As I have already talked openly about, my blog is my place to be transparent, stay anonymous, and become courageous.
But I wanted to have a name. So for reasons I won't be disclosing here, I came up with the name Ellen. I jumped in the shower and mulled over the name. (God love her, but this has nothing to do with Ellen Degeneres)
I liked it, and it worked for me. Simple, normal, yet unique. Things I want to be.
But since I didn't want to pick a name without total meaning, I decided to look it up:
"In Anglo-Saxon the meaning of the name Ellen is: Courage." (Source)
I'm not a courageous person. I'm nervous, I'm scared, I'm terrified. I don't think I am beautiful, I don't think I am smart, and I don't think I have anything of value to offer the world. But here the name I picked, unknowingly was telling me that's not true.
You may never know my real name, but that's ok.
Just call me Ellen.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
An Open Letter to the Church: Abuse is There
**WARNING** This post addresses sexual abuse and may cause triggers. This isn't meant to be a scare tactic, it's a wake up call.
Dear Church,
I grew up in church.
Every Sunday, every Wednesday night dinner, every VBS. Every fundraiser function, children's event, or family retreat: we were there. I was raised this way, my parents were raised this way and I dare say most if not all of my grandparents were raised this way. I grew up in the epitome of Christian culture. Anyone on the outside looking in wouldn't ever know something was amiss. Truthfully, it took me a long time to know something was "amiss".
"Amiss" puts it too lightly: It took me years to learn enough about myself and the world around me to know that a piece of my childhood had gone horribly wrong. And not one person from the church would have known.
Why? Because the church at large is ignorant. I believe, by choice. WAKE UP CHURCH, abuse is happening within your walls!
The church is ignorant by choice? That's pretty harsh, isn't it? No. It isn't. In the weeks, months and years following my realization, and beginning piecing everything together, I was trying to work through a lot. I reached out for anything, I sought, I begged and I pleaded. I was grasping for anything to help me sort through this darkness I had just been thrust into. I wanted a hand to hold, to help me sort through the tragedies in my mind. I told many youth leaders and friends. I was shuffled off, or at best was "dealt with" in one, neat, tidy conversation. The rest of my family was working through things as well, and it all just, felt so dark. There was no one giving me light. I was just lost, and alone. A little girl, existing in my big, dark, and now abusive world.
All I wanted, needed, and begged for was someone to help me sort through the voices I had screaming in my head. Voices of guilt, shame, and darkness in general...they plagued me. At 15, I just needed someone to speak truth to me. I still need someone to speak truth to me. But when I looked, begged, and asked, there was no one.
The church was, and in so many ways still is, ill-equipped to deal with sexual abuse. Harder still was and is the fact that so often children in the church suffer abuse at the hands of people who's faces are regulars in the church.
I don't have an answer to the problem, but please start by recognizing that it is a problem. There are children in your churches, suffering abuse at the hands of someone they should be able to trust.
What are you doing for them? You have an opportunity to protect the least of these. Protect them.
Dear Church,
I grew up in church.
Every Sunday, every Wednesday night dinner, every VBS. Every fundraiser function, children's event, or family retreat: we were there. I was raised this way, my parents were raised this way and I dare say most if not all of my grandparents were raised this way. I grew up in the epitome of Christian culture. Anyone on the outside looking in wouldn't ever know something was amiss. Truthfully, it took me a long time to know something was "amiss".
"Amiss" puts it too lightly: It took me years to learn enough about myself and the world around me to know that a piece of my childhood had gone horribly wrong. And not one person from the church would have known.
Why? Because the church at large is ignorant. I believe, by choice. WAKE UP CHURCH, abuse is happening within your walls!
The church is ignorant by choice? That's pretty harsh, isn't it? No. It isn't. In the weeks, months and years following my realization, and beginning piecing everything together, I was trying to work through a lot. I reached out for anything, I sought, I begged and I pleaded. I was grasping for anything to help me sort through this darkness I had just been thrust into. I wanted a hand to hold, to help me sort through the tragedies in my mind. I told many youth leaders and friends. I was shuffled off, or at best was "dealt with" in one, neat, tidy conversation. The rest of my family was working through things as well, and it all just, felt so dark. There was no one giving me light. I was just lost, and alone. A little girl, existing in my big, dark, and now abusive world.
