Time Travel

Today at church, someone asked me what brought me to Austin.

Dang it, that's a tough question.

On the "blithe, breezy answer" side, there's that my sister's family was moving here, and the timing was right.

But, really, I wanted to be honest... without being *too* honest, if that's a thing.

So I said something like this: "Well, after I graduated college in Arkansas, I lived in Las Vegas for ten years then moved to North Texas. We lived in a small town, and were really invested in our community and church... then we got divorced, and I don't think anyone knew what to do with us. So I tried for a year and a half, but realized that we had to get out of there."

And when I said it, it seemed like it felt like a fresh wound, which it doesn't. I am not hurt or resentful about it, but still, when you put it out there like that, it comes out as new because they've never heard it before.

With hindsight, I can see so clearly exactly what God had in mind for the forced march, and it has all been in His perfect timing, including healing and blessing and the incredible life that is mine today.

Back then, I actually did understand what the people around me were trying to do, for the most part. I know I was loved. I know I was cared for. I know people were trying to save me from myself.

But, dammit, it hurt. It hurt a lot, and for a long time, and then I couldn't take it anymore.

I know a couple of people, at least, who feel responsible for my leaving town, but, really, it was just a giant burden of hurt and unease that was not remediable if we stayed in the same place with the same people who had the same world view and couldn't or wouldn't consider that a truth other than what they believed might exist.

However...

What I wish I had said Sunday, and wish everyone could know is this: The tailspin that was my life from 2010 until 2012 sent me in a direction I never would have gone on my own, but where I needed to be.

It hurt to lose friendships I thought were solid. It hurt to break fellowship with my church, where I'd served for six years. It hurt to lose the opportunities I had to write and create and do the things I thought God wanted me to do.

However, that total break from everything I knew and with which I was comfortable gave me room to look at things differently. I realized that I'd been mistaking church-related productivity and "good works" as a relationship with God. Then, even more importantly, I started realizing that I'd fallen into an easy agnosticism... with God.

What I mean is this: When D was approaching the teen years, I was thrown some really tough questions. At the time, I felt like the most honest answer about some of those difficult things was: "Any time we can't make sense of what God says or does, it's just because we are human and can't fathom his ways..."

D's refusal to hear that when faced with the death of Egyptian firstborn, instead angrily blinking away tears and declaiming that there was no excuse to kill children ever, stuck with me... well, until this day. It will forever.

It got me to asking myself more questions. It made me look for better answers. My immediate thought was, "Is the UN somehow more moral and ethical than the God that I serve?" The answer to that had to be "no," so what else was there?

I know that some people talk about how faith is a tension, but some things go beyond tension to being completely unable to coexist in one single paradigm, and breaking down what I knew of God, what the Bible said, what the function of the Holy Spirit was, how Jesus interacted with sinners, and what does that all mean for me, for my family, and for how I view the world and coming to the conclusions (some of which are still malleable) I reached would not have been possible within the faith framework constructed around me where I was at the time.

If you want specifics, feel free to reach out. I want to be respectful of everyone, and I don't have permission to tell other people's stories... just mine.

But suffice it to say that I have developed a deeper sense of empathy, am a better parent, am in a more ideal position to love my husband, and feel like I see my actual purpose now more than I ever have. I'm even okay with being patient until my little one is more independent and I have the freedom to step out in the ways I know I am supposed to. So I guess that's another benefit: patience.

So, yeah, the overt reason I moved to Austin was because the pressure of living my new life in an old space was too much... but the real reason was that God had a plan beyond and through my pain, and he's still leading me through it. It's beautiful. I wouldn't change a thing.