. It can be painful. It can require us to work through anger and bitterness. It usually invites us to lay ourselves down for one another. That is messy, gospel work.

So here we are: 

Men and women (with a few precious faces missing) who participated

Black and white. Men and women. American-born and internationals. Northerners and southerners. Republicans and Democrats and Independents.

Falling at the throne of God together to ask for deep grace and forgiveness. Admitting the ways we have not known. The ways we have failed to act. The ways we have chosen comfort over risk. And clinging to the hope and beauty of the cross together as we do it. 

We want more. More for our church. Our neighborhoods. Our schools. Our nation. 

And so we will continue to meet. We'll talk about reparations and restoration. We'll dig into the continual and cyclical process of awareness, acknowledgment, lament, repentance and forgiveness.

And we will do it together, messily and unashamedly and in ways that will bring healing and positive changes to the world around us.

Because that, my friends, is what the church does.

Voice - Part 1

I remember the first day I truly began to hear.

A dear, patient friend of mine looked me in the eye and said "You look in the mirror and see a woman. I look in the mirror and see a black woman."

We had been friends for awhile. I had been asking questions, trying to listen, but, when you've grown up with one perspective on life, an entirely middle class white perspective, opening yourself to another is no easy feat. It takes work, intentionality...and it takes willing to be wrong, to repent and to try again. And again. And again.

No one likes feeling wrong. No one likes seeing the truly ugly parts of oneself revealed. The biases, the failures. It hurts. No one likes admitting a whole society could possibly be so off track. No one.

Her words stopped me in my tracks. She knew that all her interactions during her day would be colored by the truth in that mirror. That though we were sisters, our experiences were vastly different. Could I understand sexism? Sure. Could I understand, truly feel the pain of, racism? No. Not a chance. And there was no way I could understand the particular ways in which racism and sexism collide for a black woman.

It hurt. It made me sad. And angry. And helpless. And it would have been easy that day, in my privilege, to defend myself. To shed white tears and plead for comfort and absolution. Or tell her she was imagining things. Or choose to step off the journey because I have that choice, unlike my friends of color. I can walk away if it gets too hard.

But you know what? Hurt is worth it, my friends. Not if we just stay there, no. Tears, prolonged and self-pitying, are ineffectual. But tears of true lament? Tears that cause us to say enough is enough and then seek to change? Those God can use.

To lament the history of our country. To grieve the lives lost through enslavement and genocide and white supremacy. To weep for those ostracized from the church. To mourn the brokenness of our justice system. To look at ourselves as individuals, root out our own biases, and replace them with a passion for justice rooted in God's good news.

That is the work of a disciple.

And friends, let me make something clear, I have not arrived. No one has. I know more than I did 10 years ago. God willing, I will know more tomorrow than I do today. Because I am making the choice to stay in it.

Some days, I truly wish I were still ignorant. It was way more comfortable.

Being comfortable, though, is not really part of the call to follow God.

And that same friend, during a difficult discussion said one other thing that is always, always in the back of my mind.

I was angry because I felt it unfair that her voice didn't carry as much weight as mine in convincing white people of racism. I was raging. I was guilt-ridden. I didn't want to believe in injustice.

She looked me in the eye and said "Use your voice. Use it. And maybe someday your voice won't be more powerful than mine anymore."

Dang.

Friends, every time I have wanted to back down from a debate on Facebook, every time I have witnessed a racist event and wanted to keep my mouth shut, every time I have wanted to avoid the truth, I have heard her voice in my head.

Use your voice. Use it.

It's a privilege to stay quiet. And so I speak.

What about you?

Landing

This morning, I walked into what is now likely to be our new church for the second time. I dropped the littlest ones off at the nursery without incident and Josh and I had a little time to rest quietly and just soak in the anticipation of spending time with other believers. This is definitely a first since we moved. Getting three little people to church on time while my husband is traveling, let alone early, is no easy feat.

An older white gentleman sat down next to us. He didn't leave that semi-awkward empty seat that people usually leave when they don't know you. He just sat down, stuck his hand out, introduced himself to both of us and asked me this question:

"How did you find our church?"

I answered him honestly, trusting that what I was seeing in his church would enable him to receive what I said without awkwardness. (Some white people panic when you use the word diversity. They just do.)

"Honestly, sir, I went to the website and clicked on leadership. I saw that you have a diverse team of leaders here and that's not easy to find."

