especially hard days

i don't know that everyone has hard days- i think we do.

today was one for me.

sundays have been hard for me the last 6 months. i left a long relationship with a church that i was once in love with, i watched and felt it turn into something unhealthy and toxic and fought as long as i could until i had nothing left. maybe i left too late, i don't know. but it has left me feeling very out of socket on sundays.

i am sure it is because i have spent almost 33 years being at a church on sunday morning, so to abruptly stop this action feels a bit spinning. allowing myself space to figure out what church means not just what someone has told me it means is an odd feeling. let me say i love the church- as a whole- the body of Christ, but i am working out what it looks like for me to be a part of it, how to do that. i love a whole lot of people that are part of a/the church. i have always thrown myself in the middle, jumped in- off the high dive not really paying attention to check if there was water to break my dive. i will just say I have found some pools that have been drained. people with the best of intentions with what i choose to believe were at some level done in love, have cause a lot of bleeding out- not till the death mind you- but to the point where I have felt weak and spent with nothing left to offer.


slowly strength is returning to my heart. i have re-discovered the resiliency of my heart in the last few years. there is something to be said for truth creeping into our hearts and allowing it to be broken for awhile. feeling the tension of a heart being healed. i think i will be in that place for awhile. this side of heaven will break your heart if your paying attention...good thing the healing never stops.


but anyways, today is sunday, so i had that awkward 'i should be somewhere' feeling, all my regular people i breathe with were occupied with life, or at the place i used to be.

i like being out of town on sundays so i have an excuse for not being 'at church'. but when i am in town i try to fill it with brunch with a friend- no such luck today. so i drove around aimlessly, got some coffee and ended up at a movie- another great distraction place for me. I saw "Then She Found Me" and i loved it, it was a sweet surprise. was painfully real, funny, beautiful. Go see it - right now. I had never heard of it and it was one of those movies that spoke so sweetly to my heart that i just wanted to sit there and cry for all the right reasons. Movies sometimes do that to me- The Visitor did it to me a few weeks ago. but today was perfect timing. i waited till i got to my car till i cried- a lot less awkward for everyone I am sure. i am convinced that sometimes all i need sometimes is a good cry, it helps in unspeakably big ways. maybe that is my 'girl-ness' but i think i try to hold everything together all the time so no one will know how weak i am that it catches up with me and i finally let myself come undone into tears. i think jesus waits patiently for the moments where i let him hold me. i can't ever remember when i decided to try on my own to be strong, it does not last long. but it sure is sweet to find myself cuddled up close to jesus. it is so much easier to breath here. great place to cry and unravel everything i have knotted up with my fear and insecurities.


i can see beautiful things from here. i can see i have the best people a girl can have in her life. real friends that know my flaws even when i try to hide them. even the guys i work with are the protective big brothers that interfere in my life in all the right places and love me even when i mess everything up. i have been able to slowly connect my heart with a small group of people that are trying to 'do' church together and admit we really don't know how to do it all that well,but we try. my life is full of beauty. when the pain of living on this side of heaven is punching me in the stomach i still see the Kingdom of God here. it shows up when i hear the voice of a friend tell me the things jesus whispers to me. when we laugh until i can barely breathe at something ridiculous. when we can have a great dinner or a good glass of wine and just be together and be reminded that we are not alone and we are not crazy. that is a gift.

so i suppose my sundays can start off feeling empty, they don't end that way. and i am grateful.