Hi there. Welcome (back) to the pink room! Grab a seat, get comfortable… we might be here for a little while.
So we are back. Another Friday down.
Again I will start by saying, if you haven’t read the intro post yet to this series, I would suggest starting there and then joining us back here once you are caught up. Just to get your bearings with the story we have begun to unfold together.
Alright. Where were we then? Right. A big God. A crying girl. A coffee shop. 10 AM… on a Sunday morning. D r a m a t i c… I know.
There is more to that Sunday story though. Which if I am totally honest… is kind of mystical. Like one of those real God moments. And don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s important. I mean if you asked me a year ago I would have told you that was the whole story. I am talking.
Got a text from someone. Made me at that exact moment. At 10 AM. on that October Sunday morning, entirely rethink what church was supposed to be. Ended up in a church that I only happened to know because its similarity to my own had begun troubling my spirit two years prior. Terrified I enter a place I had rejected and felt touched. Touched by the god damn spirit of God. the waterworks. And this was still peak covid. The waterworks masked. A black girl tear soaked mask glued to her face at some white church where no one knew her swearing she heard the voice of God. Mystical... right?
I think I thought. I needed a God voice from the heavens kind of moment. To legitimate my leaving. I thought surely it can’t hurt as much if God herself speaks your name and tells you, GO.
The funny thing is. For those familiar with the story of the Israelites, we find in the Hebrew Bible, you will remember the plagues, Moses and Aaron, the fight between two gods, Yahweh and Pharaoh, the dramatic parting of the red seas and its swallowing whole the fighting men of Egypt and then… Then you will recall that. freedom did not mean pastures. But what comes after the dramatic performance of their God is… 40 years in a desert. And listen it would be hard to deny that God himself hadn’t told them to go. To leave. When literally the spirit of God hovered over their traveling. And yet. Freedom was parched land. It was wondering. Uncertainty. Fear. Isolation. There were 40 years between Egypt and a promised land.
And I guess I think about that because in a way the God moments can be a distraction. Because the red sea splitting in half before their very eyes did not protect them from the desert, from thirst, from the fear of not knowing, from the fear that they left before they knew there was somewhere else to go. Okay. So maybe they had been crying out for God as bodies broke under the weight of brick and namelessness but.
But is this what it means to be free?
The God moment is too easy. Because at some point you have to claim your own leaving. You might have heard God speak from the heavens but it’s you who left. It’s you who chose to listen to God. or yourself. That perhaps. at that moment couldn’t be differentiated. Regardless, it’s your leaving.
And I think this is the part I wasn’t prepared for. How could I still be mourning two years later if God spoke to me? How could I so clearly speak of my selfhood having been swallowed whole and yet wonder if I left too soon?
I bet. even an explorer has a moment. in the middle of the Amazon or the Sahara desert when she looks at herself and then the trees or the sand and wonders. What the hell did I get myself into? But this far out. In the forest. Or the desert. There was no turning back. Or at least returning would be as treacherous as continuing. And it’s not to even say that the beauty of the moment, lost in nature, isn’t worth it. Perhaps that’s the whole reason she left. But it’s just not home. It’s not what you have known. It’s new. And it’s scary. And you are all alone. You left everyone and everything you have ever known behind. To what. To find what. Something you have never seen before. What if it doesn’t exist? What if the wonder you are trying to find is only a myth?
And I guess this is the story I wish we were more honest about.
I spent most of 2022 swimming in tears.
And at first, I cried because I was angry. Angry with a God who demanded my leaving. Yet had not told where then to go. I was angry. I gave it all up to know a God I could not find. I lost a community that had been my whole world overnight. And for what. Because the preacher at some church I did not know spoke of broken shalom in a garden and a God relentless to be God with us. I felt like a stranger to myself. I didn’t know who I was or what I believed in. Did I even believe in God? Without the so called ICOC. Was that even possible?
It hurts to leave. I don’t care how bad it was before you left. Change brings loss even if it also can bring beauty. And yet at some point, you can no longer use God or even the way it hurts as an excuse to deny your own agency.
This is the first lesson that changed me.
You exist.
And you chose. You chose. It was you. And it hurts. And it’s scary. And it’s you. You decided. You can decide. You can change your own life. You left. It was terrifying. And you did it. But if you can leave. then maybe. you can also discover. maybe you can also create. maybe you can experiment. maybe you can make a life. Because it was you who left. It was you. And yes it’s you who hurts. And you who fears. Yet in all of that if it was you who left then maybe just maybe it is you who has the capacity to live in your leaving. To live and leave. To live in spite of having left. Or perhaps because. Or alongside of.
In October 2021, I left. But it was much more of a soft leaving. I left before I really knew I was leaving. I left again in January 2022. And then again in June 2022. And then again in September. And again in February.
And each time I left. I became more sure it was me who was leaving. That I knew how to leave. That I could leave. and not be sure. and not have the heavens partway. to confirm my own gut. I could just leave. And it would hurt like hell. But I think that might be the cost of freedom.
It’s you walking on dry land through a sea parted in half into a desert because you chose to be free. You didn’t have to leave. God could have screamed your name literally from the clouds but you didn’t have to grab your three little children, hike up your skirt and walk through the waters. That was you. And so when your throat hurts, and your daughter screams, and your stomach grumbles. You remember you chose to be free. And we know. You may spend your whole life wondering. And yet your sandals will not break and you will never be a slave again.
So I guess the question is then… darling are you sure you want to be free?
Okay. That’s all folks. Thanks for joining me here in the pink room. Catch you here next Friday to hear more about who I am becoming in the wondering.
From the Pink Room 