{"id":137,"date":"2008-04-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-19T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/2008\/04\/on-valleys-in-the-christian-life.html"},"modified":"2011-04-23T21:36:01","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T01:36:01","slug":"on-valleys-in-the-christian-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/04\/on-valleys-in-the-christian-life.html","title":{"rendered":"On Valleys In The Christian Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Tomorrow I will be sworn into membership of the church I\u2019ve been going to since summer. It\u2019s going to be the first church that I\u2019ve belonged to since my parents split up.
\nNow I dunno what it is, maybe It\u2019s \u201cfear of commitment\u201d only instead of girls I have it with churches, I have no idea but all of a sudden I\u2019m not sure I want to be part of this church at all.
\nThere\u2019s drama in the college group. The community that I once thought was so incredible seems to be turning it\u2019s back on me. People are mad at me for things I didn\u2019t say, but heard I did from other people.
\nEverybody I know there has some kind of problem they hadn\u2019t told me about. The Jr. High department hasn\u2019t called back in over a month about whether they are going to hire me as their intern. The service I go to hasn\u2019t had the deep theology I started attending for in months. And the trip to Africa has now prevented me from an incredible opportunity at a summer camp.
\nI\u2019m suddenly tempted to pack up and move to Australia! It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!
\nSo I went to my old church\u2026 To visit.
\nI went to the church that I left because of it\u2019s watery theology and the awkward ties that were created there because of my parents.
\nI went to the church where all my friends from high school who never went on to college stayed behind to see if there might be any redemptive substance I could get from the community I had invested so much in.
\n\u2026The service was as expected, the anonymity was tempting\u2026 But my old friends were there.
\nThey have the jobs I wish I had.
\nOne\u2019s a Jr. High Coordinator\u2026 I can\u2019t be an intern. The other\u2019s a IT Tech.. I got fired from that job\u2026.
\n\u2026I kept sleeping in, because I would miss the alarm clock…Because I had sleep apnea\u2026
\nOh yeah I was also diagnosed with sleep apnea this week\u2026 so that nice!!!
\nAnd now I\u2019m sitting here alone, utterly unsatisfied with myself, terribly displeased with my life, and where it\u2019s going, and confused because I thought I\u2019d given it away to God a long time ago
\nHow can I be so inadequate when all I want to do is be the least?
\nWhere do I return to the father when I\u2019m the son that stayed home?
\nIsn\u2019t this supposed to be the time when I stop making footprints because you carry me?
\nThere has to be some reason that cheesy poem is popular.
\nIsn\u2019t your strength supposed to be being made perfect somehow?
\nIsn\u2019t there some kind of strong tower I could run into?
\nBut I see no easy fix on the horizon. I believe in a realist god that immerses us totally in this world and interacts holistically and that\u2019s exactly how I\u2019m experiencing him.
\nAt least the lost can go out and get wasted!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow I will be sworn into membership of the church I\u2019ve been going to since summer. It\u2019s going to be the first church that I\u2019ve belonged to since my parents split up. Now I dunno what it is, maybe It\u2019s \u201cfear of commitment\u201d only instead of girls I have it with churches, I have no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,54],"tags":[164,44,163],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-2","category-theology","tag-dark-night-of-the-soul","tag-lamentation","tag-sad"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Valleys In The Christian Life - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/04\/on-valleys-in-the-christian-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Valleys In The Christian Life - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tomorrow I will be sworn into membership of the church I\u2019ve been going to since summer. 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