Lenten Project: Day Forty

It's the close of Lent.  Now it's Easter.  Time to look forward, and rejoice in Hope.

Easter 2012, Messiah Lutheran Church, Mauldin, SC

I've learned and grown through these forty days of my Lenten discipline.  I've faced my failures, admitted my faults, remembered joys, and rejoiced in memories.  Looking back to where I've come and comparing my old self to who I am now, I know I have a ways to go on my journey of life.  But there's good in affirming how much has changed in me since I was a child.

I might still doubt sometimes.  When I do, I run to the cross, dip my fingers in the holy water, and remind myself of my baptism.  I still fail my kids in this mothering business. When that happens, I try to treat them with respect, apologise when I'm wrong, and model repentance to them.  I still have flashbacks and occasionally have a hard time talking about episodes from my past.  But that doesn't mean I shouldn't talk.

I'll keep on talking because over the course of this Lenten Project, I've received numerous messages, emails, texts, and comments from people who have been helped though my telling my story.  There are universal elements, things with which people identify, in each of my posts, stuff that unites us all in this human journey.  This blog series has sparked numerous positive conversations, inspired reconciliations, and reminded others of the Hope we have in Christ.  There have been horrifying stories recalled, funny episodes related, and lots of in between, just-tell-it-like-it-is kinds of posts.  I hope my Lenten Project has been a blessing to you, and I invite you to stick around for future posts.  I don't intend to stop.

Join the Conversation

Which post has been your favourite these past forty days?

Did you have any interesting conversations or revived memories that my posts have sparked?  I'd love to hear about them!

Please subscribe via the little box on the right, so you can be informed when I post again (it won't be everyday, though, I promise you!  Way too stressful!).

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-eight (Maundy Thursday)

Lent is almost over. Today is Maundy Thursday. We've moved from self-reflection to a reflection on the ultimate selfless gift: Jesus' gift of dying on the cross for us.  We celebrate the institution of the Last Supper of our Lord, that time when He gathered together his disciples and taught them what is love and forgiveness.

This day is a holy day that's brimming with restoration and hope, looking to the future Easter, while remembering the beginning of the Passion.  For me, I keep in my heart the hope of reconciliation with my sister Elizabeth, though reality is discouraging.  Since my divorce, my sister, still a Fundamentalist, has been shunning me, denying repeated attempts to seek forgiveness or reconciliation, saying that I have the "spirit that worketh death" on me.  (I don't know what that is or how a Christian could be marked in such a way, and none of the pastors I've asked have understood what she means by that, either.)

I've emailed repeatedly, trying to keep the door to the relationship open, but all my offers and suggestions to restore harmony have been rejected. I honestly don't know what else to do.  She claims I'm unrepentant and unchanged since I divorced.  I suspect she believes, agreeing with my parents, that I'm a walking, talking adulteress.  That, unless I "prove" my penitential spirit by following a specific list made by her, I've not actually repented.  She and her husband reject the testimony of pastors (from several different churches and denominations--Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Baptist), friends, family, those who have counseled me, those who have observed my life up close over the years and see a pronounced difference in me.  She demands that I let her "hold all the cards" and dictates that I must personally apologise to everyone who knew of my first marriage and divorce, since I broke my marriage vows to them and dishonoured God. Why my not having done these exact things must result in her refusal to have anything to do with me, I'm still not sure.  Most of what she has said makes little sense when viewed through the lens of Scripture and the light of the Gospel.

Hannah and Elizabeth sing together, Singapore, 2000

My friends, I want you to know that Jesus says his burden is easy and yoke is light, and his forgiveness is freely given, not earned through apologising to everyone you know. Jesus doesn't seek to break those who come to him, but to heal their brokenness. When you start living a life of redemption, the evidence is clear to anyone who will look--repentance has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to characterise you. This is what Easter, Christ's Passion, is all about.