He told me that he'd heard that before and that if that's what we were looking for, we'd find it here.

I don't doubt him. One look on stage shows me a black woman on drums, a diverse choir and a range of people of different backgrounds playing the instruments. A black pastor gets up to lead a time in prayer ministry and a white pastor gets up to share the word. As we pass the peace around us, we shake hands of people older than me and younger, children, black, white and latinx.

I watch the rows in front of me who are filled with hearing-impaired people who are worshiping through sign language, their voices quiet but their joy evident. They are led by a woman who is signing the words and songs of the service and clearly loves what she does. I didn't even know they had a hearing-impaired ministry but it starts a great conversation with my son.

My younger boys are with women of various backgrounds and children who look like them and their brother.

We could fit here.

Some might think that looking at the faces of a leadership team online is an irresponsible way to choose a church. Even racist.

But here's the deal.

When we adopted our sons, we made a choice. A conscious choice that we would not white-wash their world. That we would live in neighborhoods where they might make friends of multiple backgrounds. That they would not be the only black boys in their classes. That the churches we choose, especially as they grow and learn and begin to wrestle with what it means to be black boys with white parents in a racist America, those churches would have racial mirrors for them. Leaders, men and women, with voices of truth in their lives. Friends, boys and girls, who might look like them and their brother, who would wrestle through the chaos of growing up faithful in a world that may not understand that choice.

Many people look at denomination first. Or style of worship. Or the core set of beliefs. Or the type of children's ministry available. Or the mission statement. Or the location or stance on women in ministry or centrality of communion or...well, any number of pretty important issues.

For us, those things had to come second.

And you know what?

We don't want a diversity of leadership and congregation just for our boys. We want it for ourselves. To hear from people who are different from me: who didn't, in my case, grow up in a predominantly white, middle class, northeastern town. To hear from people of different ecumenical backgrounds than my husband and I were raised in. To value the incredibly beautiful diversity of God's church both in our every day lives and when we gather with the physical representation of that church each week.

So, yes.

We look first at that leadership page. And if the church at it's very core isn't reflecting what we hope to see in the larger congregation, we don't bother. We are a multiethnic family. This is a non-negotiable.

Will it mean that we might be in churches during the course of our lives that we don't 100% agree with.

YEP.

But since that has pretty much always been true of any church we've joined because my husband and I aren't the same exact person with the same exact beliefs, we've been there. Done that. And finding a community that loves God, loves others, strives for truth and justice and looks like our family is enough for us right now.

We don't need perfect theological alignment to dive in.

So, after almost five months of trial and error and visiting and praying, I think we may be landing.

And friends, it cannot come soon enough. This introvert is just about out of Sunday morning visitor small talk.

Beautiful Church

This morning I led my final song as interim worship director at our current church. As I drove home, companionably chatting with my two-year-old , I felt an up-welling of joy and gratitude.

I have been in a LOT of churches in my life. I grew up in an amazing, non-denominational, small church family in NY where church lunches were full of lasagna, holy kisses and boisterous laughter. In college, I flitted around a bit- from a Presbyterian church to an Assemblies of God to an international church in London, finally landing on a semi-Pentecostal church in inner city Richmond where I was one of very few white people with a LOT to learn. That's where I was first trained to be a worship leader and when I really started to think about race in the church. From a country church in North Carolina to helping plant an urban church to a few more wonderful places in my early 30's, it's been an adventure.

And with all our moving around, I've had a lot of chances to be ON worship teams.

This was the first time I've really led one for more than a Sunday or two.

A number of people over the last few months asked me if this job was stressful with raising 3 boys, preparing for a move across the country and dealing with the special challenges of our middle one.

I never had to hesitate when I answered.

Friends, this job was life-giving. It was like a long sip of water after a brutal trek across a dry land. The chance to come together with other rational adults two times a week doing one of the things I love to do best? Well, it was magical for me. The laughter, the camaraderie, the moments we truly were able to worship together as we led (and those who lead worship KNOW what I mean)...well, it's making it even harder to leave, to say the least. The opportunity to work more closely with our pastors, to see their heart for our congregation and our city, the chance to see myself and those around me grow in our gifts and take risks together has truly helped me see again WHY the church is so good and so necessary even in all it's messed up beauty.

