California for Stefani

I am currently sitting at home enjoying a cup of coffee with some SF Peppermint syrup in it…trying to pretend it is a Starbucks Peppermint Mocha.   We had a great day yesterday.  Visited with my parents and my “adopted” sister Conny joined us for a nice relaxing visit.  Breakfast was blueberry blinzes and then dinner was chicken of the sea,  some real chicken and cheese smokies, along with rice and broccoli.  We don’t ever starve at my parents place.  Next week is Christmas and then we spend a few nights there enjoying all the festivities.

In the evening, my sister was helping out at the Children’s Christmas play at Eden Mennonite Church, which is the church I grew up in.  I have many great memories from there and some not so good memories, which is all a part of life and what molds us to have the opinions that we have.  There were lots of people that I knew from my childhood days.  Most of them where my parents generation, but there was a handful of the “kids” that I grew up with.   I got to say HI to my other “Barg” family – not related to them other than through marriage.  Dwayne hasn’t changed a bit and Dennis reminded me of his dad.   Dennis was my age…he was always nice to me if it was just me and him…when his friends where around, that changed.  Granted that is how most of my age group was anyway, so I really didn’t do much with my youth group.   I have said it before…i HATED being a teenager.   The church youth group treated me no differently than my school classmates. 

Church has always been an issue for me.  I grew up in a church that liked things a certain way (I think most churches are that way anyway).  I became a Christian at a very young age, probably around 4 or 5.  But in our church, you couldn’t be baptized until you were a teen, and then you had to do a speech in front of the church.  So for obvious reasons, I did not get baptized until I was married and I went to a different church to get baptized…in my own way…in a local lake, in November…yup, it was freezing cold, but totally worth it.  Even my baptism caused problems.  The current pastor of the church I was going to (a different Mennonite church) refused to do the baptism with the pastor that did do it.   Guess he was pissed that I choose to do it at a different denomination than Mennonite.  At least he showed up, which was nice…gotta look at the bright side right?

When I was 16, I realized that if I stayed going to Eden, I would probably never find a decent Christian guy that I wasn’t related to…so I went across the road to Glad Tidings…and there I met Doug (a post all on it’s own LOL).  I went to the youth group there for awhile and even though people where nicer to me, I was surprised how many “do’s and don’ts” they had.  They talked too much about premarital sex and how bad it was, bla, bla, bla…and most of the age group that Doug was with, where pregnant (before marriage).  Guess that didn’t work well LOL.  In Eden, we really didn’t go overboard on the premarital sex talk…they didn’t make a big issue about it.  It was assumed I think, that you just didn’t do it.  I don’t recall anyone having kids before marriage in my group of youth.   I do appreciate that from Eden that they didn’t go overboard on all the do’s and don’ts.  I think they taught more on why you didn’t have premarital sex and not just say “don’t do it”.   If you were wondering, yes I waited until marriage…to me that just makes sense.

Church has never gone well for me…but there are aspects that I miss.  I love the worship with music and such.  I enjoy meeting like minded people and getting to know them.  Eventually it all falls apart when I realize that every church has politics that bug me.  Doug has troubles getting involved in the music aspect of church…it always seems to be some crazy hoops to jump to get into the music department of church.  I find the like minded people that I enjoy, don’t want to spend time with us, so we always landed up leaving the Sunday church service, alone and sad.  Nobody would invited us over, etc.  So we just stopped going.  I can’t even  count how many times we would leave church crying.   Yes, we tried to invite people over, and sometimes they came over, but if a relationship is only one sided, you eventually just stop.    We haven’t given up on the church idea, but for now, we just aren’t trying too hard.   I hate rules/politics of church.  I have been to churches that believe you can’t do the chorus of a song more than once, I have been to a church where the whole service is done to the minute.  There is no room for spontaneous words.  I have been to a church where you sing a chorus for half an hour and have people running around with flags.  I have been to a church where the worship is wonderful and the music flows great.  I have been to a church where there is a group of people that go there, that make me want to run away crying in sadness.  All these churches have God in it…I won’t deny that.  I just don’t like rules and politics…someday I will get over it and try again. 

Church has good parts and bad parts…that is life here on earth.  Just because we are Christians, doesn’t mean we are perfect.  I think I would like to go to a church that is ok with the LGBT community though…granted churches have always changed.  I remember years ago, Eden wasn’t ok with divorced people going to it.  The church Doug went to, didn’t allow smokers to play music on the stage (bad influence???)…and women in leadership…I just won’t talk about that on how that has changed LOL.  So churches do change their thinking and eventually the LGBT community will be accepted in many churches.  I don’t care who you are, God loves everyone and Jesus was sent here for EVERYONE.  I still do believe in the sanctity of marriage though, and long term relationships.  I don’t care who you are, if you are in a relationship with someone, you stay true to them.   Guess that is a different post LOL.

