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Everyday Ordinary Dawnings


Dear Loved Ones,

I wrote an essay exactly five years ago today entitled The Blog Post I Won't Write, about how much strain my marriage was under from ministry. Ministry costs resources that are like commodities in that they're in limited supply. Ministry costs time, commitment, and emotional and spiritual effort. There are also liabilities that come with ministry that drain life, one of which was the constant scrutiny of others. Five years ago, I was afraid it might all lead to burnout and breakdown.

Mike shared that essay with many who were with him the day I published it. I think he resonated with my sentiments and saw burnout and breakdown coming, too, maybe even better than I did. 

When I reread that essay today, I realize I had no idea back then how bad things actually were or how bad they would become -- which turned out to be so bad that our marriage wouldn't survive.

Could I have done anything differently to change the outcome? I don't think so. I was living the best way I knew how at that time, doing my best to be honest and faithful before the Lord and serve the people before us. I still live that way today, although it looks very differently now than it did back then. 

I have changed.

That's because I evaluated my faith when I was approaching fifty. I did so because I was outgrowing my faith. I became unwilling to adhere to a Christian walk and a ministry lifestyle that no longer fit. This meant having the courage to admit that my understanding of those things was incomplete and immature at best, or wrong, at worst.

My faith used to escalate everything to the urgency of black or white. There was no room for gray, or color, or nuance, or depth, or intelligence, or even relationship. I held no room for God to say to Moses the first time to strike the rock, and the second time to speak to the rock. I left no room for God to say to Peter, all those foods you were prohibited from eating? Well, nothing I made is unclean. Though God doesn't change, our understanding of him does, and some of the rigid rules that were in place to train us no longer serve us, and God wants us to grow.

I changed because I spent my fiftieth birthday sitting without Mike around a back yard fire pit gifted to me by our devastated children. They longed to somehow salvage my milestone birthday. I will always be grateful for that, but despite their beautiful efforts, it felt more like Job's ash heap than a celebration. We sat together heartsick and dumbstruck, while my marriage, family-as-I-knew-it, and ministry were cremated inside that gift.

I was devastated by the catastrophe of it. I could hardly sleep or eat or work or even stand up some moments. And yet sitting brave-faced with my children that chilly October night is forever burned into me like a branding that won't be undone or ignored. That experience and countless others in the last twenty-two months forged something permanent and irrevocable in me.

They changed me.

Some changes come from our own choices and some from the choices of others. And if, back then, I wrote the blog post I wouldn't write, today I write the one I never thought I'd need to.

My intention is not to expose anyone's sins, but to integrate the truth into my whole life and live without secrets or untold truths. I hope and pray my life is never a lie again, and that I never perpetrate a lie that might cause someone else to see their life as a lie. If I didn't know that God hates lies before, I certainly do now. I have come to abhor them in a way I never could have without this experience.

Many of the changes in my life are outward and speak of brokenness and failure, and are not in need of explanation. But these experiences have also changed my faith and much of that is positive and, indeed, good, so I'd like to unpack that a bit.

While these changes, both good and bad, came with great pain, the trial and tragedy are so connected with the woman I became from them, that I can't separate the good from the bad that have come as a result. And I believe that is just how "God means for good what others meant for evil," (Joseph, in Genesis).

Here are some of the changes that turned out to be "for good."

I know God better than I ever have before, and live before Him with more awe and authenticity.

I'm acquainted with lament. A life of faith on this sinful planet can't be achieved without it. 

I know myself better, and I'm still learning I am not small. 

I love myself better, which is to say I actually love myself (though not above others).

I have learned that "grieving, though not as those who have no hope" means there is actual grieving.

I found my own voice, maybe for the first time in my life, and I am not afraid to use it.

I learned to think for myself, proudly own my understanding of the world and live my life of faith accordingly, and humbly but also without apology when it doesn't meet with someone else's expectation.

I am no longer a scared little girl.

I won't hide in the shadow of another anymore.

I am not as afraid as I used to be. Fear, which kept me from fully embracing and experiencing my own life, is -- mercifully -- mostly gone now.

Mercy is another thing I know now, because it arrived as a passenger in the vehicle of the implosion of our marriage and ministry. Mercy arrives with the trial.

My children know God better because their hope has been tested and it did not break.

My relationship with my children and theirs with each other are more authentic and more tightly bound together than ever before. We give each other the grace to be a work in progress and see the beauty and fellowship there in the fluid middle.

These good things came at great price: the end of a marriage and an intact family unit that was supposed to last a lifetime.