I will admit, I've been tempted to fall back into my old habits of just pretending, of saying what my sister wants to hear so I can create a false peace, have a shallow reconciliation. But one thing I have learned, something I think has been shown through my posts this Lenten season, is that faking it never works.  Pretending all is well, embracing passive-agressivism, or even willfully choosing blindness and stunted spirituality, results in death, not life.

So I choose Christ.  I choose living a life of repentance.  I am marked as a child of God, and I want to be characterised by reconciliation.  But I can't force people to reconcile when they refuse.  I can't force people to act like Christ when they believe His virtues (peace, unconditional love, free forgiveness to those who don't earn or deserve it) are anathema.

I don't give up hope for my sister.  But I give the struggle up to God.  Because trying to convince a spiritually blind person that God is good and forgives is futile until that person willingly hears the Holy Spirit's voice.

This was a hard post to write. I wrote, deleted, rewrote, deleted again, scrapped the whole thing, prayed, pondered, wondered, and rewrote it all again from the very beginning.  It was not easy.  But it's right.  Because reconciliation is my theme. Hope and life are together threads entwined to run through every story I've told in this Lenten Project.

Hannah, Mary, and Elizabeth, mid-90s, Grenada

I hope that someday this episode of my life will be a testament to the reconciliation found in Christ, that Lizzy and I can be friends, or at least speaking sisters again.  Until then, it's a story of how Christians can be stubborn, proud, and often very unlike the Christ they serve, but how forgiveness is always available, always free, not earned. My comfort comes from the Lord. I'm reminded every Sunday during the Eucharist that we are one Body, Fundamentalist Baptists, Lutherans, and Anglicans, and everybody else, united in Christ, whether my sister Lizzy can see it through her blindness or not.  The passion of Christ was not futile or worthless.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-seven

After working so hard to secure employment at Bob Jones University, I felt like I'd achieved the highest level of spirituality.  Now, despite never getting to be a "spiritual leader" during my undergrad days, I was a respected staff member, someone who could influence students for Jesus, and also learn from the other BJU employees who had suddenly become my peers.

Senior portraits.
Why is it that yearbook staff always pick the worst pose?

I loved my job.  I was a staff dispatcher for the campus security, and often worked the 12 hour overnight shift.  Anything could--and did--happen in the middle of the night on and around campus.  One night, in mid-July, the campus watermain sprung a leak and flooded a part of campus.  I was on the phone with the fire department, coordinating the directing of outsiders to the cleanup crews to get everything under control, while also accomplishing all my other nighttime dispatch duties: recording everything on the blotter, paying attention to the alarms checking, and keeping track of entrances and egresses from the main gate of the campus.  It was fun, but also exhausting.  With all that, I barely had time to wonder about a summons I'd received that late afternoon from the head of human resources.  I was to report to his office in the morning, two hours after my shift was over (rather inconvenient and inconsiderate, since I'd have to attend the meeting on no sleep, plus find some way to keep myself awake for two wasted hours in waiting around on campus).  My coworkers had assured me it was probably just routine, to finish paperwork, or maybe even to get commended for working so hard all summer.

          

I napped in my sister's room for a couple hours, or at least attempted it.  Now that there were no distractions, my mind went to work imagining what the summons could be possibly be concerning.  Turns out, it was NOT for a commendation.

The HR head was there with the head of my department.  They weren't smiling.  HR glared at me and said, "I'm afraid I have bad news.  You are being terminated."

I was flabbergasted.  I stammered out a, "Why?" while I struggled to recall if I'd broken any rules in the two months I'd been employed. Nope, I'd been perfect, but BJU standards.

He said it was because I'd proven myself to be a bad influence and a poor example of Christ.  When I pressed him for example of what in the world he was talking about, he pulled out, quite dramatically, a sheaf of heavily highlighted papers.  He'd printed one of my emails to several of my friends who were still undergrads.  This email was one of those silly quizzes that kids forward around, what's your favourite food, what's your best childhood memory, what's the most daring thing you ever did, etc.  I'd filled it out a month prior, and sent it on to a few of my friends and coworkers.

