Impact Statement to GBC

On March 21, 2021 I was invited to come to a recorded, congregational, town hall style meeting that took place at GBC, the church where my father abused many of his victims, the church where it was covered up for almost two decades. I asked permission to give an impact statement at this meeting, and I feel so incredibly grateful that I was given that opportunity. The leaders within the church who have stepped up to deal with this, to offer empathy and support to us, to try to right the wrongs done, and pushed for the independent investigation to begin and carry on to completion give me so. much. hope. (I've sent the report from the independent investigation to many of you who have asked for it, but if you haven't read it and would like to please send me your email address and I'll get it to you.) Even with all the positives I see and am staying focused on, there are still many people within the church who are still deeply steeped in the same distorted theologies and culture that allowed this to happen in the first place. But little by little, it is my hope and prayer that those twisted lenses of God that are so damaging and end up enabling and covering up abuse will continue to be exposed and brought back in line with the full character of God. I hope to write more on these theologies that are so prevalent and so damaging another time. But for now, I will share the impact statement I gave at that first meeting, and then I will follow up with what is happening now. (Also, I was not the only one who gave an impact statement that night, and I'm so proud of each person who spoke out.) 

A few more notes to add: There are two men mentioned later on in my statement who I did not specifically name in my public statement, so their names are in parentheses here. I chose to add their names in this version because one of them publicly identified himself in the meeting, and the other I believe would be beneficial for people in the church to know who I was referencing, especially since he is also an elder who was referenced in the report, and more unfolded with him after this meeting. I have difficulty identifying any benefit that being vague at this point would provide. When, at the end of my statement, I acknowledge people by using RV1, RV2, etc, these are references to the way victims and witnesses were identified in the independent report. There are also several places where I have added additional names/words using brackets. 

Impact statement to gbc: 

"It has been difficult for me to decide if I could come to this meeting or not, and if so, what would I say? Where would I start? But here I am, knowing there is no neat and tidy place to begin, no easy way to begin to take you down the road of the pain I've experienced, the pain we've experienced.

I decided the most appropriate place to start is by first saying thank you. While I know that you all come from varied perspectives where some of you in the congregation did not understand the gravity of what was happening, some of you may not have seen the importance, some of you maybe just didn't know anything about it at all, and some of you have been fighting alongside of me to bring the truth to light this whole time, or even longer than I have, all together you voted to continue this investigation by GRACE, and for that, we can never express the depth of our gratitude. And to the elders and board members who have shouldered this burden, and dealt with something you could have just washed your hands of, I can never thank you enough. You finally looked this evil in the face, and you took the beginning steps toward dealing with it, at great personal cost. Words cannot ever say what that means to us. This is a good start to the redemption that is possible here. 

I am different from some of the people that this institution, specifically Steve [Schappert] and Wayne [Heffelfinger], have wronged. I am different because my awareness of their deception has only been for the past 4 years, while some have been aware of their lies for over two decades. But I want to be clear, whether I was aware of their deception and cover up or not, it was affecting me regardless. I have too many examples of this to name, but I will highlight some of the most impactful. When Steve and Wayne found out my father was a danger to children and removed him from youth leadership, and eventually requested that he not coach girls sports, they completely overlooked and sacrificed my siblings and I, who were also children within their congregation, children who were worthy of protection too. On page 16 of the GRACE report, notes are referenced where it is discussed that I, an unaware child, who was in just as much danger myself, was to provide some kind of safeguard or accountability to prevent him from harming other kids when he was coaching. My OWN safety was NEVER considered. I will not attempt to convey to you what I am in hindsight able to recognize as veiled sexual abuse that permeated my entire childhood, as it is much too raw and vulnerable. But I will give you less vulnerable examples of what that meant for me in the timeframe after gbc became aware of abuse: When I was around 13 or 14, and having a sleepover at my home with a friend who was also a child of a family in this church, we fell asleep after watching a movie. In the morning, when we opened the dvd player to take the movie out, we found a graphic porn dvd in it's place. Ironically, this was in 2002 or 2003. So shortly after my dad was removed from youth ministry because of his danger to kids in the church, he was predatortily sneaking into his own sleeping teen daughter's room at night,  and exposing both me and my friend to unwanted sexual material. At that time I did not have the context to understand or even suspect that my father was the one who crept into my room in the darkness and left it for me to find, and instead, as a naive child, believed him when he said it was an attack of Satan on our home. After all, the church had allowed me to believe my father had "voluntarily stepped down from his youth leadership position after many years of faithful service", and his reputation and esteem as a godly man of authority in the community were allowed to remain intact despite the abuse they knew about, and directly because of the fact that they never reported it. This event with the dvd was one of many unexplainable "attacks of satan" on our home that I did not have the proper context for because of the church's intentional supression of information. One of the next "attacks of satan" that I will mention came in 2005, when I was 18 years old, and my father was hospitalized for what we would eventually find out was AIDS. Because of the close nature of our family, and the fact that we sometimes shared food and drinks, contact cases, and even razors, my siblings and I all had to be tested for HIV. I will never forget going into the doctors office in the dark, at night, after hours, so that no one would know who we were or why we were there. I will never forget the needle in the back of my hand drawing out my blood, or the agonizing wait to get the results and the fear of what they might be. I had just begun college. I had been dating my now husband for almost a year at the time. I remember being terrified that I would have to break up with him if my results came back positive. Or that I might never be able to marry or have a family of my own. For those few days of uncertainty, my entire future hung in the balance. I remember the staggering grief and depression as I began college with people who I wanted to become friends with, but instead felt so isolated from by the secret of what was happening in my family. Because of insight from the HIV doctor, we now know that my father first contracted HIV in the winter of 2002, during the same time frame when he was in the counseling that was mandated by the church, and while Steve was drawing his own self-protecting and unsupported conclusions that "things had been handled and should all be kept quiet." Ironically, the doctor who drew my blood for the HIV tests was another member of the congregation, and someone who might have begun to put things together for himself had the leadership ever relayed to the congregation the truth of what my father had done. That is just one example of how the supression of information caused countless people who had small pieces to the puzzle to never connect or be aware of the danger that my dad was to them and their children. Because we were never given any kind of awareness of the danger my father posed to children, we left our own children alone with him and my mother on countless occasions. It was only when we began to notice disturbing behavior from him toward our children, including walking into a situation in which my father was encouraging my two year old to rub his fingers in open cuts on his hand under the guise that my son was  "making his boo boos feel better" and therefore directly exposing my child to HIV, that I finally had the courage to prevent my parents from interacting with my children alone, and to share what was happening with a friend. It was then that I finally heard the very first allegation of sexual abuse, perpetrated by my father, that I had ever heard in my life. Even as his own daughter, and with everything to lose, it only took one allegation for me to believe a victim. My grief and continued nightmares over the years my own children were in danger will plague me for the rest of my life. This church directly withheld information that could have literally protected generations of children from him, including my own. 

And lastly, when a church puts an emphasis on remaining in a marriage despite significant risk to the spouse or family, like they did with my mom in 2001, they have created a theology of idolatry around the institution of marriage instead of caring for the safety of the individuals within their flock. This creates a culture conducive to abuse, where women and children are subjected to unsafe environments, behavior and treatment, all for the sake of appearances. God himself gives permission to leave a marriage because of one instance of unfaithfulness. And if that weren't enough, Jesus says that it would be better for a millstone to be hung around the neck of someone who causes even one of these little children to stumble, and for them to be drowned in the depths of the sea. One of the biggest blows through all of this has been my mother's continued denial of the truth, and her choice to stay with my father even though that means losing us. It is hard for me not to wonder what it could have meant in my mom's life if she had had pastors who, after learning about her husband's perpetual infidelity, not to mention his predatory behavior toward children, had encouraged her toward protecting herself and her children, instead of sending her to counseling with him and emphasizing them saving their marriage. It is hard not to wonder what it would have meant for her and for us if she had been supported by people in authority in the church in getting away from him. It is hard not to wonder if today, I might have a mom. 