Earthly circumstances do not thwart God's goodness. The good gifts of a father who loves his children are not compromised by sin, neither ours nor others.

Nor is any member of our family precluded from God's best for our lives. The future in store for us is not second best or a diminished Plan B. Our future in Christ is as bright as it ever was or ever will be. That's because the light of Christ is the light of Christ, and no earthly or human element or circumstance can either dim it or brighten it. 

God has kept me through this trial. He has used his Word, prayer, the passage of time, and the Body of Christ to keep me. I know this because I have not perished in my affliction (Ps. 119:92). 

Looking back, I see so many mistakes we made in ministry. We did our level best. I saw Mike try his hardest, so I don't mind speaking for him in saying this. But complex breakdown did happen in his life and that story is his to tell or keep private as he sees fit. I do, however, want to apologize for how I, as part of Mike's ministry, failed you, the people we ministered to and with. My intentions were always and only to serve God and you. I'm sorry my best was not good enough or maybe even right, but it was my best at the time.

The best we can do with the things we don't get quite right is to stop doing things the wrong way. We should grow. Change. Apologize. Give grace. Walk humbly with only forbearance and forgiveness between us. I am both asking for this and giving it. I believe that this is the love by which they will know we are His disciples (John 13:35).

I inscribed in Mike's wedding band and etched into our thirty-year marriage 1 Peter 4:8, which says, "Above all, love one another fervently. For love covers a multitude of sins."

When I first offered that verse to Mike, I believe it meant love blinds us to a multitude of sins.

When I learned my marriage was broken, I understood it to mean that love sees sin, but sidesteps it with a speedy offer of reconciliation.

For many excruciating months, I fought and prayed furiously for reconciliation, until I couldn't anymore. I gave up my blind hope and my painful efforts for a good outcome. I distanced my battered heart and I waited.

When I learned that divorce was imminent and realized that our marriage would finally fail, I was still convinced that love never fails. I had put forth valiant effort and sacrificed much and still got what I didn't want in the end. Only then did I realize that the love that covers a multitude of sin expresses itself as the kind that forgives.

If I had this understanding of 1 Peter 4:8 as a starry-eyed, naive girl of twenty, I would have chosen another verse to build my marriage on. Forgiveness is much harder than blindness. But God knew then I would need this wisdom now, so he faithfully walked me to this weighty knowledge in due time. He gives us the grace we need when we need it and not a moment before.

I want my last deed in both my marriage to Mike and the ministry I dearly loved, to be that of forgiveness. May it always cover a multitude of sin, and in its small way, both fulfill my covenant vow to Mike and relieve me of it.

May God richly bless you always. I love each of you and will cherish the many years of ministry and memories.

Always,

Dawn Crowninshield


August 07, 2020 3 comments


I committed to 40 days of writing, and then coronavirus crawled across the globe.

This is how life happens. Plans are made and circumstances chart their own course. Unexpected things, incomprehensible things, things we never heard of become our new normal: social distancing, global pandemic and thus, shutdown.

My professional life tripled overnight. I began working 50 hour weeks, and writing and life as we knew it went the way of the past.

But the fasting for Lent? My Lent, as in Lent-ish?  It has quietly continued, even without me, because we, as a society, have been fasting in some magnificent ways.

1. The Church is fasting from buildings and programs and has been living as sent, rather than gathered. We've retreated to neighborhoods and the internet. Spontaneous worship on social media, from the recognizable to the unknown girl with the messy bun, leggings, and a beat up guitar becomes a cathedral for the world on a screen.

2. Gone are the soapboxes and judgy posts on social media of those who have an opinion of everything and are happy to share it with you.

3. Families have fasted from extra-curricular everything and are eating home-cooked meals at the table together. It's like a Norman Rockwell painting with all the puzzles and games and togetherness while sideways rays from the sunset slant through the window, turning everything golden.

2. The women in my neighborhood walk with chalk and fill driveways with pastel scripture verses. They now "prayer walk" several nights a week, praying for protection and neighborly kindness and provision.

3. I've walked at dawn in my neighborhood before work because my statehouse walks at lunch are no longer possible. With the overload in my office, I'm fasting my lunch hour and working straight through. But a boss has generously brought lunch in for two weeks for good measure, morale, and in support of local small business. He has quietly led with generosity and grace. He has fed us, literally and figuratively.

4. In 10 days it will be Easter. We will celebrate a resurrection that interrupted life as everyone on earth knew it. It was a fast from mortality that will hold us in everlasting hope until he comes again.

