Chapter 101: Resurrection Day

Summer is simply the best. 

The sun, the intoxicating warm balmy air, the sound of the leaves ever fluttering in the breeze, the heady smell of suntan oil being applied by Cabana Boy Raul, his dark muscles rippling in the golden afternoon sun, smelling like a Pina Colada as he rubs oil on my aching… wait a sec, I was carried away thinking about all things Summer, a smorgasbord of sensory delights spilling from the bounty of a much closer sun. 

Right now, it’s Spring, a time of rebirth, new beginnings, exciting starts. And I am ready to roll in it all, toss myself into the meadow of tender new grass popping up from the ground. Bonus: it’s finally nice enough to have lunch in the warm air, OUTSIDE. If I seem unreasonably excited about this, remember, I live in Wisconsin. I just finished chipping myself out of a block of January ice, an aging Neanderthal coming back to life after a frigid season buried in permafrost. It’s finally over, and I’m ready to bask in the much warmer April heat wave. I’m happily mowing down a trendy technicolor salad with bits of odd everything in it, twelve bucks worth of overpriced lawnmower trimmings, whilst enjoying the company of my very good friend. We are seated outside at a cafe enjoying the temporary benevolence of the sun.  My companion has known me forever, and we have been chatting about my time in the church, my years of leading worship, and the craziness that has happened since I’ve left. 

 I’m about to get the bonus Easter Egg of a lifetime. She looks at me intently. 

“You know, you’re still a spiritual leader.”

I stop mid-bite into the trimmings, in spite of the fact I was previously devouring it like I was on a desert island eating nothing but sand for a week. Or was that gluten free bread? Anyway, I probably have a chunk of dandelion hanging halfway out of my mouth, but I’m so shocked I don’t notice or care. 

I regroup and launch my highly intellectual counterpoint. 

“..Huh?…”

“Look at your book. You’ve been aiming at entertainment, but there’s also so much in there to help others reclaim their lives. And I know you deeply desire for others not to get caught in the trap you were in for so long. You’re still spiritually directing people, helping them, you’re just no longer in the church.”

Well. Adding some flabber to my gast, this is a shock to me. And suddenly I realize, after all of this regret, all of this kicking myself for ever getting involved with the church and a bunch of Dudes, I finally get it. 

None of it is being wasted, it’s all being used. 

I can help. 

I’m a broken Queen, tarnished crown hanging askew off one ear, standing on the roadside yelling to all who pass “Don’t go that way, it SUCKS!!” 

Every last church service, every last shitty Dude, ALL OF IT has created the me who has finally taken charge of herself, who has now written a book and a blog, who has succeeded in pulling away from the pack and creating her own life, who is able to communicate to others how damned important it is to not get in some guy’s wheelbarrow and let him cart you away from your dreams. Because there’s a whole shitload of wheelbarrow pushers out there. And they aren’t all Dudes, either. The mean girls of my story did a similar thing. They all conceal themselves behind cheap Halloween costume masks, every single one looking like a wonderful friend or partner while underneath the disguise is that same old spiritual vampire who will suck you bone dry and leave you feeling deader than a desiccated mummy, void of everything and lying forgotten in the desert. They will try to get you to climb into their wheelbarrow and relinquish control over your life, giving in to the easy way out, which is always Fulfilling Someone Else’s Dreams but Not Mine. 

I am terrifically excited to help people go ahead and NOT do this. 

In fact, as I stare beyond my forgotten salad, a vision flashes into my head. I stand in front of a room full of people, but instead of explaining life through the lens of the Bible, like I did for so many years, I’m just explaining life. Not that I know so much, but I can be the tour guide as to  where some of the potholes on the road are, so you don’t need to bend a rim like I did. My disaster has become another’s refuge, my Dude mess allows me to identify exactly what one looks like, and how to avoid it. And I realize something. 

All of those years in the Church, I learned things. 

You don’t actively study the Bible and sit through three messages a week and learn nothing about human nature. You don’t counsel people year after year, and get involved with their lives, and assist in putting their lives back together, and come out of it without knowing a few things about how life works. Not that I’m any great guru, but let’s say you spend 23 years learning how to make craft beer, and you suddenly lose your job, you probably can still go make a pretty great craft beer. If you spend two decades building homespun furniture out of tree branches, you can probably make a Lake Winnebago castle’s worth of tacky cabin furniture at the drop of a hat, birch bark and all. 