And as I sat in the pew this morning, having just participated in my youngest son's baptism with my church family, listening to my pastor preach about being at peace with one another, listening to his stories about the Rodney King trial, white privilege and racism, I realized again just how unique this place is. It's not the first time I've heard things like this from our pulpit. In fact, justice is woven into the gospel effortlessly around here all the time. It would be strange NOT to hear words about God's call for reconciliation and healing in our world. To be blunt, that is not true of most of the churches of which I've been a part.

I am really going to miss this place. Like all the ones that have come before, it has shaped me in new ways, challenged me in others and helped me to give of my gifts.

Have I been hurt by churches? Sure. Pretty badly. Have I been loved by churches? Yep, more than I deserved. Is it easy to be a part of one? Nope.

But here's the thing. There is no perfect church because there are no perfect people.  You can't put a bunch of broken people into community with each other and expect things to go beautifully. We are defensive. We are passive-aggressive or, some of us, just plain aggressive for no good reason. We avoid conflict. We seek it out unnecessarily. We thrive on and create drama. We keep to ourselves and don't let anyone really know us. We mess up all the time.

So, we hurt each other. It's just going to happen.

But after 33 years of doing this church thing (my mom started bringing me when I was 4 years old) I can honestly say this: church is good. NOT because it has all the answers. NOT because it is always a safe place. NOT because I can show up and consume things that might make me feel good for awhile. NOT because we sit around and sing Kum-Ba-Yah all the time while holding hands and throwing wildflowers around.

Church is good because it can be people, created in the image of God, struggling to figure out what that looks like together...learning what grace means, steeped in forgiveness of self and one another, rejoicing and mourning with one another, breaking bread together, pushing ourselves to be able to truly become the person God has made us to be.

That, my friends, is a beautiful mess.

So, as we say goodbye again, I pause to thank God for this current body of people, for one more Sunday to worship with them, for the relationships I know will continue and for the ways they have prepared us to take this next step of faith as a family.

Thank you to this family for letting us be our crazy family, for letting us be who we are, for being family when we have been far away from our other family for three years. I couldn't be more thankful.

I Am Lonely Guy

Our church has been going through a series about truly seeing what's around us. Opening our eyes, calming our schedules and being willing to really look. During this time, two men have been performing a skit called "Lonely Guy." Each week these two guys meet again onstage- really, crash into each other- and have an awkward interaction. They are both wearing sandwich boards- one that says "busy" and one that says "lonely." Predictably, the busy guy fumbles with his phone, mumbles something half-hearted in response to being reminded again that the lonely guy works at his grocery store and then goes on his way with the lonely guy staring after him. It all resolves when God intervenes and the busy guy truly SEES the lonely guy and they start to interact.

The first few weeks I laughed at this skit. I resonated with the busy guy- chasing my toddler around, too tired and frustrated to really see any opportunities around me and the men had done a good job keeping the feel of the skit light and humorous, even with its deeper message.

The final week, though? Something shifted. And I saw in the lonely guy the reality of my own life.

Just this morning I took my son to something called Wiggle Room. Held in our community center, it's a place for parents to bring their young kids to get out of the cold, let them play with different toys (and presumably, different friends) and just run around and get the cabin fever out. N and I have been trying to come every week since it started and have invited friends to come along. We had a few show up the first week but since then we've been on our own. Like we are most days.

Today I followed my son around and watched a lot of parents talking to each other. Mostly moms, a few dads and an occasional grandma. Their kids swirled around them, mostly playing well enough for them to have conversations with the semi-regular need to intervene in some kind of sharing debacle. I smiled at these groups of people. I tried to strike up some conversations with strangers. And it didn't really work. No one really talked back. I just felt alone.

As I leaned against the wall watching my ginormous toddler step on a kid to get to a toy, I felt alone.

As I chased him around, trying to keep him from knocking down other kids painstakingly built towers, I felt alone.

As I gazed longingly at people who clearly felt known and comfortable with the people around them, I felt alone.

I am lonely guy.

Bringing home a newborn baby in the midst of the coldest winter in recent years combined with hating to drive in snow, switching churches just before he came home and being a first-time SAHM was a tough combination last year. And when I reached the summer, desperate for human interaction, I realized that I had been dangerously sad. Tired. Alone. Dealing with post-adoption blues. Frustrated that this huge life-changing event on which we had waited for 5 years took place far away from our family and close friends. I spent the summer soaking in the amazing weather, trying to get closer to people I had met, hanging out with neighbors, treasuring time with my oldest during his vacation time. And I was determined that when winter came again, I would have a person.

