Who We Are

When we had settled in the new church, new neighborhood and with Elijah as a newborn, Kevin sat me down and simply said I was going to have to make friends in town. We had lived in Michigan, for about three years, but this move to SW Michigan had removed my previous life in Flint by about three hours. Kevin had been traveling back and forth between St. Joe and our apartment right up until Elijah was born. We had Elijah and then, very pragmatically, moved across the state three days later. I was reluctant to plug into anything. Not knowing what to do with a newborn child aside, church people or church life had never been a culture I related to, not because of my love or commitment for Jesus, but really because, for the most part, the Christian people I had been around since we had been married were inside of a tough, traditionalist box.    Kevin gently lays out a plan, I will attend a weekly women’s bible study that has childcare and seemingly teaches relevant curriculum. At th...

All of the layers begin to unfold as we trudge on, after leaving the stage, we walk 20 feet over to our house, I don’t remember what we did. Many of our close friends come to us offering love and support. They come over and over again. The church would hold a healing service later on that evening that Kevin and I have no clue about, even though we are the reason for it. We are not invited to participate, and only find out later through friends saying how much meaning and comfort it brought them. I smile and nod, distancing myself emotionally from the absolute uprooted nature of my relationship with the church. How strange, to be a central part of something, and then not, and then be shut out of a process of healing. I stand outside of this process, intentionally or not, and feel very still. This stillness is not peace or understanding but a universal effort to keep both feet on the ground as the world has in no way stopped to accommodate me.  Everything in our lives to...

  Kevin and I define only a portion of a bigger picture. Church leadership had been informed by the individual Kevin was with, when he left the house that first night he had been confronted by members of the staff. Their position had always been for Kevin to resign, making a firm line he maintain no real role of leadership within the church. We meet with church board members; defiantly asking for Kevin to remain in his role. This defiance is not rooted in worth or duty but in the absolute largest margin of how greatly we cared for our congregation and surrounding community. As Kevin begins to speak to the small group of members he comes off as untouchable, like a stone, only breaking composure when he states “I have no more tears left in my body” then convulses and sobs.    We all watch, almost like we are flies on a wall intruding in a space we were never invited in to. Memory does not clarify if I reach for Kevin, or if I remain in my own space of misery. I propose, alo...