Jehovah Jireh

Yesterday we went to a church 15 minutes North East of us in Springbank. We know the youth/music pastor and his family and Cris knows some of the other pastors there.

As we were getting ready to go, I felt a tinge of excitement. This is the start of us moving on. The start of a new beginning. New beginnings are exciting! The potential of wonderful things is so great.

We walked into the church and were greeted by many friendly, happy people. It felt good to be welcomed into another place of worship. It felt good to feel like we belonged even though we didn't yet.

Then half-way through the first song, my tears started to flow and I had to excuse myself from the service. I was floundering out in the lobby trying to find the washrooms and trying to avoid the ushers/greeters. But that was impossible and no matter how fast I darted about trying to find the loo, I could not escape one of the greeters, who quite obviously could tell that I was upset, and directed me to the washrooms.

The bathroom was empty. Thank goodness. I started to bawl. This is not where I belonged. I belonged back at MY church. This was not my church. I thought I was so crazy. Here I am in a beautiful church building, where friendly people warmly welcomed us, the worship was full and flowed wonderfully with many instruments and vocals. "My" church was in a community center, not much to look at, the worship was usually thrown together last minute with little to no rehersal and often choppy and half-assed, people would nod and say hi, but it often felt as though they were just going through the motions and their heart was not in it. And here I was crying because I missed the half-assness and the laid back mentalitly of my church. I realized I felt as though I should be with the people I had invested my heart and soul into for the past 3 & 1/2 years. Everything I was and thought and felt revolved around my church. My husband earned a living from serving them. It was his job. We spent all our time with people from the church. It was our social life. We moved here for them. It was our community. We prayed with them and they prayed with us. It was our church family. It was our whole entire life.

It is so difficult to lose everything at once. Most people have their church family to see them through difficult times, but instead I had to leave. Most people have a pastor they can go to to work hurts out, but instead I am feeling betrayed by him. Most people have many friends they can talk to about difficulties, but instead I am finding myself having to censor what I say (very difficult for me since I'm so dang candid) so as to not cause further hurt or questioning of the leadership in the church to my friends who still attend my 'old' church.

I know that I am working through stuff and eventually I will heal and move on because I am resiliant. I am learning that godly people can do ungodly things and still remain godly. I am learning that people are mean, vindictive, double-minded, hurtful and just plain stupid, but that they are still children of God and can still move things forward in His will.

All I really want is a freakin apology. A simple, "I'm sorry, I was wrong." Cris and I have known for about 6 months that it was time to move on. We knew before anyone else in the church did, before the leadership did. But we love it here so much that we decided to wait for more confirmation. We never dreamed the confirmation would come in such a wicked way. So it's not the outcome that we grieve over, but the process, because it was totally wrong, and I feel totally wronged. So I just want an apology. But I know I won't get one. I believe that judgements were clouded by sinful thoughts and will likely stay clouded until the day when we are made perfect. So now it is my job to move on and heal...somehow.

My stint of crying in the biffy was cut short because my 6 & 1/2 month old baby is so very sensitive and my sobs set off his sobs, so instead of finishing my cry, I had to stop abruptly and console my wee little tot. So I'm guessing I have more tears to escape my eyes.

God has placed many people in our lives to help us get through this. Today Cris said to me, "You'll never guess who called to talk to me today." It was our old youth pastor. And then he had a meeting with another person today who had been wounded by leadership in a church. And in the previous week we had opportunity to swap hurts with another pastor from a church in Calgary, and yet another pastor expressed to Cris he had carried a hurt brought on by a church around with him for 20 years, and still another very close friend (a pastor as well) of Cris went through a similar situation a year and a half ago. So God has placed many people in our path to help us get through this. Obviously we need it and God has provided. He is Jehovah Jireh.

Now if I could just cry and move on...and maybe write some nasty letters that I will never send. Or maybe I will de-nastify them and send them.