I hadn't been this nervous since my first day of middle school. I walked through the green and white doors of what was formerly a girl scout house and found myself in an ocean of teenagers. I recognized a good number of them: there was Blake and Nate playing foosball in the corner, and Cory and Courtney circled around on the couches with some other girls, laughing and giggling, probably playing M.A.S.H. or talking about who they thought was the cutest boy in the youth group. I didn't have the guts to go say hi to any of them, or worse, introduce myself to someone new, so I quickly scurried off to the individual chairs placed all in a row, awaiting their sermon from the youth pastor. I sat there alone cursing myself for coming early. I just sat there awkwardly staring around the room (we didn't have cell phones back then to be occuppied with), looked at my fingernails, went to the bathroom, came back, and a few minutes later the other kids started to file in and sit down. The youth pastor came on stage and gave a hearty welcome, made a few jokes, then instructed everyone to greet the kids around them. I turned around behind me and saw the familiar brunette hair and glasses. "Hi! I'm Courtney!," she said. "Hi, I'm Tiffany," I stammered. "Where do you go to school?" she politely asked. "Berean," I replied. "Oh, cool," she said. "I know some people that go there." "Really? Who do---" The youth pastor cut me off and had all of us return to our seats. He then continued on by calling some kids on stage for a game and then went in to his sermon and thirty minutes later, he dismissed us. A lot of kids stuck around to play games and chat, but I made a beeline straight for the door, never to return again.
Under normal circumstances I would have been thrilled that somebody even talked to me, and I would have at least given the youth group another chance. But this, this hurt too deeply. It hurt deeply because not only did I know Courtney, I knew her siblings and her parents. I was in the church nursery with her, and spent the last ten years of my life going to Sunday School and Awanas with her. My fifth grade year, we went to a weekend camp together. The same could be said of over half of the kids there that night. Yet none of them said hi to me, and the only one that did had no idea who I was. It's painful enough to feel like a loser in a room full of teenagers, but to have gone to church with the same kids for what amounted to my entire life and realize that you had been invisible all those years is a whole new level of pain. At first, I tried to blame it on puberty. Maybe they truly didn't recognize me. Maybe I looked more different than I thought. After all, 5th grade Tiffany had A-cups and short blond hair, but 6th grade Tiffany had B-cups, short blond hair, and glasses. Maybe my glasses were hiding my true identity, like Clark Kent's did? But over time I grew to accept that it wasn't me at all, it was them being teenagers caught up in their own world. Focused more on fitting in than including.
My Dad had begged me to go to youth group that night. I hadn't been in church in a year, since my parents separated towards the end of 5th grade. I was too embarrassed and thought that church was only for people in whole families. Surely I was too broken to belong in a church? And as it turns out, I was too broken, and I wouldn't be back in a church for another four years.
Part of me knew that the church should have been there for me and my family when it all fell apart, but another part of me always felt like we deserved to be outcasts. After all, we couldn't keep it together. My parents couldn't get along and didn't love each other anymore and I couldn't go to sleep without crying. How could I go to church anymore with a smile on my face when inside I was so wounded? The easiest solution was to just not go anymore. If I didn't go to church, I wouldn't have to pretend. Problem solved. And unfortunately, the church didn't hesitate to accommodate that decision. I remember getting a few cards from my Sunday School teachers saying "We Missed You!", but those faded away with time. There were a few occasions where I had sporadically returned to my Sunday School class after receiving the cards, but every time I found myself having to pretend, and even worse, everyone else pretended right along with me. I thought surely people knew that my family was broken, but nobody ever said anything. It was always the elephant in the room. What I needed was for someone to say, "I'm sorry your parents are getting divorced" or to ask "How are you doing? What can I do to help? Do you need to talk?" but instead I got a resounding silence. Soon I became nothing but the shadow of a memory there, and in just a year's time I found out that to them I had never even existed.
I always wondered if perhaps the church truly didn't know that my parents had separated and divorced two years later. I wondered if I misplaced the blame. Maybe my parents just never told anyone and our circumstances went completely undetected because of it. Maybe no one mentioned the divorce or asked how I or my family was because they had no idea that anything was wrong. In hindsight, and having also talked to my Dad about it, I suppose that's partially true. My parents naturally didn't publicize their failure. They had talked to the pastor and in time family and close friends, but strangely enough the word didn't spread like you would expect it to in the church. On the one hand, it's a comfort to know that my family didn't become the gossip subject of an entire church, as I had originally expected it to, but on the other hand the lack of pertinent information about my family led to us being ignored in a crisis and having no one minister to us in our time of need. I suppose I can't cast all the blame on the church, as my Dad and Mom themselves didn't advertise our situation or reach out for help, but at the same time, someone should have noticed that my Mom had gone missing from church, and eventually my brother and I.
Though my parents didn't advertise our brokenness, they also didn't hide it. If someone asked, they would tell. But unfortunately, by the time anyone bothered to ask where my Mom was, it was far too late. And really, only two people in the entire church ever bothered to ask. The first was a couple whose daughter was in my Sunday School class. "We haven't seen Laura in a while. How is she?," they innocently asked. "Well, Laura and I actually got a divorce, so that's why you haven't seen her in a while," my Dad bluntly explained. "Oh. We're so sorry." This was at least two years after my parents first separated. The next time someone would ask about my Mom was 5 years later.
