Rambling: a little of church, a little of home, a little complaining, a little worry

I've realized lately that I've gotten really impatient with the Church. I think some of it might be spending two years in a town so consumed by Christianity that it all tends to fall into either the charismatic-all-feeling-no-thought venue or the doctrinal-traditional-thought-only category. It's like all of the church is either a form of modern Romanticism or modern Enlightenment. There is no balance; few churches take an approach that applies the past and its doctines, traditions, and learning (including pertinent Old and New Testament history, language, and theology) to a modern world. People are either all about the past and tradition, or all about the contemporary--no one is concerned with merging the two to see how Christ enters and fits into our world and culture today as he did two thousand years ago. It just doesn't make sense to me why everyone in the Church either wants to disregard all Biblical knowledge and learning to talk entirely about feelings about God, or wants to remove themselves entirely from the modern day and pretend to exist in a sixteenth century church that has nothing to do with present day or its struggles. God gave us both the ability to THINK and the ability to FEEL, so why do we insist on using those capabilities only in isolation??

This has come to light more recently, because as I've moved back to my hometown, I have begun to look around for a possible new church to join. I still very much love the church of my parents (which, incidentally, became their church on account of my presence there as a teenager), but I feel like my community from high school I once knew there has all moved away and I'm ready to find a new one in a new place. I'm not the same person I was six years ago when I graduated high school--I know that is true for everyone who grows up--but I think it is especially true of me. I have always matured much more slowly than my peers, and I'm only really just learning to be a sensible adult (a process I should have begun six years ago).

Returning to my hometown is strange, in a lot of ways, because I only know a small part of it. Most kids live in a bubble when they're growing up in middle-class America; I lived something more akin to a tiny glass ornament. Finally somewhat free of that environment, I'm rediscovering my childhood world as a different place than I knew. It's strange, but oddly satisfying. 

[Not my mom, but actually kind-of my mom]

At the same time, though, being home is forcing the shattering of that glass orb. Being permanently back under my parents' roof for the first time in six years is not what I intended--or intend. I'm desperate to move out into my own apartment, and probably not for the reasons you think. I will not be throwing house parties, I do not have any desire to keep a non-existent private relationship private, and as much as I do not like hurting or antagonizing my mother, I do not have fears of doing so. The real reason I'm so ready to leave is two-fold: 1. I am perpetually treated and fawned over as a high school teenager, making it difficult to come and go and take care of myself as necessary; 2. I am simultaneously in a situation where I feel compelled while living here to pitch in with all the cooking, cleaning, errands, and chores that my mother does not get to (i.e. nearly everything). I love my mother, but she is unfortunately unable to learn or acquire a system of organization and efficient task management that minimizes her time and energy consumption. 

Whenever my sister and I are home on vacations, we end up doing all the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. And I don't mind pitching in--she needs the help, clearly, and I'm here, so I should--but I am not excited about coming home from a full day of first year teaching every day and having to run to the grocery store to cook for the entire family while washing my high school brother's clothes and putting together lesson plans and resources for the next day. I want to help, but past a certain point, I shouldn't have to. I need to have the distance so I can worry about my own career and future--not just their present well-being. I need some parts of my life that are JUST MINE--that are separate and fully belonging to me and not to others. I need a space that I can designate as where MY time and energy is, where I'm not just a high schooler coming home to do homework and chores.

The barrier to all this, is, of course, my parents. I know they mean well by encouraging me to stay with them--they want to enable me to save money, which does, of course, have a lot of practicality and wisdom behind it. But I just don't know if in the end the savings is worth the frustration of spending the next twelve months (probably multiple times that) hovering in a limbo where I'm supposed to play submissive child and supportive housewife at the same time instead of learning to be an independent adult. And that's the other worry--if I don't leave now, when will I? Will I ever? I have a very real fear of dying in this same house an old maid having lived with my parents for the remainders of their lives. I have a very real fear of never growing up, because I'm not respected or allowed to.

I love my parents, I do. I am very thankful for them. They are truly wonderful, kind, loving people, and they mean only to give me the very best. But I do not want that for my future. 

The real question is, what does God want for my future? Sheesh, I wish I knew. I had hoped he would give me a job somewhere out-of-town, somewhere that would keep me a safe distance from home to allow me to have the independence they're not going to give me here, while still being able to see and love on them. It would have been healthier for everyone all around, that's for sure. But of all places, the Lord brought me to a job back here. I don't think He wants me to fight it, because I've been there, done that, plenty of times. I'm a pro at creating conflict and ultimately dishonoring and destroying my relationship with my parents. I'm not going to repeat those mistakes to wage a war for independence that will not succeed at anything except damaging everyone around me. That's unwise and unloving and honestly, I'm too resigned these days to try. 

So what is He trying to teach me? Patience? Kindness? Submission? I have no idea. But I know that all of me is confused, because putting me here runs completely contrary to me learning to FINALLY grow up. I thought I was making gains in that area in Nashville, but in just two weeks, I feel like that's all dissipated. 

I'm continuing to pray for clarity from God as to what he wants me to do, to learn, by being back under my parents' jurisdiction. But I'm very much still in the dark. 

This must have been like what Jonah was thinking when he was asked to go to Nineveh, except that I'm not being sent away, I'm being shut up--and that I'm thankfully nowhere near an ocean where I can be swallowed by a 200,000-pound marine mammal. But relating to the story does give me pause--and worry. If I'm not going to be swallowed up by a giant fish, then what is going to swallow me?? Fear? Rejection? Loss? Self-loathing?

I know you must want me to grow, Lord, because you always do. But I must admit I have little comprehension of what I'm supposed to grow here. This is not fertile ground.