Moving Sucks- but I'm doing it Anyways!

I have to move AGAIN! I hate that. Rather than tell everyone individually what is going on with me, I'm posting up an email I recently sent to a dear friend, because I think it shows my heart well:

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Hey Girlie! I just wanted to update you and thank you for your prayers that God would speak to my "gut"!

I had an excellent meeting with Kristin (youth group leader) the next day and, essentially, she offered to mentor me and said "I don't know where we as a church dropped the ball, but with you, it is obvious that we did".

So I have decided to move back to san jose and have found a house in willow glen with some other girls that are on the same journey, but at different places.

... I am hoping and praying God will be opening (their) hearts as we create this online community for women our age and showing them and others that the church has NOT forgotten about them, that there IS a place for them and their gifts and talents, and that the church is willing to admit they made some mistakes and wounds and is ready to be open about that shame and embrace corporate healing.

I feel that is especially what this all means to me and my relationship with Kristin in her open acknowlegement that she was teaching us some faulty things, doing the best that she could at the time, but seeing that myself and several other women of our church left or had no place and that she wants to initiate the healing process by going back to the wound and opening up dialogue about what was and is going on in the church.

(No woman my age or near my age in our church is married. Several of them have had kids and are single mothers- and have left our church. Maybe out of shame, maybe out of being ostracized. Either way, the gossip behind the back thing needs to die. UGGG-AHH-LLYYY!!!)

I am very excited about what the Lord has planned for this very vibrant age/gender group and so blessed to be apart of the conversation. Obviously, corporate confession is not something that has been traditionally easy for the ana-baptist sector of Protestantism. I know it will be difficult and will mean I will have to go to the wound, and be open about my experiences- shame and all. But I know that it is necessary, not only to help others and pour the gifts of comfort that Christ is giving me into them, but also for my own healing and development and for that of my family (and their relationship with "church").

I have always been very passionate about women, especially the single women and how the church has neglected to acknowlege them. I just think it is amazing that God would lead Kristin to a place where she would be open to talking about this.

I am also looking forward to being mentored by her, as she addressed the positive aspects of being a strong woman and I think she will help me shape the use of that gift, rather than use it to control and manipulate, but to be sensitive and use it to develop and nurture others and love them.

She confirmed several things that people have been saying to me lately- one of which that I'm running. I guess this is my attempt to stop running, face the wounds and plant some roots- or at least let the roots that are already there spread a little and grow.

I know it sounds silly, but one of the reasons why I haven't moved home since college is b/c when people did, it seems they always got married and I am afraid of that. More than that- I feel like by staying put while still young, I am compromising something. But I think that by examining what it means to be a woman being used by God at this age and determining where, outside of single groups, women fit in the church will help me to become solid and steady and, hopefully work thru the desire to keep moving.

...I loved being invested in a church where my talents had use and where I could use them all. I know that was the hardest part for me when I moved away for college and I just never found a place where I could invest because everything since then has been temporary- everything but a few relationships. I feel like without my roots, I just slowly disintegrated.

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Hopefully this will help you understand why I'm moving.