Dear church...

So it's be a long time since I last managed to publish anything...many a post lies in my drafts, but for fear of judgement and rejection they remain just that...and it's got me thinking. The church does long term illness so badly. I am sure there are pockets of people out there who've worked it out and do it well...but the majority of my friends with long term conditions (physical or mental) have been hurt and damaged by the church and that makes me so incredibly sad. I believe it comes from ignorance, and I hope it's not intentional so it's time for me to speak up...

How do you love and care for someone who won't get better?

1. Keep them in community. When living with long term illness - small group may be the only social contact a person has in a week. Living with long term illness is isolating and lonely. Please don't isolate us further.

2. Keep in contact. A simple text can make a very big difference. We believe we are a burden and may find it hard to reach out to you - it doesn't mean we don't want to. 

3. Don't make promises you can't keep. Just don't. Don't say you'll be there, if you won't be. Don't offer to attend appointments and then double book yourself. Don't say you'll never walk away and do just that. When you break your promises, you confirm that we are worthless/a burden. 

4. Let us serve. I love to serve. I am gifted with children. I love to pray and care for people - particularly new mums and vulnerable women. My depression/anxiety/connective tissue disorder do not mean I am useless. 

5. Look after yourself and let us care for you too! Friendship is mutual. Disability or no disability. 

6. Respect our boundaries and set your own. If offering support or practical help, do so because you want to, not because you feel you have to. 

I have been so deeply hurt by people in the church in the past year. I enter Holy Week with no small group, no regular social contact with the community I once belonged to, no church to serve or worship in and quite frankly I want to give up. I want to throw the towel in and turn my back on the church. It's not that easy though...because I refuse to walk away when God called me here for a purpose. And when I pray about it, He still says "stay". I cannot walk away from the church, no matter how much it hurts right now. 

I sat and sobbed on the floor of a church last weekend and multiple people looked at me and walked away. This didn't even particularly surprise me. I have come to accept a church that doesn't care when one of it's members has been damaged and broken. Today, when I reflect on it? I feel disgusted.That feels like strong language but at the same time - it feels BIG to me. I am not disgusted with any one person, but the notion that people can sit and cry in a church and leave feeling lonelier and more disconnected than ever. In a manner I feel Jesus might. He came for the lost and the broken. He chose to sit and eat with the sinners. If Jesus had walked into that church, I believe He would have knelt at the back and sobbed alongside me. He would've ignored the preaching, the music etc. His focus would've been for the lost and the broken in that room (of which I was probably not the only one!). 

I think the phrase "what would Jesus do" is really apt when thinking about how to care for people who aren't going to get better. Jesus would sit with us, cry with us, laugh with us, have fun with us, do life with us. 

I also think it is often quite a personal thing. So talk to them! For me, the combination of mental illness and physical illness leave me feeling lonely and unloved. I genuinely believe that I could disappear from my church community and not one person around me would notice or do anything about it. I believe that people actively avoid being in community with me. 

So what do I need?

Time. Even a 20 minute cuppa, or a quick text or phonecall. Let me know I'm worth your time. Show me I am loved. Community. For me the important bits here are a small group and social eating. After months being excluded, it feels really meaningful on the rare occasion I am included. Gentle persistence. My ability to trust has been decimated over the past year. I want to trust you but I am utterly petrified of being taken advantage of or abandoned. Understand that if I am defensive or evasive - it's not a reflection of our friendship, it's a reflection of the damage the past year has done. I am trying but I don't exactly have much to reassure me!

So I leave you with this quote, a vision of the church that sits SO rightly in my heart: 

"We were made to live in family, with our masks down, in authentic and connected friendships of covenant love and loyalty" - Phil Withew

Comments

  1. "I genuinely believe that I could disappear from my church community and not one person around me would notice or do anything about it."

    A harsh indictment of the friends you have around you I feel. Church community, like any relationship, has ups and downs. It can be rough, it can be beautiful, but what you feel can be said by everyone involved at one point or another regardless of circumstance. Unfortunately, much depends on what people can give. Some weeks, people can overflow with compassion and sometimes its a struggle to even show up. You can't know until you're there what the mood will be. I'm certain if you disappeared, it would be noticed and I imagine followed up on by quite a few :-)

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