So, now it's over and i do not know what to do!
For the past 30 or so years, all my energy has been in helping my husband to be a good pastor. Together with him and our children, choosing to love the people in the congregations we served, whether they loved us back or not - and often they didn't.
We met in college when I was in my first (and only) year, he was in his final year. It was love at first sight for me, but he took a little bit of convincing, his heart fresh broken from a recent breakup.
I went with him when he went off to graduate school seminary. We endeavoured to prepare ourselves to be the best pastoral team we could be. We got counselling to deal with personal issues, we learned from whomever would teach us.
I had come from a vibrant and joy filled church, eager to take my gifts out into the world and serve the Lord with them. Strange, though, how all the churches that my husband was called to serve were very NOT vibrant, nor were they as eager to learn and grow as we were. It seemed like every new church we worked in hated us stronger than the previous one.
Now, there were friends, we are honest, sincere, humble, likeable people who really care about other people. We always make friends every where we go. But we also make a special kind of friend who is not really a friend. They are attracted to the office, not to us. And it is these "friends" who always turn on us in the end when things get messy.
Someday I would like to learn how to recognize when I meet someone whether they are going to be a good friend or a harmful friend. I could just cut them out of my life right away and not bother setting myself up for betrayal.
Anyway, I am at a loss.
This time, the church went so far as to fire my husband even though he has no other job lined up. He had done nothing wrong per se, only he hadn't befriended the "right' people. The wealthy people. We are attracted to the fringe members - people on the edge who do not feel they really belong in the heart of the church. Those are the ones we sought out and befriended.
I am hurt. My husband is hurt. Our kids are hurt. I don't understand how the people we helped to take care of could do this to us, without a care as to how we will live without a job and without training for anything other than pastoring.
Three months ago we finally bit the bullet and bought ourselves a decent car even though it meant we'd be making payments on it for the next three years.
Two months ago the spokesman for the church council announced to the congregation that the elected leaders had voted to let my husband go, "it is time for some new blood!" they said, with excited voices and enthusiastic postures. It didn't matter to them that we were devastated, or that half the congregation was shocked, surprised and dismayed. All that mattered was that they were getting rid of their tired old pastor and will be getting a fresh new one.
One month ago we moved out of the parsonage. It was kind of them to give us a month to pack. We had nowhere to go, so we put our things in storage and rented a cheap room at a little motel. Thirty years of dedicated service, always putting others first, and here we are. No home, no job prospects, no church community, no family - we live far away from our extended family, a car that is not paid for, and a family full of broken hearts and lost friendships.
And now we are stuck.
Still grieving what we have lost, the friends who betrayed us, the friends who minimize how devastating this is for us, the friends who try to make us see how hard this is for the church.
Why should I still care about how hard this stupid decision is for that church? I am reeling with how much it has demolished my life! My husband no longer wants to pastor churches, so even if a church were to manage to overcome the fact that he was unceremoniously fired and offer him a position anyway, he would not accept it.
We are done.
We are so over organized religion.
Thirty years of dancing the dance. Serving controlling and conservative churches because there are so many of them, when before he was a pastor we always were involved with lively and liberal churches.
Now we are free to worship where we want to worship instead of where the calling leads.
But now we no longer want to be involved in any way with the structure of modern churches.
We need some time.
Some time to grieve.
Some time to reflect.
Some time to remember who we really are after years of so much discouragement. So many people always telling everyone in our family that we are not quite good enough. Where do they get off telling us that just because we are the pastors family? Do they really not realize that we are well meaning people with feelings that hurt and hearts that break?
Some time to look to the future.
Some time to make some plans for the future.
Some time to celebrate our new-found freedom.
But where?
Someone told me about a place where we could come and get away from all the fear and confusion and just be there, around gentle people, in nature, living simply, paying only what we can for the privilege of living there.
I've written a letter and applied for all of us. We could not afford college, so our kids are all still living with us. None of them have found significant others yet, and two of them are too sick to work.
Yes.
They fired my husband though he had just bought a car and had two sick children who depended on him for support, and though he had no other job lined up. Just because they want someone new.
Anyway, I've written and asked if the five of us can come there for a time and reflect upon the purpose of our five lives.
It is located on Vanocuver Island in a secret location. Once we are settled there, we will of course learn where that location is, but they do not advertise it.
