My Unattachment

There I sat filled with anger beyond what I had ever felt before.  Completely out of control, spiraling downward.  Ready to walk, no run away.  Away from everything familiar, from everything that meant, sounded, tasted, felt like God or ministry.  Away from the people who had loved me more than I felt I ever deserved.  Ready to just live life, away and apart from God and from church.  I was done, totally and completely done.  It all felt like a game to me.  Like I had been a pawn on Gods chess board.  You know, the pawns you sacrifice in the game to move your more important pieces out.  I felt like God had completely set me up to fail, all along.  I couldn't wrap my mind around it anymore.  There was a war waged between my heart and my mind - my mind was winning.  My heart was broken.  It was desolate, cold, isolating.  How could everything I knew about God suddenly not make sense?  How could I be a Christian for so long, truly love the church, love people, and love God, yet find myself in this place, thinking these thoughts?  What is wrong with me?  I'm a mess, hopeless, and just done.  I remember standing in my kitchen thinking these things - so ready to turn and walk away from it all, then looking at my kids.  Oh God - what about my kids?  All the sudden the heaviness of that decision multiplied by 4, then my husband, by 5.  This wasn't just my war, it was theirs too.  This sucks.  Though they didn't know the gravity of the situation and what was going on behind the scenes, they are smart kids, and they saw, they knew.  My pain monster was on the outside.  It wasn't hiding anymore, from anyone.  We sat them down one night and told them we were stepping down as pastors for now.  What we told them was true - we needed to refocus on our family.  We needed to refresh.  What we couldn't tell them was that I was falling apart,  that the pain I had carried for decades was out and was destroying everything I loved.  I think I wanted to tell them too.  To be honest, to warn them to never open up their hearts and welcome in a pain monster.  But they aren't ready to see that in their mom.  They needed to still see stability.  They were seemingly unmoved by our announcement and the conversation quickly went to something else.  I can now look back and see that was Gods grace over my kids, over us.  He was protecting them, protecting Chad and I.  Though I would not have admitted it at the time, he was loving us.  The announcement was made at church, we officially stepped down.  Failure.  It hurt.  We walked away from a ministry that we had put every ounce of love and life into we could.  Not just the ministry - the people.  We were separated from our church family.  We could feel the distance.  This had been our family for 4 1/2 years.  They had walked with us through some difficult times, celebrated many victories with us, mentored and discipled us, trusted us, nurtured us, loved us... deeply loved us.  What just happened...  Driving home that Sunday the car was quiet.  I don't think we had the words to express.  It felt so weird to be separated, like we were in a barren empty land - all alone.  We had the support and love from our pastoral staff to step down and take the time we needed to heal.  We decided our sabbatical would last 4 months, till the end of summer.  Our pastoral staff - oh my gosh how I love them.  God loved us deeply through these people.  Even with my pain monster and yuck all on the outside, they loved.  You see, some people have this amazing ability to look at you and see the gold - like God.  He sees gold.  If you ever get the chance to be in relationship with people like this, don't ever take it for granted.  Its a gift.  Receive this gift, love it, appreciate it, let it change you and bring out your gold.  Then turn around and share that gift with others - see their gold.  The week or so after the announcement Chad and I spent time talking - going over and over the details.  He too felt the loss, the pain, the distance.  It was so weird to be unconnected, and yet somehow we knew this is exactly what we needed, and there was some relief.  At that point I couldn't fathom the depth of life change that was happening.  All I saw was my pain monster.  I could barely bring myself to look in the mirror.  I hated myself, everything about me, I hated.  It was as if every single failure, every mistake, every misstep was staring me right in the face.  There is a depth of pain there that simply cannot be put into words.  It wasn't failure of having to step down as pastors, it was life failure.  I failed to measure up.  I failed to earn Gods love.  I failed at being a Christian.  I failed at relationships.  I was currently failing as a wife and mom because I was consumed with myself and my pain.  There it was - every single moment of the day.  