... And I listened

      I've got a fire in my belly.  It's the kind that rises from deep within, when an ember of passion has been fanned. It had been squelched for quite some time, but it never went out.  It was dormant, tucked away for safe keeping, until a safe time to re-emerge.

     When I was in middle and high school, I wanted to be a social worker when I grew up.  I wanted to help people, like I had been helped.  However, somewhere along the way I was talked out of it.  I was told there was no money in it, getting a job would be hard, it would be too much emotionally.

     And I listened.

     I went to a year of college, taking gen-eds, before dropping out to go to Youth With A Mission (YWAM).  My time in YWAM stoked my fire.  During my time there, I was really able to work on myself.  I know that may sound like a cliche, but there was work to be done.  As I worked to reconcile my past experiences and who God was, I seemed to develop a magnetic field around me.  I was a magnet that attracted other abused women and children{it's so strange how we can sniff it out in others!}.  I had many ministry opportunities that allowed me to interact with other broken and abused women and children.  Their stories just poured out of them. 

     And I listened.

     As I have listened to so many stories of hurt, trauma, and victimization one thing has become clear.  We as a church do a really bad job of  helping these women, often to the point of revictimizing them.  We say "everyone welcome", which is true as long as you have it all together and look like us.  We say we want to help but they remain marginalized.  They sit in a corner alone.  You know why?   Because the modern church doesn't handle "messy" well, and messy is where these ladies and children reside.  Working through their "stuff" is a process.  A grimy, smelly, dirty process. 

     I've had periods in my life when I had more interactions with these women and children.  It was some of the most fulfilling times.  I felt a sense of purpose.  The fire burned bright. But then I went through some awful things.  I was revictimized by the church, by a pastor who knew my past and used it against me.  I was shaken to the core.  I began to question my calling, my ability to help, if I was even able to make a difference. 

     I shut down.

     For the past several years I have been in a "ministry desert".  I just didn't feel like I had anything extra to give.  But my magnet continued to pull injured women to me.  I gave what I had, though it didn't seem like enough.

     I listened.

    Over the last month, I have felt that ember fanned to flame.  I feel a passion burning deep in my belly.  I have a stirring that is pushing me forward.  I have to do something.  I just don't know what that looks like yet.  I just know that I, that we the church, need to do better.  It's time to reach out.  It's time our arms pull in rather than push away.    It's time I step out of my comfort zone and back into ministry.  I don't know what that looks like yet.

     But I'm listening.

He Didn't Destroy Me

     I grew up in the church.  It wasn't part of my life with my biological family, but I loved it from the time I moved in with my foster/adoptive family.  I didn't understand it then, but I felt safe at church.  I just knew there was something different there.

     My parents were committed leaders. My dad was the worship leader and served on the church board for most of my formative years.  My mom was a Sunday school teacher.  She served in the nursery, taught some of the girl's groups and also cleaned the church.  We hosted weekly Bible study groups at our house.  Basically, if the church doors were open, we were there.  If there was a reason to meet up with others from the church, we were in.
     Those we some of the happiest times of my life.  Sure, there were some sad times.  When a beloved youth pastor and his wife moved away, I was devastated.  When the church split and we didn't go there anymore, I lost contact with friends.  But I formed new friendships at the next church, which lessened the blow.
     Church represented continuity for me.  The location, congregation might be different but my feeling of safety remained.  My soul was soothed.  It truly was a refuge for me.  None of my abuse, damage, brokenness mattered there.

     I hit a rough spot with church when I was in high school that lasted through the summer after graduation.  I was still in a relationship with Jesus.  We still talked-- all the time.  But I no longer felt like the church "fit", if you will.
     Fortunately a group from Youth With A Mission (YWAM) visited our church for a weekend.  I'll go into all the details about that in another post.  But I will say that that weekend was life-altering for me.  I finished out my first year of college, then went into full-time ministry with YWAM for the next 3 years.
     During those years I grew to understand why church had been so comforting for me-- I had experienced God.  I totally immersed myself in getting to know God, to really hear him and recognize his voice.  I begin to deal with my pain from the abuse and trauma in my early childhood.  Bit by bit, I was becoming healthy.  Whole.