My family wasn't THAT Christian family who was in the church every time the door was open, but we weren't a holiday-only church-going family either. My Dad was consistent and went every single Sunday while my mom, brother, and I probably went 2 to 3 times a month, missing a Sunday or two on account of really liking sleep. My Dad taught Sunday School when I was a kid and even taught a couple of my classes throughout the years, and he was also an Awana leader for a year or two as well. My Mom sang in the choir and I think worked in the nursery for a little while. We went to some church functions but missed others, and that was pretty much our pattern for the 10 years we were there.
As my Dad so perfectly put it: "What did the church do right? Nothing. What did the church do wrong? Nothing." As I myself would put it: What did the church do at all? Nothing. And I think that is what hurt the most: the silence. Feeling completely alone and isolated and having no one ever acknowledge my brokenness, our brokenness.
When it comes to divorce, the church handles it poorly. It goes largely ignored and entirely unpreached upon. Few churches have support groups for couples going through a divorce, and in the ones that do the people only remain in the group until they begin dating again or remarry, whereupon they reassimilate into the church as a family. The people who are forgotten are the children of divorce, and the single parents who do not ever marry again, who choose a life of celibacy. Whereupon we used to be a part of the church, we quickly realize that we no longer are. We are forgotten and we just don't belong anymore.
Take my Dad, for instance, who has been single for 18 years now and has chosen that life of his own volition. I often accuse him of being antisocial at church. He is a faithful Christian who faithfully attends church every Sunday, yet he sneaks in on Sunday morning and sneaks out avoiding most social interactions. Every now and then he'll volunteer. He'll be a greeter at the back door where all the other introverts, homebodies, and latecomers sneak in, he'll work with young adults and connect with the "outcasts" of the group, sometimes he'll do ministry on his own like connecting with a program that mentors international students at the local university. He is quiet and unassuming and prefers to serve and give anonymously, without any recognition, and because of this he is not well known in the church. No one would ever think to nominate him to be an elder or deacon, even though he perfectly fits the description, and even if they did nominate him he'd turn them down. He wouldn't want the attention, nor the pressure. But despite his faithfulness, he just kind of gets the shaft when it comes to church. He is a divorced introvert nearing his 60s with grown kids and no interest in remarrying. He is a bit of a misfit, and it's not because he's strange...the church just doesn't have a place for him. He can't go to the Sunday School class centered around building your marriage, or the class on parenting. He's too old and too recovered for the singles and divorced classes (if the church even has one) and he's too young for the elderly class. He just doesn't fit in anywhere, and it's not for lack of trying, as I have sadly so often assumed throughout the years. He has tried and attended and served where he can, but in the end, the church doesn't really know how to deal with anything other than family units. Many churches are learning and creating support groups for divorcees and single moms, but the single dad? I don't think the church has every even considered how to serve single dads, or how to give them opportunities to serve, and I doubt they ever will.
I used to be so frustrated at my Dad because I thought he wasn't being outgoing enough, he wasn't willing to venture outside of his comfort zone in church and be active in the ways I thought he should be active, but little did I realize that every time he enters those doors he IS outside of his comfort zone. Choosing to go week after week despite being an "outcast," despite all of the hurtful things pastors and people have said to him in the past, despite all of the schisms he's witnessed, and despite the fact that the church has never really done anything for him or to serve him...THAT is true courage and commitment and faithfulness. And though I'm sure that God has taught him much through it all and refined him by fire again and again, I'd be lying if I said I'm not frustrated and angry at the church. For him and for me.
I know that church isn't about me and having all my needs met...I've heard that sermon a million times. I've been told again and again that it's more important for me to serve and invest in others, and believe me, I've done that again and again. More than most people. I've been in ministry. I know what it's like to pour your heart and soul into the church. But when you've spent your entire life in church and not only faithfully served, but watched your Dad and your Mom and your brother serve and yet not once has the church ever helped you or any of them in a real time of need or crisis, something's wrong, and you aren't the problem. If my family is a testament of anything, it's that the church is poorly equipped to deal with broken people from broken families. If it takes two years for a church to notice 3 of its long-time members is gone, something is wrong. If no one bothers to ask the little girl whose parents just divorced if she's okay, something is wrong. If not a single friend in your church ever shows up to help your parents in a crisis, and their excuse is that they don't want to "choose sides," something is wrong. Do better, church. Just do better.
I'm not asking for more classes or more sermons. I'm just asking for you to be there. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. Be a listening ear to those who are hurting. Be a support system that we can rely on when our world falls apart. Allow broken people to serve without being stigmatized as the "divorced guy" or the assumed "wild child." And if you're going to call yourself a church family, then let us be a part of your family. Invite us over for dinner. Help us move, even if you don't agree with the reason for that move being divorce. Ask us how we're doing and mean it. Write us encouraging letters and e-mails, not long ones with bullet points as to why divorce is a sin. Stop judging us and just freaking love us. Because seriously, church, if you had loved us it would have made all the difference.
But thankfully, while you didn't love us, Jesus did. And He taught us more about grace and love than you ever possibly could have, so much that we forgave you and continue to do so every time you disappoint us and aren't there. He taught us that serving Jesus isn't the same thing as serving the church, and by allowing us to know what it felt like to be judged, he opened our hearts up to care about and love people who aren't like us and don't make all of what we deem to be the "right" decisions. Yes, I forgive you church, because God has forgiven me for my many sins and for all of the times I have been a hypocrite and haven't been there for hurting people like me. But just because I forgive you, it doesn't mean I wholly trust you, and I probably never will. But please, church, recognize that there are broken people and broken families among you and just do better.
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