Besides those indirect consequences that played out over my life, there are much more direct impacts this church's handling of the situation has had on me over the past four years. As we began to ask questions, make phone calls, set up meetings, and find out the truth about my father, we heard the stories of victim after victim. And there was a common thread we had never suspected: The church had known. For years. I was horrified, but at the same time I tried to give these men  who I thought I knew and trusted the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they just really hadn't known how to handle it all then. But surely, now that it was coming out yet again, they would just apologize for their failures in the past and come along side us as support. I was so ready to forgive them should they have done that. My horror and the trauma only intensified as I realized that would not be the case. At a time when we needed support the most, they leveraged their positions against us and portrayed us as the enemy, even as they continued to lie about what they had known in the past. And so the unthinkable happened: while my dad called me a liar on one side, these men, respected pastors in the community where I'd grown up, called me a liar on the other. I cannot describe the pain of having my reputation and my character drug through the mud when I was in the most vulnerable place of my life. My worth, my safety, and my value had never been considered as a child. And now, when they decided that I was a threat to their reputations and desired narrative, the repercussions to my character and reputation were not considered as they steam rolled me and others with their deception. It became clear that my worth, my safety, and my value would not be considered by them now as an adult either. With their lies, they  stole the support that all who were victimized could have found in this community. They reaffirmed the perception that the church, and especially those in leadership are not safe, and cannot be trusted. The entire congregation and community fractured along the lines of their deception, as they were forced to choose between us or them. They created an atmosphere within this church of defensiveness and suspicion toward us, rather than of empathy and support. There are no words to describe what that felt like, or what it did to us. 

To those who were on the board from 2017 to 2019: In 2019, With one of the current elders (Seth Sherriff) acting as liason, I attempted numerous times to set up a meeting with Steve, Wayne, and the elders, to share truth with you, and to confront Steve with his own notes in front of you. I was given multiple excuses by this current elder as to why this was unneccessary or could not happen, such as that elder meetings are already long and he didn't want to lengthen them further by meeting with us, or that scheduling something outside of an elder meeting time frame would be nearly impossible to coordinate schedules for. When I pressed, I was told that the board could decide for itself. I was then told that once my request was made to the board, the board decided for itself that it was unneccesary to meet with me. This is all documented in emails. While I will never know exactly how this request was presented to you or why you declined, or why this current elder did not feel that the rest of the elders should absolutely be privy to what I had to say, especially since this current elder had met with my sister and I in my home in December of 2018 and heard many of our claims and concerns for himself,  I do hope that you have realized that it is a tactic of leaders with something to hide to restrict and control the flow of information, and that when concerns regarding those leaders' truthfulness are being brought forward again and again, it is not your prerogative to allow those leaders to handle such things alone without any oversight or accountability. There has been a culture here of continual deference to leaders who have had absolutely no accountability to anyone. There has existed a culture here where the primary focus has been to protect the institution and the reputations of its leaders at all costs, rather than to protect the gospel and seek truth and obedience to Jesus regardless of outcomes.  There has existed a culture here where survivors and their advocates were continually doubted, because it went against what you wanted to believe was true. It is hard for me to realize that, had we not received a copy of the truth in Steve's own words from our FOIA request, we may not be where we are today. It is hard for me to wonder, would our words and stories, standing on their own, ever have been enough? Would we ever have been believed? There are many who are not so lucky as we were, to be able to recover hard evidence that they were telling the truth that restores their damaged reputations. It is hard for me to realize that when some leaders [including this current elder] discovered that we had copies of notes that proved we were telling the truth, instead of rejoicing or asking questions, they questioned our methods of obtaining such documents as unethical. Yet again, the concern was not in discovering truth, it was in protecting the reputation of the institution.  I hope these are some of the many pieces of the wrong theology and culture that exist here that will be considered and addressed moving forward. 

There is one more situation that I find worth mentioning, as it demonstrates a pervasive issue within the culture of this institution. I have on recording, a statement from Wayne, where, upon being questioned, he admitted that he had been aware of an allegation of child sexual abuse against another man (Doug Herrmann) in this church who he put into a replacement position in the youth ministry when my father stepped down. I am not here to comment on the veracity of this allegation, only that it existed, and that Wayne was fully aware of its existence when he, as the youth ministry gatekeeper, put this individual into a position of power with access to kids. This particular individual, because of his close relationship with my dad, knew about the allegations against my father that came forward in 2001. This individual was aware when my father was diagnosed with HIV in 2005. This individual also read the impact letter sent from RV3 to my father in 2014, and assisted my father in writing the rebuttal letter that my father sent to Steve, the same one which Steve withheld from RV3.  This individual, who was in a position to lead and protect the children of this church, was in direct conflict of interest with the calling of that position as he continually defended and covered for my father at all opportunities. This individual is still in positions of volunteer leadership in this church today [including the nursery]. I sincerely hope that this man will not have any sway or influence in the next steps this church takes, and that there will be accountability for his intentional cover up of all that he did know, and his assistance in the denial of truth. There has existed in this institution a culture where men continually defend and protect their friends at the expense of innocent children. 

In the past, I have made statements to various individuals and even to the board that may have seemed to absolve Steve or Wayne of their responsibility for their actions dating back to 2001 as I tried so hard to give them the benefit of the doubt and had so much hope that they would act differently in the present. However, it has become abundantly clear that these men have never deviated from their patterns. They deny everything possible, admit to nothing more than they have to, and make excuses and change definitions in order to minimize the impact of even the admissions they do make. They have used any and all reasons to delay taking any meaningful action, ever, even up to this very day. It was extremely difficult for me to read the notes from the elder meetings dating after 2017  that were referenced in the report where I was continually labeled as spreading misinformation, or operating under a perception that was flawed or skewed, when Steve and Wayne knew all the while that everything I was saying was true. I personally have never received any form of an apology from either Steve or Wayne for casting me as a liar in their narrative, or for compounding the pain and trauma I was already experiencing exponentially. On April 12th 2021 it will have been two years since my sister and I and our husbands confronted them face to face about their lies and their slander of us and of others who spoke the truth. I have not heard a word from either of them since.  I have difficulty imagining an apology that could possibly come from them that would not ring hollow at this point. I am not saying that to excuse them from attempting. Their repentance or lack there of, and their sincerity in that endeavor rests entirely on them, as it always has. 

To Steve: I realize now that the supposed investigation you conducted in 2001 was not to get to the truth. It was to find facts and stories you could use and twist to create a narrative in which you bore no responsibility, in which you reported nothing, in which you buried everything. You did not listen to believe, or to validate. Over and over again you came to illogical conclusions that supported the story you wanted to be true, not the story that was true.  You did not investigate to protect victims. You investigated with a biased agenda only to protect yourself. You said you wanted to "protect the excellent work of the Lord at gbc." God does not use lies and deception to protect Himself or His work. Satan is the one who does that. You used the words "gossip" and "slander" multiple times to silence others, to accuse them of wrong doing, to threaten, and to keep things quiet. Let me be clear, the ones who are guilty of slander in this whole situation are you and Wayne. 

To Wayne: I grew up knowing you as the father of one of my best friends. I grew up knowing you as the dad who loved croquet, the dad who loved chips and salsa, the dad with the quirky sense of humor who led worship on sundays and youthgroup on wednesdays. In 2017, when I began to realize that my own father was the complete opposite of what I had believed him to be, the void and vacuum of desperate longing for someone to protect us and stand up for us was immense. I will admit to you that I had a desperate hope that maybe you would be that person. The crushing reality that yet another man who I considered a father figure from my childhood would go on to slander and accuse me in order to save his own skin has done more damage to me than you could ever fathom. I am unable to attend church at all right now, I [have difficulty trusting that any man] who is in leadership actually cares about me. The word "dad" feels like something dirty. I have had to completely separate my relationship with God from my relationship with the church in order to save the fragments of my faith that I have left. Of everyone in leadership who failed us, the pain of your betrayal cuts the deepest. I am left wondering, yet again, if my perception of someone I thought I knew and loved was actually accurate in anyway. You called your own daughter's childhood friend a liar in order to save your own reputation. You destroyed me with you words, and I am left with no evidence that you care at all.  I hope someday you realize what you've done, and the depth of pain you've caused me. [edited to add: in the meeting I candidly and heartfeltly  added through my tears that I very much hope for the opportunity to forgive Wayne if he decides to pursue reconciliation.]

Because of these two men's continued defensiveness toward victims and failure to take any meaningful action toward repentance or restitution of their own initiative and without being directed by others to do so, I find it difficult to envision a future in which GBC can reach its full potential as long as these two men are serving in a leadership role of any capacity within this institution. They have consistently demonstrated a preoccupation with self preservation at the expense of others that directly conflicts with a pastors calling to shepherd and protect their flock, and which I believe makes them unfit for any positions of leadership. 

