Andrew and I started going to Faith Community church in New Richmond, partly to branch ourselves from our parents, and partly because we had a new baby coming and didn't want to drive a half hour every Sunday. It really is a new experience for me, the church is much bigger than the church I grew up in and frankly, it's scary for me. For Andrew it is pretty normal, the church he grew up in might be slightly smaller than this one, but it's much bigger than where I came from. Since he has been gone I have forced myself to go and my friend Lindsey has made it much easier and more enjoyable as she has gone with me most Sundays.
Trying to connect to people has never been hard for me except for the past few years which is where my revelation is coming in. I have been deeply wounded from events in the past and the wounds are something that have haunted me and are something that no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to cast over to Jesus. I think partly it is an unwillingness to try hard enough, and the other part is a great, deep, haunting fear than I cannot describe to you. With that, I am working, and feeling to fail at connecting with ladies from this church.
I feel that I have so many things working against me to connect to people. Things like my fear, and a feeling of "outcastedness". I feel that I am in such an awkward spot in my life, on the fence of adulthood and I just can't seem to catch my balance no matter how hard I try. Depending on the person, I feel like I can cross the fence into adulthood and be just fine, but when it comes to others, typically those that are closest to me in life but are just slightly ahead, I feel that I am just standing at the bottom of the fence, even the bottom of a moat at the bottom of the fence and I just can't bring myself to climbing it or reaching up to get over it.
Therein lies my problem and the reason I skipped Bible study. I had started going to a Bible study at Faith in NR and as it turned out it ended up being a lot of young moms all with little guys. Still older than me and mine, but closer to my age (the fence bottom). It really was very enjoyable, I liked meeting together with them and chatting, and two weeks ago some of us really opened up and it was nice to hear about another family that was where Andrew and I were financially.
But then on February 4th when we met, I feel like I buried myself under the fence and am now having to come face to face with my hurts and the running that I so often tend to do and never realize. I bring Bennett with me wherever we go and he is typically an extraordinarily good baby. It always seems though, at the times when I want him to be the best, he is just the opposite. (Not that he is a bad baby, he will just be a little fussy and henceforth be a little more hands-on.) As it had been at Bible study. And on this particular Friday he was being a bit more hands-on than he usually is. I felt that I was being very distracting and I was very distracted myself and then one of the girls called me out. I had just sat down and put him in his car seat and grabbed my cappuccino to take a drink of it and she said, "and what about you over there drinking your coffee?"
I was so embarrassed. I hadn't been following along because I had been concentrating so hard on working to keep Bennett quiet and I hadn't gotten a chance yet to even look at my book or my notes to see where we were at...thankfully things were distracted away from me right away and I wasn't on the spot for more than long enough for her to ask me. But the fact that someone was watching me that closely really scared me. Feelings of shortcoming as a mom were passed my way and I felt just lousy. Like I was totally failing everything...like she was just waiting to catch me doing something or not doing something to be able to call me out on...
So that was my reason for skipping even though I knew that if I skipped once I would face myself wanting to just quit. And with wanting to quit I give myself a million more reasons that it would be for the best: that I am distracting with Bennett (and then I give myself excuses for that like not wanting to put him in the nursery because I don't know any one that is working in there, and that we don't have the money to pay for the care and I would be losing my "security blanket"), that I am just not enjoying the study, that I am not getting anything out of it, that I am so much younger than all the other ladies in it...the list goes on and rolls around like that in my head and the worst part is for every excuse that I give myself I can give myself an answer from Christ.
So as the thoughts came back to haunt me and to fight with me last night I realized that I was just running away. Jesus pulled some deep, dark thought from the depths of my soul and fear and showed me what it is that I really am running from. The girl that called me out. And not her precisely, but what she represents to me. That deep fear that I mentioned earlier stems from the viciousness and brutality of other girls, and never having to face them or deal with the hurt that I just pushed aside and hid from myself and is now eroding my chance of being filled up and free in Christ. I am in bondage and I don't know how to escape it.
I feel that because of the hurt and fear that I have held onto and hidden from myself it has done a lot of damage to my relationship with Andrew and from it springs even more problems that it created. I am now facing what to do. I know that I should go back to Bible study as a way of facing things, but I am now feeling embarrassed for skipping without a valid excuse. I am not ready to share this with the girls at church. On cyber-space is one thing, but when I sit down and have to confess it to a bunch of people that I hardly know and don't have trust for yet and do it face to face, that is a whole different story...
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