I've TOTALLY been avoiding this blog. It's been quite awhile since I posted and a lot has happened since then. I'll have days where I have time to write a post but I'll find something else to do instead. Day after day after day after day...Maybe I thought that by writing about what's been going on over the last several months, I'd really have to deal with it and work through it.
Many of you probably know that Matt and I have been very involved in our church since we moved here. We started attending shortly after we got married and, even though we didn't love everything about it (obviously!), we made some great friendships and kept attending, even becoming members before long. I immediately joined the worship team and got involved with children's ministries (two things I'm a part of almost five years later!) and I even worked as the office manager there for more than a year, as well as became a wedding facilitator for the church (something that I still do and that I love). Matt has been a part of many of the men's ministries activities and is even a member of the church board now, along with being the head usher for the service that we attend.
When we started at the church, the pastor had been there for several (um, almost 30) years. He moved onto another position within the denomination and we found a new pastor after a few months. A lot of staff changes went on over time, but an amazing team was put in place. I loved absolutely every member of the staff and the way that ministry was moving - it truly seemed like what God makes clear in the Bible that His church should be doing. I was so excited and happy to go to church on Sunday mornings. If you know me well, you probably know that I've enjoyed church and related activities pretty well since I became confirmed in the Catholic church and then started high school shortly thereafter (I've been involved in children's ministries for about fifteen years? Can I be that old?).
Fast forward to the last few months, which have involved Saturday nights of dreading Sunday mornings, breakdowns in the church bathroom, falling apart as I'm doing announcements in the service, etc. It's been rough.
I won't go into all the drama that still angers me and hurts me and breaks my heart every single time I think about it, but the pastor left and, within a few months, so did the rest of the staff. Including two of my best friends (if you know me well, they're the ones with the four boys, as I always say).
Doing all the same Sunday morning things without them felt...weird. Wrong. Off. And maybe that sounds like I wasn't doing it for God, but I don't think that was it. The situation was messed up (to say the very least) and people left when they shouldn't have had to leave. I know that since the church is made of people, it isn't perfect, blah blah blah. But when you know that people are supposed to be leaders of a church, they are supposed to have a relationship with Christ, and they are supposed to make decisions based on what God wants, you expect more than that. And maybe that sounds judgmental, but the words spoken about others that I heard with my own ears and that attitudes and looks and so on...Those were not based on Jesus. And I couldn't believe the things that I heard leaders in my church say, the attitudes that they had, the rudeness...It almost became too much. I just didn't want to be at church, and I have never felt like that (well, maybe when I was little and the promise of a treat if I was good worked like a charm).
Anyway, it's...okay now. Things aren't perfect, of course, and I know that they never will be, but I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to walk into that church again without my heart breaking a little bit. To know what was and what could have been...It shouldn't have happened the way it did, and I'm so hurt for the people who were treated the way that they were. They've all moved on to different ministries that seem pretty perfect for each of them, and I'm happy that they're happy. But, oh, to have them back and to be able to do the work that God was calling us to do...
There are so many more emotions that I could go through but this will probably be all that I post about it because it's still, months later, so raw. Maybe because I had friends on staff and a husband on the board that I felt it more personally and knew more than some of the other congregants, this was really a rough time for me. It's definitely getting better, but it just makes me long for heaven, where things will be perfect and the silly things won't matter.
For those of you who have been praying for me on this journey, thank you. I still need prayers if you're still willing to send them up.
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