Jake & Kelsea's Story
When the pandemic started we were 2 months into a completely new season of our life with a new baby, learning how to function as a family of 6, navigating care for our son who had recently been diagnosed with special needs, adjusting to having two full time working parents, the list goes on and on… While these adjustments were all expected, planned for, doing it all during a pandemic was not. Like most others, we faced huge changes in our day-to-day life such as working from home, distance learning and quarantining, the one thing that came even more unexpected than the pandemic itself was the conflict that would unfold over the year to come.
We thought this would be a joy-filled time in our life, bringing our last baby home to be surrounded by our friends and family, but it quickly turned into an extremely isolating season of conflict and hurt. When the pandemic hit we felt anxious, and with so much unknown, we followed the suggested precautions and regulations very closely. As the weeks went on we decided that when our family felt more comfortable, we would choose each other. We had a new baby and we wanted them and him to be able to experience life together and, to be honest, in this season of life we were lacking the help and support a family provides. What we did not expect is that they wouldn’t choose us.
After 4 months of strict quarantining, we decided that if we couldn’t get the support and care we needed both physically emotionally, mentally… we would start safely going back to church. This in turn lead our family to further distance themselves from us. Months went by and the distance grew. The silence became loud and we missed them greatly.
We tried to push aside assumptions, judgment, and comments about our choices on how to school our children, attend church and interact with others in hopes that again, when they were ready, we’d find time to spend together. With the fall and winter holidays approaching, we quarantined again to ensure everyone was safe and felt comfortable spending the holidays together. After Christmas passed it seemed as though the distance grew greater, we could feel the tension building and after our baby’s first birthday came and went without any recognition from our family we worried we’d done something wrong.
We continued to make an effort to see one another, even if it was masked and distanced, continually advocating for time together especially around birthdays and other holidays. Despite our efforts, it didn’t seem to change their feelings. We continued to see and hear of the trips they were taking, occasions they were attending and wondered why not with us? After over a year of tension building we felt called to ask more questions, we felt called to mend what seemed to be a failing relationship and we reached out. It was hard but felt so necessary. We were met with half-truths and refusal to talk about what was really going on. Hurtful words were said, and our well-intended efforts for gathering were turned against us, and blame was pushed all with the narrative of safety. Our faith and call to gather were thrown in our face and our choices were deemed unsafe, dangerous and far too risky. We’ve spent the last 5 months without resolution, and our efforts to talk through this have only been met with silence. We pray daily for Jesus to lead us to resolve in this season of conflict, to stir something in our family's hearts, and for this relationship to come out more whole and filled with more love than it had before.
Until that happens, we continually praise Him for blessing us with a church community who reminds us that we are not alone. A community that is our family when it feels like we don’t have one, who pours into our children, and the brothers and sisters in Christ who continually point us back to Jesus when we are feeling alone, unloved, or not enough.
