Hello readers. It is always nice to spend time with you. I have been pondering so many things and I will get to some of that in upcoming posts. For now, I want to reflect on the gradual evolution of this blog. It started as a safe place for me to grapple with the parts of my faith that were no longer working for me. Where I could do the important work of deconstruction. I am still deconstructing and also beginning the process of reconstruction. Adding in rather than only tossing out. It feels positive. This adding and not exclusively tossing.
The Open Table Church is opening me up to a new kind of faith. A faith expressing itself in love, radical love. It has been healing for me. Leaving the faith of my mother and living in the suppose, the wonder, and the maybe. No bureaucracy to navigate, no board meetings to wait for, no forms to fill out, just freedom to wonder and hope.
This is where my deconstruction has brought me. Not the place where I build my altar and stay but an important marker in my personal authenticity project. Through this process, I have become painfully aware of how entwined my family of origin is to my understanding of faith, God, love, and myself.
Readers, I am going to continue to explore the crossroads of faith and family, that is a given, but I am moving toward healing from the myriad of ways my family has and continues to inform and restrict my life. This blog is for anyone who has begun, is in the process, or has completed family of origin work. It is for those on the outside wondering if what they feel is wrong or ungrateful. It is for those who found themselves in a place where going no-contact was their only option. And for those who know someone who is going through this now.
I have long been a believer that no one gets out of childhood without scars. I believe your parents can have done their best AND you not have gotten what you needed. To recognize the things that have formed us and inform us in negative ways is not to cast blame but to simply name the elephant in the room.
Authenticity requires that we acknowledge our hurts, the neglect, and the harshness of our own stories. It is in our honest and vulnerable opening to our past that we can see how our families have shaped us and decide for ourselves as adults if that is how we want to continue. Without this important seeing we cannot go in a different direction. We will simply repeat the patterns we have learned.
I encourage you to share this blog with anyone who might benefit from following a fellow sojourner on the healing journey. Healing from church hurt, healing from family and generational pain, healing from the past.
This blog will continue to evolve and grow and change as I will continue to grow myself. I would love to hear from you. You can leave a comment below or message me directly. Until next time, Annie