Spark of Life

I have no idea what to tell first.  Spark of Life was one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my life.  There is so much to tell, so much that I still need to process.

The retreat was held on this adorable ranch in Texas.  It was so beautiful, surrounded by ponds and grassy fields.  I never knew Texas was pretty!  The place we stayed was called Selah Ranch.  It was like a really big Bed and Breakfast.  Each room was decorated very uniquely, and it was such a homey, yet upscale environment.  Every detail of the place was well thought out and meaningful, from the art on the walls, the amazing meals, Tempurpedic mattresses, endless glasses of homemade iced tea, and huge gift baskets in our rooms.  There was a large flat screen TV in every room, but you would have hardly noticed it, nor would you ever need it.  There were cottages separate from the main house.  The place was surrounded by grassy fields, huge oak trees, and I counted 8 large ponds.  Every nook and cranny was decorated or had such thoughtful detail.  There were several gardens.  You could walk the property and find benches, tree swings, chairs, etc. all over the property.  They had plenty of golf carts that you could just head out with whenever you felt like it.  There was something so peaceful about riding that golf cart down the long, paved, tree lined road that led to and from Selah.

There were 17 participants, plus four group leaders.  We did a lot of time together as a group, learning and processing our losses.  I don't want to say too much about it because I want others to go and get just as much out of it as I did.  I will say that we were pampered to the point of disbelief.  We broke out into groups of three a lot during the weekend, and those were the people whose stories you really got to know.  Some people were there because of the death of a child, parent, friend, partner, or even a loss that did not include death.  We had homework each night, and it was so meaningful.  It was not faith based, but had a lot of spiritual components.  No discrimination, religious guilt, or self righteousness, even though one of the leaders is a pastor.  Anyone of any faith could attend this and find it to be so healing.  There were several components that they taught were necessary in order to get out of the "pit" of your grief.  I realized that I have been dealing with my dad's death in a really healthy way, but there were still things that I needed to deal with.  We all cried buckets throughout the weekend, and not just because of our own losses.  We really got to know the others that were there, and the losses they endured.  Such as baby Will, who died at two months old; Cowboy, who died at age 52 from a heart attack; or Max, who was killed in a car wreck two weeks before he started as a Freshman in college.  It was hard to see others going through such raw pain, but also so cathartic.  Everyone there just "got it".  There were so many things that did not have to be explained.

David, Debbie, Rusty, and Nancy were the leaders of the group.  David and Debbie started the organization a few years ago after losing their infant grandson.  One of the losses they worked through this retreat, though, was the loss associated to their son being sexually abused.  Their son is now an adult, but when David was a minister at a church in another state, his son was abused by someone in the church, and it occurred AT the church building.  They did not find out until years later, after their son confessed that he was struggling with his sexuality and thought he was a homosexual.  He got into therapy for the sexual abuse and worked through a lot of things, one of them being his sexuality.  After years of therapy he realized that he was not a homosexual, but had been made to feel that way since his abuser was a male, the abuse was pleasurable, and he did not try to stop it from happening.  The son later went on to get married, which he never thought he would do.  He and his wife were expecting a baby, but the baby died 7 minutes after he was born.  This caused many layers of grief, partially because the son and family never thought he would biologically have his own children.  To feel like they had come so far with their wounds from the sexual abuse, and then to have this child, the one they never thought would exist, be taken from them felt very unfair.  That's when they decided to celebrate his life by helping others cope with their losses, thus Spark of Life was born.

My family and I, as most everyone else there also indicated, gained so much meaning and healing from the weekend that I would dare call it profound.  I feel like I got to a better place with my relationship with my dad.  I think it was good for Mark to be given the space to grieve, too.  My dad was also very much his dad ("Pops"), and they were very close.  It was one of the greatest joys in my life, seeing my dad teach Mark how to love me better, and seeing them so eager and excited to spend time together.  My dad was so proud that I married Mark, and so proud to call him his son-in-law.  They are so much alike.  My dad would have loved it there.  He gradually became more "country" as the years went by.  I miss him so terribly much.