     When I married my husband, we quickly rooted our little family in the local church.  And, like our parents, jumped in with both feet.  We taught boy's and girl's groups.  We attended Bible studies at other's homes, and hosted our own.
     My husband's job changed often during our early years of marriage, but we always found a church quickly.  It provided comfort and community, as well as allow us to continue to grow in our relationship with God.
     Naturally, when we had kids we wanted them to have the same church experience we did as children.  As toddlers they loved it.

     My husband's job took us out of state for a bit.  When we moved back here to Pennsylvania, finding a church was suddenly difficult.  We had never experienced that before!   He'd like one, I'd like another.  We visited a church where not one person spoke to us, and another on the same day the pastor resigned.  When we finally visited the church that would be our home for the next 10 years, we were ripe for the picking.  However, our experiences on that first visit were vastly different.  He felt like he was finally home.  I felt like my spidey sense had been activated.  I watched from the sidelines, for a year, as my husband became involved and our children made friends.  I watched until they wore me down.  I overrode my gut instincts and jumped right in.

     During the first 7 years, we were honeymooners.  Our lives revolved around the church, to the point that we sacrificed relationships with our own families.  We were given subtle suggestions that all our friends should be from our church.
     We joined teams.  We led groups.  We hosted Bible studies in our home.  I became the pastor's administrative assistant.  We enjoyed a favor that stirred jealousy in people who were working so hard for it.  We became part of the pastor's family.  They helped us through some really tough times in our life, and we opened up to them.  Me, especially.  I told them all about my trauma and abuse.  I showed them the broken pieces of me that I was trying so desperately to hold together.

     All the while, we were being manipulated.  Coaxed to behave a certain way.  Groomed.  They knew all my secrets, so they knew just what buttons to push.

     The pastor was a narcissistic control freak.  He would joke that he could "punish people without them even knowing it".  At some point that became directed at us, especially me.  But in my blind trust, I didn't see it until it was far too late.  Even when he made inappropriate sexual advances towards me, TWICE, I dismissed it as being in my head.  When my daughter was being punished as a way to control me, I dismissed it as she was being overly sensitive.  When my husband started to feel like something was incredibly wrong going on, I still refused to see it.  I had overridden my gut instinct years before; now I didn't trust it anymore.  They had broken me.

     But it would become much worse.

     One of the greatest offenses one could do at that church was to ask "why" about anything.  Blind obedience was demanded.  Anyone who questioned was quickly discounted and driven out.  His tag line was "if this isn't the church for you, we're happy for you to find another one".
     Well, I committed that greatest sin.  I dared to question.  I dared to compare one of my character issues with his.  They decided I needed to go.  They launched an all-out character assassination of me.  They froze us out.  Shunned, if you will.  We lost friends, but it was so much worse for our kids.  They didn't know why any of it was happening, and I didn't know how to explain.
     By the time we left there, I was broken.  I spent the next year in mourning.  I cried every single day.  My body just shut down.  I developed complex PTSD.  I watched my children fall away from the church because of what we'd all been through.

     I clung to God for my very existence.  We found another church, a place that gave us the space to begin to heal.  You see, a man hurt us, not the church.  A man attacked us, not God.  If there is one thing I know about God, it's that He has to be better than any man.

     It's been almost 10 years since we escaped what I now have come to understand was a cult.  It's been a rough road dealing with all that damage.  Unpacking those boxes, all the little compartments I had to stuff those memories into just to survive, is both freeing and terrifying.  I'm definitely not the person I was then, but my relationship with the church has not changed.  Mainly because it's not based on man.
   
     God has not changed. That gives me hope.  That gives me strength.




   

My Adoption Heartbreak

     I wanted to adopt children for as long as I can remember.  Maybe it's because I'm adopted.  I wanted to give kids in bad situations a safe home.  I understood where they were coming from and wanted to help.  I thought about it often and made many plans in my mind.  I also wanted to be a social worker to help even more children.
     When my husband and I were dating, I told him of my desire to adopt.  Fortunately, he was on board.  I wouldn't have married someone without the same vision.  After we married, it took a back burner as we started our family.  We agreed that we wanted our biological children to be older than those we adopted.  We also didn't want babies.  With that timeline in mind, I was content to wait.
   
     When our children were 13 and 16, we started the process of becoming foster parents.  To be clear, we never wanted to foster.  We wanted straight up adoption; kids whose parents had already had their rights terminated.
     We went to all the classes and we got our clearances.  We had all the home inspections.  We began working with a social worker to find the children who would best fit in our home.  My heart was full!  My life-long dream was coming true.

