At The End Of Tomorrow, Looking Back

 It's been a long time.  So much has happened.  And where to start?  But I feel the need to write again because there are lessons from this life that I want shared, that I want learned.

There's the basics I could say - this and this happened, and then that, and then that.  And I probably will now.  I am not longer in a position where I can not speak what happened.  I am no longer in a situation in which I can not name the agencies who reacted the ways they did that were perhaps equal to the abuse that I lived in.

The question is whether there is value in that.

The tendency of people when they know what agency is to say, "Oh, them!" instead of question, "Is it me?"  Maybe the reason Jesus initially didn't tell His disciples in the upper room who was going to betray Him that night.  Maybe He wanted them to question their own hearts.

I'd rather leave it unnamed because I don't believe the two mission agencies who reacted like this are an aberration.  I believe they are the norm.  And that is profoundly sad.  And that compels me again to write.  Older.  Sadder. And wiser.  

I will write the lessons I wish someone had written to my younger self.  I will write the wisdom I wish someone had shared with my mission's member care people.  I will write the insights I wish my churches had known.

There's bright spots along the way.  There's learning.  There's beauty.  But there is deep pain, and there is deep error and deep betrayal by the very people who should be speaking loudly and clearly for the God who hates violence.

We can do better.

We must do better.

And to do better, some of us must tell our stories.  And others of us must listen.  So I begin here, at the end of my tomorrow, looking back.  There will be more tomorrows ahead, and I believe those tomorrows will be better, but I am at the end of this one.  

Because I have stepped out of an abusive relationship.