Trailer Park Gospel: In the Beginning

By Stacy J. Weber

When Stacy Weber and her husband moved to a beautiful new home in California, she thought they’d arrived in paradise. Yet when Stacy struggles to get out of bed in the morning, she realizes her real journey has only begun . . . Weber’s debut memoir takes us on a profound, often hilarious quest, from the trailer parks of San Francisco to an “unconventional” therapist named Phillip. As Weber confronts her darkness head on, she learns some surprising truths, especially about her faith. With her engaging personality, Weber embraces her inner chaos with brawn and heart, challenging Christians to step up and be Christian. Her authentic, immensely relatable journey toward healing inspires us to see Jesus’s touch in everyone we meet. Trailer Park Gospel teaches us how to jump into our lives as Jesus meant them to be—full of relationships, love, and forgiveness. And, of course, to look for the Good News wherever we go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group
• Release date: Dec 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781634131353

Book preview

Author

Foreword

From most vantage points, the real truth of our existence can be rough, indefensible, and ruthless. But contrary to common thought, the pain of our lives can also be the DNA of exceptional growth. It is our choice.

Some utilize their pain as a foundation, daily strengthening its architecture and buttressing its hold on the work of their lives. In Jesus’s words, they build whitewashed sepulchers full of dead men’s bones. They fashion themselves to look spiffy on the outside but house the bones of the past on the inside. Engage these builders on a deeper level and you will crash through to their interior, where resident anger and complaint lurk in all the corners of their lives.

Fortunately, there are those people who choose to embrace their pain and grow from it—to grow up with it. As a pastor and educator, some of the most incredible in-your-face miracles I have ever witnessed have been watching people under the influence of God’s grace rework their pain and its effects. Theirs is not a remodel, but a renovation. This slow metamorphosis of maturing through enlightenment and insight brings on a new worldview replete with understanding and forgiveness. These people pursue a union between God’s internal work and their own shortcomings. No running race—it is just hard old digging and creating a view of life that includes human failure. This is the world that you are about to enter.

I first met Stacy Weber in 1982. Her pain was young enough and fresh enough that it defied her comprehension. Today, I see Stacy as a miracle. I wish I could say that she is a miracle in the classic sense— completed in an instant, left with no blemishes—but that is just not the case. She is an ever-evolving renovation. In Trailer Park Gospel, authentic and seeking, Stacy clears away the pain of family and the past, and reaches for a sense of well-being with herself and with her Creator. She can be bawdy and raw. But please, don’t let any stuffed shirt views stifle the joy of sharing in a woman’s self-discovery and the grace of God that fuels her fire.

Randy J. Bridges, PhD

Bridgeworks Coaching and Publications

February 2014

Preface

Ten years ago, I started writing about my life and my disillusionment with the Christian community. It grieved me that so many believers lacked love in their own lives. My writing lacked something too, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was missing. I would find answers only after my husband and I packed up our rural Colorado residence, headed west without jobs or a home, and prayed for God’s grace and provision.

And God’s love pushed us straight to the San Francisco Bay Area. My Colorado girlfriend had grown up in the Bay Area, and her parents invited us to camp for a week on their property. Scout, our camper van, had everything but a bathroom, a shower, and a Laundromat. It was just the three of us: Brent, Emma (our now-departed dog), and me. We were a bit overwhelmed by our new adventure. Yet we steered Scout down that narrow, wooded canyon toward their property and found around the last bend a handmade sign reading Welcome Stacy and Brent, along with all twenty-five members of the family.

For the next two months we wheeled Scout and ourselves into RV parks around the area. I imagined playing cards and sharing stories with the older folks, sipping mai tais at sunset, and petting all the resident doggies. But these glorified trailer parks had a bizarre mix of wealthy RV travelers visiting either wine country or the Bay Area, and destitute, uprooted, nearly homeless locals landing a cheap place to lodge their trailer or single-wide.

There I was, a woman guilty of a potty mouth, completely nuts about Jesus, living in a trailer park where no one had the time or inclination for cards or stories.

Three months after our interstate move, we found and bought a house, my husband found a design space for his business, and the perfect job found me. Life looked really good. Ironically, even though I was a mapmaker, I had no clue that we were lost. One year later, I would meet a man who revealed this fact and guided my husband and me in a direction that would deepen our lives as well