For those who feel sympathy for Steve and Wayne, please remember; what is happening in this church right now is not happening to them, it is happening because of them. We all will face difficult situations, and difficult decisions in this life. None of us are promised a trouble free existence. When we take on positions of pastoral power within the church, we willingly sign up for and are even paid and entrusted to deal with difficult situations. They made their choices not out of an interest for the people they signed up to serve, but out of an interest to protect their own reputations, and to keep those paid positions of power for as long as they possibly could. 

I realize that this has probably been very difficult to listen to. I hope you can understand where I am coming from. I am past the point of sugar coating anything anymore. I have found that true, lasting and real redemption can only take place when unfiltered  truth is the foundation, as ugly as that truth may be. I hope you can understand that I am only here because I do still truly care about what happens to this church. I am here because I believe this church finds itself with a precious and so very fragile opportunity in front of it. I hope you can understand that, to paraphrase Rachel Denhollander, I am here because "the farthest I can get from being like my father, or like the leaders who knew about his abuse, is to daily tell the truth, regardless of what it costs me." You find yourselves in a place I'm sure none of you asked for, but in a position to either cause further harm, or to put a stake in the ground and begin to right the wrongs that have plagued this institution for decades, which could bring such deep and profound healing to so many. You have the opportunity to be fully authentic, fully truthful, fully broken by the weight of this sin, and to create in these ashes the foundation for a place that is truly safe, that operates in integrity, and that begins to heal the perception that church and the people in it are not a safe place for children who have been abused. I pray with all my heart that you become the beautiful picture of redemption and restoration that I believe you can be as you take these next steps. 

To Rob Rohrer, Nate Ransil, Jeff Zanes, [Jesse Neustadter] and others who walked with them: Thank you for shouldering this burden and pursuing truth relentlessly. Thank you for the care, concern and compassion you have shown to me and to others who have been hurt by this place. You have done more good than I could ever possibly express. 

To GRACE, who investigated this: Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless, a pursuer of justice and righteousness, and for giving so many of us back a portion of what has been stolen from us. 

To  RV1, [RV2], RV3, SW1 and W2: you are my heroes and my sisters and I love you so dearly. To my sister, Randi, who lived through this hell beside me and has been so strong and passionate for truth and righteousness, I have leaned on you and learned so much from you, and I can't imagine having to face this without you." 

To my dear, wonderful husband: You have been my rock and my support. You have stood by me and for me through all of this. You have protected our family, carried us through when I was falling apart, and continually fought before me and beside me. Your ability to see things clearly and your discernment when something is wrong is something I am so thankful for in you. Your gentleness with me as our world fell apart and truth came out is something I will never stop being grateful for.  You held down the fort and parented our kids and did whatever needed done during the week I was working on writing this statement with so much understanding and kindness. You are such a gift and blessing from God in my life. I can't thank you enough for supporting me and continuing to speak out with me. 

Follow up: One week later Wayne stepped down. That night there was a second congregational meeting that took place  (3/28/21) that was not recorded. It was very disappointing to me to learn that the same elder who I had not mentioned by name in my public statement, but whose name is included in parentheses in this version (Seth Sheriff) began that meeting with a public apology to all the men who were named in our impact statements because he believes it was publicly shaming for us to name them, and according to him, that is discouraged. This laid the groundwork for what apparently unfolded in the remainder of the meeting. Several men who had spoken up in support of us at the first meeting and raised their hands again were told that they were not allowed to speak because they'd already had their chance. Someone else in the congregation made the comment that "the abused have become the abusers." Others in the congregation called the independent report biased and attempted to discredit it. BUT- still others spoke up in attempts to bring understanding, with calls to continue moving forward in a manner to deal appropriately with all of this, and again, this makes me so hopeful! 

When I first began to hear of what happened at this meeting my entire body started shaking. I felt light headed, cold all over, and so incredibly undermined and betrayed by that particular elder. I know that at the root of it all is a very skewed theology surrounding who God is, and the Biblical process that is laid out for repentance/reconciliation. There's a belief that staying quieter is better, there's a tendency to pity wrong-doers who experience consequences for their actions, to try to minimize or protect them from those consequences. And there's a tendency to put a heavy burden and strict requirements on the way the person who was wronged walks things out, with no space for their actual pain, and very little, if any, emphasis on making restitution for what was stolen from them.  I don't feel harshly toward people who believe they're doing right but are operating under ideologies that only cause more harm. (I mean, don't get me wrong, it does makes me really angry sometimes.) BUT my hope is to keep dialoguing, to keep asking thought provoking questions, to keep looking for context, to understand why they believe what they do and gently challenge it, to keep coming back to the truth of the gospel and what the truths Jesus taught look like when lived out practically- how they first of all lead willing hearts to repentance, where justice and forgiveness intersect, how God's word should never be twisted to enable sin, how truth spoken in love is a gift, how authentic repentance makes space for the pain the sin caused. There's way too much to go into in this post, but I hope to start to cover some of these topics in the coming months. I'm not asking for outrage or anything like that over what happened at the second meeting. It's my understanding that the church and those who are a part of it are actively engaged in handling this. I share this only because I know it is so relatable, because it unfortunately is not uncommon, and because it's simply just another part of the messy process of this still unfolding story.  

I never want to give the impression that my words here cover it all. There is always more, too much to contain in a single post, things that words just don't easily cover, things that are still to sensitive and vulnerable, things that I handle privately and with the utmost care... there are some things unfolding right now that could potentially be some of the most beautiful and redemptive outcomes I could have hoped for. Things I'm in prayer over, moving cautiously toward, and holding with open and hopeful hands. Because in all of this, as always, the reason I share, the purpose I've found, is that in sharing - good. will. come. That this will not all be in vain. That this pain and awfulness will be redeemed, and that the way Jesus laid for us will be followed. 

That it will be the proof of the way He made to fix the broken things. 

<3 

I want to add one more disclaimer: Just because I am posting updates about this and haven't said much about anything else lately does not mean this is all there is to my life. I'm still a mom who loves her kids and husband, gardens in her spare time, is SO excited it's spring (!) loves to laugh and have fun, and has found a full and rich and meaningful life after trauma. Everyone's empathy means the world to me, I just want everyone to know that I'm not looking for pity. I've found joy and peace and acceptance. I want to use what I've been through to help create change and hopefully protect others from experiencing this. It's part of who I am, but not all of who I am. K, that's really all now. :) <3

Finding my way, a year out

It's been over a year since I've written on my blog. A whole year since my dad was sentenced, a whole year since the adrenaline of newly inflicted trauma and my fight/flight responses that had been carrying me for over two years since we'd first begun to realize the darkness of the evil and secrets cloaking my family crashed. My family was centered around my father. A man who pretended to be godly and good and giving and moral, but who was in reality deceptive and manipulative and sick and sexually abusive.

During the time when my adrenaline was carrying me I was on a roller coaster of extreme highs and lows, there were sleepless nights, and legitimate fears keeping me awake, and panic attacks where I would suddenly start to feel like I couldn't breathe. Sometimes I'd have to pull over while driving, sometimes it would happen as I lay in bed at night, sometimes they would come while I was trying to navigate a hallway strewn with my kids toys to put laundry away, sometimes they would come in the kitchen with an island full of groceries to put away when I didn't think I had the mental energy to do  it. Emotion was at its full force. I was wrecked. Wrecked with anger at the horrific and completely sick and heart breaking facts and stories I was learning on a daily basis. Wrecked with grief over the loss of all I thought I knew and thought I had. Wrecked with passion to pursue justice and stand up and fight for these beautiful souls who had suffered so much and been so marginalized. Wrecked by my own love for my parents and the way my heart would feel weak and like it was betraying me by still longing for the life and family I thought I'd had. Wrecked by my need for Jesus. Wrecked by loneliness, especially in the beginning when we were so shamed into still keeping things quiet. Wrecked by the highs of more truth being revealed, and the hope I felt that God was really bringing it out. Wrecked by pain and betrayal, and feeling so completely and and totally abandoned. The emotion of it all flooded out of me and through me and in me and coursed through my veins night and day. I am a feeler. I have always been a feeler. I want to dive down into the depth of whatever the emotion is and walk with whoever is feeling it, through the pain, through the joy. I come alive in sharing the humanity of what moves our hearts.

