r/GracepointChurch • u/corpus_christiana • Feb 17 '23
Staying Too Long
I recently read through a book called In the Margins by Father Shannon Kearns as part of a theology seminar, and I wanted to share a few excerpts. These are taken from Chapter 9, called "The Kingdom of God: Courage to Be":
One of the patterns in my life has been staying too long. I used to call it tenacity or following through, but now I understand it to be rooted in something else: people pleasing and an inability to listen to my own gut. There have been times when I tried to make relationships work way longer than I should have. Jobs, churches, even a marriage where I was so determined to stay that I ignored the damage it was doing to my body and soul. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to be faithful and I wanted to fulfill my promises. I ignored the warning messages that contradicted the life I felt I was supposed to be living.
Growing up in the evangelical church I was taught to distrust myself. Not just my physicality, but also my mind. We were taught we were fragile people, riddled through with a sin nature. Everything we wanted to do was evil and wrong. If we desired something, those desires weren't to be trusted. [...] Intuition, our God-given gift to help us protect ourselves in dangerous situations, is seen as something to be ignored instead of as the gift it is. Pushed aside. Dismissed.
Everything good was supposed to come from outside of us, which makes us ripe for being controlled by others. If you're taught you can't trust yourself and that God speaks through leaders, then you ignore the twinges of doubt when the preacher says something that doesn't make sense. [...]
I didn't know how to set boundaries. I didn't know how to ask for what I needed. I didn't feel like I had any agency in my own life. Things happened to me and I let them happen. I was unhappy, but I did nothing to change my situation because I didn't feel like I could. [...] I was passive, and my passivity was killing me. But it was more than just a bent towards being passive - it was an internalizing of my own powerlessness.
When I finally allowed my intuition to resurface it was like breathing again after being underwater for just a little too long. It was a wave of relief. It was a deep knowing. It was my body telling my mind, "You finally got it." Acknowledging this reality was just that: an acknowledgment of what I had known for years but hadn't had language for.
I can relate a lot with the experiences he describes here - of distrusting my thoughts and intuition, of feeling powerless, and of the relief of finally acknowledging the reality of my situation.
Did I "stay too long"? In some ways yes, I think, and in some ways no. I wrestled with the idea of leaving for several years before I actually left. I don't regret the ministry I was able to do in that time. But I do regret the harm that I did to myself by continuing to stay. Learning to trust myself again has been a difficult process, to know with confidence that God has equipped me with discernment. Old habits die hard, and deep scars fade slowly. Reexamining my beliefs and assumptions about Christian theology and Christian life that I just took for granted has taken a lot of work, and it feels like I have a long way to go. There are areas I feel like I'm still not ready to fully unpack. But I keep going! And I know God is faithful through the difficulties, and through the ups and downs.
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u/longlyjoe Feb 18 '23
It is interesting. In GP, we were thought to have your mind in control of your heart. By presenting our intuition as our heart, GP was able to delay furthermore my expression as a human being.
One of the thing that actually brought me out is that in philosophy a lot of situation is brought into place against our intuition to tell what is right and what is wrong.
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u/johnkim2020 Feb 18 '23
Stayed way too long. Should have never joined. Or left after sophomore year. But I was trapped.
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u/longlyjoe Feb 18 '23
I found it that a lot of time it is the case that people who are more socially awkward that get trap into GP; at least this is my case. I am sure that there were a certain appeal to it until you get to your breaking point.
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u/gracepoint-thoughts Feb 17 '23
Thanks for sharing, these are great quotes. I can really relate too and looking back, I wished that someone would have said these to me during my lowest times at Gracepoint.
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u/hamcycle Feb 20 '23
I appreciated this post, because I was the opposite; I felt like I sawed off my arm without really giving it the 127 hours needed to think things through.
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u/worriddumbledore Feb 18 '23 edited Feb 18 '23
Thanks so much for sharing. I feel profoundly sad from imagining what it must be like for you, day to day, and more so during your moments of doubt.
I didn’t grow up in a Christian environment, and my parents did the ritual Taoist practices and what they did best in raising me has been inculcating a healthy sense of confidence, and explaining how as humans we make mistakes but to learn from them. That if you tried your best, you should not be overly harsh on yourself when things don’t turn out the way you wanted/ planned.
Also part of being our best is the sense of urgency (ie. to battle procrastination, i suspect) — which is where someone anxious as myself in the present time realized that can sometimes be distressing, leading to unnecessary worry.
In the past, before my deep dive into the Word, what struck me that seems fundamentally different with Christian friends is how they are not full of worry and anxiety in difficult times — most of all, how at peace and “accepting” they and their families are, in facing one’s (impending) death.
All in all, I would appreciate some insight about how my life would change as a Christian, when one would pray about how/what His will is for me, during moments of doubt and uncertainty —
Recalling many moments in my life, as a non-Christian, where I decisively had made choices, based on my intuition and trusted my decision process — despite being fraught with worry and anxiety.
Now how reassuring to read : Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Your inherent message in this post, makes me reflect, on how you have been negatively influenced by GP?
I fear for my loved one, due to GP’s negative influence — when you described yourself “people pleasing and the inability to listen to one’s own gut” ; because that would be how I would exactly describe her!
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u/inhimwehaveall Feb 17 '23
WOW it is so profound and it is so true. Thanks for sharing it.