I am including the link for the Selah Ranch.  When you click on it, the picture on that page is of our room.  I am not kidding, I am totally suggesting that our friends come spend a long weekend with us there.  It is the perfect place for solitude, a family reunion, or any kind of retreat.  It is heaven on earth!  Especially in October, I bet!  They are still trying to decide if they will have the next retreat there or elsewhere.  I hope they keep it there because it was the perfect setting!

The awesome news is that the retreat is completely free for participants, which includes, meals, lodging, and everything included.  You just have to pay for your own transportation expenses.  They do a lot of fundraising to make sure each participant is able to attend without the financial burden they might normally bring with them.  So cool!

http://www.selahranch.com/room-promise.html

A Heart for Papa

Tomorrow morning, my mom, Hannah, Jonathan, David, Mark, and I are traveling to Texas for a Spark of Life Retreat.  I don't know much of what to expect but it is a retreat for individuals experiencing heavy grief for the loss of a loved one.  Is it weird that I'm excited about it?  When I heard it was at a ranch, I almost opted out.  I am a bit of a lodging snob.  When I looked at the website, though, it looked absolutely beautiful.  I think we have all been looking at this weekend as the pinnacle of our grieving process, like a prerequisite to healing.  It will be interesting, as my siblings and I are grieving very differently than our mom.

Today would have been my parent's 31st wedding anniversary.  It's so hard.  I took off most of the day today and have been a bit of a weeping willow.  For whatever reason, it fascinates Izaiah when I cry.  He was so sweet today.  During a crying intermission, he came over to me and formed his hands into a heart shape.  He said, "This is a heart for Papa because I miss him . . . I have been praying that God would let me give him this heart.  He needs a new heart, Mom.  Can't I give it to him?"  He went on and on about how much he misses Papa and how much Papa misses him.  He seemed crushed when he heard that we won't see Papa again until we get to heaven. I just bawled.  He may try to fool us, but he is very sensitive little guy.

Here is his heart.

He has been really scared that one of us or his grandparents will die.  He doesn't quite know how to process it.  I hate that he wasn't there for the Memorial Service or any part of that week following Dad's death.  I can tell he has no frame of reference to go off of.  He has not gotten to see other people's grief modeled for him, and he didn't get to be a part of anything that would have brought him some closure.  He is struggling with knowing how to feel about it.  Every now and then he asks a question out of the blue.  He has GREAT questions.

"Since Papa gets a new body, does he get a kid body?"

"Is Mama G still married to Papa?"  And when we tried to answer this ("uhhm, yeeessss....?") he said,

"But that's not okay because a kid is not supposed to be married to a grown up".  Extremely valid point, Izaiah.

I'm so glad that child is mine! :)

Eat More Chicken

This post has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion on homosexuality.  My opinion doesn't matter anyways.  But I do have an opinion on the whole Chik-fil-A controversy and it's very very simple.  I am always concerned with the social justice issues of today.  If someone is being unfairly treated, not okay.  If someone is being discriminated against, not okay.  If someone's American rights are being violated, I'm usually not okay with that either (not that I believe being American should grant you any more rights than anyone else in this world).

That being said, I can't tell you how many times I have jumped on a bandwagon to boycott something or someone because I don't think it is right.  Proctor and Gamble, Kobe Bryant, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Samsung, Sony, Hooters, Westborough Baptist Church.  But I think there is a difference in boycotting something because a company financially supports a cause you don't like vs. the owner of the company having an opinion that you don't like.  If the CEO of Old Navy thought we should have public hangings, whatever.  But if the CEO of Old Navy used my money to actively pursue the act of public hangings, then I might have an issue.  I don't agree with most of my friends' opinions on everything.  I'm not sure that Mark and I even agree on all social justice issues.  I'm not going to divorce him for it, though.  That would be stupid.

Some points to consider:

1.  CEO Dan Cathy did not seek out the cause, nor did he organize a rally about his beliefs.  He gave an opinion when asked.

2.  He has not said anything out of hate (or if he has it has not been obvious to me) but out of his own religious beliefs.  Not that things can't be hateful if it's centered around religion, because they very much can. However,  I did not hear any "GOD HATES FAGS" anywhere in his statement.

3.  When anyone expresses support of gay marriage or homosexuality in general, those against that idea seem to always be labeled as spreading hate and discrimination.   So couldn't the same be said about those who are actively banning and starting stuff with Chick-fil-a?