But something happened to me that I couldn't see clearly until now that I'm more removed from it. In the immediacy of the sentencing this time last year, the finality of some type of resolution, and feeling somewhat safe again for the first time in several years, the roller coaster of emotion broke. It gave way to mostly just grief. There was exhaustion. There was sad. And so, so tired. And where there had been hope that maybe this time when I asked my mom again to go to counseling with me, there was just more rejection when she said no. This ride was not wild and flying and full of highs and lows. This ride was a tunnel. A slow moving, low, dark, hidden place beneath the surface. This ride felt like watching life pass by me on the other side of a a piece of glass. It felt scary in a different sort of way. Why was the sun shining and I couldn't feel it on my skin? Why was there laughter around me that didn't move me? Why could I not cry even when I wanted to? Why did my soul feel like a dam about to break, but nothing could crack it? I could hear and see pain, and want to connect, but I felt like I was standing on the other side of a chasm, disconnected and isolated. On the last day of a vacation we waited all summer for all I could do was silently cry as I packed our things to go home because I felt like I hadn't even been there. Decisions felt impossible for me to make. It was paralysis, and numbness, and heaviness. Do people talk about this? Is this ok to share? Our victim advocate in the justice system told us court is not therapeutic. You don't leave feeling better, or even good. Justice is right and necessary and godly. But it is not happy or comforting. It is sobering. Is it ok to say that in the face of something we fought for and pursued for almost two and a half years I can look back and see now that I went into depression?

Life is complicated and messy and not linear. Grief is not a straight forward process. Things work their way out of our hearts in a different order, at a different pace. I can't rush my process. All I can do is embrace it. I'm still somewhere on the journey. Last fall, just before Thanksgiving I came into a place of acceptance. Of accepting that all I can do is offer to go to counseling with my mom, I can't make her go. Of accepting that this IS my life, and I want to own it and live it fiercely. Of looking around me at what I still have and being intensely grateful for it. Glad even, that I was no longer working so hard for the acceptance of manipulative parents. I felt joy again for the first time in months. Like, belly laughing, contagious joy at being alive. I chose to stop caring what anyone might think of me if they saw me moving on from my grief and living my life happy again. I decided that it was too high a price to pay to spend the rest of my life grieving over things that were beyond my power to change. I started to make decisions, and plan things and write things on my calendar more than a week out. I wanted to host again. I thought I'd crossed a threshold and arrived in the stage called "acceptance" and that now there was no going back, only forward. And while this was a huge step for me, I realize now that maybe there isn't an Arrival Point when grief just suddenly slips away. Not in huge and traumatic life events anyway. After all, grief is the price you pay when something you love is gone. And I genuinely loved my parents with my whole heart. I've felt myself go back into bargaining several times since that big moment I had in the fall. I've been able to identify it and move through it back to acceptance each time. But I'm not going to condemn myself for still feeling grief even when I really just want it to all be over. I want to always feel like that fierce, passionate, surging with life and energy girl that I know lives inside of me. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. And I think that's ok.

There are still residual battles raging inside my heart and mind. Finding out the truth about my dad was the epicenter of the earthquake that upended our lives. But the ripple effects moving outward have revealed truth about many things I couldn't see or didn't understand before. When everything you know or have been taught is woven together from your childhood, and then a huge piece of the braided thread that connects the way you've learned to think gets yanked out, things inevitably start to unravel. This past year has looked like the hard, hard work of learning to be fully honest about who I am, and what I think and feel, without fear of rejection. It's looked like the hard, hard work of trying to figure out who I am, and what I think and feel for myself. It's looked like my subconscious relentlessly upending and flipping over every thought and memory and belief I've held dear, testing, questioning, evaluating. If things can't hold up to my questioning, then are they worthy of my loyalty and belief? It's hard to hold onto things that have been used to manipulate me in the past, even when I want to. My faith and my emotion were used as weapons against me for most of my life. They are such huge parts of who I am that being in this season of holding them both in my hands instead of my heart and evaluating them under a microscope makes me feel empty inside. It's hard to share this when I'm still somewhere in the middle of this process, hopefully closer to the end, but I can't see the other side yet. What I know is that I'm fighting for my faith. And I'm fighting for my emotion, for my humanity. I'm longing to get to a place where, after they are both subjected to the fire of my mental analysis of them, they will again become part of me, only this time not as weapons in someone else's arsenal, but as powerful forces that belong fully to me. I can feel my emotion pressing in on me again. I can feel the pull to surrender to it, to step back under the waterfall of our human experience and let myself be swept away without fear. I can feel my faith knocking inside my heart, asking me to trust it. I don't fully know how to break the dam that will let them rush through me again, but writing this all down today and sharing it felt like an important piece of that process.

I've wondered a lot of times this past year how the disciples felt after Jesus was crucified. The cause that they left everything for and gave their whole lives to was suddenly gone, and now what? In those days between his death and his resurrection, how did they feel? Empty, lost, confused? Betrayed, alone, afraid? Did they wonder if they'd made a mistake, or did things feel like they'd unraveled? I can't imagine the trauma of seeing Jesus killed the way he was, or the fear that maybe they were next. What tantalizes my heart with hope though is thinking of how it must have felt, after the passing of the darkest hours of those first days after his death, when He came back to find them. Thinking of how it must have felt when Peter went back to what he knew, and was fishing again in the quiet of the early morning, when Jesus came to find him and make him breakfast on the beach. What hope that longs to resurface in my heart. And that is where I find myself. Doing what I know to do, and waiting for Jesus to come and find me again.

So it's been another year. Another year of living with my eyes open. Another year of navigating a complicated life that I have to be willing to forge a path through. I would not change anything. Even this season I'm in now (although I might be tempted). My one hope in writing and sharing when I do is that whoever you are, you won't feel alone. That you will be validated, and encouraged, and fearlessly embrace your journey. There is space for each of us in this world.

Impact Statement to My Father, a Pedophile.

It's been a week since my father was sentenced to prison. The days feel like years right now. The week before he was sentenced I finally forced myself to face the overwhelming emotion waiting for me and to write this impact statement. At the time I wrote it, I wasn't sure if I would be able to read it in court or not. It ended up that I was not able to, and I was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. I would encourage anyone who wrote an impact statement to share it on the Stand For Survivors Facebook page that has been created. And in the spirit of encouraging that, I will share mine also. It is written as a letter directly to my father, and with the possibility in mind that I would be reading it aloud to him last week in court. Here it goes:


As I sat down to write this letter, and imagined looking into your face in the courtroom, so many questions come to mind that I want to ask you.
What have you done? Why? Why did you choose this? Why would you betray my mother, and our family like this? Do you realize all that you have destroyed?
From the moment I found out the first of the many allegations, I was faced with a choice that no daughter should ever have to make. I had to choose. Would I protect them, or would I protect you? Would I choose the family I adored, who was the center of my world, or would I do what was right? Though it has cost me more than I could ever say, I chose them. I chose to do what was right.
I have suffered panic attacks when the walls felt like they were closing in and I could hardly breathe. I have woken from nightmares to my own screams, or tears, or racing heart, remembering times you were alone with my own children, and times you were alone with me. I have broken out in stress hives. I've been diagnosed with stress induced reflux and experienced chest pain almost daily. I've lost time. So much precious time. Time with my children, time doing the things I love, dealing with the repercussions of your actions, the questions, the answers, the responses, the implications. I've had to ask myself questions that no daughter should ever have to ask. Did you abuse me? What do some of the memories that have resurfaced for me truly mean? Those have been some of the darkest moments I've ever known. We have spent money for counseling and therapy and babysitting, We lost a business that we spent over a decade building, but that was completely dependent on you. Our reputations have been drug through the mud by your portrayal of us as liars, or unforgiving, or having wild imaginations, or having some unexplained vendetta, or all the other myriad of explanations you handed out to people to explain away why your own daughters wouldn't see you anymore. You have taken my own mother, my best friend, from me with your continued lies and denial of what you did to these victims. You've even taken my grandmother by tainting her view of me with your lies, and you've tried to sew your deception into every family relationship I ever held dear. You are a toxic poison to every family, community, church or group you have ever been a part of. You divide, you fracture, you splinter people apart with your lies and your manipulation. You implode everything you are a part of from the inside out.

