“you haven’t written anything in months”

yes, thank you. as if the nagging in my soul weren’t enough, God has now sent conviction in the form of my upstairs neighbor.

“yeah, um, i’ve been really busy…”

lame.

the truth is, i haven’t written because i don’t know quite what to write about.

i’m a mom, but first i am a me.

i’m a pastor, but first i am a person.

i am “busy” doing many things, but first i am a being.

and i want to be more intentional about the way my being relates to this world, engaging in life more than just in the replication of pinterest projects and comfort food gone vegan.

the past eight months or so has been somewhat of an identity crisis for me, or maybe they’ve just been the catalyzing agent for a crisis long coming.

i look back at the past two and a half years since ben and i followed God on some crazy call halfway across the country to work as bivocational ministers and live in an under resourced, african american neighborhood, i barely recognize myself.

i didn’t really know anything about these “wesleyan” people, other than i grew up united methodist and john and charles wesley’s names were all over that denomination too. i learned that the leader of the whole denomination was a woman, and that made me incredibly uncomfortable. but not uncomfortable enough to leave, just uncomfortable enough to ask questions.

i really hadn’t given any thought the the idea that slave labor might actually exist in something other than the chocolate and coffee industries.

i thought that since i was married, my own walk with the Lord was wholly dependent on my husbands leadership and spiritual headship. i spent the bulk of our first year of marriage blaming ben for the feeling of my prayers bouncing off the ceiling.

i knew even less than i know now about generational poverty, systemic injustice and how freakishly hard it is to oppose and overcome those forces.

and i thought my circle of fellowship and community was totally complete in it’s neat, uncomplicated, homogenous state.

thankfully, God intervenes.  sometimes when we don’t even think we need help.

all this to say, i’m starting to think i should share more than just adorable pictures of kids learning about Jesus and creative, healthy (or not so much) recipes.  maybe  my voice is good for more than that.  i think i’ve said that before, but i needed to say it again.  for me.  to convince myself.

it’s been a long 2.5 years under the knife, letting the Master Surgeon whittle away at the idea of God built into my soul over the years.  prejudices and fears being removed like the cancers they are.   the scars of hatred soothed with the balm of Love itself.   my vision corrected so i could begin to see God in God’s entirety.  not as a cause or a belief, a baby in a manger or even a man on a cross.  i am beginning to see God as a Being so terrifying and awesome and true, that to look fully upon Godself would cause me to fall down dead.

i think i’m still in the ICU.  there is much left to be cut out and dismantled.   the effects of a toxic faith – provencial American religion – still course through my veins.

i’m admitted now though.  locked into this removing and recovering of the God i always loved, and am growing to love more.

like rehab or therapy, i find myself from time to time shaken a in pain as i run after restoration and healing.

maybe one day i’ll get there.

until then, i will remain under the knife.