Pumpkin Carving

Redeemed

5:53

Your beliefs are fake.

You are a hypocrite.

At 5:53 on Friday, I opened a message on Facebook. A message that someone thought about writing and one that had been carefully thought out. Those  words were then typed out and the send button was pushed. At 5:53 on Friday night, as a read my own sister's words, and watched her face disappear from my friends box, I sat there knowing that my sister, someone who has known me my entire life, doesn't know me now- because if she knew me now, she would have never sent those words that will stay in my heart and break it over and over again.

As I sat there, tears rolling down my face, I thought to myself, Why am I crying? Was  it for loss of family? Loss of trust? Angry words? OR were there tears because I have felt this was coming- Known it was coming and I was at complete peace. Was it possible that the tears I cried were joy? Could it be possible that not just my sister, but the rest of my family had shunned me and I had the peace people talk about- the peace that surpasses all understanding? It was not only possible, it was exactly how I felt sitting there. There is no other explanation for that peace other than that of my REAL God and my REAL beliefs. The time leading up to 5:53 on Friday has been 45 years in the making for me, the black sheep of my Catholic family.

I want to be clear, I am not judging Catholicism as a faith- because I believe it is God's intention That ALL believers should be united in Christ. I thought of Ephesians 4:31-32

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving of one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.(NKJV)

I sat there in peace and picked up my pen- not in anger, but to defend my very REAL beliefs and to honor my very REAL God. So in writing this I take the opportunity to express Christ's love for ALL of His children, not just one religion. I may have been born into a Catholic family, I may have been raised in a Catholic church but it wasn't until I was an adult that I followed my own heart, straight into the arms of a loving God. A God who is very real to me.

Ephesians 5:1 says

Walk in love. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children And walk in love as Christ has also loved us and given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.

(NKJV) So as Christians we should ALL demonstrate that type of self sacrificial love.

I love my siblings and my parents with the love of Christ. They are all special, unique and strong in their own ways.

My oldest sister is a strong woman in her faith. She lost a baby at birth, traveled all over the United States with her family, home schools her children and 

She is a Catholic.

My oldest brother has spent much of his life searching, first in school to be a lawyer, teacher and then upon graduation he spent time teaching, becoming an EMT and going on to earn his PHd. He now runs a multi million dollar medical facility. He is smart and introverted and

He is a Catholic.

My other sister, the author of the words I read was the typical fun girl, popular, pretty and wild. People use to say we looked so much alike in our physical appearance growing up, I remember feeling good when people said it. Although she has dealt with her own personal demons she emerged from the trials stronger. When her most recent tragedy struck I knew she would get through because that's what she had always done. My sister has the uncanny ability to have the worst things happen in her life with no lasting effects on the surface and 

She is a Catholic.

My little brother is a survivor. I'm not sure how he has made it. He was relentlessly teased, beat up on, ignored or taken advantage of his whole life. Not by strangers but by his own family. If ever there was a tolken pecking post, my little brother was it. Later in our life, I would often look at him with his family and think He made it. I don't know how but he did. He is strong and quite and

He is a Catholic.

And then, there is me. The outcast, the ignored. And why? Because

I am not a Catholic.

They would like me to think it is a host of other things- I'm self centered, Im jealous, I'm just like my dad,  I'm mean but it is very clear. The reason I have been cast out . The reason why it was so easy to cast me aside is because

I am NOT a Catholic.

And so, what has been coming for years, the slow removal from my family functions, the lack of calls during family emergencies, the whispering, the pitting against, the name calling and the insults, all coming to the point where I was called a hypocrite and told that my beleifs are fake and why? because I am not a catholic.

As I sat there and processed this information, As I wondered what I was suppose to do with it, how to move forward from it God answered me.

I move forward because I have a God who loves me, who has prepared me for this, who will never forsake me. Who has been by my side my entire life. Every small event has turned out to be signifigant in shaping who I am today and I am His- that is all that matters.