People have been sick. People have died. We suffer from loneliness, isolation, and fear. The economy has suffered. But there are some good things if we are brave enough to see them.

Just maybe there is life behind a stone that was rolled in front of a grave that gives us something to look forward to, something with which to tenaciously stand up against the fear and the dire situation it stems from.

On the other side of death is resurrection. Until then, I will keep looking for light, finding the good, and discovering the beautiful surprises that come when things don't happen as you expected.

Jesus will be with us now, and there on the other side, too. There may be a measure of discomfort, uncertainty, grief, and loss for a time, but good and hope shine through in the midst of the suffering.

And maybe that's exactly what fasting is for in the first place. That we might go without the things we know so well that comfort us, in order to see the world with new eyes and hunger for that instead.


Photo Credit: ST, my neighbor

April 03, 2020 3 comments


I opened the mailbox on Saturday and saw a name from the past pushing up through the stack of mail from the return address corner. An old acquaintance I haven't thought of in a lifetime.

He mailed me grainy pictures taken by a disposable camera circa 1986. Pictures of teenagers at Ship Island, one of whom was Jeff.

I don't think of him so much anymore. Until he died, it was the hardest thing I had ever faced. Since then there's been cancer, Alzheimer's, divorce, Hurricane Katrina, the unthinkable. So many people and beautiful things are simply gone.

Ru looked through the pictures and was struck by the one that was the ancestor of today's selfie. Jeff's face filled the lens with a clear image. He's sandy and salty, and I had forgotten his hair was a little curly like mine if it was humid. She said, "Look at him. I've never been able to make out his face in all the old photographs. And, now, there he is." She touched his dimple with her index finger, I think because she has one of her own.

I marvel every time I see my children's affinity for an uncle they never met. So I re-read all the posts I've written about him here over the years and allowed myself to think of him.

So much of life doesn't make sense. We always say that about the bad parts, but never do we say it about the good.

I remember leaning onto his casket, letting him hold me up one last time, and promising him I would think of him every day for the rest of my life. That was 26 years ago, when I was 25. I don't even know when I failed that vow, I'm just glad I did.

The sky has been heavy with overcast clouds the last few days. The whole world is thinking about sickness and death in the face of COVID-19 crawling its way around the globe. I don't remember a time when we've been in one accord globally like this.

I've seen panic, kindness, fear, greed, and love. People have receded with fear and with caution. The earth seems eerily abandoned by those who are shutting themselves in against the unknown and a foe much bigger than the frail human body. It makes us compliant, and rightly so.

But it also makes me want to live. In the face of threat from virus and the reminder of loss in my mailbox, I want to live.

Sometimes you have to let the dead things go so you can really live.

I want to love and show kindness and generosity in the face of fear, isolation, sickness, and horror. I want to be beauty and light to a dying world.

I choose hope in the face of sorrow. I choose words that rise, and I choose to trust in tomorrow. I choose to embrace the broken and the redeemed and the ache, and walk with a limp for all life has dealt me.

The world is slowing and it hurts because I've been trying to outrun pain. I need to go fast right now, and even that is being taken from me in the shutting down and shutting in against pandemic.

We are asked to withdraw from each other and activity, so I must learn to live with fear and death and distance, not outrun them. I must relearn to be quiet and at ease in the stillness and slowness.

On this earth, we find we must fast the things we long for, things that are scarce right now: togetherness. love, fellowship, communion. But these are the things we will see and know in their fullness and feast on forever in heaven.







March 17, 2020 1 comments

Dear Future Self,

Man, what I'd give to be where you are. Before you even read this letter, look around you. Take a minute to take in your life. And don't take a single thing you see, feel, and know for granted.

Even if it's broken and scarred, I hope you see that it's beautiful.

I'm working so hard to be sure you end up safe, loved, and respected. I'm pretty sure you have these things from some amazing humans because you had them back then when you were me.

But I hope by now you are much better at giving these things to yourself. You used to be terrible at it.

You are where you are today because of me, your past self, at least in part.

I hope you look around your life and find health, peace, and joy. I hope you find Jesus, and family and friends.

I hope you find a bountiful dinner table and still find joy in feeding the ones you love. I hope laughter and deep conversations find you and yours lingering long over engaging ideas and wrestled faith, while a glass of good wine swirls in your hand, the dishwasher whirs in the background, and the night grows long.

I hope you talk about the books you're reading and never stop learning and growing. I hope you still run and have finally learned how to build a fire in the backyard without a starter log.

