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The Church Doesn't Need Me Anymore
As Vintage21 Church has grown, one aspect I have struggled with is that the church no longer needs me. When there were only a hundred or so of us, we could see our handiwork in the physical space. We looked at a wall and knew that Scooby spent countless hours on the carpentry. We looked up at the massive burlap tree in the rafters and saw the scratches on our knuckles from stuffing the burlap sacks the day before. We…
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Church Cynicism
When Vintage21 opened the doors to a “what do you look for in a church?” group discussion in 2002, I was there. I moved with the church from a theater in Cary, to a school in Cary, to Harget Street, to Oberlin Street and then back to Harget Street. I’ve been with it as it grew from 40 to 1400 people and now is even larger. Early on, I viewed it as my church, the place for me to settle.…
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In Darkness
In darkness, I am seen. The most profound moments of my life happen in bed (If I could end the sentence there, it would just be too funny) … while I can’t sleep and am left alone with my thoughts. Since high school, I have struggled with insomnia and what I believe to be depression, and night time has always served as a space for wrestling with life. There were two moments in the first year of college that I…
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Not About Me
Eight years ago, I was lying on a bed with my head the largest square pillow I had ever seen. The windows of the bedroom were open slightly – a compromise of mosquitoes and stagnant heat of the non-air conditioned communist block housing in the middle of the summer. I was alone in the room, and my host Romanian family was just outside the door, but my thoughts were alone, my emotions were alone, the only interruptions were the sounds…
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Identity Crisis of Faith
In the past 28 months, I’ve been pregnant for just under 50% of the time, with one healthy boy to show for it. Of the time I was not pregnant, I was sleep deprived for about 25-30% of the time. Part of that time was coupled with feeling nearly driven over the edge by insomnia. So to ask me, “are things getting back to normal?”, I’d have to ask you, “normal as in sleep deprived adjusting to being a new…
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Red Light/Green Light – When to Try Again
It has been two weeks since my d&c. The meeting with my doctor went as well as could be expected. The pathology and my post-op exam did not show any abnormalities. My doctor said that while some doctors recommend waiting until after the first cycle before trying to get pregnant for time to heal but primarily to be able to determine the due date, he was of the mindset that the body is ready when it’s ready (and won’t allow…