If you spend all those years doing anything to the level I was performing, according to that 10,000 hour rule guy, you are a master at that craft. And I had mastered what I did in the church, but I thought it was all for nothing, merely a wasted path that had a complete one-way dead-end impasse at the end of a journey that felt wayyy too long.  

I was wrong. 

The Bible may be the basis of Christianity, and foundation to a thousand religions, but it also contains one hell of a lot of information on how to navigate life well. 

Don’t kill each other. Hold your tongue. Wait before responding to verbal attacks. Wine can be dangerous when it swirls in the glass and makes those little legs that tell you it’s a fantastic wine, but also, you’re getting drunk tonight and may A. say inappropriate things only you think are hilarious, B. lose your keys/jacket/phone and leave your credit card at the bar or C. decide it’s a great idea to send a message to your old ex who was kind of an asshole but still really cute hey stranger! How have you been? leaving you with a big stupid social mess in the morning when you come to with pillow creases, cotton mouth, and dragon breath. 

Practical, applicable information that I was stewed in for 23 straight years, not only studying and researching it, but living out the real-life application. Not only did I learn, I also taught, advised a parade of people through a  myriad of situations, and observed a thousand more personal situations that either went really well, or went south and derailed in a spectacular shitshow that turned up on the front page of the Tiny Town newspaper, back when actual paper was a thing. 

I know people. I know homo-sapiens. 

I know more than I want to about how humanity works, as I am well aware of how close any and all of us are to cracking up, sleeping with the boss, or giving that lady in front of us at the gas station taking twenty minutes to pick out lottery numbers a good punch in the face.  We are humans, and we are decidedly imperfect. Yet we can still do amazing, incredible, world-changing things with our lives, if we just get a leash on this thing and get it to go the right direction. 

And suddenly, the 23 years I thought to be totally worthless…turns out to be extremely valuable. 

And I am here to tell you now… if YOU have time in your life that you feel was wasted, that you feel made as much sense as me shopping at a Big and Tall Emporium sale, think again. 

Revisit the past you are convinced destroyed you. 

Revisit that dead-end, Godawful  job you thought was a total waste of time, effort, and 5-hour energy shots.

Revisit those years you were bullied, or abused, or whatever you think in your life was worthless or wasted. 

And pan through that dust like a prospector in 1848, leaving no speck unturned as to the hidden gold within. 

Because I’m pretty sure right now that I have the makings of being some sort of life coach, or motivational speaker (living in a VAN down by the RIVER), or TED talker, or something. I’m not sure yet, but the words of my lunch companion that day made one thing clear. 

Like a chicken in China, everything in your life gets used. Every experience is an education that has prepared you for something, should you choose to use it in that way. All of it helped hone the person you are today. 

Grew up with an asshole stepparent? You are in the perfect place to mentor some teen with a shitty family situation. Past sexual abuse? You are specially qualified to talk to a girl who had a bad experience and feels no one can relate. Or, like me, get fired from a job you were, if anything, overqualified for? YOU…can start your own shit and edge them right out of the market. 

I had felt bad because I was bullied and had no friends in my younger years… BUT my parents had a home library chock full of classic success authors like Dale Carnegie, Earl Nightingale, and Napoleon Hill, which means when everyone else was goofing off with their friends, I was busy learning  the 80/20 rule and how to treat others so that they never leave my presence without feeling like a rockstar. I learned more about life principles before I was 12 than most study in a lifetime. But without the bullying, without the painful experience of coming home from school every day alone and in tears, the magic never happens. If I had friends to play with, I would have been hanging out with them, not reading obsessively through our huge shelf of encyclopedias and personal development literature. 

I had felt even worse when 23 years of ministry crashed and burned, a field of debris attesting to the damage done, a seeming colossal waste of life energy and a massive misdirection ending in a ruined life years later, when it seemed all of the “good” years were already used up. 

What I hadn’t seen until now was what was built in that fire… what I viewed as shrapnel turned out to be slag pulled off a veritable mine of gold I hadn’t even realized was there, until my dear friend pointed out the Captain Obvious sign: GOLD MINE. ENTER HERE. 

I’m gonna put on my miner’s light, grab a pick and see what I can pull out of them there hills! 

I have a sudden infilling of gratitude as I realize that all of the everything I’ve experienced has been a sort of training for what I am to do next. It’s perfect, and I can sense the next leg of my journey, now on the way. 

And the final phoenix in my life is rising from the ashes, better, newer, bigger, refreshed, restored… to journey through the skies and carry my life to places it never could have gone had my life not died in the first place. 

I know exactly what I need to do, and it’s time to finally do it.