Monday, November 26, 2007

Back Again

Well, I'm back. Kind of. Sort of. For now.
I guess I have a problem with committment.
I know I have a problem following through with what I start.

A couple of weeks off turned into a month, then 2, then 3, and I really debated whether I wanted to get back into this.
Because truthfully, it is much easier for me to just not think about certain things, or if I do think about them, it is easier to not have to try to get my thoughts down into something readable and decipherable.

I am still processing the events of the past year (the turmoil at our old church started exactly one year ago.) Sometimes I get really, really angry. Sometimes, I feel the beginnings of forgiveness and empathy. Most often, I just try not to think about it because I'm frankly tired of it all and I just want to put it behind me.

My family felt that we needed (and actually wanted) the anchor of belonging to a local church.
We are at a new church now, and we like the people we have met there. The pastor knows the whole story about what happened at our old church (most of those who left the old church at the same time we did ended up at the same new church) and he finds the goings-on at that place to be as deplorable as we do. (He lives in the same town that the pastor of our old church does, and I don't think ours were the first horror stories he had heard. Surely, not the last, either.)

I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Waiting to find out that there is some kind of masquerade going on, feeling like when and if I really get to know everything going on at this new church, I will discover something dark and sinister. I know God doesn't want me to spend my life building a wall, being constantly on guard, so I am trying to give people the benefit of the doubt. I am trying to have my heart open, but believe me, my eyes are open too. Slowly, I feel the heaviness of my cynicism falling away. I have the stirrings of something I haven't felt in quite a while. I think it's hope.

So, here I am, hanging out. For now.

3 comments:

Alan Knox said...

Hope... isn't that what faith is all about? Hoping beyond our understanding that God has everything in hand? Trusting beyond our own reasoning and experiences that somehow God has saved us out of our sin and misery?

Watch for the people that God brings into your life. Some of them may need to hear about that spark of hope. Spend time with them. Listen to their stories. Suffer with them and rejoice with them. And, remind them of hope - that's what we have to offer them.

-Alan

Martha said...

Thanks for your comment, it was encouraging. My reply became too long, so now it's a post.

Michael Ogden said...

Wow! Another church horror story. I don't know if I will ever go back, but as I say that it makes me very sad.

I am sorry for what you and many of us have gone through.