I haven’t given up on Church…but I am not worried about if we don’t go right now.  We are going to a Toby Mac concert in February…that will be a good worship fest for me.  Then next July is Creationfest…so I get my fill of worship music.  I listen to worship music all the time, so I am always singing with God/Jesus in my car.  I don’t need church for that, but it would be nice to do that every so often…so we won’t give up on church, we just won’t let others make us feel guilty for not going

I don’t think I understand real anger.  The uncontrollable version that makes you do things that you regret after.  I remember as a teen when I was dating Doug (yes anger came often at this point)…and I would get angry at him for something he did.  I wanted to throw things but I always would say to myself “why throw it and break it, because in a few days, all will be ok and then I will still have a broken item”.  It actually irritated me sometimes because I just couldn’t be angry with no regrets. 

I read stories online about people taking their anger out on others (the service industry).  People then will post about the reasons for this anger and that we should feel sorry for them because they have lost someone dear to them, etc.  I just don’t get that…no matter your sorrow or your anger, why do others have to be the brunt end of it?  I remember when Doug had his stroke and I thought he was dying (yes, I truly thought he was dying)…I can’t even imagine going somewhere and taking it out on someone else.   Why would I be justified for my bad behaviour just because someone is dying in my life?   Sure, we make mistakes and I would assume that if I did do something like that, I would apologize right away and not wait until it got all over social media LOL.  I do think as a Christian, I need to choose my behaviour very carefully.  My life is an example of my Christianity.  I don’t go out preaching to the world, but I can show the world that being a Christian makes me a better person (for myself of course).  

Doug had anger issues when I met him, and also long into our marriage (which is why I write off the first 7 years of our marriage LOL).  He just couldn’t control what he said and then would have to apologize after.  I think what people need to understand is that every word that gets said (even if you didn’t mean it), still hurts the heart.   You can’t erase what you said and usually sticks in ones soul for a long time.  If you look at our situation as an example, I have written off many years of our marriage…and a lot of this is due to the anger he had.  We survived it and we still love each other.  But it sure would have been nicer if our marriage had been without those struggles.  Sure some people will say it made our marriage stronger…I think those people who say that are “full of crap”.   Good thing none of our friends would say that to our face because I think they would not be our friends any more LOL. 

Anger brings regrets (in my opinion).  I got really angry last Wednesday…so angry that I felt my blood pressure rising A LOT!!  But, I didn’t want to take it out on the poor Napa parts guy or the border guard.  It wasn’t the parts guy fault that the part was ordered from the wrong place, and the border guard just wouldn’t care and would throw me in jail   I had to sit in my car and breath (50 min border wait made that possible).   I had to make sure to calm down…for health reasons and so I didn’t take it out on others.  I guess I see no excuse for taking my anger out on others.  I can grumble, post on facebook, etc, but that is talk and I still treat others with respect.  I do know anger stems from a person past and how we are taught to deal with anger.  I know everybody comes from a different situation in life and may have learnt to deal with anger differently.  But honestly, how do we feel when someone takes their anger out on us?  Why would we want to do that to others. 

Obviously everyone has different issues and I am not talking about my friends and family about this issue.  Other than our marriage, I am talking about things I have read online about why people say the things they do to others when angry.  I guess it frustrates me that people would be so mean to others and then use the excuse that they are dealing with a traumatic situation in their life.  I feel bad for the traumatic situation but it doesn’t mean you have to be mean to someone…does it?  Honestly, just start crying…that should do it for most people…I think you will get lots of compassion that way.  I will say that I have been blessed by growing up in a home that let us deal with our emotions properly and that anger really wasn’t prevalent in our home.  I think our relationship with God/Jesus has taught us how to treat others.  Yup, we make mistakes…and hopefully when we make a  mistake we can ask for forgiveness and get it.  I have forgiven Doug (of course)…that is a part of marriage and also that is a part of surviving on this evil earth, also it is required to forgive because if we don’t forgive others, we can’t be forgiven by God/Jesus, and that would just suck!!!

I am not tooting my own horn, not by any stretch of the imagination.  I am just voicing my frustrations on what I read online…and this is just my opinion.  I am not saying anyone is a worse Christian than someone else.  I am giving my experience with dealing with anger and how it effects me.   I think it ultimately comes down on how we are raised to deal with anger.  I think God/Jesus can do plenty of healing in ones life when it comes to our emotions, but that doesn’t always mean it goes away fully.  I know Doug has learned a lot and God/Jesus has calmed his soul.   But it didn’t happen overnight and it involved many, many fights in our lives.  But life here on this earth was never promised to be easy, so we muddle through it, trust God that we will always be loved no matter what, and we surround ourselves with people who encourage us, love us and just plain old appreciate who we are.