You know who I mean.

THAT friend. The one you can call up last minute and who knows that all you need is company and coffee. Your house doesn't have to be clean and you don't need healthy snacks in your fridge. You don't have to have showered, which would be particularly helpful during this stage when my toddler thinks my shower time equals an opportunity for him to attempt to dive head first into the tub and crack his head open. The one who won't care if your kid throws his 5th tantrum of the afternoon because she loves him, too, and knows you are doing what you can to keep calm and make it through the toddler phase alive.  That friend.

As fall flew into the busyness of the Christmas season, I felt full. I was seeing friends sometimes, N and I were managing to get out of the house when the kids weren't sick and the joy of the holidays and visiting family loomed. I didn't really notice that I still didn't have that person.

But now? In the throes of deepest winter? I've got some friends. I really do. Lovely people. Friendly, inviting, welcoming. Most of them, like me, are pretty overwhelmed by the chaos of just getting their toddler from one end of the day to the next. And I enjoy my time with them. I do. I wish we knew each other better.

But I don't have that person. The one that makes life just feel easier. The one who knows me. Who knows that staying home is the hardest thing I've ever done. Who knows that sleep deprivation turns me into a maniacal human. Who knows that crying makes me uncomfortable and that I can't eat sugar. And BOY did I want to eat me some cookies after Wiggle Room today.

So, while I am going to continue to keep my eyes open and look for opportunities to SEE and love on people and try to get to know some of the people I already know better, I am also going to pray that someone, maybe "busy guy", will be keeping his eyes open for me, too. And that when I try to strike up that random and somewhat painful conversation at the next Wiggle Room, someone will see me, too.

And maybe, just maybe, by next winter I will not be lonely guy.

Choosing My Foxhole

So, I'm not a big "church service" person. I grew up in a little church that was just starting out...it was made up of very messy people who weren't trying to hide anything and just trying to get to know Jesus better together. It wasn't perfect, of course. It had it's share of politics and infighting...but it never felt stuffy to me. It never felt like empty ritual to come together on Sunday mornings. At this point, however, church feels like that for me. Empty, oppressive, ritualistic.

In all fairness, we've moved to a new place and so we've been visiting way too many churches and call none home. Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Non-denominational, UMC...all different from each other with different styles, foci, ways of doing "church." The problem I'm having is that I'm supposed to decide which one I want to go to based on the service and what people there can tell me about it. Based on showing up for the hour or, sometimes, two hour amount of time that has been put together each Sunday morning obstensibly for the purpose of worshiping God. These churches are fine...the people seem nice, the music is melodic for the most part and I haven't had the urge to jump up and run screaming in the opposite direction from too many of the sermons, which I take as a good sign.

The problem is that I'm tired. When I left Richmond I was burnt out. Since most of my activities there were church-related, it follows that I was pretty burnt out on the church. This is not God's fault, I know that. I did it to myself...no margin, poor choices, pride, pride, pride. So, I think that when I'm living in this place of huge margin with all these possibilities before me, I fear the tyranny of the church. There are always a billion things to get involved in and new social "rules" to learn in each place you go- I don't want the temptation of those involvements nor the oppression of those "rules." I don't trust myself yet to make the right choices or to unashamedly be who I am, rules be darned.

This leaves my family in a tough place. I think my husband would've picked a church back in August if it weren't for me and my poor son has probably met every nursery worker in town by now. So, I've just got to make a decision. I've got to listen to the Lord and just pick one and decide to trust Him that He will help keep those margins wide. That he'll give me the strength and discernment only to say "yes" to those things that will be good for my soul or necessary for the welfare of others. I've got to trust that once we've said "yes" to a community that my ability to enjoy the service on a Sunday morning and not be so distracted by fear and unmade decisions that I cannot worship the Living God will be replaced by a yearning to be around other believers each week and seek Him together. Sinfully, I want to just stay home. I want to stop looking and take a long break and I want to justify that by saying that the distance will be good for me. But I know that in this battle I'm fighting through, I would be giving ground to the enemy if I did so. So, I'm going to choose a foxhole, dig in and keep fighting. I'm hoping that the barrage of fear and indecision will dissipate and the chance to move forward and take up new ground will follow.