All I wanted, needed, and begged for was someone to help me sort through the voices I had screaming in my head. Voices of guilt, shame, and darkness in general...they plagued me. At 15, I just needed someone to speak truth to me. I still need someone to speak truth to me. But when I looked, begged, and asked, there was no one.
The church was, and in so many ways still is, ill-equipped to deal with sexual abuse. Harder still was and is the fact that so often children in the church suffer abuse at the hands of people who's faces are regulars in the church.
I don't have an answer to the problem, but please start by recognizing that it is a problem. There are children in your churches, suffering abuse at the hands of someone they should be able to trust.
What are you doing for them? You have an opportunity to protect the least of these. Protect them.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Joy comes now, not "when..."
I finally got a new job.
I had been working the same one for years, and I really thought that everything in my life would change once my job description did. I thought for sure that more friends, more opportunities, and more money waited at the end of my next submitted application.
It didn't.
The long and short of it? The grass isn't greener on the other side. I started the new job, and found that the long and somewhat brutal hours were incredibly taxing. The pay is meh and the days are long and sometimes full of rude, smelly, or belligerent customers.
In other news, I've been talking to someone. ("talking").
I have waited for so long to be here, in this exciting, on-the-edge-of-all-things-new point of my life. And yet here I am, and after a time, the job feels like more than I signed up for, and pre-relationship blues nag at my mind.
Why isn't it enough? I thought it would be enough!
It can't be enough.
These things never promised to satisfy, and if they did, they lied. These things don't satisfy because they aren't designed to. Our hearts and our souls were created to be satisfied by something, Someone, so much more.
Our souls crave eternity. At some point, for most people, you look in the mirror and ask yourself, "what the heck am I doing?" The job sucks, the house isn't right, the friends abandoned you, the kids left home, and your marriage is falling through the cracks.
We can't truly enjoy any of these things until we learn that our Joy comes first from Christ.
Paul says in Philippians 4:11, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances..."
When Christ is our source of joy, in addition to the fact that we are able to love the people and enjoy them more, we no longer view these other blessings in our lives as things we deserve, but rather as gifts He has chosen to give us.
Oh friends, we don't deserve any of this.
The new job, the new relationship, the new house, the new baby. It doesn't matter how long or hard you have prayed, in light of eternity, we don't deserve them.
But we get them. So make Jesus your first JOY, so that when you get these things, you can truly enjoy them.
Otherwise, we have put our stock in joy in the gift rather than the Giver.
I love the end of the quote "the grass is greener where you water it."
Find joy where you are, no matter where you are, and then we may count it all as pure joy! (See James 1:2)
I had been working the same one for years, and I really thought that everything in my life would change once my job description did. I thought for sure that more friends, more opportunities, and more money waited at the end of my next submitted application.
It didn't.
The long and short of it? The grass isn't greener on the other side. I started the new job, and found that the long and somewhat brutal hours were incredibly taxing. The pay is meh and the days are long and sometimes full of rude, smelly, or belligerent customers.
In other news, I've been talking to someone. ("talking").
I have waited for so long to be here, in this exciting, on-the-edge-of-all-things-new point of my life. And yet here I am, and after a time, the job feels like more than I signed up for, and pre-relationship blues nag at my mind.
Why isn't it enough? I thought it would be enough!
It can't be enough.
These things never promised to satisfy, and if they did, they lied. These things don't satisfy because they aren't designed to. Our hearts and our souls were created to be satisfied by something, Someone, so much more.
Our souls crave eternity. At some point, for most people, you look in the mirror and ask yourself, "what the heck am I doing?" The job sucks, the house isn't right, the friends abandoned you, the kids left home, and your marriage is falling through the cracks.
We can't truly enjoy any of these things until we learn that our Joy comes first from Christ.
Paul says in Philippians 4:11, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances..."
When Christ is our source of joy, in addition to the fact that we are able to love the people and enjoy them more, we no longer view these other blessings in our lives as things we deserve, but rather as gifts He has chosen to give us.
Oh friends, we don't deserve any of this.
The new job, the new relationship, the new house, the new baby. It doesn't matter how long or hard you have prayed, in light of eternity, we don't deserve them.
But we get them. So make Jesus your first JOY, so that when you get these things, you can truly enjoy them.
Otherwise, we have put our stock in joy in the gift rather than the Giver.
I love the end of the quote "the grass is greener where you water it."
Find joy where you are, no matter where you are, and then we may count it all as pure joy! (See James 1:2)
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