That moment when you realize that you still have some more letting go to do
While perusing Facebook yesterday, I stumbled upon a recent picture of a couple from my past. Gazing at these two beautiful people, my heart did a flip-flop as I experienced a dichotomy of emotions, vacillating between affection and animosity.
He is a Midwestern Methodist minister. She is his radiant wife. If not for the white hair, I would swear there has been no change in their appearance since I last saw them over 20 years ago. They both have the gift of radiant, welcoming smiles that can fill a heart with sunshine on the cloudiest of days.
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My friends like to tease me about my days as “the church lady.” All throughout my late teens and early twenties I dutifully answered the “call of the church.” I taught a Sunday school class of third graders every Sunday morning. This was followed by worship service, during which I often participated in the choir or played special clarinet duets with the pianist. And then there was Sunday evening worship and Wednesday evening Christian Life Club where I led a group of seventh and eighth graders.
At least a couple of times per month my family enjoyed Sunday lunch with our minister’s family or other church families. And then there were the post Sunday evening service gatherings at the local Pizza Hut. During the winter I couldn’t miss the weekly community church volleyball league, and summers were all about prepping for Bible School. My first year of college was at the same liberal arts Christian college that was associated with my church, from which my mom graduated, and then later, my younger brother and sister. My major at the time was elementary education, in keeping with the family tradition.
My life revolved around the church. In fact, I had high hopes that I would meet a handsome Christian boy who was preparing for the ministry, fall in love, have six kids and spend my days happy and content as a preacher’s wife. The church was my life and the church family was an extension of my own.
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Soon enough I discovered that being an elementary school teacher was not for me. And since I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, I stepped back from college for a bit. Over the next few years I continued my involvement with the church while working alongside my parents in the family business and taking basic courses at the junior college. I finally felt the call to nursing and put my heart into studying to become a registered nurse.
The summer before my final year of nursing school, at the age of 24, I took on the job of a nursing assistant at our local hospital to get some extra hands-on time. This was the summer that my life turned upside down.
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Apparently I’m a sucker for a confident, somewhat cocky woman in uniform … especially one with a twinkle in her eye, a warped sense of humor, and unparalleled devotion.
It was such a whirlwind romance that I really had no idea what had hit me. What was wrong with me? Why did my palms sweat and my heart feel as if it would beat out of my chest every time she wheeled a new admission up to the floor from the emergency room, strutting along in her EMT uniform and flashing her crooked grin my way? Why, when we started hanging out together outside of work, did I have this overwhelming urge to kiss this woman?
As has always been my custom, I did my best to sort out all of the conflicting emotions battling in my heart and head by writing in my journal. Falling in love with a woman went against everything I believed to be true. It was a sin. But why would I be having these feelings if they were wrong? In fact, for the first time in my life, I felt as if everything was more right than it had ever been.
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I had moved back home with my parents while finishing college, which means that my mom noticed the change in my demeanor and habits over the course of the summer. My girlfriend had grown up in the same nearby town in which mom’s sister lived and it was apparently well-known in the small town that she was a lesbian. As moms are prone to do, she became concerned …
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It was late summer and my time at the hospital was nearing the end. This particular warm, summer night, both of us were scheduled to clock out shortly after the 11pm change of shift and had plans of driving out to her parents’ camp on the lake.
Just as I was preparing to walk away from the nurse’s station I saw her exiting the elevator. She looked as if she had just seen a ghost. As we rode down the elevator together she explained that she had just seen my mom’s vehicle in the parking lot near my car. As best she could tell, it was my mom and another woman.
I knew in an instant that something was terribly, terribly wrong. So did my girlfriend. I could see in her eyes that she was terror-stricken. We parted and I went to face the music.
As I approached the vehicle I could see my mom’s tear-streaked face in the driver’s seat and then noted the reinforcing presence of our minister’s wife in the passenger seat. Our minister’s wife’s normally bubbly, radiant countenance was obscured by furrows of concern and obvious disappointment. Mom had searched my room until she found my journal.
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The intervention of that summer evening completely changed the trajectory of my life. I was forced to make a decision. One that took me in a completely opposite direction from the one I had envisioned over the previous years. I felt ostracized from my family, both blood and church. I had to die to the person I thought I was. I had to give myself the space to completely pull away from everything that I knew and believed. I walked away from every comfort that I had held dear to my heart and set off on my “heroine’s journey.”
I did eventually make my way back to my family, including my father in the months before he moved on from this current life. For this I am grateful. I love my family and love being in their presence when possible. I even had a wonderful reconciliation with “the church” in general through a loving pastor of an open and affirming congregation a couple of years ago. I thought all of the healing was behind me … until I saw the picture on Facebook.
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I love how lessons come to us at the time when we’re most receptive. All throughout this holiday season I’ve had the privilege of being in a position to directly respond to struggling youth, from young teens through mid-twenties. These young folks are struggling with loneliness, rejection, the effects of bullying, religious oppression, suicidal thoughts, and the general misery associated with not being able to be who they are due to their identification with the GLBTQ community. I’ve seen myself in so many of these kids and have felt nothing but empathy toward and encouragement for them.
Perhaps this is why I was so surprised by the conflicting emotions that arose within me upon seeing the smiling faces of my formerly beloved church leader and his spouse. I thought this was all behind me. I thought that by mending my relationship with my family and reconciling my feelings about the church, the needed forgiveness had taken place.
I recently read The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz for the first time. One of the four agreements is to not take anything personally. Ruiz goes on to add, “Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”
As I lay in bed awake in the wee hours this morning, I thought about what I wish my minister’s wife would have said to me that night — what I wish everyone in the church community would say to today’s youth. I wish she would have said, “I love you and accept you exactly as you are. I am not your judge and I don’t have the right to tell you how to live your life. God loves you no matter what. You are perfect as you are.” But then the words of don Miguel Ruiz came into my awareness.
What was said that night (and in later conversations with her and her husband) was a projection of her reality, her own dream. I can stop taking what transpired personally. I can accept them for exactly who they are. In fact, I can be grateful for the part they played in my re-birth. I can stand in my truth and let go of the needless suffering of the past.
Ahhhhhhhh, the freedom of letting go…
Photo courtesy of Dodgerton Skillhause via Morguefile.com