They are spreading and perpetuating hate due to ONE MAN'S OPINION!  It just seems so ridiculous and silly.  Here's my boy, Antoine's, opinion on the issue:

I love him.  Here is my opinion that does not matter whatsoever, because people are too interested in arguing and being right and blaming blaming blaming.  (Sometimes I am that person and am the biggest hypocrite of all, just so you know).

Why can't we come together and not worry about opinions?  Worry about loving your neighbor who you do not agree with.  Even if you consider homosexuality to be a sin, so is lying, gossiping, and saying mean things.  No one ever converted anyone by winning an argument.  Plus, I can think of much bigger things to argue about.  Many of our electronics manufacturers in Mexico are part of a horrible organized crime that assist and at the very LEAST turn their heads at luring, abducting, and murdering young women from small Mexican villages so they can sell their organs on the Black Market.  Let's put some energy into that.  Or maybe into the fact that St. Louis is one of the cities with the largest population of human trafficking victims.  Just my opinion, but I find that to be a little bit more important than arguing over whom one should kiss.

Peace, Love, and Chocolate.

Grief and the Beautiful Cliches

All these cliche sayings are floating around in my head.

You're never ready to lose a parent.


Time will heal all wounds.


It will really start to hit once all the people go home.


I'll keep you in my prayers.


You will see him again.


I'm so sorry for your loss. 


Be strong!


He would have wanted you to keep going.


You need to get on with your life.


I keep reminding myself that even if people are saying the wrong things, they are trying to say the right thing.  Not all of these cliches are bad.  You could say a lot of things to me and it would not lessen the amount of raw pain I feel in this very moment.  I used to think, recently actually, that anyone around me could die, but if anything happened to my dad I would crumble.  Cease to function.  My dad has always held my heart, and in the past few years I actually started to somewhat pull away from him because I realized this.  This was literally my worst nightmare.  Obviously I would be devastated if any of my family died, especially my husband or kids, but it's different.  My dad was my rock, my saving grace in life for my entire life.  I KNEW he was the most amazing dad in the world, and I knew not to take it for granted.

Funny thing.  When we were little, my sister and I each thought Dad was Jesus.  Jesus was our Dad.  It just made sense.  We were taught how Jesus loved us more than anyone.  He was loving, caring, forgiving, compassionate, brave, humble, wise, strong, kind, giving, nonjudgmental, captivating.  This described our Dad as well, so it just made sense in our little girl, dreamy minds that the two were one and the same.  I kid you not, people.  My Dad was seriously that wonderful.  We all knew it, me and all my siblings.  We adored him.  It did not take his death for us to realize how lucky we were.  ("Blessed" is what he would say right now to correct me.)

So now here we are, and all it seems I am capable of is focusing every ounce of energy into trying to learn how to live in a world without him.  It's exhausting.  I'll think I'm getting close and then I pass a Burger King.  His favorite.  I pass someone on the road with a flat tire.  My dad was that guy that helped that person with the flat tire.  Gotta get gas, there's QuickTrip.  My dad was notorious for getting the million ounce mug from QT and filling it with Diet Coke each morning.  Well, until about 10 years ago because my mom convinced him that the whites of his eyes were turning yellow because of it.  To be fair, they were.

It just does not seem fair that so many of my friends have crappy, useless fathers who only leave them with gaping Daddy holes in their heart, yet it is my dad that leaves this earth so prematurely.  There does not seem to be logic to that.  Wouldn't God want to off all the idiot fathers and keep the really good ones?  I trust God with this, I really do.  In an odd way I love and trust God more for taking my dad early.  He never had to know a moment more of pain.  He no longer has to helplessly watch me and my siblings go through bad choices, hard situations, injustices, etc.  My Dad cared about each person regardless of their stupidities, me included.  He genuinely loved each person, and when he was talking to you, he was talking to YOU and not focusing on anyone else.  I'm not sure how he did that.  Are you starting to see why we thought he was Jesus? :)  My mom says his heart gave and gave until it had nothing left to give.  Now he gets to be in the most wonderful place, reunited with his brother, with Clyde, Parnell, and Craig.  No hurts, no politics, no physical pain EVER!  He deserved that, and he deserved to get it before everyone else.