I no longer look at my youth as a failure, as a dysfunctional mess. I look at it as a time God was preparing me.

God's plan for me is perfect. i know this and yet for my whole life I have kept this torment of my upbringing inside, to shelter the ones I love, not realizing God wanted me to talk about it-not to bring my family shame and to bring me up but to raise Him up in glory as a God of love who takes something bad and makes it good. I have learned through my recent bible study of Esther that there is a time to speak up after remaining quiet and that time is when you can use your words to glorify Him, As I prayed for the Holy Spirits guidance and leading I discovered it was time that God could take the worst part of me and use it for His glory.  In order for you to see His work in my life you need to see how it began.

I grew up in Iowa. Our neighborhood was filled to the brim with kids. All the Moms stayed home and the Dads went to work. There was a Baptist church right across the street from us, right in the middle of this quiet meighborhood. That church was the center of our entire neighborhood. and later would become central in shaping my faith. My dad was very successful and my Mom stayed at home. I had 4 siblings, 2 brothers and 2 sisters. I was #4 out of 5. By all outward appearances we were a typical large Catholic family. We went to church on Sundays (although even then we were divided). We attended Catholic schools and received the sacraments all  the while not living the faith in our home. We never prayed as a family at dinner, at bedtime, never. The only bible I ever remember seeing in my house was a children's picture bible. I never knew who God was. I knew my dad did not like giving money to the church and I knew that he made me wear shoes that hurt my feet. But God was a mystery to me. As I look back on those years in my home I realize that it was church that first divided our family not by faith but by the actually division of ourselves. . My Mom and my siblings to one mass. My dad and I to the other. I'm not sure how this happened, maybe I ended up going with my dad so he wouldn't feel lonely, because no one else would. I hated it even then when I felt someone was being left out of something. I have carried this into my adulthood. I felt this concern for my dad, a man who ruled our house with an iron fist. who loved Jim Beam on the rocks, who was verbally and physically abusive who was controlling and manipulative but who, because of God's grace I can now see as someone who met all of my material needs, who took me to the park and didn't mind loading the whole neighborhood up as well but somehow this man, my dad, never had the capacity to love me as a father should- He loved by giving me things. He loved by taking me places near and far but not  once, not even as I write this has my dad ever uttered the words, "I love you" or I'm proud of you"- EVER.

My Mom was a Midwestern housewife, the martyr  of a bad marriage, who while running the house virtually alone relied on her children to ease the burden of her life. It's  hard not to look back on my Mom's life and not feel sorry for her. She was abused physically and mentally. She was controlled and manipulated. She was lonely and overwhelmed. While she managed to volunteer at our school, attend neighborhood events, cultivate her love for baking she somehow took that troubled life and made it her children's troubled life as well. I can never remember my mom meeting any of my physical needs of love and comfort. Many illnesses went untreated until the urgency could no longer be ignored. She relied on her children to protect her to buffer the abuse she received a reliance and game that has played out my entire adult life- one that strengthened, divided, cultivated doubt and taught  us early on that it was because of us she stayed, never owning her part. And it is because of this that even in a nursing home, even after suffering a stroke she is still able to control the fissures of her family.

Growing up, I remember so clearly the "second Friday" of the month. My Moms depression would lift because that is the day she got the "checkbook" the symol of power and a tool used to manipulate us well into adulthood. I remember the color (brown) I remember the smell (alcohol) and I remember how my dad used it to not only physical hurt my mom but to control her as well.  She would load us all up and spend hours at that store. In the checkout line, it was the same thing. "Don't tell your dad, Im writing it for over the amount. After all, she deserved it, she was suffering and we deserved to lie so we could suffer too. That checkbook became the ultimate symbol of a batlle 2 parents were fighting, a battle that should have been fought alone. A battle that led to hate and anger. A battle that still goes on today. I lived in a house divided from a very young age. I did not realize it at the time, but God was in control.