And even with all of that, and even in the face of you not receiving nearly the justice you deserve, and your continued denials all the way to the end, there is more. I see what people say about you now. I see them call you a piece of shit, or say you should rot in jail, or they hope you get beat up. And you deserve all of it. But I cannot help my heart from breaking when I read these words. Because at the end of the day, I truly loved you. You were my hero, and I spent my whole life adoring you. As badly as I want you to go away, and to never be able to hurt us again, I cannot bring myself to picture you getting beat up, or wasting away. It is the most heart wrenching pain I have ever known. I cannot even type these words without the avalanche of grief welling up inside me and tears streaming down my face. I feel embarrassed by something that no child should ever have to be embarrassed for. I feel embarrassed for loving you. I feel embarrassed for ever having believed you. I feel embarrassed for the ways you used my adoration of you as part of your disguise. I feel embarrassed that I thought you were my protector, that you loved our family, and that you were a godly man. I feel embarrassed for looking up to you, or for the many posts and photos I shared on social media declaring what a wonderful father you were. I feel embarrassed that the little girl me ever called you my daddy. Most see you as a monster now. Including me. I have no idea who truly lives behind those eyes that are so familiar to me. And yet, even if you are a monster as I suspect, and I have no idea who is really inside of you, there is still a piece of me that is capable of loving you. And I wonder what is wrong with me, that I could possibly love someone as sick as you. It feels as though my own heart is betraying me. These are the thoughts and emotions that will never stop plaguing me. I feel scared to even admit this to you now. You have used my love for you against me for my whole life. But I hope that now I'm finally strong enough that you won't be able to do it again.

I knew that you lied for a long time. Ever since the first time I confronted you back in 2012 for your lies and you kept on lying to me, I knew that something was very, very wrong. That was when the denial started breaking for me, and I felt sick for days. But I never imagined that it was this. It took me years to tell anyone that I even knew you lied. I felt so guilty, like I was stabbing you in the back. I felt crazy. I felt isolated. I wanted to protect you. I used to pray that whatever was going on, that it would come out in the least damaging way possible. I prayed that God would be merciful in his judgement toward you. Even now, I pray that you will one day admit what it is that you have done to every one of these girls, and every one of the victims that is not represented in this courtroom today. I pray that you would repent. That you would confess FULLY, to every single horrific detail. That you would stop using spirituality for your own manipulative gain, and finally surrender your life to Jesus. I pray that you would be the man you could've been all along.

But sadly, even if that day should come, you will have to do it without me. Because after all these years of fighting for you and protecting you, you have so severely shattered my ability to ever trust you again that you have left me no choice but to close this door and move on with my life. And that is the final straw. That is the piece that absolutely breaks the dam inside my heart, where the grief knows no end. That is the place where your ever hopeful, ever trusting, ever loving daughter feels the final betrayal. You have left me with no choice, and have forced me to finally, after all these years, choose myself over you, and to acknowledge that there is no going back to the life or the father I thought I had.

I can not control your choices, I cannot change who I was born to. I cannot re-write my story. I cannot run from your sin or escape it no matter how I try. It has forever impacted and marked my life. But what I can control is my response. And though I will never understand how you are capable of the evil you have committed, I will spend the rest of my life doing everything in my power to protect people from predators like you.



link to the article on his sentencing here. 

On Finding Peace Again

The past two years.

The past two years have taken me to the end of myself.

How do I find words to begin? Are there words that describe the darkness that can be eating you alive on the inside when from the outside you're still putting on your smile and using every ounce of strength you have just to function? When people who see you think you're fine, tell you that you seem to be doing well, but from behind the glass of your eyes you're dying even as you say you're ok?

Someday I will share the specifics of our story. Someday. But for now, for reference, two years ago we discovered allegations that my father is a sexual predator who has been preying on young and vulnerable children and teens for my whole life. Based on our own experiences and the turmoil we had been in privately for years without speaking out, we believed wholeheartedly what we learned. Every single detail added up and resonated with our own horrifying experiences. We carried so many secrets... so many heavy, isolating secrets. Learning that he was capable of what we believed him to be was strangely a relief. Now I knew I wasn't crazy, I had been right to protect my children from him. And the feelings and bizarre situations that had plagued me my whole life had an explanation. But the explosion that errupted within my family as we exposed the truth has been and continues to be absolutely devastating. When you are a child you believe that your parents are your protectors. The reality that neither of my parents were my protectors, and that one of them was actually the perpetrator of unspeakable evil has shaken me. To my core. It has triggered every vulnerable place in my heart... rejection, abandonment, feeling as though I was orphaned. It's a special kind of pain when the place your life came from not only turns on you and rejects you but purposely slanders your character. We had everything to lose by exposing what we did.. we have lost so much by speaking out. But my children are safe from him. And I hope yours will be too.

It's so hard and vulnerable to share the depths of how bad it's been. But how can I celebrate the victory without acknowledging the battle?

There have been ups and there have been downs over the past 755 days. Days when I felt strong, and full of fight and passion and purpose, days when I stood wholeheartedly on the strength of Jesus and felt the warmth of the light.

But then there were other days. Sometimes weeks. When I was afraid I was being swallowed alive and felt like the earth was closing over me. Days when the tears wouldn't stop... when I couldn't find my way out. Days I felt like the weight of the burden I was carrying on top of mothering and now working might crush me. In those moments of feeling alone under the weight of it all the spotlight turned even more onto the absence of my mom as a support in it all. The first summer there were days when Shaun would come home from work and I would be laying on the sofa, trying with all my might to find the strength to get up and make dinner. There were grocery shopping trips where I would come home and carry everything inside and just begin crying because I didn't think I had it in me to put it all away. It was like the force of gravity in those moments had tripled. Every movement and effort required three times the strength. It is like trying to function at the very bottom of the ocean. It's absolutely paralyzing at times. Like the breath and very life were being sucked out of me. How long can you go on like that, feeling like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of your will power to find just a scrap of strength to muster up and push through with?

The couple of weeks leading up to Christmas this year were the worst it's ever been. It was already bad feeling overwhelmed by all that Christmas requires of you and having a house to stage and trying to mother my kids well. Then tragedy rocked my best friend's family too, right at the end of November. I could feel my anxiety becoming out of control. I felt like my heart might explode my chest hurt so bad. The smallest things broke me. One afternoon, with a long to-do list ahead of me I went to quickly open the curtains in our living room and a curtain rod bracket pulled out of the wall as I opened them. Havilah slid the step stool over to me so I could climb up and hold it in place to keep the other bracket from being pulled out of the wall too. I sent Jaden to find the tiny tool I needed to loosen the rod from the bracket that was still in the wall. Bless his little heart, it took him probably 15 minutes and multiple trips up and down the stairs to find the right tool. And as I stood up on the step stool holding up the curtain rod and feeling completely helpless and so, so exhausted, hot tears were streaming down my face and I was saying curse words in my mind I'm so not proud of. My chest was aching with electric anxiety and I was doing my best not to just scream and let it all fall and collapse on the floor in my pain. A curtain rod completely un-did me. But it wasn't the curtain rod at all. It was the out of control, helpless, unpredictable mess of life. Holding the rod together felt as difficult in that moment as trying to hold my life together. And my weakness was so painfully evident and in my face...

If my kids got too loud- even if it was happy loudness- it was like too many circuits to my brain were being fired and bombarded between the noise and my thoughts and all the effort it took just to accomplish ONE small task. I would be trying to put makeup on to go somewhere and fighting to keep the tears from falling from my eyes just so I could get make up on without it being undone before it was even complete. By the time I made it to my car I'd shut down. Shut it all off. Detach from my feelings and become robotic. It was the only way I could survive, kind of like floating. And for me, when my capacity to feel is such a part of my identity, detaching from my feelings in order to survive really felt like another slow death. About all I was capable of was looking "normal" in public. As long as I didn't talk below the surface level, as long as nothing forced me to access my feelings I'd be ok. At my boys Christmas program I couldn't even manage that though. In the dark, with the lights in the gym turned down low and my babies up front singing Joy To The World, I sat in my seat near the back and my tears silently fell, and fell, and fell...... With all my might I tried to keep my chin from quivering with the fear that I'd never climb out. Never be ok again. My throat burned with the pain I was stifling down, the dam of tears I was holding back.