What am I going to do with you now, pain, now that you are out in the open?  What's next?  Thus began my conversation with God.  A very real, honest, open conversation with God.  As angry as I was, as much doubt that filled my mind, I knew I couldn't face this thing alone.  Its sole purpose was to destroy, and I didn't have any energy to fight back.  "Alright God, if you are real, and if you really do love me, you have to show me.  I need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt.  I'm tired of playing games.  I don't want to waste my life.  I want to have fun again.  I want to enjoy my family.  So either you show me you're real and you love me, or I'm out.  Done with church.  Done with ministry.  Done being a Christian."  There it was - It was a relief to be so honest.  It wasn't scary at all.  I was relieved.  Nothing happened that day.  There was no warm fuzzy feeling in my heart, no magic song that appeared on the radio, no prophetic word... nope, it was just me and God.  It was pure.  It was honest.  Somewhere in the next few days I lost all emotion.  It was all gone.  There was no more anger, no fear, no pain.  Also no joy.  I didn't laugh or smile.  I didn't even pretend to be happy when I was out.  I didn't care about anyone out in the world.  I didn't have any love inside of me to share with strangers.  I loved my family the very best I could, but where I couldn't there was grace.  So much grace.  God was loving them, and that's all they needed in those few weeks.  I carried on with my day to day tasks.  But I was totally numb.  I still met with my best friend, Heather, who has been a gift in my life.  She just listened, really listened to my heart.  She didn't try to fix me, or give me a magic scripture to try to change my heart, or show me the error of my ways.  She just loved me, right where I was.  She was not full of unwanted advice or wisdom.  I couldn't absorb any of that then.  My heart was closed.  This is what true friendship looks like.  Where we give room for one another to not be ok, where we listen to the heart, and we choose to see the gold, and walk with each other to the other side.  God - thank you for Heather!  One morning we were sitting in my kitchen, as we often do.  Drinking coffee and just sharing life.  I was sharing with her about my very lack of emotion.  As I talked it out with her, I began to understand, in my heart not just my head, that I was being unattached.  I can't explain how I knew, it was just the spirit of God gently speaking to my broken and closed heart.  Through our conversation I told Heather that I thought God was unattaching me (this is apparently not a real word, because spell check is going crazy, but its what I've got).  God was unattaching me from everything that I had ever related to my relationship with Him.  Everything.  Prayer, my bible, worship music, church, relationships... all of it.  Some where along my journey I had made all of this about doing, and earning.  These things are how I earn Gods love and approval, and the love and approval of the people around me.  That was my fuel.  How I kept going.  Approval.  At this point I had not opened my bible in months, and could not bring myself to listen to worship music.  And I wasn't praying anymore, at least not the way I thought prayer was.  Before when I prayed, I secretly (like somehow God didn't know) would close off parts of my heart before talking to him.  I was hiding my pain monster.  I didn't want to talk about that.  It was off limits.  Too painful, too ugly, too scary, nope - not going there, and you can't either God.  But this was the time for me to stop all of that - it was time to unattach.  I didn't see it at the time, but later I saw it - the lie.  A lie I had believed my whole life.  A lie I think so many of us choose to believe.  A lie that says we have to perform, we have to earn, we have to work more than others.  A lie that told me Gods love and freedom for everyone else was real, but not for me.  I was unworthy, unlovable.  A lie that told me I would never know what others knew.  Those who really knew God loved them, it was like they knew a secret.  In my pain I was desperate to know that secret.  I longed to know it.  Here I was, in my kitchen, with my best friend and a cup of coffee, becoming unattached.  Not at some huge prophetic conference, with the best of the best evangelical speakers, or top prophetic voices - no prophetic word.  Just me, Heather, and coffee.  Not that God doesn't use those conferences or prophetic voices.  He does!  All the time!  I am in no way minimizing any of that at all.  Just saying that sometimes it doesn't have to be so dramatic.  This was a realization for me.  Unattached.  What does that even look like?  It felt like nothing, still, nothing.  But in that moment I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  Hello peace.