Apparently, some of my answers on the quiz were less than pleasing and were downright evil.  I'd put The Patriot as my favourite movie.  HR head explained that, since that movie is rated R, I was being a bad example to the students by saying I liked it.  I shouldn't be even watching rated R movies, and definitely not leading others by example to appreciate or desire to watch them.

I'd said I'd gone skinny dipping. As a kid in the Caribbean Sea.  That was wicked to admit, because it brought to mind nakedness and encouraged young people reading my email to pursue wantonness.

I'd joked that I enjoyed kissing my husband (since all physical contact between genders is banned at BJU, I'd never kissed anyone or been kissed till I started dating and then married my husband, so it still felt a bit illicit, even to admit that I'd done it).  That was bad because it displayed my proud spirit, bragging about physical sexual contact to students who were not allowed to follow my example but who would be expelled if they tried to be like me.

And on the list went, HR man got really heated in his ranting and raving, while my department head just sat there, not saying a word in my defense.  I'd burst into tears after about five minutes, but HR man kept going, alternating between waving the sheaf of papers in the air and shaking his finger under my nose.  He spat, "You have no integrity. Can't you see that you're unqualified to be an example to students, to represent the University?"  He told me I should be becoming more reserved with my friends who were still students, because now I was staff and I had to be over them.  Never mind the fact that I'd been an undergrad too just a few weeks ago, or that school wasn't even in session yet.

What I was afraid of most of all was being barred from seeing my sisters. Friends I could leave behind, but the usual procedure for people who get fired from BJU is for them also to be blacklisted and banned from campus.  I'd been well-schooled in the Black Book during my time with campus security.  I knew how it went.  I finally broke in through HR man's incoherent sidetrack story of how he could not witness to people at his first job because he needed to glorify God by applying himself to working hard.

I asked him point blank if I'd be banned from campus and kicked out of the Alumni Association.  He said no.  He further said he'd make sure that didn't happen, since I hadn't actually done anything wrong, I certainly didn't deserve to be punished beyond losing my job.

With that, the meeting was over.  My department head finally spoke up and offered me a ride home. I could barely see through my swollen eyes, but I refused.  The man hadn't defended me or said much of anything at all during the entire meeting.  I didn't want any help from him if that was his definition of "stand up for and protect the ones in my department."

I walked home.  When I got there, I immediately checked my email to see if my campus account had been locked yet.  I found an email from my new brother-in-law, accusing me of being a horrible, inconsiderate, cruel, deceitful person, a slut, someone who he wished his brother had never met, much less married.  He'd sent a copy of his email to everyone in his family, even aunts and uncles I hadn't met yet.

One person on the recipient list contacted me and assured me his opinions were not shared by the family, but no one stood up to him directly and said what he'd said was wrong or that he shouldn't have emailed everybody like that. Even his brother, my husband, kept quiet. It made me feel so worthless. I was unworthy to be staff at BJU, and also not worth defending. All on the same day. 

I spent the rest of the day with my head in the toilet, throwing up.  A few days later, I received a letter from HR man and from the Alumni Association. I'd been banned from campus, blacklisted.

I blogged about that meeting, describing my feeling of shock, asking why it was morally and ethically okay for my personal emails to be read, printed, and held against me.  Why had it been acceptable for me to be closed in a small room with two older men I barely knew, one of whom then verbally abused me while the other watched?

I wasn't allowed to go see my sisters on campus (I had three sisters who were students that new school year).  It meant I was banned from attending their concerts, recitals, speeches, and even just picking them up to go shopping, or dropping off clean laundry in their rooms.  I was totally blacklisted.  (And no one I left behind knew why--that sort of thing is never explained, so everybody always assumes the worst.  People later told me they all thought I'd broken the law somehow, or had an affair.)