 If my surroundings and home were chaotic it sent me over a cliff. But the effort it took to clean them up left me in tears. Shaun was trying to work on making more progress finishing the room over the garage the week before Christmas and as he started sawing through the drywall to make the access bigger and I saw the dust clouds coming into our house I started having a panic attack. Standing there in the hallway of our upstairs, holding onto the railing, trying to breathe in a whole breath, the more I tried to breath in the harder it got... the harder it got the more scared I became... And then tears... falling, falling.... that dust clouds could reduce me to gasping for air, that this is me, and how did life become this? Why could I not climb out? Where was the strength to fight? It was dark, and isolating, and scary, and I was afraid to even tell anyone how bad things were inside me. I was begging God for peace. Begging to come back and to be alive again, to not constantly feel like I was drowning. I couldn't seem to rescue myself. I needed Him to come for me. I needed Him desperately.

Three days before Christmas He came. He came in all His mighty, mysterious, unexpectedly humble  glory. He came and He pulled me up.... in a rush I came up from below and that first fresh intake of air when gravity became light again was so full of life and hope and peace I can not explain it. He used a series of events looking for bunnies to give to Jaden for Christmas to give me a chance to take a ride in the car all by myself. That all by itself was calming and helpful. I had no idea that car ride that seemed to be down back roads in the cold was really forging straight upwards, pressing up through the cold weight of the ocean waters, toward the surface again. My journey down dark backroads led to pick up Jaden's gift from a woman who has survived absolutely horrific trauma herself... and has come through it. And she has not just come through, she has used it all to glorify Jesus. She didn't even have to talk about anything. Just her presence exuded so much peace. There she was, the trauma years behind her, standing in the midst of the new life that she has built, genuinely happy again. By the grace of God. Being around her was like opening my eyes to my future and finding hope waiting for me there. On my car ride back home tears fell again. But they weren't tears of desperation or grief or pain. They were tears of joy, and of deep, deep thankfulness. I could sense that something was breaking inside me... something was being lifted, and I was starting to feel light again. When I came inside I told Shaun I didn't know what had happened, but something had shifted.

I tried to explain more to him over the next few days as I was noticing the depth of the change that had happened inside me. I was standing in my chaotic, messy kitchen and for the first time I wasn't screaming on the inside because of the mess. I was perfectly at peace. My kids could be loud and out of control and it wasn't undoing me and making my chest feel like the heart inside me was a bomb about to go off. The future (and by future I mean something as simple as the next day) didn't feel like a looming place  that was crushing me with all it expected of me where I would surely fail. It started to feel bright. It started to feel like a place I could welcome without terror. I started telling myself that I am strong. I have something to offer. I will not be buried by my grief. I can face the terror and reality of this world and not have it suck me back under its currents of anxiety. I can be a voice of truth and hope. Basically, my peace became internal instead of external. Instead of my peace depending on my surroundings, or my kid's good behavior, or things going perfectly and smoothly, my peace became something that just was.It was His peace that passes understand, and it was on the inside now, and the things on the outside couldn't shake it anymore. The grief couldn't swallow it. The noise couldn't drown it. The expectations couldn't shake it. It couldn't be lost in the mess or buried by the pain. It was rising, surfacing, breaking through the waves, shining in all its precious sacredness. And I am hanging onto it as though my life depends upon it. Because it does.

It's only been a few weeks, but things are different this time. Instead of feeling like I "just can't" I feel like "I CAN"... I'm telling myself I can. And even if I try and fail, so what? My peace doesn't depend on always succeeding! This is translating to a million things that I wanted to do but was so busy maintaining the things that had to be just-so to keep my anxiety at bay that I didn't have time for anything else. This means things as simple as scheduling an eye doctor appointment for myself, or letting my kitchen be a mess so I can spend a day cleaning out my closet. It means being able to vacuum out my car or clean out my purse without feeling so overwhelmed by the task that I feel unable to start it. It means sitting down today to write again, without being so paralyzed by the fear of what people will think of our story that it keeps me from sharing the hope and faithfulness of God THROUGH our story.

I'm ready to climb out of the pit of grief and begin building my life again. I'm ready to stop looking at what I've lost, and do the best I can with what I still have. I'm ready to just let the lies and slander of my character roll off my back. They aren't true. And I don't need to take my focus off all the good that is in front of me to do and waste my time defending myself against irrational and evil people. I'm ready to accept that this is my story. It can't be changed. And honestly, I wouldn't want it to be any different. There is purpose for me in this place. Yes, I've suffered immensely for standing up for victims and for the truth. But I count it a privilege and an honor to suffer it for Him, for them. The healing and beauty and freedom and vindication I'm witnessing far outweigh the suffering. So many places in Scripture we are told we are blessed for suffering for Christ. Suffering for Him is an inevitable part of the cost we must count when we choose to follow Him. But what a beautiful place it is to know Him in His suffering, to tell Him, even in this dark place, that I love Him this much, that I love Him til the end, and that I'm honored to bear this for Him.

2 Timothy 3:12-13  In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,  while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

1 Peter 5:10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Romans 5:3-4 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Hope. Hope for the future. That no matter what happens or what it looks like, He's holding me in it. He has a plan. It's bigger than me. It's bigger than my lifetime even. I am a small piece in the huge story that is unfolding. Having hope that the plan that's unfolding can be trusted brings me peace. I am so so humbled and honored to be a part of what's happening right now, where sexual abuse is being exposed and spoken out against, especially in the House of God. How many years has He wept over what evil men were doing to children in His name.... and now He is dealing with it. Ripping back the lid on the darkness and shining the light of truth that begins to bring healing. It's a privilege to be a voice in this day, and this time, and to stand up for these precious souls who have endured so much at the hands of men who claimed to be "men of God." 

If you are a victim of sexual abuse, you are not alone. You are worth so much, you are precious, you are loved. What happened was not your fault. There is Hope ready for you to take hold of, and Peace that is waiting to come live inside your heart. Use your voice. Don't let the pain bury you. You have so much to offer. You are part of an army. 

This song has helped put music to my feelings. It has allowed me to grieve and to declare that I will not drown. I hope it can be the same for you. 

xoxo

Unoffended Love

There is a lot that needs done around me, but my heart is burning to write. And so letting the mess stay this morning and sitting down to type is what makes me feel alive on the inside. (there are two really beautiful songs linked at the bottom of this post if you want to scroll down and play them while you read)

"Unoffended Love" are the words that are on my mind. They are the words that are in the forefront of my mind most every day now. They are the words I chose for this year, and what Jesus has been revealing to me, the layers He has been peeling back from my eyes and my heart because of these words are changing me more than anything ever has. I have spent the past year in grief and pain and betrayal and hurts and wounds I will likely never fully wrap my mind around for the rest of my life, even though I will try with all my might. And as most messy things in life do, these circumstances involve relationships at the heart of it all. At times these circumstances that are completely outside my control have paralyzed me. At times I've felt angry. At times it has all felt so overwhelmingly "unfair" I wanted to scream (and sometimes did). At times I've felt like I've been on an unstoppable rollercoaster ride that has whiplashed every emotional fiber of my being and caused me to question the core of what I believe about what love is. Navigating the line between unconditionally loving someone when that person continues to hurt you over and over and over and over is a very fine one, one that can't be walked without feeling like you are on a tight rope. But staying on that tight rope is the only safe place to be. If the emotional pendulum swings to one side where you "unconditionally love" someone who only wants to harm and manipulate you without any thought or concern for your own safety or emotional needs, you will fall to a deep, dark place. But if you swing to the other side, where in order to protect your heart and safety you cut off love altogether and close yourself off from all emotion, you will fall into a different, yet equally deep and dark place.

All of what I'm learning goes so deep in me but is hard to put into words. Especially in an order that makes sense. But I will try my best. I've heard so many times that you can't love others unless you love yourself, and I never really quite connected the dots of the Why behind this principle.

I want to preface this with so many things... But I'll start with this. The principles I am about to share are ones that you can apply to normal relationships. By normal I mean ones that are not emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually or sexually abusive. I am talking about offenses and problems that happen in relationships with non-psychopathic people. Maybe that is a disclaimer that doesn't need to be made, but if you know my story, you understand why I feel I have to make that clear.

