Sometimes I think about what it is like to be shunned. I really don’t like thinking about it. Even as I write the word “shunning”, I wonder if that’s the best word to use. The people who are shunning me keep saying they’re not shunning me.

As if saying that they are not, makes it not so.

If, however, it looks like shunning, and smells like it, and meets the definition… I suspect it is, indeed, shunning.

Sometimes, I’d like to know what they’re doing. Are they practicing “church discipline”? I’m not even sure what that means. Especially since they’re not my church, they’re my family. Are they “protecting” their family? I can’t imagine what they’re protecting them from since I’m dangerous only in the sense that I believe every person is a human with their own brain with which to make decisions.

Maybe that is, in fact, the most dangerous thing, maybe that’s what we all need to be protected from, people who think for themselves. Maybe we all need to be protected from seeing the joy in life, the hope and freedom that comes when you take responsibility for your own life, for your own thoughts, for your own beliefs.

This is my second Christmas being shunned by my family.

My mother, my father, and my seven younger siblings.

This is my second Christmas missing out on all the memories, the moments that I longed for the many years I was overseas.

I wonder to myself will they even think about me on that day?

Do they remember their big sister, the first year she had a camera and took pictures of everyone? There were not a lot of pictures being taken for a while, maybe our family didn’t have a camera, maybe my parents were too busy with other things to think about taking pictures. Maybe they were too tired. I don’t know. But there weren’t many pictures of holidays for a long time, and then they were a lot, because I got a camera, and loved capturing all those memories.

I wonder if my siblings know how much they were in every beat of my heart, all those years. Do they know about the gifts I would plan ahead for each of them? How I thought about what cookies everyone would like to eat, and tried to talk my mom into buying more sugar and more butter, so we could make extra of the best ones, to store in big gallon jars under the butcher block.

I wonder if they remember the year I was in China, and didn’t have the money to send them gifts, so I wrote them each a letter, and asked my dad to print it for them. I was such a young mom… with two little babies… in a cold, new country. My littlest sisters were 10 and 12 by the, I think.

I wonder if they have turned me into a devil, or just someone who doesn’t exist.

They have joined forces to make me fear I don’t exist.

Unanswered text messages and un-return phone calls. Vacant looks when I run into them out in public. Did anyone ever really know me at all? Is the person I was for 35 years suddenly gone? How did they sleep at night? I can’t imagine the pain I would feel if I kicked my child out of my life. I can’t imagine removing my child from a family photo, from our family existance. I can’t imagine anything horrible enough that I wouldn’t answer my child’s phone call.

At night sometimes, one of my children will get scared, or worried, or just wake up for no reason. They will come to my bed and climb in. One of them in particular steals my pillow, she wants a warm one, that I’ve been sleeping on, instead of the cold one next to me, waiting for a kid to climb in bed.

I think about the authority that this child has, to come get in my bed.

Never imagining for a second that would send her away. Never imagining for a second that would say “you may not ever again climb in bed with me, no matter how scared or alone you are”.

I think about how that’s the way I approach God, kind of barging in to the space God occupies. Sort of expecting that when God said “I will always be with you, even to the ends of the earth”, They meant it with all Their heart. I just take it for granted that when They said “to the heights, the depths, nothing can separate you from my love”, They meant it.

If ever the love of God was to be found in the world, don’t you think we would find it first in the love of a parent?

Every time one of my kids climbs in bed with me, I imagine myself being parented like that, even now, a grown ass woman. I think about how I am worthy of being loved like that, worthy of being safe like that.

I’m so safe inside of love, so warm, so secure. And no divorce, no opinion, no fear, will ever be able to separate me from this love.

I often try to understand why I’m being shunned. I tried to understand why anyone thinks it’s OK to treat me like this. I don’t. I never well. I actually understand less every day that I’m further away from that kind of spiritual abuse. I was talking to my counselor about this, and the word mystery was used. Accepting mystery. It’s OK if I never understand. It’s OK if they kick me out forever. Its ok if they never actually see me. I will be a better parent to my own children.

The pain I’ve experienced in being rejected, is a motivation for me, an urge to push through pain, and to try to show up every day, in love, to be with my children.

I hate Christmas for the reminder that I have been rejected. I hate Christmas for the sorrow of identifying so much with Mary and Joseph. I hate Christmas for knowing what it’s like to be turned away from a warm cozy inn, full of life and laughter and warmth. I hate Christmas for that idea I’m supposed to be grateful they sent me to sleep in a stable full of shit

I love Christmas for the pain of identifying with Mary and Joseph. I love Christmas for knowing that my house will be full of light and love, and that no one will ever be sent to sleep in the shed. I love Christmas for knowing that love and light and joy comes from the homeless… the humble.

I love Christmas for the opportunity to embrace the pain and to push on toward healing. I love Christmas for the joy of embracing the sorrow, along with the good memories. I love knowing that it’s OK for me to miss them, it’s OK to hope they miss me, it’s OK to love them, and it’s OK to be inexplicably and wildly angry they put me out of my family.

I take a lot of comfort in the stories of people who live through similar experiences. I take even more comfort in the lives of the ones for victoriously move through these experiences. I take comfort from the people who put their arms around me, and acknowledge that the pain will never go away. And tell me I will be happy, and find joy again. They tell me to love my kids, and that will help to heal my heart.

I wish I had a moral. Or a solution with which to end this post.

It’s just what it is. I don’t like it. I don’t have a nice happy ending, because I’m still right inside of this moment.

There are far too many of us, kids of fundamentalist evangelical families, who have been put out of our families of origin. For them, who have comforted me in this season, I am thankful.