I hope you can’t sleep at night
I hope you can’t sleep at night.
It’s really the least that you could do, given all that you’ve done. If there’s an ounce of remorse in your body for the way you’ve treated me, you could show some compunction and solidarity by lying awake through the long watches until dawn.
Because I can’t sleep at night.
I can’t sleep at night because I lay awake asking myself questions and trying to figure out how all of this happened. I try to tell myself the truth, but the seeds of doubt that you sewed in my mind have grown into an invasive, choking vine and it tells me what you would say. And what you would say is that it’s all my fault. That I was asking for this. That there’s something wrong with me and that I deserved the treatment that you gave me because I’m a mistake. The way that I am is not the way that a woman should be and because God doesn’t make mistakes, I must be faking, forcing, and forging a new way where there isn’t one. You would say that I’m too vulnerable, too honest, and too direct. You would say that I’m not a good fit and I need to go find my place someplace else. You used my sincerity and authenticity against me, pretending like you don’t have deep, dark problems of your own.
I can’t sleep at night.
It began with my daughter, really. Anyone who’s had a baby knows that they are selfish little tyrants, sucking the literal life out of the bodies of their mothers. My strong-willed one woke every hour screaming for me and she wouldn’t take a bottle and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because we were stuck in a tiny one bedroom apartment because we didn’t want children, but we had one when we didn’t have the money to and we didn’t have the money to because you exploited and took advantage of me and kept me down. I said what I said- you exploited my skills and my willingness to serve and my calling from God and used his Word to justify your neglect. I stopped sleeping well when she was born and I haven’t slept well since.
After the first year, when she finally slept through the night, I started laying awake going over all the mistakes I’d made as a mother that day. I’d lay awake rehearsing your comments, looks, and passive-aggressive emails telling me all the ways that I was a failure as a mother. I’d lay awake thinking about all that you’d have to say about my unshared opinions on the topic of parenting and how I wasn’t going to homeschool because it would drain what little life I had left in me. I hope you can’t sleep until you realize that you had the ability to speak life or death over me during my worst nightmare and you chose death. You didn’t care that I was alone and practically motherless. You didn’t care that, in many ways, I raised myself and didn’t know how to do this. You didn’t care that I didn’t have the support that you did and I didn’t have friends (because you rejected me from the start) and I didn’t want this and I felt like I was dying. You didn’t care that I was doing my best. You only cared that I wasn’t doing your best.
I hope you can’t sleep at night.
I hope you lay awake with your stomach churning over the fact that you handled me as you needed to be handled rather than as I did. You selfish, thick-skulled imbecile! Everybody isn’t like you and you’d think that, after working together for a few years, you’d know me well enough to know that our personalities are wildly different. A strength, I deemed it. A strength I deem it still, but I can’t understand how you thought that I’d benefit from the same treatment that you would. Unless you’re naive, cowardly, and foolish. Or worse. You’re a liar and you were grasping at straws, trying to come up with a valid excuse or reason for your horrible treatment of me. You just wanted to do what you wanted to do and you were desperately trying to work it out to something respectable. Spoiler: you failed at that endeavor. When I asked you why or what you were thinking you threw a bunch of non-reasons at me. Things I had said because I thought you were a safe space to voice my concerns and frustrations about my work. Things I had said in hopes for my future, which you claimed to support. Fears I had expressed to someone who I thought would support and look out for me. In fact, you told me that you’d employ me as long as I wanted a job. And then you didn’t. No person or circumstance made you do that. If making that claim was a mistake, then, do you know who should suffer for your lapse in judgment? Y-O-U. Not me. There was no reason to make me suffer for your foolish indiscretion. But you did. And you did some seriously impressive rhetorical gymnastics to make it all seem right. And I don’t know how I’m going to forgive you.
I hope you can’t sleep at night.
The lies that you told to me, yourself, and God knows who else are myriad, insidious, and noxious. You’re a charlatan and a fool. I saw right through you from day one, but you pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone else and they silenced me on your behalf. I should have gotten out then. I should have RUN from the red flags in that community, rather than staying for eight long years. That’s the only thing I’ll take the blame for. What I won’t take the blame for is my personality, my gifts, and my skill set. It will never be wrong to hold people in leadership positions to a high standard. It will never be wrong to confront issues and inconsistencies in the lives of people that you are leading. It will never be wrong to just tell the truth. Sure, I come on strong and harsh, at times, but it’s not because I don’t care or think I’m better than anyone. It’s because Jesus has some very serious things to say to those who lead others. I take his words far more seriously than I ever took yours, so I’m going to do my best to lead well and apologize when I fail. You lied to me and about me and turned those that we were leading against me. You made me publicly apologize for things that weren’t a big deal because you had this sick need to humiliate me. I hope you can’t sleep at night. Your personal life imploding wasn’t enough because you somehow still get to do ministry, still lying, still playing the game. I hope you can’t sleep at night. You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.
I hope you can’t sleep at night.
The audacity that you had to say that you could see the side of someone who eliminated my position for literally no reason at all and didn’t give me any other options is still shocking to me. The audacity that you had to invite me into some further training opportunities so that I could get on track with where I should have been all along and then just say it’s fine to get rid of me won’t ever make sense. You’re wielding your power against the least of these. You’re not acting righteously or justly. I hope you can’t sleep at night.
To all those who claim to follow the way of Jesus,
Who claim the power of his Name,
But use that power to take it in vain and cause me immeasurable pain-
I hope you can’t sleep at night.
Until you repent. Until you’re sorry. Until your heart is broken as you have broken mine. And perhaps this suffering will make you well, but only if you let it do its work. Only if you let it teach you that virtue that you say is important, but you lack totally: humility. Because it’s only the humble who enter the Kingdom of God. Not those who are still trying to justify their existence or earn their own way and won’t ever be in anyone’s debt. Not those who live with such certainty because they’re afraid of what a gray area might do to them or their children. Not those who lie, steal, and cheat their way into the best seats in the house. It’s the humble who know that they don’t really belong here, but they’re let in anyway. Because that’s who the King is: “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17b). When you are humble…
Then.
I hope you sleep at night.
But, please, don’t call me. Don’t write. You’ve forfeited that opportunity and you must not make me endure your presence so that you can feel better by apologizing. Take it up with God. I’ve relinquished my right to carpet bomb your house to him.