I don’t know if this is the “right” thing to write, or feel or do, but I know I have to do something different. I have to be honest and share my story.

The past 4 months, I’ve been “stuck” dealing with so many emotions and thoughts that I didn’t feel were “right” so I prayed and retreated. I was afraid that if I were to open the blinds so that others could see my heart and it’s brokenness, it would be wrong. Openness would show my weakness, which I’m pretty okay with, but it would also shed light on others that hurt me— which I felt wasn’t okay. I want to honor God above all else. In order to do that, I need to move from this place. In order to move from the place I’m in, I need to embrace it and where I’ve been, just long enough to let it go and keep on truckin’.

At some point or another, in order to share our story, does it not mean that we have to be honest about wrongdoings of others while also extending grace knowing that we too have done wrong and that we all fall short of the glory of God?

Maybe you’re different than me. Maybe you can smile and say, “it’s okay.” when it totally wasn’t and truly move on. Maybe you were never that invested in the first place so you can easily say, “Thank you. Next.” while swinging your Ariana Grande ponytail as you walk away. But that isn’t me, so here I go. I’m opening the blinds so the sun can finally break in.

About 5 months ago, I got married, went on an amazing honeymoon, returned from said honeymoon and got extremely ill. I was TERRIFIED. I missed an additional week of work, but even more scary, I could’ve possibly gotten pregnant while on the honeymoon. I was freaking out and doctors were suddenly concerned for me, my possible mosquito borne illness, and my possible unborn child. 

It was only 2 weeks into marriage and I already felt like a failure of a mom. What?!

‘How could I have been so reckless? Why didn’t I even think about wearing bug spray? I am so well travelled. I should’ve known better! Was having a close call with Malaria in Malawi and a Lyme disease scare in Tennessee not enough for me to learn cautiousness?!’

But—

Praise God for His graciousness, y’all. After working with multiple doctors and a lot of blood work, I truly believe God healed me and protected me. It wasn’t in a miraculous flash of light that all my symptoms went away. I just went from being unable to take my constant ‘bathroom breaks’ without my brand new husband carrying me there, a week of the highest fevers I’ve ever had, sleeping 20/24 hours a day, bleeding gums, and full body pain to slowly regaining strength, tests coming back clear, and God protected me from bringing a baby through the ordeal.

A week after I returned home from the honeymoon, I was asked if I could come to work for a quick meeting. I could’ve said no since they knew I was sick, but I missed my job and my coworkers so I came in. I was honestly afraid of what this meeting might entail. I showed up afraid that I’d lose the full-time position I had just moved into. I prepared myself with how I’d rationalize it and cope rather than throw myself in the floor and dramatically plea for them to keep me around.

I repeated in my mind, “I get it. I understand, I’ve just gone full-time and then missed a week for my wedding and honeymoon and 5 more days for some weird unknown illness. I should probably be spending my time on mystery diagnosis rather than working in a church. That makes total sense. You guys need someone in better health than my current state. Totes understand.”

 Seconds after the meeting began, with tears in my eyes, I just asked, “Am I getting fired?” My question was taken as though it were a surprise and everyone assured me, “No, you are so great at what you do! We are amazed by what you’ve been doing in your role. Honestly, we unintentionally set you up for failure by putting too much on you, and you’ve still managed to do great!” Whew! I finally breathed. “They like me! They really like me!… Woah… they actually like me better than I like myself. Praise God!”

Then, they went on to tell me about a new position they’d be moving me into and how it would benefit me and others. It was bittersweet news. My heart and mind were both fully focused on my current ministry. At the same time I realized -as a newlywed especially- more of my focus should’ve been on my husband and what would be beneficial for him. This new position would actually be better for my husband and closer to his work— meaning he could actually be more involved in the community! He’d be able to be poured into throughout the week, rather than just pouring out week after week. The bittersweetness of it all became mostly sweet when I told my precious husband the news. He was really excited and shocked that I too was so excited. 

Then, things got weird.

Ten days after I had been given the news of my new position, I shot out of bed wide awake from a dream. The feelings I had are hard to explain. I wasn’t anxious or fearful. Instead, I felt an eeriness like I knew something bad was going to happen. I won’t go into all the details about the dream (because some of it is someone else’s story to share) but in the dream I dreamt someone had made a decision that didn’t align with who I knew them to be and as a result, I was going to lose my job. I immediately told Austin. He, being used to calming my unprecedented fears, explained how that wasn’t going to happen and said, “Babe, it isn’t going to happen. They just offered you a new position. Don’t be afraid.”

The truth is, I wasn’t fearful in the typical way I had struggled with in the past. Instead, I was afraid that what I dreamed would happen and I didn’t understand why or how. That week at work, I didn’t ask anyone about my concerns. I knew that if it were true, asking someone would put them into two terrible positions. They’d be forced to share something that they weren’t allowed to share yet, or they’d have to lie. So I kept my direct questioning down to a simple, “Hey. Have you ever had a weird feeling that something bad is going to happen? Not in a fearful way, but in an eery ‘knowing’ kind of way?” 

Not 24 hours later, I was asked to meet with the 2 leaders over my soon-to-be new position. 