Check out what I blogged about a few years ago: http://www.theadventuresofmarkandemma.blogspot.com/2008/08/ode-to-perfect-daddy.html

Thanks for reading :)

Today a five year old told me about how he tried to fake sick this morning so he didn't have to go to preschool.  He said he told his grandma he felt sick and she put a thermometer in his mouth.  She left the room and he put the thermometer against a light bulb until she came back in.  Funniest kid ever.  Where in the world do kids learn this stuff?!  I didn't learn the thermometer trick until I was a Sophomore in High School!

Other than that funny moment, my day has sucked.  I hope yours hasn't.

Confessions of a Broken Heart

I am struggling so much.  I'm exhausted.  I just know some of our friends and family are sick of me being stressed.  I am stressed when Izaiah is home, I am stressed when he's gone.  I'm too busy when he's home, but too busy when he's gone.  I'm sad that Dre is gone, and I still feel like I am too busy to do just about anything.  I either work from 8am-8pm or I work and go straight from there to the hospital to see Izaiah until 8pm.  Then I come home, eat, shower, pass out.  Weekends feel crazy busy, too.  We have great, wonderful friends who have been trying so hard to spend lots of time with us and keep us busy.  I appreciate that so much, I really really do.  But -


Disclaimer: Everything I am about to list are things that I love under normal (does that exist?) circumstances so please do not think I am a self centered brat.


This is how I'm feeling. I do not want to leave my house unless I feel like it in that particular moment.  I do not want to talk to anyone on the phone.  I do not want to go hang out with my friends at their houses or out somewhere.  I do not want to play "Counselor" or listen to someone talk incessantly about their kid.  I do not want people to laugh and joke and seem like they are having a great time.  I do not want to spend what little time I have to help with someone's issue.  I do not want to babysit anyone's kids.  I do not want my husband to help you with something during the only free time I have to spend with him.  I do not want my husband helping you at all right now, because we are having a hard enough time cleaning our house and raising our kids and paying our bills and working on our marriage.  


I have to fight off the intense guilt for saying that because it is not in my nature to NOT do those things. Mark is that way, too.  My siblings are that way.  My parents are that way.  When my mom was about my age, she had a series of nervous breakdowns and had to be hospitalized on and off.  She says the reason is because she was trying so hard to be perfect.  It's a little different for me than my mom because it's not perfection I'm trying to obtain.  My aim is more of wanting to help everyone, make everyone feel loved, and to love me in return.  If I don't feel like I am helping every person I talk to, I feel unsettled, awful, and guilty.  If I allow the focus to be off of others and onto me, I am usually uncomfortable.  I don't want to talk about me.  I want to talk about you. Yet here I am, feeling like I have nothing to give and all I want to do now is talk about my life for a moment.  Mark and I put everything into Dre and Izaiah and completely over-exhausted ourselves, more so due to Izaiah.  When Izaiah left, we should have stopped and used that time to force ourselves to rest, read books, exercise, take walks, catch up with friends, etc.  We did some of that, but mostly we just threw ourselves into other people's struggles, partially to completely distract ourselves from the throbbing silence at home.  So when my dad died, we were already stretched so thin.  Even with the boys being gone and my dad's death being two months ago, I have been even more exhausted just at the thought of hanging out with some friends for a chill game night.  I hate it.


I've been getting frustrated when people ask how I'm doing, because I don't feel like anyone really wants me to delve into an hour of tearful, depressing account of my life lately.  When they ask what they can do, I want to tell them that they cannot afford what I want to do, which is to sail away to Fiji or Crete and be alone with God in a beautiful, open, quiet bungalow for weeks and weeks.  If I could fall and hit a rock, have amnesia, and come home and be oblivious of all the hard stuff we've recently been through, I'd do it. If that is far-fetched, then I want to sit in my living room on my comfy couch, with my dog and my dad's favorite cologne-sprayed shirt, and just cry.  Cry and talk about my dad for hours and hours and everyone else be so sad.  This is what I want.  And Monopoly.  I want to play a silent game of Monopoly and completely  bankrupt the sucker who is brave enough to take me on.  Grief is so weird.


