(Read Part I HERE)

Though we tried to be agents of reconciliation this go-round back at Church #1, (knowing firsthand the painful fallout that can happen in major disagreements), the pastor and his family ended up being cruelly forced out by the very same group of elders who had officially vetted and “called” him a year earlier.

Let me tell you, it was enough to cause us to contemplate forsaking the assembling-together!  We were thrice-stung, heartbroken, and talk about disillusioned!  But God is very economical.  Ever-molding and teaching us, there was a mosaic of wisdom that He was piecing together for us with all those shards.  The next chapter in this personal crash course, would be revolutionary  for me in my personal walk with the Llord!  Because I had walked away from the Lord in my 20’s, this did not become an issue of doubting faith, God,  Bible, any of that, for me.  I’d already learned life “my way” didn’t work.   (but I was pretty bewildered about the church).  It did cause some pause and reflection for my husband in His walk, but in a needful way.  It definitely caused us both to realize that “eyes on the people” and not on God Himself, is the WRONG way to approach church.  Well, if you aren’t part of the solution, you are probably part of the problem, right?  Lots of examination was in order.

I have been blessed to know the Lord from a young age.  My husband was saved in his teens, myself at age 9.  I had the advantage of plenty of hours in the Word by virtue of my always having been a book-nut with an enormous appetite for words, reading, and studying,  had a great youth group with several Godly youth leaders, good Sunday School teachers,  and a year in Christian school.  More recently,  I’ve had plenty of time for reading and studying, due to physical limitations taking me out of the workforce, and our kids getting into the independent teen years.

When we found ourselves “out in the cold with no church home, scratching our heads and shouting, “True Church, WHERE ARE YOU?”, I was expressing my frustrations to my Dad, bemoaning the fact that sometime between when I left the church in my 20’s and came back, the church seemed to have changed quite a bit, and Most of the “leaders” now seemed to know very little about scripture, or were at the very least, confused.  My Dad, who is not known for his profundity, said to me, “Honey, you ARE the church”.  Well, my Dad is a simple man.  And in his retirement, he spends a lot of time reading his Bible and the wisdom of what he said, embedded deep in my gut and in my spirit.  He also said, if you feel like there aren’t knowledgeable teachers, maybe you’re supposed to be teaching.  I am not a “speaker” but I recognized that, yes, I could be an instrument to help others understand and grow, by way of my writing.

Well, not having a church at all was not an option, of course, and we next took a short foray into the “Home-church” movement. According to those we knew who were home-churchers, it is meant to be a return to the roots of the church at her inception, meeting in the homes of believers, no one person raised above the others  on a platform doing all the speaking, all gifts exercised and  honored, everyone studying, coming to church ready with something to share that God had shown them, and all of that followed by breaking bread together in a noon meal.  Still, there were some very mature believers who emerged naturally in an unofficial leadership.  It was a good experience,  all in all we enjoyed it and it was a large part of my personal springboard into getting back to roots, and  better understanding of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but we were not led to join this body.   Our kids had never had what we had growing up, which was a church that was “home”, growing up with the kids of other church families who were like an extended family of cousins and uncles and aunts, and consistent foundations in the Word of God.  That really saddened me.

We were still a little ignorant (dense?) of the fact we as parents could and should have been instilling those foundations to a much greater degree in the home.  We did read Bible stories to them as kids, we did have family devotions, though we often faltered and re-started the habit.  It has become consistent now, in their teens, though we are still praying for it to become a habit they “own” and follow for themselves without our prompting.  We see some initiative in the older one on that score, so hopefully it’s taken root.   There should have been verse memorization, and more exposure to the Bible at every turn.  Of course we assumed that as our kids attended VBS and Sunday School they were getting a good bit of that like we did as kids.  It took a long time to fully grasp just how much “church” has changed since we grew up.

Practically extinct, are the old hymns that become so familiar by sheer repetition, that you didn’t even need the hymnbook to sing them, and so chock-full of scripture verse and Bible principle that you were learning, absorbing and internalizing the Word without even realizing it.

At that point in our life, we had finally gotten some competent Medical help and figured out correct diagnosis of some of my health issues, and that was stabilizing some.  As far as things spiritual, I was pretty much finished being hurt, but I was pretty upset about  the mess the church was in.  The feeling was directed less at people, and more at the proper culprit, satan himself.  As a hospice nurse, and by God-given personality, I am pretty sensitive, and have a “radar” for the hurting.  But between illness, losing my ability to remain in my field of work that I’d studied for and was good at, and other hurts, years of my own emotional and spiritual pain had piled up.   It was very tempting to shut down and drop out of life.   It seemed to me, like few people remained in the world who cared about the important things like personal relationship, loyalty, sincerity, truth, accuracy, sanctity of life, honesty, integrity.  People just didn’t seem to care about anything other than a good time, and self. (The Bible tells us it will be this way at the end times). To me,  “not caring” was not an option.  I felt pretty empty and wrung dry.  I didn’t know where I was going to find the energy, but I remember the day that I lay keening in grief and said to God, and then to my husband as well:   “I don’t care if I’m the last person in this world who cares.  I am going to continue to CARE, if it takes my last ounce of strength”.

For the most part, people decide to stop caring.  We are born with tender hearts and compassion, although in cases of extreme abuse and neglect, this can be conditioned out of a person.  This world is a painful place.  But in too many cases people choose to simply care most about themselves, or only about themselves.

The next part of the story is yet still a little fresh and harder to write about.  In every case, as wounds healed into scars, as all non-lethal wounds eventually do, God was steadily making object lessons out of our experiences, and teaching us things about sinful human nature, about the nature of forgiveness, and about Himself.  The next section of this life-course  would  expose us to some of the plagues destroying  the modern church.  It would also include a very supernatural element, and some intense spiritual warfare.  I look back now and know that period  was nothing less than a minefield that God deliberately waked me through.  I promise I will actually get back to what all of this has to do with Ezekiel, as well.

Tune in tomorrow for the continuation!