Healing Is A Process
While I was home last week, I ended up sitting around my sister's dining room table and debating my current life situations with a portion of my family (including my oldest and third sisters, my father, my cousin, and my mother...God help me). At first the debate was about my on going relationship with my first love (we still talk on a fairly regular basis even though we broke up 14 years ago). My single status and desire to remarry was how he came into the conversation.
Apparently I'd mentioned him numerous times during the conversation about what it takes to have a long lasting marriage. My cousin's theory is a woman should marry a man who loves her just a little more than she loves him (i.e. marry a man who adores you). I agreed and stated that my first love obviously still loves me very much because he made a point to take a picture of me while we were having lunch during work a couple of weeks ago. My third sister judgmentally said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "if you really want to meet the man you should be with, why are you still emotionally involved with your first love who's been in a relationship with a woman for over ten years?"
I tried to clarify that our relationship is part business, but mostly friendship...and it's a friendship that's endured a romantic breakup, my marriage and birth of a child, my divorce, my unhealthy relationship with an SJA that lasted for over 8 years, and his commited relationship with a woman he's never married but has raised her two daughters from a previous marriage as if they were his own. When questioned about how often he and I are in contact, I mentioned that he's always been there for me in some form or another, guiding me and giving me feedback on what to do next when I asked him. I noted that he seems to be able to see when I'm in pain and direct me if he can't help me himself. "When we had dinner last year, I was telling him how difficult things have been since Katrina and he told me it sounded like I needed to get professional help since I can't talk about the loss of my church without crying. I've tried going to church since the storm, but I just can't do it!" Somehow in the midst of my defense of my continued friendship with my first love, my lack of church attendance since Katrina came up.
My mother then took the stance of trying to make my situation similar to her own. She didn't hear me. She tried to make it seem as if her having to move to Orlando and leave the church I grew up in the same as the situation I went through when I lost my church. Needless to say, it ended up in an ugly debate. My cousin observed what she thought was more like a competition of whose situation was worse. All I knew was my mother was trying to minimize the pain I had just started to deal with when I lost my church to Katrina and turn the conversation back to herself. She even went so far as to suggest that my relationship with God was external because I felt so much pain when my church was flooded and the people I fellowshiped with were dispersed across the country! She missed the point entirely.
When I met with my therapist yesterday (the one I've just recently started seeing to help me regroup and be the emotionally stable mother I'm going to need to be to finish raising a teenage boy alone), I told her about the incident. In my session just prior to my trip home, my therapist asked me what I thought I could do to lessen the anxiety and depression I've been feeling that sent me over the edge and to the point of sending my son away. I told her that before everything went to hell in a handbasket, one thing I always found peace in was my church. I shared that since the storm I've tried going to a few churches, but I just haven't been able to go. When she asked me why I broke down crying when I told her that it hurt so much to lose a great church like Franklin that I'm afraid I'll start going again and lose another.
So this brings up a point that I couldn't verbalize to my mother when she condescendingly suggested my connection to God was tied to the tangible elements of a church (the building, the people, blah blah blah). I now have to ask myself, "What was it about Franklin that I loved so much and feel I lost and am afraid I'll either never find again or will find and lose?"
When I think of how I came to Christ (for lack of a better choice of words) and surrendered my spiritual growth to God, Franklin was where I did it first publically...after I'd hit the bottom of my spiritual barrel. I grew by leaps and bounds there in my first year as a member, and felt peace and joy for the first time in my life! That year (2002) was one of the best years in my life! And when I came so close to losing my sister to a brain aneurysm, and had to be strong to get her and the rest of my family through those first 48 hours, and returned to work on faith in God that my sister would be fine, I don't know that I could've been as strong as I was through that if I hadn't been growing spiritually. Franklin happened to be where God prepared me for that challenge...and where I could finally let go of my strength and rely on God for comfort the Sunday after I returned home. I broke down crying like a baby in my prayer partner's arms that morning, right in the middle of the service...but everything was okay, because I was at Franklin.
I can't even count how many Wednesdays and Saturdays I spent there in Bible study, or how many homes of of single's ministry members I went to to fellowship, worship, and continue my growth through the years I attended there. All I know is God used Franklin to work on me, and I always felt at home there. Especially when I came home from international trips.
When I came home from Italy in February 2005, utterly in love with the Norwegian I'd met there, the first place I went (since I'd missed church during the return flight) was to dinner with my prayer partner. When I decided to go to Norway to visit the Norwegian, it was after God spoke to me with confirmation that my decision to go was divine providence. When I came back from Norway feeling isolated, disoriented, and a little more than broken hearted, I pulled into my garage on Saturday night and was thankful to be home. But I didn't really feel at home until I went to Franklin that Sunday morning. For my church to be destroyed by Katrina just a couple of weeks later, my rock of Gibralter was washed away. In the midst of chaos, I lost my spiritual shelter, my safe place, my soft place to fall...knowing I'd never again have it the way it was.