‘Oh gosh.. Could this really be happening? Why would it be? I hadn’t been in trouble. I mean, there are tons of reasons why they wouldn’t want me in the first place, but nothing new had happened. Had something from my sin-drenched past come up and been too much? But I had just received word about the new position I’d be starting soon. Surely not. People in the office had mentioned how excited they were for me to start my new position just yesterday. Maybe this dream was just a metaphor for something else.’

All the things raced through my head. At that point, I reached out to one of my best friends/mentor and explained everything and asked her to pray hard. This is not how I wanted to celebrate my first month of marriage, nor my husbands birthday weekend, which was only a day away.

Then it happened. I went into my meeting and just like that I was fired. 

Without warning. Without being in trouble. Without a real explanation of why other than I [suddenly] was not a good fit.

I was asked to stop everything immediately. Honestly, this made it worse. I LOVED my job. I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, but I would’ve loved to have a moment to part ways. This abruptness made me feel like I was seen as a poison that must be thrown out and washed clean of immediately. No goodbyes to co-workers. No transition time (because like I said, I hadn’t been on probation or anything). I even had meetings set up to lead right after this one. But I was told ‘someone else will take care of it’. 

Oh. My. Gosh. I can’t breathe…I can’t function. I’ve never been fired. Even when I was a hoodrat doing hoodrat things with my friends…even then I did well at my job.. what has happened?!?

. . .

I have NEVER been one to be quiet. I’m at least the 3rd generation of bold, outspoken, strong, world-changing women in my family. Really. I’ve been raised by, and around, some of the strongest women EVER. To give an example, my Granny once chewed out a lifelong friend of hers at her small conservative, country road church for making me cry. I was 20 years old (embarrassing I know) at the time, but when the old woman said people at large churches don’t know Jesus like they do at small churches, I had grown into my heart, but not yet my strength. So instead of sticking up for myself, my heart broke and I cried. When my Granny found out she spoke up for me— and the truth— no matter how bad it made her look to the rest of the crowd.

All that to say, the past 4 months, I’ve acted as though my strength hasn’t caught up to my heart. I’ve retreated into my tears as though God was going to raise my Granny from the dead just to speak truth and tell this part of my story. 

In this “hopeful” time that Granny may come back and defend me, I’ve become the weakest version of myself. I’ve avoided sharing this part of my story because I didn’t want to give ammo to everyone that already thinks Christians are crappy. I didn’t want to cause division so I thought it was best to disappear. That way, no one saw my heartbreak and anger and felt negatively towards leadership on my behalf. I thought if my husband and I just stay away while we are working through the pain, then we can return again with a smile on our face and trust organized religion once again. 

On the even more delusional side of my pain,

• I’ve gone through every possibly word/interaction/attitude/body language/etc that occurred my last 2 weeks at my job trying to to figure out what I could’ve done better…at least 500 times in the past 4 months.
• I’ve thought I could attempt the ‘fake it until you make it’ strategy and just go right back. I even had the audacity to beg my husband to do the same… so I went and cried the whole time.
• I’ve thought that EVERY time I left my house I needed to have on a full face of makeup, hair done, and look put together or everyone would think I was fired for drugs or something illegal (which I wasn’t). 
• I’ve spent at least 30 full days where I haven’t even stepped out my front door to get the mail for fear of running into someone who may ask how I was doing. Just call me Rapunzel so I can laugh about this rather than freak out.
• And sadly, I’ve missed people that I’ve refused to hang out with or keep in touch with because I couldn’t lie to them. I thought for them to see me this low would only burden them.

So whats this blog for?

It’s to embrace this place.

It’s not good. It’s far from healthy or positive, but it’s honest.

I also want to share God’s goodness and faithfulness in all of this. I breakdown in tears when I sit and think about the fact that He cared so much about how much I would be hurt by this that He warned me. I know this doesn’t happen all the time. I have had a lot of things blindside me, but this time He warned me. 

God knows my struggles (and He knows yours too). He knows all too vividly the pain of church rejection that I was already working through after my husband got fired from the church he worked at only months after I entered the picture. He knew this could break me, but He protected me. He reassured me that although His very own followers may say that I’m not a “good fit” for the job I was chosen for, He is with me and supernaturally working through me. The job He has chosen for me cannot be given or taken away by any man or organization. 

This is also an acknowledgement to everyone who has ever been hurt by the Church and felt that they had to speak up and leave or stay and silence their pain. Those aren’t the only 2 choices. They can’t be. We have to remember,

It is the most fortunate, and unfortunate, thing

that the church is made up of broken people. 

At the same time and in the same breath, this blog is to give grace to those that were a part of the decision to fire me. You are forgiven by God, so who am I to withhold forgiveness? I have made many, many, MANY mistakes in my life. I’ve made many right decisions and carried them out in the wrong way. I’ve hurt a lot of people and made a lot of bad decisions. I didn’t feel I had a “right” to the position I was in. I felt, and feel, quite the opposite. While I hope that you will hold onto the wisdom gained from how this affected my husband and I, I pray that you won’t be burdened by it. We still have love in our hearts for all of you and care for you all deeply- otherwise we’d be apathetic and have moved on by this point singing Ariana Grande. Please don’t feel weighed down by guilt of decisions made or fear for future decisions. I hope you’ll have peace in knowing that you can’t take away the calling that God has for anyone nor can you take away the platform for anyone to work in their calling. God is good and He always makes a way.