Despite the guilt, I don't want to go go go until I completely crash like my mom did.  I want to practice self care and not allow myself to go emotionally bankrupt.  I want to allow myself to go garage sailing and rummage through the Goodwill outlet for 5 hours.  I want to sit in my comfy living room and submit applications for free vacations and strategically figure out ways to make money using my coupons so we can pay off debt.  I need to read books on how to parent my children better. I am way behind on writing those thank-you cards that I have been mentally writing in my head for the past 7 weeks.  I want to sit and look at family photos all afternoon and listen to all my dad's favorite songs, which are naturally my favorite songs as well because I adored my dad and everything he did, said, ate, drank, listened to, laughed at...yada yada.  I have been spending almost my every waking moment trying to learn how to live in this world without my Dad.  This is probably what I will continue writing about for awhile. Everyone else's life is moving on and mine is not; I do not want to pretend it is. 


So if you feel like listening or talking about my dad with me in my living room, come on over.  If not that is fine.  Hopefully I will feel like coming out of hiding soon.  Thanks for reading.

Overdue Pictures

Being STILL with Gavin....this is rare, folks!

Who is really the weird one?

Jonathan has become more sappy as he ages. 

Relaxin' all cool 

So precious 

Dre's first visit to the Arch 

Grandpa's 86th Birthday! 

 These are some of the layers Izaiah wears in order to block out the sun during naptime in the car

 Dre is so funny....always using my phone to take his facebook pictures

I promise, she crawled in there of her own free will. 

 Dear cousin, Alyssa and Michael here for a visit

My boys 

Izaiah got caught mimicking Papa.  These two look up to no good! 

Izaiah sure does love his Papa! 

Christmas time!  I never can get a good picture of them together and SMILING. 

Dre thought it would be sooooooo easy to eat a 1lb burger.  Ask him about it. 

Mike and Dre heading to Dylan and Rebecka's wedding 

Holly and Asili 

She never stops smiling! 

Ezra's a Cardinals fan, too 

 

Last picture ever taken of my dad...just hours before he died.  Not sure who the guy in the background is, so  my story is that he's an angel.

Mom, Hannah, Jonathan, David, Cyndi, and me after Dad's Memorial Service.  How we are still managing to look happy and put together - no CLUE. 

Wearing Uncle Jon's football gear and playing Uncle David's keyboard 

Miss Thang 

Why not? 

He is so street

SAD

Blogging about my dad is something I know I have to do.  I don't particularly like it, but writing is cathartic for me, so no sense in fighting it.  I spent the first month after my dad died still in such shock.  I was just trying to get through each hour, each minute.  I kept myself extremely busy.  I took a day off work to grieve. Seriously.  How dumb, but I did it.  Absolutely no grieving occurred on that day and i was pissed!  I wanted to be able to schedule it so it didn't interfere with everything else.  When Izaiah left for the hospital, I felt like our world crumbled and I had no clue how to exist.  I had to put one foot in front of the other and refuse to think about it and refuse to talk about it.  When my dad died, a new pain began settling in which made Izaiah being gone seem like nothing.  Then when Dre left I thought I might just fall over dead from a broken heart.  I felt like I lost 3 of my 4 male loves (I love David and Jonathan too, just fyi).  Now I feel like I go back and forth between grieving one of the three throughout each day.  Mostly I'm grieving my dad, but then feel guilty that I'm not crying over Dre, so then guilt is added.  Once guilt is added about Dre, I begin to think of what a bad mom I am that both my boys are out of my home.  So this is the cycle that makes up my day.   

Recently I have become so SAD.  Not avoiding, not angry, not anything but pure sad.  I'm crying before I even know it and the tears don't stop.  This is new.  Anytime I cry, the tears stop eventually.  This time, though, I am slow to give in to tears because I know if I let myself cry I will not stop crying.  I feel like I have no sense of reality anymore.  I'm just in a cloudy reality.  I miss my boys.    

The Boys

I have promised to blog more but have so much to update that I don't really know where to start.  I guess this post will start with the boys.  With that out of the way, hopefully I will be more motivated to tackle the other stuff.  Okay.