I haven't lost my connection to God because I lost my church. It's like I gave up my spiritual virginity to God and have since been raped by mother nature. I'll never be the same, but God & I will love again and connect through another church. It's just going to take some time to heal and I've only just begun the process.
Apparently I'd mentioned him numerous times during the conversation about what it takes to have a long lasting marriage. My cousin's theory is a woman should marry a man who loves her just a little more than she loves him (i.e. marry a man who adores you). I agreed and stated that my first love obviously still loves me very much because he made a point to take a picture of me while we were having lunch during work a couple of weeks ago. My third sister judgmentally said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "if you really want to meet the man you should be with, why are you still emotionally involved with your first love who's been in a relationship with a woman for over ten years?"
I tried to clarify that our relationship is part business, but mostly friendship...and it's a friendship that's endured a romantic breakup, my marriage and birth of a child, my divorce, my unhealthy relationship with an SJA that lasted for over 8 years, and his commited relationship with a woman he's never married but has raised her two daughters from a previous marriage as if they were his own. When questioned about how often he and I are in contact, I mentioned that he's always been there for me in some form or another, guiding me and giving me feedback on what to do next when I asked him. I noted that he seems to be able to see when I'm in pain and direct me if he can't help me himself. "When we had dinner last year, I was telling him how difficult things have been since Katrina and he told me it sounded like I needed to get professional help since I can't talk about the loss of my church without crying. I've tried going to church since the storm, but I just can't do it!" Somehow in the midst of my defense of my continued friendship with my first love, my lack of church attendance since Katrina came up.
My mother then took the stance of trying to make my situation similar to her own. She didn't hear me. She tried to make it seem as if her having to move to Orlando and leave the church I grew up in the same as the situation I went through when I lost my church. Needless to say, it ended up in an ugly debate. My cousin observed what she thought was more like a competition of whose situation was worse. All I knew was my mother was trying to minimize the pain I had just started to deal with when I lost my church to Katrina and turn the conversation back to herself. She even went so far as to suggest that my relationship with God was external because I felt so much pain when my church was flooded and the people I fellowshiped with were dispersed across the country! She missed the point entirely.
When I met with my therapist yesterday (the one I've just recently started seeing to help me regroup and be the emotionally stable mother I'm going to need to be to finish raising a teenage boy alone), I told her about the incident. In my session just prior to my trip home, my therapist asked me what I thought I could do to lessen the anxiety and depression I've been feeling that sent me over the edge and to the point of sending my son away. I told her that before everything went to hell in a handbasket, one thing I always found peace in was my church. I shared that since the storm I've tried going to a few churches, but I just haven't been able to go. When she asked me why I broke down crying when I told her that it hurt so much to lose a great church like Franklin that I'm afraid I'll start going again and lose another.
So this brings up a point that I couldn't verbalize to my mother when she condescendingly suggested my connection to God was tied to the tangible elements of a church (the building, the people, blah blah blah). I now have to ask myself, "What was it about Franklin that I loved so much and feel I lost and am afraid I'll either never find again or will find and lose?"
When I think of how I came to Christ (for lack of a better choice of words) and surrendered my spiritual growth to God, Franklin was where I did it first publically...after I'd hit the bottom of my spiritual barrel. I grew by leaps and bounds there in my first year as a member, and felt peace and joy for the first time in my life! That year (2002) was one of the best years in my life! And when I came so close to losing my sister to a brain aneurysm, and had to be strong to get her and the rest of my family through those first 48 hours, and returned to work on faith in God that my sister would be fine, I don't know that I could've been as strong as I was through that if I hadn't been growing spiritually. Franklin happened to be where God prepared me for that challenge...and where I could finally let go of my strength and rely on God for comfort the Sunday after I returned home. I broke down crying like a baby in my prayer partner's arms that morning, right in the middle of the service...but everything was okay, because I was at Franklin.
I can't even count how many Wednesdays and Saturdays I spent there in Bible study, or how many homes of of single's ministry members I went to to fellowship, worship, and continue my growth through the years I attended there. All I know is God used Franklin to work on me, and I always felt at home there. Especially when I came home from international trips.
When I came home from Italy in February 2005, utterly in love with the Norwegian I'd met there, the first place I went (since I'd missed church during the return flight) was to dinner with my prayer partner. When I decided to go to Norway to visit the Norwegian, it was after God spoke to me with confirmation that my decision to go was divine providence. When I came back from Norway feeling isolated, disoriented, and a little more than broken hearted, I pulled into my garage on Saturday night and was thankful to be home. But I didn't really feel at home until I went to Franklin that Sunday morning. For my church to be destroyed by Katrina just a couple of weeks later, my rock of Gibralter was washed away. In the midst of chaos, I lost my spiritual shelter, my safe place, my soft place to fall...knowing I'd never again have it the way it was.
I haven't lost my connection to God because I lost my church. It's like I gave up my spiritual virginity to God and have since been raped by mother nature. I'll never be the same, but God & I will love again and connect through another church. It's just going to take some time to heal and I've only just begun the process.
posted by N'j at 11:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home