I hope you always say yes when someone asks you to go for a walk with them. How many healing miles did we walk? Only God knows.

May you be kinder, gentler, and present for people when they are devastated, because you learned the hard way what kind of healing salve that is, and how those things have actual super powers to bring a person back to life.

May you carry yourself with dignity and not take yourself too seriously, both at the same time.

May you never stop having fun.

I hope you are proud of your life, and are mostly happy.

I hope you know intimately who you are and confidently accept — no, approve — of the woman you became. You know better than I do what finding yourself cost us both. And I hope and pray it was worth the price.

You were small for far too long.

Don't ever forget you owe a debt to words. There were so many words.

There were mantras and confessions. There were revelations and declarations shouted and whispered.

You filled journals with handwriting. You read stacks of books and articles.

There were countless counseling sessions with a compassionate and wise therapist, who either rattled you or rallied you in fifty minute segments, and was discerning enough to know which to employ when.

You spent hours texting and typing, and on phone calls that added up to months of your life.

You said so many words, so many times, to a small trusted circle you couldn't keep track of what you said to whom.

I hope all of those friends are still with you and are deeply trusted. I hope they have been with you for years now and that you've had a chance to return the exquisite gift of listening.

I hope there's an army of new friends, too. You were lonely for so long.

God's word and prayer served you so well. These were the best words. I'm sure your knees are worn because you can no longer live without either.

They fed you when food could not, and they became the only way you knew to process this fallen-down life on earth.

You still have problems, I know. But you are better equipped for them than I was. That came to you as a gift from the years between you and me.

Life is never without its problems. But I worked hard for you to have a sense of rest in your soul that anchors you because you survived a dark time and you didn't give up on yourself. I pray the wisdom you gained became a grace you now give to others.

Don't ever forget the tears you cried, the sleepless nights, or how proud you became of who your children grew up to be. I hope they still inspire you, teach you, challenge you, and are dear, dear friends. I can't imagine how proud you are of them based on how proud I already am now.

Don't ever forget any of these things. I suspect that, from your vantage point, they are the redeemed parts of the journey.

I love you so very much, Dawn. Don't ever lose track of that love ever again, you hear me?

You are the reason I do all the hard things these days. You are beautiful inside and out. We all are. You are strong, wise, and have a purpose.

Don't ever take for granted where you are, and all you have, including your challenges. Much of it was learned and earned the hard way, and some came as a gift of grace. But everything about who you are was forged in the fire, and if it lasted it's precious metal.

So you better be chasing your dreams hard, and not wasting a minute of your life. You better be wild and free, with equal measures of abandon and reverence in all you do. It better be freaking beautiful!

Man, what I'd give to be where you are, and know you in your fullness.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that as beautiful as it is where you are, getting there is going to be worth the journey and will be something you wouldn't have wanted to miss in the end. So I'll stay in the here and now, and work towards getting us there, even though I've asked God a million times, "Please, let's skip ahead to better days."

I promise I'll get up every morning and keep fighting for you. I won't let you down, because you're worth it.

I hope you know that you're worth it in your bones up there in our future together, because, right now, you're still learning that glorious truth, and you don't know it very well yet.

I can make you that promise to keep fighting for you, because when I get weary, I have a body of friends and family that love me, and carry me when I can't go on, and don't, won't, leave me.

I could never do this alone. I'm convinced we need people in our lives, a generous handful of beautiful, broken people who love unflinchingly. I have a hunch you became that kind of person.

Never discount the power of love, Dawn. And don't grow cynical.

Someday, if you find yourself in the middle of something you have no idea how to get through, stay there. Don't rush it. Relax into the hard middle and feel your way through. Stumble in awkward stammers if that's all you can manage in order to get to the other side. You already know from the past it's worth it. Keep going and never give up.

Until then, please know I can't wait to meet you. I'm pretty sure you're an amazing person. And I hope you smile ... a lot.

My all,
Your Former Self


March 12, 2020 No comments
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About Me

About Me
Dawn is a writer, Bible teacher, speaker, and pastor's wife. She co-founded Columbia World Outreach Church in Columbia, South Carolina with her husband, Mike. By day, Dawn manages a law firm. In the leftover hours she writes for various online and print publications. You are welcome here. What you will find is real life and a faith that's a living organism -- which is to say it's growing and sometimes cranky, exuberant, stinky, wobbly, petulant, overconfident, tired, satisfying, and beautiful. May you find here some courage to own your own days and your own unfinished faith.

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