Izaiah has been in a children's psychiatric hospital for almost 11 weeks now.  I struggle with sharing the "psychiatric" part of the name because I feel like so many harsh judgments come with that.  He began to get too strong for us, and even with Mark staying home during the day to be "on call" we were all so exhausted and unable to keep up with his special needs.  He got very violent at one point and the police had to be dispatched.

I am sharing this because it is real and because I believe in being genuine and humble.  It is my biggest prayer that God will take all of this craziness in our lives and with our family and completely flip it for His glory in the future.  In the meantime, I don't want to get accustomed to hiding behind secrets, even if it makes me feel vulnerable.

We could not keep Izaiah safe anymore.  He was too big, too smart, too strong, had too much endurance, etc.  We made one of the hardest decisions we have yet to make and admitted him to Hawthorne.  We have since been on an emotional roller coaster.  We get to see him two nights a week and on weekends for a few hours.  He has been very clingy, very emotional, very angry, apologetic, tough, brave, loving, hateful, kind, etc. all depending on the day.  It has been really hard to leave him each time.  We have family therapy with him each week and have made some pretty big process.  "Pretty big process", though, still seems like a tiny drop in the bucket.  The doctors have been weaning him off most of his medications, and now we are at the point of finding which ones need to be added and which ones are unnecessary.  Once a medication is added, we have to begin at a small dose and wait 2-4 weeks to see how it affects him.  They can then begin increasing the dosage very slowly.  If the medication does not work well with his body, we have to wean him off it and start over with a new medication.  The whole process has been so slow.  It has been crushing, watching other people parenting your child, and having to leave him day after day after day.  We are pressing on, though, because we want to get this all figured out in hopes that he will not have to be hospitalized again for a long time.

Normally Dre is the easy one, but as soon as Izaiah left he made a string of very bad choices.  His judge told him to straighten up or he would send him to a residential facility for the summer.  Dre said he wanted to move out anyway, so fast forward a few weeks and the judge ordered him to go to residential.  He has been there for 2 1/2 weeks.  He is so mad at us and says he will never come home.  I'm sure it is a very hard thing to be loved so unconditionally by an entire family after feeling so rejected by the first one.  He is self sabotaging and it is so sad.  Dre is, by nature, a good kid.  A genuinely good kid.  He has to work hard to get bad grades and to make bad choices.  Mark is having a really hard time with him being gone.  I am, as well, but am not as much of a basket case I thought I would be.  I see this as a time for Dre to understand what it is really like to be without us.  He thinks we are so strict and all up in his life, and of course he does - he's a teenager.  Please pray for him.  I'm trying to tough it out and not go visit him, as he requested.

While having the boys out of the house is maybe the best thing for right now, it is very difficult to be without them.  As parents, Mark and I feel so helpless and inadequate.  We are trying to trust God with it and not rely on medication and our own knowledge.  I feel contradictory, though, because we are relying on medication and trying all kinds of different parenting method.  It's like, at what point do you stop asking God for food and just go find a job?  I don't think there is anything wrong with being proactive like that, but we are trying to get in the habit of seeking God's wisdom first.  Please pray for us while we try to not be backseat drivers.

The Adventure of Finding a Church

We have been looking for a church home for about how many years now?  I think about 5, maybe more.  We've been to them all and seen them all, and I'm far too jaded and liberal to join one.  I should start a blog on the adventures of being raised in the church of Christ.  That, my friends, would be a very interesting read.    Romance, drama, crime, death, scandal, abuse...it would meet all the criteria for a best-seller.

Anyways, so we went to this church a few months back.  We had been there several times a few years ago and really liked it.  I, however, was not in a good place at the time, and as much as I wanted to find a church family, I also wanted to distance myself from anything that could hurt me.  I had emailed with the pastor about his thoughts on sexual abuse and the church, and how their church prevents that from happening, yada yada.  It probably was not a particularly nice exchange of emails, as I was going through an irrational time in my life.  This church ended up moving locations and was now pretty close to us.  My New Year's Resolution was to find a church, so off we went.

