Thrum Thursday

Thrum - \ˈthrəm\- noun - A term for fringe or short lengths of materials which suggest fringe. Specifically, the end of warp which is not woven but remains on the loom when the woven fabric has been cut free.

Thrum Thursday: looking at the "margins" of my life and seeing how to make pretty "fringe" out of it.

Hmmm...what remains on the loom when the woven fabric has been cut free. I feel a bit like that these days, like I'm living in some leftover, unraveled region of life for a season. I know God is faithful and He will start weaving on the pattern again, but for now, I feel like I’ve been cut off, rolled up, and set aside. “Be still, wait on Me, I will show You the things I will do.” This is what He is saying to me.

I haven't blogged much about the things going on at my church for a lot of reasons: other people's privacy, it's just too hard, and well, really, what is there to say? One friend of ours gave his view on things with this three point sermon: 1) This sucks. 2) This really sucks. 3) One day it won't suck so much. It's hard to add to such wisdom.

I grew up in a small Southern Baptist church in central Louisiana – Alpine First Baptist. My parents were not Christians and so did not attend. My Grandmother, though, brought me to church with her even as a newborn. I was just a “bed-baby” lying in the nursery crib, but Grandma made sure I was in church every Sunday of my life. I have so many memories of riding to church in my Grandma’s turquoise blue Nova, wearing shiny black patent leather shoes and frilly dresses, and eating peppermint lifesavers. (Grandma always had peppermint lifesavers in her purse and would dole them out to me during the service when I got restless.)

My family home wasn’t always so great and it was often a place I didn’t want to be. So, I spent a lot of time with my Grandmother, and later with my friends from church. When I was in 4th grade or so, we got a new pastor, Brother Hutzler. He had three children: Mike, Julie, and Mary Lea. Julie was my age and became my best friend. For about five years, I was constantly in their house, spending the night, going places with them, listening to nightly devotionals, helping to rake the yard. So many good memories with them – it makes me weep to think of how God blessed me with a Christian family to love and nurture me even when my own family had turned their back on Him.

I was at Alpine on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday evenings. Sunday School, children’s choir, vacation Bible school, youth choir, Girls-in-Action, youth group, Wednesday night spaghetti dinners….all such a big part of my life, the weft and warp of the fabric of who I am today. There were the Miltons, the Furhmans, the Pipers, the Rabalais, the McBrides, the Austins, the Hennigens…I could go on and on thinking of the families in that church who became my aunts and uncles, their children my cousins, sisters, and brothers.

But, there came a time when I turned my back on all of them and my Grandmother. I was probably 15 or so when it started happening. Other things became more important to me – namely dancing and my boyfriend. My parents didn’t care if I went to church or not. I don’t think my Grandmother knew what to do, what she should or shouldn’t say. At 16 I went to college early. At 17 I was pregnant. It took a decade, a marriage, two children, a college degree, and two jobs before I found my way back. All those years I ached for my church family. And where God brought me was Sandhills PCA.

Sandhills has been my second church family and the first for my husband and three children. Sean and Ellen were 9 and 3 when Ken baptized both of them in front of our small store-front church. Youth trips, children’s choir, worship team, Bible studies, Sunday School, retreats, mission trips…the Stewarts, the Iveys, the Smiths, the Burackers, the Williamsons, the Rheas, the Dallas’, the Proulxs…I could go on and on naming the families who have become sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, grandmothers and grandfathers.

And then my children….Ellen, like me, became best friends with one of our pastor’s daughters – Karen, or Kenny as we call her. They have been close buddies since Ellie was at least two or three, running together through the neighborhood, laughing (and fighting), sharing secrets, growing. And Sean – going on mission trips, playing the guitar on the worship team, growing into a godly man through the teaching and preaching of this church. And Mary, like me, too, has been in church nursery from the time she was an infant. She only knows this church, these people….they are more her family than those she is related to by blood. This is where Mary has been six week days out of seven since she was in preschool.

And there’s Matt, this man who told me when we were first married and I brought up the subject of church, “Church is for weak people, people who need a crutch. We have each other, we don’t need church.” God used an unlikely friendship with our neighbor, who also just happened to be a pastor, to bring my husband, literally, to his knees. How he has grown, changed, come to be the spiritual leader of our family…God is truly in the business of miracles.

There came a time about four years ago when I was deeply hurt by someone in our church and didn’t think I could continue worshipping there. Actually, I couldn’t worship. It was too hard, too hurtful, too distracting to be there. I prayed. I cried. Some Sundays I would go and just sit there. Some Sundays I couldn’t even make myself get dressed to go. But, I stubbornly dug my heels in and said, “I will NOT lose this church family. I will NOT walk away like I did before. I will NOT let Satan win and take these people from my children.” I worked through it. I prayed through it. I wrote through it. God changed me and taught me and blessed me. He walked beside me. And it got better. Not easy, not perfect, but better. Most of the time, I could worship.

And now this has happened…this tearing away from our body a family that is woven deeply into the fabric of my life and those of my husband and children. Words being said about them that are simply not true. Hurtful things. Harmful things. My children hurting, crying. Many people have told us, “I’m sure this is so hard for you because you are such good friends with the Cross’s. They’re right across the street from you. You know things, see things, hear things we don’t.” And yes, all those are true. But the real, true thing is I know in the depths of my heart and soul that what has happened is wrong. It is the work of Satan and his minions. Nothing pleases him better than for a Godly man’s name to be slandered, his character marred, his ministry questioned.

Do I think my pastor is a sinless, perfect man? Far from it. Have I seen him walk with Christ and show His love to me and others for years? Yes, indeed. Is it time for our church to have another pastor, for Ken to bless others with his ministry somewhere else? I don’t disagree with that possibility. But the way this has occurred, the obvious anger and bitterness that has been harbored against him, what has been said to our church body, the lack of love and care being shown to an entire family of hurting people…these are the things my heart ponders, that I lift daily to God in prayer. Do I believe God is sovereign in all of this, even the sin? Of course. Does it still hurt? Of course.

Yes – I know God is still at Sandhills because His people are still there. Yes – I’m sure the worship has been good and true and sweet. I make no judgment on what others have decided to do or not do. But can worship be good and true and sweet again for me and my family there? I don’t know. That’s what we are praying through. We’re waiting on God, asking Him to show us what to do, how to move forward in our hurt and confusion and pain.

The only other thing I’ve been thinking about all this is that it seems to me, true or not, that it is the women and children that have been bearing the brunt of the consequences of all this. It is their relationships, their hearts that are the most torn. Someone sent me a letter last week that said, “I don’t know how you can worship anywhere else with anger and resentment in your heart.” Well – that assumes a lot, mainly that I have anger and resentment in my heart. I guess I am angry, but probably not over the things she thinks I am. I am angry over the relationships that have been harmed, the children that have been hurt. Yes – for that I am indeed angry. But I think that is a righteous anger.

Such a long post…If you’ve made it to here, sorry for the rambling, but through writing I heal and through writing I pray and that’s all I know to do now until God shows me what He will do.