Ok, here we go. I have found that the point at which offense takes root is the point at which it becomes difficult for me to continue to love someone. This is what led me to start asking myself questions. Why does offense take root in the first place? What does it usually stem from? What are the things that most easily offend me?

We might have different answers to these questions, but I have a suspicion that for many of us the answer is the same: We get offended when someone does not love us in the way we want or expect them to. We get offended from unment expectations.
You wanted him to get you a card for Valentines Day and he didn't. Offense/Hurt takes root. It becomes difficult to love. You wanted your friend to be on time for your girls day. She was late. It made you feel like you weren't important or your time didn't matter. Offense takes root. It becomes difficult to love. You told them something very vulnerable about yourself and asked them to keep it private. They said they would. They did not. You feel betrayed/offended. It becomes difficult to love. You thought they'd remember your birthday. They forgot. Offense. Difficulty loving. They said they'd always be there for you. You are hurting, and they're nowhere to be found. Offense. Difficulty loving them. You made plans to go out to dinner. They double scheduled and forgot about you. You feel embarrassed and unimportant. Offense. Difficulty loving. You had expectations for a romantic date night. He spent most of the time watching/talking sports. You feel let down, unfulfilled, unconnected with. Offense. Difficulty loving. (These are all based on random, made up but familiar scenarios)

It's the same cycle over and over. We have expectations on people we care about. When they don't meet those expectations and we feel unloved, we become offended and breakdown in the relationship begins. Our offense can eventually turn into cutting off our love and hearts from those who have offended us. Often, people that mean the most to us.

This is the point at which I began to have a major revelation: If I can't keep loving someone through unmet expectations, then my love is conditional. If I can't keep loving an imperfect person in the midst of their imperfections, it means my means my love is limited by their flaws. It means I depend on others loving me well in order to feel ok, and if they don't, my self-worth begins to spiral. It means, in effect, that I have absolutely no control over my love, and that it is entirely determined by the actions of others.

Of course, we all like to feel in control. And so if we feel entirely out of control of whether we feel loved or not, and in turn, whether we feel capable to give love or not, then we search for something we can be in control of. That is the point at which offense becomes our weapon of choice, our way to stay in control. If I get offended by her not showing up to our coffee date on time, and in turn vow not to waste my time offering to meet with her again, I now feel in control. Now I make the rules. I will not be hurt again. I will not be stood up again. But the only way to shut down and hold on to offense that way is to dial down our love. So we feel powerful, but lonely. In control, but unconnected.

This is also the point at which unhealthy "boundaries" develope. There is absolutely such a thing as healthy boundaries, but what determines the difference is the intention or motivation behind creating them. Unhealthy boundaries are rooted in offense, in vowing to take back power. They are not rooted in love. I'll explain healthy boundaries in a minute. (But as you can guess, they are rooted in love.)

This cycle, to be quite honest, sucks. And it is such a familiar one. It is the natural human way of feeling in control in an uncontrollable world. The life changing, heart transforming, mind altering part of this whole journey came when Jesus began to show me how to break this cycle and climb out of this pit. It has brought me freedom like I cannot describe, freedom like I've never tasted before in my life.

But we have to go back to the beginning to enter into a different cycle. If all my offense seems to stem from the fact that someone doesn't love me in the way I want/need them to, then what does that tell me? For me, it tells me that I am deriving my entire sense of self-worth and stability and value from other people's love. Breaking the cycle means backing up all the way to the point of where I find my self-worth, where I get the feeling of being loved from. The whole point is that we find all our love and fulfillement in Jesus. If my sense of self-worth and value are coming from any other source than Jesus, then it will be lacking, because humans are lacking. We are imperfect and flawed and selfish, and we cannot expect other flawed human beings to fill the void of perfect acceptance and faithfulness and belonging and love that we all crave so desperately. As a friend of a friend said so beautifully to me the other day, we have to "Stop living FOR acceptance/approval and start living FROM God's acceptance/approval of us"... To find that deep within our soul our only desire is to live for the approval of One. To know and believe that we are loved, valued, longed for, worthy, treasured, by the one from whom limitless, perfect, beautiful, immeasurable and unstoppable love flows forth forever and ever more. Love that will climb any mountain, swim the seas through the most violent storm, light up the night sky, and come relentlessly and recklessly to chase us down and pursue us, to rescue us over and over. To hold us tenderly and to say "I see you, I know you, I choose you, and I love you. I want all of you." The love that Jesus has for me will never fail to reduce me to tears that come from the deepest part of me. Tears of gratefulness, of  joy, of trust built on a history of His unfailing faithfulness to me. When I was all alone in darkness and everything felt stripped bare, every joyful piece of innocence torn from me, and I could not bare the weight of all that was lost, the only thing left in the windblown gray with me was Jesus with His arms around me. Holding me. Crying with me. Cradling every tear as it fell from my eyes... His heart broken with mine. He said He would be there. And He was. He said He would never leave me. And He didn't. Every wound in my heart from the beginning of my life, the crippling fear and insecurites, the feeling of having to perform to be loved, of being ripped apart privately with words if I wasn't perfect, the hurts of having my flaws paraded in front of my face and hung over my head... they disappear with Him. He tells me He is proud of me. That He wants to be seen with me. That He cares how I feel. That He wants to listen to me. That He has time for me. That His love is not conditional to my performance. That He made my body and it is not a cause for shame. That He has wept over my little girl heart and all that it endured before I ever even understood what it meant. That feeling of relentless pursuit that I have craved all my life is Him. He wants me, loves me, tears down every lie and battles every enemy to find me and stand for me. He is my defender, my vindicator, my every heart beat. He is my all, my everything, He is what consumes me and breathes life into me and makes everything worth it. He endured brokenness, betrayal, rejection, and pain unfathomable to prove Himself to me. To live from the perspective that there is One and One alone whose approval I seek, who I want to make proud, will change everything. When I come from that place, I find I am standing on such solid ground and such an unshakeable foundation that someone forgetting about me, someone betraying my confidence, feeling unloved by someone I care about... it doesn't shake me. My self-worth is no longer a fragile house of cards that can come crashing down at the tiniest puff of hot air and leave me curled in a ball on the inside, crying, feeling broken and alone. My self-worth found in Jesus becomes a rock solid castle that will shelter me from the cruelest storms and fiercest winds that could ever be dealt by human hands.

I pause here... so moved by His love... so deeply experiencing and remembering His goodness to me... I could not go on if it were not for His love.



From here, Jesus led me to more questions about how to keep loving even when unmet expecations are part of the equation. The key word He gave me is ACCEPTANCE. We have to be able to accept who someone is. We have to stop wishing they would be who we want them to be, and accept who they are, flaws and all. History and all. Annoyances and all. Past hurts and all. We take the good, and we accept the bad, knowing we do not have the power to change it. It is in this spirit of honesty that we can begin to analyze the relationships where offense has begun to cut off our ability to love those who are most important to us. What is it about that friend that has hurt you most? Is it that you have told her secrets and she has shared them? Maybe this has happened over and over throughout the years. It's felt like banging your head against a brick wall. Every time you open up and trust again, she hurts you with betrayal. Ok. Lets accept this. She is not a safe vault for you. BUT! You have so much fun with her. You laugh together. You like similar things. You both love to cook and share recipes. (Again, made up scenario) But here you have a complete picture. There are things you love about her and would miss dearly if you never spoke again. But there are places you are not safe and have been wounded. Often there is grief involved in acceptance... grieving what you wish you could have and accepting what you do have. So how do you keep loving her? This is where you construct boundaries in love, to protect a relationship and give it a place to survive and grow. You wouldn't take a shade plant that needs lots of water and stick it in the ground in the desert and expect it to flourish would you? The same is true for people and relationships. We have to create an environment in which relationships can thrive and be nourished. We can't take a person who is immature in keeping confidences and expect them to handle delicate information properly. But that doesn't mean we can't still stand side by side with them laughing and chopping up veggies to make a bunch of freezer meals together. You can construct a boundary, made in love, to protect the relationship. You can say to yourself, we can get together and talk about our meal plans and tell funny stories and have a great time. But I can give myself permission not to pour out the vulnerable details of my heart to her that make me feel unsafe. You protect the relationship by accepting the person, flaws and all, and making adjustments in order to keep yourself in a place where you are not continuously wounded, and where you are able to continue loving them. It's hard to accept, but often, in a relationship that feels impossible, we are the one who needs to change. Getting to a place where we are loving without an agenda, where we are loving not because we need something back, but just because we want to give, is the most pure and beautiful place I've ever been.