Why is this all important now? Why do I choose to talk about this now? It is BECAUSE of my childhood, because of parents who never had the capacity to see past their own needs that made it seem like a perfectly OK thing for my own sister to call me a liar and a hypocrite. To tell me because my beliefs are different than hers that I am a fake. It is how a family could never repair a division caused by so many years of battle. But believe it or not, that is not my whole story, my story involves so much more. It is my spiritual story.  

As a Christian I do not believe in coincidence. I believe in providence. God is aware of everything that happens to me. He is in control. God doesn't just think about me on occasion He thinks about me always. he alone, gives me peace and a future and hope. It is the only way that after coming to the realization I no longer have a family  that I can be at complete peace.

God knew this would one day happen and He knew He would use me to bring good out of bad. Even as my older brother ridiculed me, shouted insults or my sister instituted one of her many relationship freezes, God knew what he was doing, he was preparing me.

I have the complete confidence that God controls all circumstances and guides them to his good purposes. Part of becoming mature in your faith is not to test you to cause pain but to refine you. By talking about my story I can turn my adversities into opportunites to glorify God. I am being refined. I am being shaped to tell people of his love.

My spiritual journey was a twisted path filled with fear and doubt.  I attended Catholic schools from 1st grade until my first year of college and yet I never owned a bible, could never recite a single verse or even explain who God was. I knew I did not want to go to Hell but was told on many occasions that was where I would end up. I knew the devil was evil and I though sometimes he lived in my house. I was scared and confused. No one ever told me Jesus loved me. No one ever told me what I should be doing to go to heaven. I didn't have a clue.

Throughout my childhood I remember thinking Where is He? Why was he allowing such abuse to take place? Why me? At the time I first considered taking my own life, I was niavely thinking, Here I come Jesus, you didn't want me here but now your getting me not even realizing my twisted thought process was wrong. I  struggled with the whys and didn't know enough to ask how. I did not know he heard my cries. I just did not know. I was lost, alone. I never knew the support of a family, the support of siblings and I never offered my support. I was so far away from God.  I was taught to lock my room, not to share. I was taught to beat down doors to get my way. I was not taught to treat others as I would like to be treated, I was taught that my siblings were intruders and they were to be dealt with- Christ definitely was not the center of even a priority growing up in my house. I was spiritually empty and I did not even know it.

After meeting Kevin, and having our first child, we began to attend a church in our town- St Johns Lutheran in Cedar Falls Iowa. It was the first time in all of my life that I felt a part of a church. Ben was baptized, Kevin and I were leading a small group and my faith was growing. Even after our move to Indiana I still look back at my time there and the people I met and smile. St Johns was the first place I felt God work in my life. It was also the first place I felt the sting of rejection as I watched by mother turn her body sideways as a sign she shunned Ben's  baptism.

My first big spiritual moment, my first big awakening oddly enough happened at a Catholic Monastery in Brazil. I was on a trip with my friend. It was at a time in my life where I was very ill physically and mentally, and I knew that life had to get better. My doctors were telling me to wait for treatment but I was saying go. I knew that God was good. I knew in my heart that God was not punishing me, but I didn't know why he was letting me suffer. So, for the first time in my life, I fell to my knees and I cried out to Jesus to save me, to make me well, to heal every part of me and He answered my prayers two  months later when the doctor removed the tumor on my pituitary and I went into remission. He did not care that a "non catholic" cried out to him in the middle of a catholic monestary- He heard my cry because He loves me.

From that moment on, my faith and prayer life began to blossom. My love for fellowship with the Lord increased. As I shared by new found faith with my siblings I was only told it was a sign to return to Catholicism. Proving that even into adulthood, we had no idea how to support each other, how to express happiness we only knew how to manipulate to cast down.

