July 4, 2025
I'm not keeping this blog up to date anymore but the past year has had some significant events, which involve loss and tremendous pain, and a new bright light that has keeps me laughing and exhausted.
Both 2024 and 2025 have been difficult years. With #70 coming up in 8 months, I am starting to really feel my age. I have been mostly homebound for the past two years (since July of 2023) when my second round of pretty horrific church abuse caused me to retreat. The end date of that period is just a week away and I hope to reclaim at least some of my life, and possibly move. It will depend on if there is ANYTHING by way of explanation, apology or regret for the five years of abuse I've endured (6 from a church in South Bend who I'm still legally entangled with) and two from the church I loved so much in Goshen, but all fell apart when one of the pastors there decided to contact a pathological liar in the previous church). These last two years have gotten me deeply involved with several outstanding ministries that are geared toward people who have been abused in the church. I am far from alone but I wonder at times if I am even human because I've never heard a story like mine.
Mid July, 2023 up until July, 2025 (now), things tended to pile up in a short time. My health deteriorated, I was banned from my church without explanation after two pastors refused to speak to me or pray with me, and sabotaged by a pastor there on two occasions. That caused me to retreat into my home for about 18 months; a self imposed exile to become stable and safe again and to understand what authors like Chuck DeGroat (WHEN NARCICISSM COMES TO CHURH), Diane Langford, Allison Cook, KJ Ramsey - not to mention journalists like Julie Roys have uncovered, and bloggers (dozens of them) like Adam Young, Brian Lee, Curt Thompson, Geoff Holsclof, speak of. I am on the EDGE of breaking free from that two year exile and Daniel flew in this past week to support me through this transition and also help me for a week after knee revision surgery (now postponed until January due to significant water damage on the main floor of my home). If I can tolerate the heat and the pain, we are hoping to take a trip to KY, West Virginia, and Ohio as soon as that July 11 date passes.
Through it all, my canine companions have been my best friends and therapists, but also brought tremendous loss. Scarlett Rose developed Inflammatory Bowel Disease in early May of 2024 and died on July 15, 2024 after a final weekend on pain killers and being held in my arms. She was such a sweet, easy girl and Zak and I both missed her terribly. The blow that I could have never imagined came on January 8, 2025 when Zak and I, having just returned from a trip to North Carolina, went for a walk one morning, came home, he crawled in his bed (as usual) for a nap while I went upstairs to shower and get ready for the day. When I came downstairs a couple hours later, I found him just like he always slept - but blue, stiff and obviously deceased. He was totally healthy and nothing was determined to be the cause of his sudden death at the age of just 11. He was my kindred spirit, my best friend, the one I unloaded so many tears on and thought I could never live without. Six months later, I am still in a state of shock, just like I'm still in a state of shock over what the pastors at Sugar Grove did to me on July 6, 2023. I thought that maybe I would take a year to travel and possibly relocate before getting another dog. I made it two weeks. Zak died on January 8, and on January 24 a 4 month old, curious, spunky handful of energy entered my life and has kept me enamored and totally exhausted for the last six months. Ember Blaze is a handful, to say the least; much more than any of my other dogs ever were. Her curiosity, affection and compulsion to chew (ANYTHING) has kept me very busy, very entertained and I can't imagine life without her. It has taken six months for me to get her to sit still long enough for me to take a good picture of her because she never stops moving! But she is improving, she loves me to death, and wants so much to be a good girls. She will lick you to death and pounce on you when you least expect it. Your food is never safe, and your shoes (or any footwear) WILL BE DESTROYED if you don't put it out of her reach. This has been a hot summer so far and I found out quickly that she LOVES the water. I bought a $7 kiddie pool at Walmart that she loves, and today she got to swim in the St. Joseph River. A bit later, I finally got her to pose for me and got a good picture of my beautiful 10 month old girl who is very much still a puppy. Neither one of us can live without the other, so I pray that we pass away around the same time.
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