The sermon (which I would normally care very little about) spoke straight to me.  I honestly don't even remember what was said, just that it felt as if God was speaking directly to me.  The worship was awesome, and Mark and I both felt the Holy Spirit in that place, which is a rare occurrence these days.  They were talking about small groups, and everyone was signing up for one that day.  I flipped through the bulletin (is there a more modern name for this nowadays?) and saw that there was a small group meeting in our neighborhood.  It's a sign!  So before I could change my mind, I rushed over to the information table to get more information.  As I looked at the sign-up sheet for the small group in our neighborhood, I saw that it was being held in a home on our street, one block over.  AND there was childcare provided.

Okay, now I knew it was a sign.  I was so excited, so I started signing us up.  There was a man behind the table and he asked what I was doing.  I was so smiley and excited and I said, ''I'm signing up for a group!"

"I see that.  But you are putting several names on one line."

"Yeah, I'm putting my family's names down, too."

"But you can't do that.  There is not enough room.  You cannot save spaces for other people.  This is a popular group and it is almost full."

"Well I am putting my husband and kids' names down.  Can't I do that?"

"You would need to put one name per line.  How many of you are there."

"Four.  Me, my husband, and two boys."

"Ma'am, there are only three spots left.  I'm sorry, but this group is full."

"So I can't sign up even though my boys will technically not be part of the group?"

"Look, you need to erase your name and start over."

This man was getting so frustrated with me, and I couldn't understand why.  I scratched out our names, and he got even more frustrated.  Now lets back up.   It took all the guts I could muster just to walk into this building and stay through the entire thing, then to come over and try to sign up for a group, and now I am getting the third degree from you because why?!

So I politely said, "Nevermind.  Thank you for your help," and walked away while he continued to call after me, still frustrated.  I spotted the boys and grabbed them to make a beeline for the exit.  Then...

"Hey, do I know you guys?"

Crap.  It's the pastor himself.

First time here, Mark tells him.

"Except for when we came several times 5 years ago."  I just had to open my big mouth.  "I emailed you a bunch back then." 

"Oh.  Um, okay.  Well, I get a lot of emails."

"It was about sexual abuse.  In the church.  Pretty messed up."  This is why I am supposed to keep my mouth shut when we check out churches.  I sound like a freak.

"Okay.  Ummm..."

"I was probably pretty rude.  I don't remember.  Bad time in my life.  Sorry about that.  Anyways..."

And then the pastor proceeded to refer me to a counselor who he thought I could probably really benefit from seeing.  No kidding.

So the next day, the pastor calls me unexpectedly and awkwardly tells me that some people were upset about  a possible misunderstanding at the small group booth yesterday.  He said that we can join the group, and it is actually the one he is leading.  Not to mention, the man behind the booth was his FATHER!!!  I apologized and tried to explain why I changed my mind about joining the group, but of course it came out weird and at one point I blurted something about being pretty messed up.  WHAT?!  After some awkward silence, the pastor tells me he should probably just call my husband and talk to him.  For the love, has this ever happened to you?  I felt like the guy from Meet the Parents, where he just keeps saying the wrong thing.  I'm really not as weird as I sound sometimes, just awkward.

We  have been going to the church for several weeks now.  Izaiah really likes it, and the teachers that work with him in children's church have been really great.  Mark has given me the lecture about not building up my walls, so I'm trying reeeaallly hard.  I will blog about updates.  It is a very interesting experience, finding a church.  I turn into this weird, awkward, hardened person at church.  I hate it.  We are not looking for religion, or a place that thinks like us, looks like us, or places any emphasis on wealth, healthy, prosperity, or hell, fire, and brimstone.  We ARE, however, looking for a place where we can live in community with others and do life together.  We want to find people who are authentic, and who we can be vulnerable with, and who love Jesus and not religion.  Hopefully we have found it.  We're not looking for perfect.  We're looking for Real.

Pray for our journey to finding the right place for us.  We have friends we do "church" with (for when two or more are gathered in His name...) but would really like to connect on a deeper level with those who are seeking God's heart.  We want our boys to have good role models that exist outside of my family.  We are desperate for a safe place for them, and for us.

I keep listening to this song, and the words stick out so boldly to me....

And though my innocence was taken

not everything is lost,

not eveything is lost. 

Your love is enough to light up the darkness

It's Your love, Your love

All I ever needed is Your love

I'm so ready to live like I believed this were true.  Breaking down the walls, boldly stepping into the light unafraid,

Moving forward....