I saw something miraculous at Maybe Church yesterday: a moment of genuine transparency.
Before the sermon, a man and woman got up to share about their life.
Honestly share.
They shared that their present life is ravaged and ripped up and strained to the breaking point. Before the whole church, they shared this. It wasn’t self-pitying or melodramatic. It was just the simple, humble truth of where they’re at. The courage that took — I couldn’t even take it all in. And, actually, the man shared much more than the woman. I mention this only because I think it could be fairly easy for a man to abdicate, for lack of a better word, the emotional “work” of that moment to a woman, but he didn’t do that. He spoke. Simple, straightforward honesty.
And I held my breath. It brought me to tears. Plus, it WAS church and, let’s face it, that’s all I do there anymore.
I really think it was an act of heroic transparency.
It mattered to me and impacted me much more than the sermon that followed.
Maybe it’s because we feel so raw. Because, though our circumstances are different from theirs, we’ve also come to understand, over the last few years, what a ravaged life looks like and feels like. Being on the brink. On the edge. And finally falling off.
Starting over.
Completely.
And the shame. The suffocating shame of it all. It’s hard to dig out from under that mountain. I’m not sure I have. I think I’m just lying there. I can hide and it’s warm, you know, buried under the mountain.
I look around this new place we live in and see the boxes I still can’t unpack. I mean, for God’s sake, we lost our home in January, and here we are, still with unopened boxes. Part of me just can’t accept this new place, so I can’t bring myself to unpack them. Well, okay, I have neatly stacked them in every closet we have, so they’re hidden from general view, but they’re there every time I open those doors. And, you know, I think maybe I will just stop opening those doors. Who needs to open closets anyway? It’s as if I can’t quite commit to this alien reality yet. This new lesser life that came in no small part from the hands of a fellow Christian. Some form of major denial lingers. And a bit of paralysis.
I know I still reel inside a bit from the fact that some immediate family members just never responded when we finally told them we’d lost the place — after we’d lost the place and moved out. Honestly, I look back now with regret that I ever told them. I mean, I knew exactly what would happen, that’s why I waited so long — and I was right, sadly — but I still went right ahead and shared. And when I say they said nothing, I don’t mean they said nothing of consequence or nothing I really remember. No. I mean it literally: They said nothing. They continue to say nothing. The situation doesn’t …. exist to them. Same response with our infertility. Certain family members, once they were eventually told, just shrugged a collective shrug and never mentioned or inquired about it again. Anything with the slightest whiff of shame is silenced. There have been one or two shining moments of acknowledgment but that’s generally the family dynamic — and it’s an ongoing struggle with forgiveness that I’m mostly losing, really.
When your reality is denied long enough and often enough by people who really matter to you, you start to question your own sanity. Maybe you’re just nuts. Maybe you’re just imagining things. I mean, if your reality isn’t seen or acknowledged by anyone outside your reality, is your reality real?
I blather on about all that for a reason and that’s this: that at one point, when this couple started to share about how the church had upheld them and encouraged them and tangibly helped them, it was beyond comprehension to me. Literally. Warm hands of Christian compassion and fellowship touching their lives? From people in the church too? Uhm, what’s that? Is there such a thing anymore? No. No, it was like hearing a foreign language. Or tales of mythical lands and magical creatures. You want to believe these things exist, but you don’t see them in your life; you haven’t encountered these magical creatures. They sound lovely, they do, and how nice would that be, but …… no. The cold Christian hands that have touched your life for too long now have been hands of violation and destruction. Maybe once, long ago, one or two of these creatures crossed your path, but that was so very long ago and the desert since then has seemed searing and endless.
I really hope to encounter these magical creatures one day, though I don’t hold my breath for it anymore.
But yesterday …. yesterday, the miracle was transparency.
I saw it with my very own near-sighted eyes. It was blurry, but I saw it. THAT does exist.
And, you know, that’s not nothing.
A final note: If you wouldn’t mind, pippa, please add this family I just mentioned to your prayers, too. There are child safety/custody issues, daunting legal issues, job issues, everything. It’s mind-boggling, their burdens right now. Thank you. Uhm, again.