There is No Coma in "Community"

I think in the summer I'm just going to pitch a tent in the back yard.  One that comes with a window unit A/C of course.  And a secret pocket for my chocolate stash.  It'll have to be a cold secret pocket so my chocolate doesn't melt.  And I'll need a back yard.  Our little patch of grass in front of the parking lot is slowly being washed away by all this rain!  And dog pee but that's another maddening story. 

Being outdoors isn't the only reason I haven't written though.  I've been trying to think of a way to tell this part of my story without making myself look bad.  I just don't think it's possible if I plan on being honest.  The other reason is because I don't want to put other people down.  Let's see if I can pull this off. 

I guess I'll start in the present and back track.  I feel like I've just woken up.  Or maybe it feels like I've finally showered from a long day of blackberry picking.  Hot, humid, greasy, sweaty, thorn-scratched and just downright miserable.  Trudging.  Through underbrush and bugs and the occasional snake but definitely lost.  The whole time going in circles when the path was two feet to my right but I can't see it because I'm so worried and fearful of all the things that might jump out at me and take me down.  This is how it feels.  Like I've finally found the path, made it home, and showered that whole experience away.

I have been part of my church for about seven years.  Depending on who and when you ask, though, it has been a very small part.  It was much easier when I was single.  Even when I was married before the kids.  But life gets harder and times get tougher and it seems that I curled up into the fetal position, so to speak.  The expression drunk on power is a well worn one but I was drunk on fear.  Fear that I couldn't do it all.  Fear that people would judge us if the heard our story.  Fear of starting to help and getting sucked in and never being able to say no!  Fear of not being that "perfect" cookie-cutter Christian.  Of gettting invited to a small group and being asked to host at our house that could barely hold us!  The sheer amount of effort it took to get the kids out the door, let alone get myself out of bed after putting three kids back to sleep multiple times and not being able to sleep because of worry.  I'll never know how much was just pure laziness and how much was depression.  I closed up shop.  I quit and the most I would do was sit in church, a church that was made for broken people!

I don't think I realized how broken I was.  I mean, it's one thing to sit here and type "Oh wo is me" but you can't live every day like that.  You have to get up, you have to go to work, feed the kids, keep life moving in a forward direction.  And that's what I did most days.  It's just that when I look back now, I was doing it with such a burden.  Now I believe that burdens are lifted at Calvary like the song says.  It's just that as soon as we take that burden off, life has more for us.  It's a continuous thing.  I don't think I'll forever go tip-toeing through the tulips after this realization but it's helping. 

Part of that burden was what I "should" be doing.  The comparison trap.  Seeing everyone else and it looked like they had everything together when we were falling apart.  The comparison trap, the blame game, the people-pleasing.  Good grief!  It was all there and I was playing all three games at once and wondering why I was so miserable and tired!  It blows up until you feel that the whole world is against you, even if you have somehow managed to become convinced that God loves you.  It's crazy, how we can put ourselves in these itty bitty invisible prisons and yet pretend to be so free. 

So the next logical step, of course, was to find a church with magical people who would love me the moment they met me and we would add a little Jesus and-voila!-be instant friends!  And we did find another church and everyone there was really nice and warm and inviting and the music was great and they wanted to reach out to the community and...it was just like my old church.  Which only meant one thing: I was my problem. 

I hate being wrong.  I wanted to kick the wall when that realization kicked in.  And say things kids shouldn't hear.  I frankly wanted to refuse to believe it and even started making pros and cons lists of each church.  Of course I was on the pros list for each church because I clearly wasn't the problem!  I had forgotten what church was.  It's a great place for a cup of coffee.  You can drop off your kids and have an hour to just sit.  You can get spiritual and worship.  You can tithe with the best of them.  You can even serve.  But church is a bunch of people on a journey just trying to follow where God leads and if our paths never cross and we never reach out to each other, we're doing it wrong.  Even if we're doing holy things like shutting ourselves in our prayer closets.  You have to come out at some point.  Even if you have kids.  You can't stay in there and please insanity by children.  I have tried.  It only makes you crazier and then you get caught in Walmart talking to yourself.  I was surrounded by people and maybe had a good conversation with one or two of them once or twice. 

Now I'm not downplaying if your church really does have problems.  If you all have started worshiping weird things like calves, maybe it is your church and you should leave immediately.  The thing that makes me feel so silly is that my church preaches community all the time and I thought I was doing it.  But I was of course lying to myself so that I didn't have to go through the excruciating ordeal of meeting new people.  If it's hard to meet new people, go to a church where they serve wine for communion and you should be fine. 

No church is perfect.  In my brain I had been taught this a long time ago but I'm an idealist.  No one is perfect.  Even if I am right most of the time.  My husband can attest to that.  I'm going to do this community thing if it kills me but my guess is I'll feel more alive than ever.