After I experienced God's healing firsthand. I began to write. I wrote about God's healing power. I wrote about  trust and grace and the words flowed, just as they do now as if my pen is not my own, and it didn't matter if I was a good writer, just that I was writing. It was when I began to see how small events of my childhood turned out to be significant in the future. I thought about Mr. Ferguson, my high school English teacher who gave me the courage to start writing. Who was the first teacher that told me I could do something regardless of by background who taught me  that life is hard. He is the teacher who came to school every day while his wife battled ALS and helped kids like me, Believe that they one day could. Small events turned signifigant. He planted the seed, that began to sprout 25 years later when God gave me the ability to express my feeling, not in perfect written form, not without grammatical errors but in a way that glorifies Him- Perfect in His eyes.

I began writing more and more. I can look back at our families blog and see what was once important to me- family vacations, material things became less and less importortnt and my focus shifted to writing about my relationship with God. 

Last year when my illness returned and I again faced surgery I reached out to God once again and I felt so unimaginably close to Him I felt a true connection to Him, like he was sitting beside me. I felt His absolute love for me. I finally found after searching for all these years what was missing in my spiritual life. It was not how many verses I memorized, It was not whether I was Catholic, Baptist or Lutheran, It was having a personal relationship with God, feeling Him so near to me that I could feel his presence.

It was during this time in my spiritual journey, a time that I was healing from my second surgery and when Kevins father had just died that I knew that the fissures with my siblings were deeper that I ever imagined . Kevin cried out to each and every one of them to come and help take care of me so he could attend his Dad's funeral, and not one of them showed up. It was then that I knew with all my heart they did not care for me, they did not know how. It was also during this time that Jesus spoke to my heart saying Let it go. Let Me take your pain. Ask for their forgiveness and let it go. Pray for them and let it go. Give it all to Me- your pain, your burden, your suffering- And I will give you rest.

And so I did. I wrote a letter to all of my siblings. Asking for their forgiveness for the wrongs I have done and begging them to see that we are all taking what was once a dysfunctional childhood and making it a dysfunctional adulthood. We have a choice now to not let this go on. And no one responded. One sister acknowledged the letter but offered no response. Everyone else-nothing. I knew then it was over.

I didn't need to see the words sent over Facebook.

I knew what they thought all along-not by their words, but by their lack of them.

So today as I sit here and realize I won't be a part of that family anymore. Knowing that my Mom is nearing her end. Knowing my Dad is hurting and alone and knowing that my siblings have drawn a line, Catholic vs Non Catholic in a battle that has continued for too long, that although my past was difficult and made me stumble, God has placed me upright to use my past for only good. The only way I am able to ease the sting of this rejection is because of God's grace because I can reach to him as he stretches His arm out and through forgiveness and asking for forgiveness, I can focus on my family now. I can fill them with the love of Christ and teach them to love each other and together we will be a family, not a perfect family but one that glorifies His name and makes Him the center of our household.

Part of God's wisdom is how to learn from the difficulties you face, not how to avoid them but to put them into a new perspective. Trying to understand the persons position. to be, "swift to hear, Slow to speak, slow to wrath" We are taught to demonstrate love in tense situations. Did I grow up with dysfunction? Yes

Do I face the future knowing my children will never know their aunts, uncles and cousins? Yes

Do I know this is the end of my sibling relationships-Yes

God wants me to have a good life. Filled with love. He also wants me to gloify His good name. To love everyone as He loves me, even if they don't look like me, pray like me and yes even if they disown me.

The love of family

The love of friends

The love of an all powerful God allows me to accept

That the time of 5:53 does not signal bad. It signals good. God will take my situation and make it good and for this I can glorify His name so that you will know whatever you are facing today. Whatever you have faced in the past that if you offer it up to God and ask for His forgiveness. If you truly repent you will be pulled up and made to shine in His time. I still need a lot of work, but the place where I am right now, is a pretty awesome place to be. It's a place you can be too! 

 

***I ask that you do not respond or comment to this. I wrote it to heal and to tell my story, not to garner support for my "side"

This post is not about vindication. It is about a God who loves me and who loves you too!