And literally, 5 hours after I left the goodbye reception in the youth hall, I started visiting churches. We had two little ones (almost 4 years old and 3 months old). We were in a season of life where Lucas's job would allow us to live anywhere in the greater Houston area, so we cast a wide net.
While we knew clearly that it was time to leave our church, we were equally as clear that we could not leave the Church. We wanted a community. We wanted people who were giving their lives away in radical, culture clashing ways. The first church we visited was Ecclesia in Houston and I was in love. The spirit, the heart, the space, the story - I loved so many aspects of this place. It was like meeting the person that you were going to marry and at the same time knowing that the timing was very off.
So we kept meeting with people we loved and praying for guidance and reading and studying and serving. It was such a great season. I was more convicted of my call to be a part the Church than ever before. I loved the freedom of designing space for my family to connect with Jesus in worship. I loved the organic expressions of faith that I was reading about and experiencing in other communities. It was like God had opened an entirely new chapter on Church and I could not get enough.
This was also the first time in my adult life that I was not on staff at a church. Whether you agree with it or not, there is a certain level of public moral policing of paid church workers. This lifted the black and white veil of my life and allowed new perceived freedoms. I felt free to have a beer in public or even have alcohol in my home, which up to this point as a 30 year-old, I had never done. To add to this, I had been very sick during my second pregnancy and was introduced to Vicodin. Without anyone's knowledge, I spent the next year and a half convincing multiple doctors of my need for continued access to narcotics. I mixed that with my “allowed” 5pm glass of wine…or 3.
To say that I was a master manipulator would be an understatement. I was living the stay-at-home mom dream during the day, reading everything I could get my hands on about the postmodern church and simultaneously spinning out of control. I created such a wall of secrecy and lies that my husband and best friends had no idea the depth of my disaster. And if I felt like you were getting close to any truth, I pushed you away with the force of a hurricane. I destroyed friendships, drove a wedge in precious family relationships and held all human contact at arm's length. It was cold, calculated and lonely.
I spent so much energy trying to hide the destruction. Imagine juggling crystal balls at the speed of a major league fastball. For a while I kept this facade in place, but when it came crashing down, it fell hard. Let me set the scene:
I was attending my small group crawfish boil with kids and families and boiling pots and beer. At this point, I was free from the church rules, so why not? While everyone else had one or two beers, I had a secret stash in a small cooler. In addition, unbeknownst to anyone, I had already taken pills. The mudbugs were consumed and the yard games were enjoyed, and all was great. Deep into the evening, I was in the yard and someone noticed that I was standing in a fire ant bed. I had no clue. After dusting off the ants, I was escorted to the car and I will never forget the look on Lucas's face when he asked, "Are you drunk?"
I passed out on the way home - in my 5 year-old's lap. I don't remember getting from the car to the bed or the bed to the bathtub, but sometime in the middle of the night, I crawled to my bathroom. I recall crying sobs of misery and the only words that came to me were, "I love it too much."
No one had a clue. And tomorrow was Sunday. It was Palm Sunday, in fact. I was scheduled to teach our small community that night. What in the hell was about to happen? When the light of day hit the mess that I had created, what was going to happen? I had never felt so alone and so ashamed. I didn't know it was possible to hate myself that much. I just wanted to die.
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