Conflict, Conflict go away, Come again never.

Recently, I have been struggling with staying engaged in the middle of tension or conflict. And I hate conflict. More than anything Blue and Orange this week.

Recently I retook strengths finder for the third time. Four of my strengths stayed the same: Responsibility, Achiever, Competition, and Analytical. But I got a new one: Harmony. As my top strength. I nearly vomited. Figuratively speaking.

Harmony? Are you kidding me? It’s so…so “Disney princess, cute and cuddly, let’s play with woodland creatures and sing about how great our lives are” harmony.

But the more I read about it, the more I began to understand it and see it present in my life. See, I hate conflict. I’m pretty sure I can count the number of people that have heard me yell at them [soccer pitch and family excluded] or even express a need for conflict resolution.

I hate conflict so much that I crave harmony and will do whatever it takes to achieve it. Even if it means pretending there isn’t a conflict. Conflict makes me uncomfortable. The tension of unresolved issues and the gaping hole of an absent solution give me slight anxiety. I don’t want to deal with it.

Even tax season has tension [I am a tax account if you didn’t know]. There is tension between not letting my teams and clients down at work and not letting my friends down outside of work. There is enough tension that in order to feel like I can make it through busy season, I have to avoid the tension all together otherwise the stress of work + the tension of finding balance [and potentially failing] = crazy, crazy Amanda.

So I just put my head down, claim “Busy season! Don’t talk to me!” and just work until April so that I don’t have to engage the tension. When I know that I cannot achieve harmony, or at least it is extremely difficult, I go into a minor shutdown mode.

But anyway, my busy season habits and goals to fix them are another post for another day…maybe sometime in May.

Work life balance is not the only place I am feeling called to engage conflict.

Our church is currently going through a “transition”. Transition is a nice word for being in a period of waiting for the next step. But that waiting period is being prolonged and is causing tension due to uncertainty. Essentially, now many people have come to understand “transition” to mean “no one knows what the [heck] is going on.” Last week I started writing this poem:

This circular debate
Is leading me to hate
The words out of his mouth
Of wait
Wait
Wait

There is frustration
And stagnation
In repetitive
Conversation

Too many things seem to not be moving
Which only leads to proving
That we must start excluding
To feel safe in our own

[…]

I will admit that my resistance
Is from my perceived lack of persistence
You did not try to sell me
You did not even compel me
and therefore it is your fault
That I think that I owe you nothing

I can blame this bitterness on the visibility
of church dirty laundry
I can blame this bitterness on the church vision
that has become such a quandary

But at the end of the day, I am choosing bitterness

[…]

I have responded to God to say that I am sinful
but I have not admitted to you to confess that I am vengeful

No one meant this as evil
But we perceive it as so
And what we perceive as evil
God intends for good so let go!

Let go of the theories to conspire
And the need to maliciously lurk
Give God the benefit of the doubt
That he is at work

Let go of the past
Let go of selfish expectations
Let go of the things that cause us to hurl misplaced condemnations

We have been broken
So that we can be scattered
We are the church of acts
Do you see how less these little things have mattered

While I am here
I will not just take up space
I will not let this become a place
Be Full of Complaining and griping
About the wait
Wait
Wait

Don’t evaluate or judge too harshly just yet. It’s not done. It’s lacking…a process.

We have been in “transition” for a year and half and counting. And by now many people are getting antsy, distrustful of leadership, both corporately and locally, and generally feeling abandoned.  You’d think that the longer we sit and wait on God, the more sensitive we would be to his voice. Instead, since few have heard a clear voice, many people are deciding to use their own, which is causing more tension due to lack of trust and/or questioning motives.

This transition is becoming heavy. It is a common topic these day. More than common. It’s practically a staple topic. I think in the last few weeks, a day has not gone by that a conversation about the church has not violated my ears.

I say violated only to communicate a point. Because I am tired. [Not tired in the sense of rolling my eyes and being impatient. But tired in the sense of being emotionally drained and exhausted] This constant tension of dissatisfaction and distrust of this transition without a solution in sight is becoming heavy and I am tired of being reminded that we are in a period of tension. I am tired of trying to keep up with the discussions and debates and stay engaged in a community that is becoming defined by conflict.

*I agree that if there is something wrong, we need to talk about it. But I am also a fan of finding a solution, not just talking about a problem for that sake of hearing one's one voice and opinions. 

[I am tired, but I am not giving up or checking out. As I mentioned earlier, I am in my own season of learning how to engage conflict. Not peace in the Middle East conflict, but conflict that arises from the tension of waiting that is so easy to be unaware of until I am yelling at my boyfriend because he won’t stop talking about the church that he loves dearly. Yay for the things that remind us we need that learning process to become healthy people]

But if there is one thing more tension inducing than the word “transition” are the words “here from the beginning”. Our church is young, so we don’t know any better, but drawing lines in the sand based on who was here from the beginning and who joined later and who had a hard season of redemption where they had left and then returned is further dividing a church that is broken.

Because I was not here at the beginning, does that make me less faithful? Does that mean I don’t care as much? Does that mean I am not hurt as much?

Our church talks about family a lot. And I feel accepted and a part of that family until someone reminds me that there is an exclusive club that was here 18 months longer than me.

Maybe people don’t realize what they are doing when they repeatedly mention “here from the beginning”. And maybe I am the only one that is hurt by it or feels pushed to the side. But it makes me feel excluded. And there is tension in being excluded.

Not that this is a new turn of events, but in the past year, the theme of exclusion has been digging deeper into my fear of being unwanted. I have been left of Facebook event invites, birthday party invites, wedding invites, lunch plans, etc. 

I feel like I am standing on the outside of a metaphoric window, looking in at a party that I was not invited to, but thought that I was a part of .                                                                                                                                           

I by no means feel entitled to be invited and a part of everything…well maybe in my little self-centered world I do…sometimes…but really I don’t.

But being excluded is uncomfortable, let alone being constantly reminded of that exclusion. 

I want with all my being to hear God say it’s time to move forward, to move out of this tension of waiting and being excluded, which are themes in more than one area of my life than just church and for longer than this past year and half. I long to be able to move into a season of resolution and peace. But those are not the words I am hearing.

I am hearing “Wait”.

So I will wait.

And I will engage the tension of waiting.