The Great Stripping Away (or—how I lost some of my faith)
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Thankful Notes (#23)
I will always think of this past year as the Great Stripping Away. There were things I intentionally chose to remove from my life, there were things that just happened naturally and in their season, and there were things that felt more forceful, not in my control… more like a taking rather than a giving or letting go.
This past year…
We sold our big 3,000sf home of 10 years in the neighborhood where Ashah grew up
We gave away most of our furniture
I gave away 3/4 of my clothing
My dad started having memory problems
Ashah graduated / turned 18 / has boyfriend / is heading to college – including a study abroad program
We began a complete gut-and-remodel of our little lake house while living in it… which included no heat or water during the snow storm and power outage this winter
We had to move out for some days when the staircase was gutted (leaving no access to bedrooms and the only remaining usable bathroom)
The main level of our house had no walls, no insulation, no lights, etc. for a while
I slept on a cot in the construction zone for a month or two
We had no kitchen, no way to prepare food at home other than with a microwave
We ran out of money to pay contractors and had to borrow in order to keep going
We began a remodel on our rental house so we could sell it
We sold our rental house
We decided to close our Kent campus after some significant setbacks – the youth pastor left to work at another church and took much of the band and our workforce with him; at the same time, an elder/pastor left because of a pending divorce
The church I grew up in, now a multi-site megachurch in our community, hired our youth pastor without any prior contact or conversation with me. Our youth pastor left to work at one of their campuses and took… Read More