 [This might be a rabbit trail for another post, but another piece to this equation is learning to speak truth in love. Maybe you feel like you can't just pretend to be ok again with someone who has hurt you over and over. Maybe a conversation needs to happen to open up that doorway to relationship again. Using "I feel" "I think" and "I want" statements to lead out the conversation (Totally borrowed from a wise friend) helps so much. "I felt hurt and betrayed when you shared xyz that I asked you not to" Instead of "You betrayed me and hurt me and I can't trust you anymore..." You still can't expect them to change even if you do tell them what hurt you and even if they do apologize. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. It's still ok to create a loving boundary that will help your relationship to survive. Sidenote to the sidenote, my personal biggest challenge is learning not to share too much vulnerable information... I love to feel close and connected and have realized that I often try to mend relationships by sharing vulnerable information about myself. As you might guess, this has often backfired and left me feeling even more hurt and wounded then where I started.]

To jump back into the real post... Unoffended love has set me free from carrying wounds with me, walling myself off, shutting down my heart, and feeling out of control or unable to love in relationships. I have realized how fully I lived for the approval of others and how dangerous and unhealthy that has been for me, and in turn have begun to taste the fullness and richness of the pure love of Jesus, my truest, most faithful, and best friend. It is a daily tight rope walk, one that is full of tension, but it is the safest place to be. When I find myself spiraling into old familiar feelings, I start asking myself questions. It always starts with asking myself where I'm finding my worth. Then reminding myself who I am to Jesus, and asking how I can honor Him in that moment. Then accepting who the person before me is, and asking myself if I need to lovingly construct boundaries in that relationship in order to protect us both. Beyond even accepting people is accepting circumstances, and then asking the Lord to reveal the good in it, how to make the best of it, and how to honor Him through it.

When Jesus commanded that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, He wasn't giving two separate commandments that exist apart from each other. We literally are incapable of loving someone else if we do not love ourselves... If we're not accepting and believing Jesus love for us, then we're expecting others to fill that need. And if they don't do it right, then we can't love them well either. At the core of our being is the fundamental need and desire to know that we are loved. Accepting Christ's love for us as the only source we need for fulfillment is what unlocks us to be able to pour out unconditional love for others. Love for others cannot survive without being loved by Him.

 "We love because He first loved us."1 John 4:19. 


Pieces

Reckless Love

Is this really my life?

I've been quiet here for awhile, writing mostly in my private journal or just letting my thoughts turn over and over inside my mind before they come out in quiet conversation with my husband or closest friends... But I miss this space so much. Sometimes fear holds me back from sharing, from being vulnerable or honest on this type of more public platform. Fear of man... fear of being misunderstood, fear of being judged. Fear that people with no context for what I'm going through right now will make assumptions and judgments that only hurt me more. (Truly almost no one knows the scope of the multiple situations that all exist simultaneously in my life right now.) Or the biggest fear... that people will misread or misjudge my character. But when something really stirs on my heart I don't want fear to keep me back from what I'm called to. And I've seen over and over again that when I share (or when others share) from a place of vulnerability, it brings connection and hope. I see the beautiful souls of other people walking their own roads of heartbreak and pain and suffering, trauma or tragedy, but with the common thread of finding something good in the ashes. Coming together in brokenness to find healing. To find growth. To find community and freedom and to see the bigger picture that God is working in us all. Watching beauty slowly unfold itself in the midst of the mess, watching joy come in the morning. I see the souls of people who have walked these kinds of roads in the past and have come out on the other side already, standing up and cheering us on, or holding out their hands to offer hope even while we're still in the midst of the valley. And if I focus on that the fear slowly recedes, and the courage to share begins to surface. Because I don't write for my critics. I write for my comrades.

So with that said.... here I go.

Sometimes there's a wrestling match that takes place in the human heart. It's born out of a deep tenacity and pre-disposition to fight for control in a sometimes uncontrollable world. Sometimes situations and circumstances beyond anything within our power to change or predict or mold with our own two hands come into our lives, and our microscopic humanity becomes painfully visible to us. In these moments we wrestle. We ask questions. Why? What did I do to deserve this? What could I have done to prevent this? How do I move forward from here? Why can't this all just go away? It's natural to search for answers. It's natural to want to understand why something happened to you in the first place. The questions are normal. The push back to get some feeling of control over your own life is almost automatic. But it's also a place we can get stuck.

I have found myself here. Faced with decisions I'd rather not make. Faced with choices where none of them feel good. Faced with obligations I would never ever ask for. Situations that feel like lose-lose. Wrestling with God... asking Him why me? Asking Him what I did to deserve to be born into this situation. Asking Him why I can't just run away from it all, or why He can't just make it all go away. Feeling angry, broken, lost, confused... acting like my life is mine and feeling like this is all just so unfair. On my knees.... "Jesus, why have you given this to me???" Crying in the dark of night. Waves of panic attacks... Inability to control my breathing... fighting for my life to protect my heart and not let one more dagger pierce... feelings of rejection spiraling out of control... fighting not to let the walls come back up, forcing myself to stay open, to not become cynical... to just breath in, then breathe out... to calm down... to wait for the pain to subside... Can anyone relate?

It was at about this point in my desperate sad frustration and wrestling that God met me. And He asked me a question.....

"Why do you think your life is yours anyway?" 

Eyes open. Tears standing poised on the edge of my eyelids but not quite spilling over anymore. That wave of chills over taking my entire body. That fresh life breathed into my spirit. That voice. That beautiful voice of truth and clarity when all else is chaos. Why do I think my life is mine anyway? Really, why? ...... I might not be able to control the situations and circumstances that are taking place in my life. BUT I CAN CONTROL MY RESPONSES TO THEM. I might not get to choose all of the events that take place in my life. But I can walk them out in a way that builds my character, with integrity, that gives glory to Jesus. I might never have an answer for why I was born into something that I would have no choice but to face, but I can choose to become better for facing it.

Then the next question, I asked it to myself. What do I deserve anyway? ...... I am vapor, I am dust. Every single breath I take is a gift. If these situations are included in the life He gives me, so be it. I will bear them with honor. In Job's darkest days He was asking questions and wrestling too. Turns out God had some questions of His own. I can't even read this passage without the booming and thundering power of His holiness and majesty completely gripping my heart. He asks me these same questions:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

    Tell me, if you understand.
 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
 On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—
 while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?

 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
 when I made the clouds its garment
    and wrapped it in thick darkness,
 when I fixed limits for it
    and set its doors and bars in place,
 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
    here is where your proud waves halt’?

 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
    or shown the dawn its place,
 that it might take the earth by the edges
    and shake the wicked out of it?
 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
    its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light,
    and their upraised arm is broken.

 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?
 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
    Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
    Tell me, if you know all this.

 “What is the way to the abode of light?
    And where does darkness reside?
 Can you take them to their places?
    Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
 Surely you know, for you were already born!
    You have lived so many years!"

An eternal perspective will change your attitude in a heart beat. God doesn't condemn my wrestling, in fact, He invites it. He invites me to step in an grab hold of the impossible, the messy, the imperfect, the broken, and to embrace it and fight with it and to find the good in it. It's when I wrestle, ask the hard questions and cry out for the reasons and the answers that my humanity is met with His holiness. It's when my finite is met with His infinite. It's when He looks at me with His head slightly tilted and a gleam in His eye, and meets my tear stained, defiant gaze and says in that soft, loving, slightly teasing way, "Do you really think you know more than me?"

And that brings us full circle... Is this really my life? Maybe. And maybe not. My life is not my own. And yet the way I walk it out is fully my own. I believe the answer is this: Even though I don't have control, I still have choice. I can run from my situation, but that will not make it go away. Or I can embrace my situation, wrestle with it even, fully walk it out and make it a part of my story. And something beautiful might grow up in my heart because of it. That's what He promises us, after all.

It's ok to be the one who wrestles with my creator all through the night, til the dawn breaks and the sun begins to rise, and who shouts at the top of my lungs, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me!" Maybe I can walk away from that fight choosing not to focus on the limp, but choosing instead to focus on the fact that I have been marked by my maker, that I have wrestled with God and with humans, and have overcome. (Genesis 32:22-31)