     On July 15, 2008 we met Krista and Carlie, who were 10 and 7.  They were beautiful girls who looked like they were our own children.  They had been living in another foster home.  This was the third time they had been removed from their biological family.  They had been out of their home for a year.  It looked like a smooth adoption process was ahead.
     As with any transition, there was some bumps.  Krista had been treated as an adult by both her mother and previous foster mom.  She had difficulty just being a kid.   She also had nightmares, so she fought sleeping.   Due to previous issues, we were told the girls could not share a bedroom.  Our 16 year old daughter gladly gave up her own room to share one with Krista.  Carlie just wanted to feel safe.  At seven, she had already experienced things most adults haven't. Yet she was the most loving, lovable little girl.  She made friends quickly and laughed easily.
     We continued to have home visits.  We also had to take the girls to supervised visits with their parents every week.  There were some behavior issues leading up to and following  these visits, but I expected that.

     Our children did a remarkable job of accepting Krista and Carlie into our family.  As my oldest sister did when I was a foster child, Ellysa doted on them and treated them like little dolls.  She played games with them and helped with homework.  Ben was a proud big brother. He loved the girls and even shared his most-prized possession, his gaming system, with them.  I am beyond proud of how open-hearted they both were.  Adoption had always been my dream, but they fully bought into it.
   
     Then the system failed us.

     At parental visits the girls were being told by their mother that they were going home.  This thrilled Krista.  It terrified Carlie.
     Our case worker tried to reassure us.  Everything was on our side.  But it wasn't.  The parents' rights still had not been terminated.  There started to be rumblings that they were actually trying to get the girls, and two other siblings, back.

     My dream was falling apart.

     In February 2009 we attended a hearing to determine if the parents could have the girls back.  It was the longest, most gut-wrenching hours of my life.  We listened as the previous foster mom made the parents looks like nurturing, functioning parents instead of the jobless addicts that they were.  We listened as their lawyer attempted to malign my character.  We listened as their lawyer questioned the therapist we'd been taking the girls to see, implying that seeing a private therapist rather than one through the government was somehow a negative.  There is so much more, but it's not mine to share.
     The court ruled that the girls be returned to their parents at the end of the school year.  I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  Tears stung my cheeks.  I held them in as best I could, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.  Once my husband and I were out of the courthouse, I couldn't hold them in anymore.  By the time we got to the car I was sobbing uncontrollably.  The pain in my heart was unbearable.
     Now, I had to tell these two sweet girls what was going to happen.  I dreaded that conversation.  When we got home we sat down with all four kids.  We told them what the judge decided.  Krista smiled, happy to be going home even if it was months away.  Carlie fell into my arms, lip trembling and eyes full of tears, begging me to not make her go.  It was heart-breaking!    Ben and Ellysa's responses were equally sad.  Our world, our family, was never going to be the same.

     I'll admit that I began to pull back from the girls once I knew they were leaving.  I was trying to protect my heart from further pain.  I'm not proud of that.   I didn't know how else to keep from hurting more.  The system that saved me as a child was destroying me as an adult.  It was hurting my children and my potential children.
     After the girls went back to their parents, their mother refused to let us have any contact with them.  She wanted to act like the 10 months they were with us had never happened.  I floundered around for a while.  I was left asking "why".  We had done everything we were supposed to do and it still turned out badly.  How could my dream be such a nightmare?
    People meant well, but didn't really understand.  So many asked us when we were "getting more kids".  We never intended to be foster parents.  We never wanted to have a revolving door.  I couldn't put Ben and Ellysa through that.  I couldn't handle that.  My husband saw how wrecked I was.  I know he was in pain, too.  He just hid it better than I did.

     It's been 11 years.  The nerve is no longer raw, but the pain lingers.  Healing is happening.  It's a process, but I know it's happening.  You know how?  I recently hung a family picture that we had taken when the girls were with us.  It had been in the basement for 7 years.  I no longer cry when I look at it.  I've also had some limited interaction with the girls on social media.  I cherish those.
     My dream didn't turn out how I wanted it to, but I would still choose the time I did have with the girls over not feeling all that pain.  They contributed to our family, and I like to think that we had a positive impact on them.  Do I hate how the system screwed us over?  Absolutely!  There is no acceptable reason for the bungling that took place.  But, like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes by having those girls in my life.