My name is still Katie and I am still a recovering evangelical. I have been attempting to work through my 9th and 10th steps, but let’s be real here: this shit is tough.
It has been two months since I posted step 8. I haven’t forgotten, but I have been busy. One child started school the other wanted to be homeschooled, we were sick (thankfully not Covid), harvest… and I am tired. But this was always in the side of my brain. Haunting me. Trying to free me.
Make a list of people you have wronged then go make amends. I am 35 years old, I know I have hurt, offended, and wronged many people. But the one person I kept trying to ignore, to get to those truly wounded people, was myself. I am truly wounded. Do we allow ourselves the time and space to examine our own wounds? What a mind-f&€k. That being said, if I have hurt you and have yet to make amends, I need to know so that I can do so and would appreciate a pm to begin the process. Because that is the truth here, forgiveness is a process. A day after day beginning again process.
So why was I ignoring myself? I am frustrated and hurt over my past self. This is my open letter to myself, an attempt to make amends and heal the person I am becoming out of the person I was.
Dear Me, You have grown so much and I am in awe of the you that you are. But you have done that in spite of my best efforts, because I have hindered you. When you had that small bell going off in your head, I silenced you by accepting the easy answers. When you were presented with uncomfortable circumstances, I responded with things that you never even believed deep down. I spoke badly of you instead of encouraging you. I allowed you to be less than because I was told you were. And when you experienced tough emotions, I told you to keep them bottled up.
Part of it was self preservation. Part of it was willful indoctrination. Part of it was a hunger to fit into a community that didn’t want me as I was. Or maybe I was too scared to show myself and defend myself as I was. Most of it was that I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know how to be you. To be free— as in actual freedom. Not that “freedom by way of subjugation” that was floating around masked as a sacred assembly. I didn’t know how to step into the strength that was in me. I didn’t know how to think critically outside of the prescribed theology. I was scared and wanted so desperately to belong.
I am so sorry I didn’t trust you more.
I am sorry I didn’t stand up for us more.
I am sorry I tried to squeeze us into that cookie cutter when it was obvious that I didn’t fit.
I am sorry I didn’t recognize or believe in your inherent worth.
I am sorry that I didn’t break those destructive patterns sooner.
You deserved better and I am actively working to be better… to be kind with you. Gentle and loving with you. Vulnerable with you. And honest with you.
With so much love and appreciation, ~Me
Growing up isn’t easy. Growing up and craving to belong to a gathering while always feeling like my nose is stuck to the outside of the glass window left me willing to do just about anything. But those are just excuses.
I am not on the outside. But I am also not on the inside either. I am happily walking down the street. Because what I have begun to see is that the spirit of God is in you and it is in me. Yes, you. Yes, me. I have been listening to Richard Rohr read “The Art of Letting Go,” and in it he describes that it may in fact be beneficial to stop using the term ‘God’ for 50 years. 50 whole years of no one using ‘God,’ and instead use the moniker ‘the Holy Mystery.’
I didn’t recognize this otherness as a part of myself until I became a parent. Before it was an in dwelling of the Holy Spirit that could only happen as a result of laying on of hands…. Which now makes me feel very uncomfortable. But each time I held my babies and stared into their beautiful eyes, I knew I was holding more than just flesh and bones, I was holding the ever continuing breath of this Holy Mystery.
I wish I had been kinder to myself and others when I was younger. I wish I exhibited more patience with my kids yesterday. This is by no means a case of “Hey, Katie has got life down pat! Look at how great she is doing!” Hell. No. But this does mean my eyes are continually catching more and more glimpses of myself fully alive and that in turn reveals another aspect to this great and glorious Mystery.
“The glory of God is man fully alive.” ~ credit given to St. Irenaeus
Songs that I have on repeat:
Open Ears 