I wrote a letter to Stephen Jones, the president of the school, begging to at least let me be un-banished.  I didn't want my job back, I told him, but I shouldn't be excommunicated for forwarding a silly quiz to some students.

He wrote me back and approved my request to have my blacklisted period cut short (it's policy for all those who part ways with the University on not-good terms to have to prove their repaired testimony after one year of banishment has elapsed).

But before I could be allowed back on campus and special passes for my sister be approved, the dean of students demanded to see me.  He said that, while the University president had said one thing, he was saying another and would not let the un-banishment go forward till I met with him.

I went to see him, and he accused me of doing things I'd never done (he later called me up and apologised.  Apparently, he'd gotten me confused with my brother-in-law's fiance, who had also worked in campus security, and who had done some bad stuff, I guess. Yes, the fiancé of the same brother-in-law who had written me that horrible email).  He also waved some papers around (print outs of my blog) and demanded that I delete everything I'd written about my firing from BJU before my punishment could be lifted.  In order to have the privilege of my sister's company, I had to comply.

So, in exchange for reuniting with my sisters on campus, I did everything he told me.  I never promised never to blog about it again, though, and this is the first time since then that I have.

Bob Jones University is a terrible place, filled with abusers and enablers of abusers.  The focus is all Law (in made up rules which are hardly biblical), and little Gospel. Sure, sometimes the light of God breaks through and good things are accomplished, but it's clear that it is in spite of the people in charge over there, not because of them.  There is joy there, in small pockets, but not because Christ is modeled by the Administration.  There are good people there on staff and in the faculty especially.  I loved my teachers and respect them immensely, for the most part.  But even they are mistreated and abused by the school leadership. I sometimes feel like cursing them all for they did to me, for almost destroying my faith, for totally crushing my spirit, but I remember what the Scriptures foretell about those people's fate, and all I can only say may God have mercy on their souls.

Do I want BJU to be destroyed?  No.  I do, however want change.  I'm not the only one who was hurt while a student or staff member.  There are scores and even hundreds of others who have more horrific tales of abuse, sexual, physical, verbal, emotional, and spiritual.  Ignoring them won't erase the pain and won't bring about healing for anybody. Until BJU can admit past fault, without qualifications or excuses, and seek to actively repent, no change will be appropriate or effective.

Lenten Project: Fourth Fearless Friday

My family is a modern, blended family, and it is beautiful.

Divorce is never a wonderful thing.  It's brokenness embodied. But the fact that something lovely has grown out of something so tragic is amazing and should be celebrated.

When I got divorced in 2012, I honestly never dreamed I would be married again so soon. But the hand of Providence is so clearly evident in the forming (and reforming) of my family.  It's been a long time getting to where we are now, and grace and redemption have brought us to a level of restoration that wouldn't be possible without our faith.

When I remarried and moved from South Carolina to Washington, DC, my ex-husband moved back to his parents' house in North Carolina, taking our son with him. Originally, we'd agreed to have him stay in Greenville so our son could finish out the year in his school (I didn't want too much upheaval all at once for the little guy). That plan got changed suddenly when my ex informed me he was moving, barely a week before it happened.  I wasn't pleased at all, but we found a way to compromise temporarily.  Then, we started fighting over what the next years would bring, and it was not pretty. There were threats, a restraining order, lawyers, depositions, court dates, angry phone calls, and lots of tears and grief, until, finally, I quit fighting.  I was weary and getting more and more broken with every frustrated and blocked attempt of getting my way. And I knew that my child would look back someday to see the fights and the bitter feelings between his parents, and it would not make him feel more secure or loved.

If I truly believe in the sovereignty of God, I have to accept that, whatever the past mistakes that were made, this is where we're at now, and I need to find creative ways to nurture life, not speak death.  So I stopped fighting the status quo and instead looked forward, trying to love my son and make him confident of his security in his family, even though it is spread out and a little different than the norm.

