07-23-06 Post-Element Post #1

Yeah, that title is confusing. Just the way I like it. :^)

Anyway, this past Sunday was our second Element worship gathering, and I think it went pretty well. There was a lot of work involved with getting all the video stuff done, but it was worth it. I really enjoyed listening to people tell their stories, and I think that is something there should be more of in a church, don't you think? It seems like relationships in a church setting can stay pretty surfacey if there isn't an opportunity to have the chance to share your story.

During the "Wind can be Healing" segment, I was about ready to go up myself again (I had already shared a story during the first one, hoping to get the ball rolling) - thankfully, Rochelle and Jay both shared their stories, which were very good. However, I thought it would be a good idea for me to post what I was going to share if no one else got up to share:

My mother battled lymphoma for four years before passing away when I was eighteen years old. She passed away on my middle brother's birthday, something that has been hard on him since that day. When you're eighteen years old, you have all of these changes that take place in your life, i.e. leaving home for school, figuring out what you want to do with your life, etc. - that it's quite easy to take your pain and suppress it for a long time. Which is what I did. Four months after my mom died, I left my home state of Colorado and headed out to California. I had a couple of good friends who also were attending the same college, so familiarity was a good thing.

However, I noticed towards the end of my freshman year, that my life was beginning to slowly unravel. I had not dealt with my mother's death, and it was beginning to fray the edges of who I was and who I had become. I started becoming reclusive and distant from everyone and found myself at local parks and the beach by myself just staring at inanimate objects for hours. I returned home for the summer and bottled up my pain again by joining a band (I was the drummer, if you could believe that) and working at Dairy Queen. This was a good schedule for me because I spent very little time with my family and thus was not often reminded of the missing family member. I would sleep in until 1 p.m., work from 2 p.m. until 12 a.m., then it was off to practice (we actually practiced at a morgue, because one of the band member's dads was a mortician) for a few hours and then off to bed again.

My sophomore year began back in California, and of course me and my friends started trying to hit on the new freshmen girls. I became pretty good friends with a few of them, including one named Amy. As I started to get to know her, I found out some stuff about her life - including the fact that her mother was going through the exact same cancer situation that my mom did. I really wanted to just run away from her and not have to deal with the pain. But over a couple of weeks, the Holy Spirit kept on prodding me and telling me that the only way I was going to be able to heal from my mother's death was to help Amy cope with her mom's struggle with cancer (and ultimately, dying from it). It was one of the toughest times of my life. As Amy would share with me her struggles, anger, and resignation - I found myself reliving the exact same emotions.

The Holy Spirit was right in the end, though. When I attended Amy's mother's funeral and was able to help her through the healing process, I felt myself healing. Sometimes you have to help others around you heal for you to be able to heal as well.