The Stages of Grief in Church

We have been in Indiana five months now. Since things have settled a bit, I think some emotional stuff has snuck up on me. We do live in a bigger town, but it is by no means a large city. I can tell they have moved toward upgrading their healthcare system with a new hospital with a lot of clinics related to the the hospital group. In doing so, they have attracted a lot of specialty offices and mental healthcare is one of those. We also have really good insurance now, so just about everyone takes our insurance.

Here is the problem I am facing. This town is high poverty, high drug use and high mental illness. That means, it is a high medicaid use area. In the push to decrease drug use with the opioid crisis, most mental healthcare providers accept medicaid and their schedules are jam packed for months.

The other part of the problem is me. When I find a provider with openings, I am told that my case is too complex for the available providers. Complex in diagnosis and severity of my trauma. I am a high liability case for most providers and they just don't want to jump into that.

So, I'm going to try to do my best to process the nagging things that have been bringing me down lately.

We (really me) have taken a hiatus from church hunting. There is the fact that the sheer exhaustion of church hunting so many times in the past four years has gotten to me. Then there is seeing the ugliness of churches when you are a first time visitor. Don't get me wrong, some do this very well. But, the truth is most don't. Most of the time visitors aren't very well received. I have a theory about this. Going to church is not a priority for some and think this is an increasing problem. When your regular members only go a couple times a year, you never really know who is a visitor and who is a member who is never there.

Anyway, now that my husband is pushing to go back to church, I have been forced to face my feelings about why I don't want any part of it. I honestly think it is because I am still in the stages of grief over leaving our very first church.

I have been through denial, when we knew we needed to leave and stayed a few extra months. I have been through anger. Lots of it. In a weird way, I've been through bargaining. "If we go here, I'll be happy because it's not the other place."

Honestly, I have lived in acceptance for a while now. I am happy for that church. They appear to be thriving and the people there still love it. I think God wants strong, thriving churches. I have accepted that we didn't belong there. It was right for a time, but God was right to move us on from there.

Someone told me once that a church split was like a divorce. I can see that. I saw a lot of my friends handle it that way. For me, it felt more like a war. Both sides passionately stood their ground, staking claim to certain people as other friends left. I know that's a bit dramatic, but it's what it was like for me as I watched the conflicted people around me. By the way, it's a war nobody wins.

When I went through my stages of grief, I was mostly far, far away from the church. I was going through a sadness of relationships falling apart. I blamed it all on that. I think that allowed me to skip over the depression or sadness part. I may have briefly stepped through that stage, but nothing like now.

I am sad. I'm not sad about the church. I meant what I said, I'm happy for them. I am sad for what I lost.

In leaving the church and struggling through my strong emotions, I lost a lot of friends. Sure, I made mistakes. I was an immature Christian going through something very painful in the church. I am positive that I did or said things that pissed people off. Nobody confronted me. Nobody corrected me. It was very much as if they just stopped caring and couldn't be rid of me fast enough.

That might not be what happened, but it was my perception. You know what else never happened? Grace, forgiveness, understanding, loving...

That's the part causing my sadness. I'm not talking about people who were acquaintances. I mean people who walked through dark days with me. People who we spent a great deal of time with over several years. People we did intimate bible study with at the church. People we sat with in small groups. People who knew us, knew our hearts and history. We lived life with these people as our family for over five years.

It is crazy because it's not even only people who stayed at the church. Relationships fell apart with people who left because we left at different times or for different reasons.

It's very hard for me still today when someone I considered to be like a brother or sister has zero to do with me. It also make social media a nightmare.

I'm not sure what it takes for this stage to go away. While church affiliation should not determine relationships, it really has. So, I can't see those friendships changing at this point. I'm ready for it to be over though. Now! It's such a deep sadness, grieving, mourning.

No doubt, this experience has grown me and stretched me in so many ways. I'm not sure I would ever wish for it to not have happened. But, this loss lingers still. It sits in my heart. It's part of the wall that prevents me from wanting to get involved with another church.

It's April Already?

I can't believe another month has just flown by so fast.

Several important things took place in the past 30-45 days.

We took our first weekend get away trip to Tennessee at the beginning of March. I am so glad we did. It was a much needed time away. We shared it with friends who were going through some high stress with house selling and buying. We did have one hiccup of having sick dogs from a new food. They typically don't have problems with food switches that are short term. However, we dealt with lots and lots of pooping and puking for about a week.

Earlier in the month, my only living grandpa had a heart attack. He ended up having six bypasses and is currently doing well at home. He had a great recovery. That probably deserves a post all of it's own because there was a lot of stuff that came out of that time and communicating with secondary family members.

I continue to not have any contact with my family. That too deserves a post of it's own. I see through social media that my nephew is getting ready to graduate and head to college. I also have a niece who should be doing the same, but I don't really know.

We finally, just last week, finalized our settlement with the moving company. What a mess! That's about all I can say. We've never had a flawless move and don't believe that ever happens. But this one, it has been the worst. Our settlement was nearly $5000 and there weren't too many items over $40 that were a complete loss. That's kind of an indication of just how much stuff was damaged. Lots! I should probably write a post about all the things to do and not do in a move and how to handle the damage claim part of it.

We continue to fight with the builder over our fireplace. It still isn't right. Sadly, it's probably 7-8 on the list of major things wrong with the house. We still have to deal with everything else in due time. It doesn't look like the grass is coming in very well either, although we are still very much in winter. Our back yard is a constant mud puddle and thus, so is our house. The dogs just bring so much in! The builder has made it to where water run off and rain from every house on our block runs right into our back yard. Ugh! We will be getting a professional in soon to lay some rock paths to allow the water flow without it just being a muddy river. I'm not sure we would ever want to buy a brand new house again.

This past weekend was Easter. We spent most of the long weekend on the go. It was all good though. It was great to have the time together. We visited a church yesterday where the pastor was awesome, but the drive distance is not. Church hasn't been high on my priority list, but again, that's probably another post all of it's own.