It's not been easy, let me assure you.  I still fight with my ex sometimes (a hallmark of our tempestuous marriage, I'm sure!).  We're both saddled with astronomical debts to lawyers, and I honestly don't know we'll pay them.  I hope God will provide, somehow.  But we try to resolve things with our son in mind now.  It isn't a game to see which parent wins and who is the loser.  Because when fighting happens, our child is the loser.  And I don't want that.

Currently, my son lives with his dad in North Carolina, where he is close to graduating from Kindergarten.  Maybe he'll attend a great DC school in the future, but for now, I get him about every other weekend and on school holidays.  Sometimes he comes here, and other times we drive down to my in-laws' place in NC, a couple hours from where my ex and son now live, since we like to visit them a lot.  And there're always the Skype calls!

These have turned into Lego builds via Skype calls.  We line our computer screens up just right,
and we can watch each other make awesome things, giving suggestions, and telling stories while we do it.

My husband is also divorced, and has a son. He shares custody with an ex who lives just 20 minutes from us, and we get to have that son a lot more often.  I coordinate school pickups and dropoffs with my stepson's mother, and we all work hard to get along.  We're friendly to one another, and no, it was not always like that!

I still can hardly believe, when I think of the antagonism we've all lived in for so long, that we are actually friends now, all working together for the sake of our children.  It's hard to thrive when you're filled with resentment, someone told me recently, and it's so very true.

Being a stepmom is tough.  It's made even more difficult when the son I birthed is so far away in a different state most of the time.  Add in a new baby, and you'd think my affections would be varied for each of my kids, right?  But the miraculous reality is, I love all of my children an infinite amount.  It amazes me.  Sure, it can be tiring at times. I maintain the custody calendar to coordinate the rotation of two different boys between three separate sets of parents, in three states!  My son has pretty severe ADHD, my stepson is four (with all the struggles and hardships that come with being four), and I'm exclusively breastfeeding, babywearing, and cloth diapering a five month old daughter! But it's so worth it, because my kids know they are loved, and we, their parents, have worked hard to create a safe space in our family. We are Lutheran, Episcopal, and non-denom/Baptist, and all of us to are good parents to our kids, committed to raising them in the faith, even as our family grows.

Of course, with an unconventional family like mine, we don't grow in the usual ways!  My stepson's mom got remarried last year, so now there's a new stepdad (whose name is the same as my son's, so we tack "Big" in front of his name to differentiate), and they coincidentally had a baby girl same time as my daughter was born. The girls were born literally days apart.  So my stepson has two half-sisters!

My ex just got engaged to be married to a divorcee with four kids, so there will soon be lots of step-siblings for my son.  We've got step-siblings and half-siblings coming out our ears! But it's so beautiful.

This Christmas, we went to the National Zoo for ZooLights, and most of the family was there, minus my ex, who had to work.  On Christmas Day, my son's father came and celebrated with us together as a family.  Birthday parties have been combined family endeavours. I hope we can have lots more of these blended family events where we're all together.  Maybe it looks a little weird, but in the long run, I think it paints a beautiful picture of restoration and reconciliation.

One really great "side-effect" to sharing custody of our sons with their other parents is that we don't have them all the time.  Yup, that's right, I celebrate that fact!  It means I get to be a mother of three, yet still enjoy bonding with my husband, and, with my newborn, in a way that a newlywed and then first-time parent enjoys.  I get to go grocery shopping with only one kid to wrangle!  It is certainly a luxury I don't take for granted.

Join the conversation

In what ways have you seen relationships restored in an unusual or surprising way in your life?
Do you have broken relationships with people with whom you wish you could pursue peace?
If you aren't there yet (and that's okay--it takes time to heal; believe me, I know!), in what ways do you save the space for them, in hope of a reconciliation in the future?

I ask, because there are still people in my extended family who refuse to repair the broken gap, and I need encouragement to not give up on them.