Alive and Well… Well, something anyway!
I stopped writing for a while because I couldn’t keep the bitterness at bay. If I couldn’t write something honest without being harmful, I didn’t want to write at all.
It’s been a crazy journey since my last post. 6 months into the new year and I still feel like a trauma victim. The slightest thing on “the topic” brings a riduclous emotional response. Believe it or not, Twitter has been a sort of lifeline for me during the week. I have my wonderful new church on Sunday mornings. I feel like a scale that keeps getting heavy boxes dropped on it and consequently having it’s accuracy thrown out. It’s Sunday morning church that resets the scale!! During the week, however, Twitter and the wonderful words of wisdom and encouragement from some of the people I follow help to get me through the bumps throughout the week!
For example, I heard about another two dear friends who have officially made the “ruined by _____” list. Everytime I hear of another casualty, it feels like a blow to the gut. I spiralled instantly. As I lay in my bed and the momentary outpour of emotion passed, I tried to calm myself enough to sleep by looking at Twitter via my phone. A simple distraction before setting my alarm and officially trying to sleep. Here are few of the tweets that I saw that somehow helped me regain some equilibrium.
BrianCHouston God’s antidote for bitterness is a heart of thankfulness. It will work every time!
bobbiehouston Cultivate the “good Strongholds” in your life & the neg/nasty/annoying strongholds won’t stand a chance! #♥
louiegiglio It is vain for you to rise up early and retire late to eat the bread of painful labors, for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep. P127
drtonyevans There is a vast difference between learning from the past and living in it.
Sometimes, I’m still too emotionally worn out to think clearly for myself or to read the His love letter to me (Bible) with any clarity. In those moments, God’s Faithful Ministers help me out on Twitter.
So this is me popping my head up for a moment and saying “Hi!”. I’m still here.
DJ
Forgiveness
After my last post, I realized I need to forgive and let go.
In my early years when I was in a good and healthy church, I used to give my problems over to God. Trust issues, anger issues, hurt issues. The ones I really struggled with, I would write it out on a piece of paper after spending some time talking to God about it and then I would go outside and burn it. Burning it helped me visualize that I was letting it go permanently and leaving it in God’s capable hands. Now that I’m writing it down it sounds kinda like some ritual. It wasn’t! It just helped me find closure in that I knew I had given it to God and that I had closed the door on that issue. No more going back to it.
After writing “The Dark Side” and chatting with a trusted friend, I realized that I have progressed. When I first started writing this blog, I felt trapped and didn’t know where to turn. So I turned to the blog to release my thoughts somewhere. Since then, I have re-embarked on my relationship with God and have once again begun to turn to Him for things. Now, I don’t want this blog to turn into me “b****ing” about things because I suddenly feel I have the right to. I really want to forgive, fully turn a corner and allow God to be the one to bring about justice and truth. Not me.
A small part of me does wonder if it is healthy to worry about having to hide this blog from my hubs. It will both hurt him and make him very angry if he discovered it.
I am going to pray about whether I should delete it, edit some of it and change the direction of the blog or simply change the direction. I just don’t want to dwell on the negative and spread any poison. I have shared the link with some close friends and it has helped them to catch up and find out what’s going in my life. I’ve kept it very secret because I’m embarrassed of it (though, not so much anymore). For now, I have decided to delete “The Dark Side”.
I’ve got a lot on my plate today, so I will make a decision soon. I don’t want to rush deleting it or changing it because the truth is that things are what they are. I believe they do reflect that  I have made positive progress and there is some merit in that.
TTFN
The First Two and Now
With the Reason X amendment, I am now going to an AOG church on Sunday mornings. It’s a good one. I’m still going to the other one on Sun evenings and Wed nights.Â
So, for my exciting first Sunday in the free church world (I often refer to the other one as being the East Berlin of the church world). The preacher was a visitor. He’s the leader of the AOG for our state. He preached about guarding our hearts…which was just what I needed because I felt like if I didn’t do something soon I would have a completely hardened heart and go permanently bitter or something. He spoke about how God puts things in our hearts for what He wants to do in our life. Therefore, we should guard our hearts so that it’s soil is conducive to what God wants to do….and to fill it with God’s Word rather than fear or negativity etc so that at the moment of crisis (or whenever really) what is in the heart flows out in that situation. It’s better to have hearts filled with good stuff and God’s word so that THAT is what flows out. Change from the inside coming on the outside-  not the other way around. It’s all stuff that I already know, but it felt sooo good to just hear it and have it bring faith and motivation for me to actually live it/believe it again.
It’s funny because, regardless of the message, I wanted to make sure I prayed at that first service to turn a corner. To decide to make a change for the better and start afresh and rebuild the foundation of my faith. What a better place to start than with the heart?
The only struggle I had is that I really really wanted to answer the altar call, but I froze. I just couldn’t do it. In the other church, you are always told to go to the alter every time. Especially if you are in some kind of ministry, you are then expected to go every time regardless as an example to the others. I got to the point where I refused to go. I ended up feeling like I was there under coercion and couldn’t enjoy focusing on speaking to God. I also felt ogled and condemned by some people who did not approve of my clothing. The guy who made the complaint about my too tight jeans goes there now. He’s the other reason I felt too “under the microscope” to go to the altar before in the other church. I already knew in advance that he would be there, but physically seeing him there kinda stressed me out. The message spoke to me so much and I felt the presence of God so strongly. I genuinely desperately wanted to go down to the front. However, I literally froze when I thought about wanting to go up there. OH well!! BUT, I prayed from my seat and still enjoyed the whole service. I also enjoyed knowing no one there was taught to look down on people who pray in their seat.
During the week that followed, I went to a friend’s house to watch a DVD of Sy Rogers. He preached on the story of Naman dunking in the River Jordan seven times. It was about dunking into God’s provision as often as we need it until the matter is resolved thoroughly. There’s no limit on it and no condemnation for needing to keep dunking. It was such an encouragement. Unbeknown to me, I would really need that later.
The next Sunday, my second visit, I sat with a different group of friends. Guess who arrived a few minutes late and came to sit right next to me before he realized it was me? Yup. That guy. I quickly and shamelessly went to sit on the other side of my friends.
Boy was that worship difficult. I basically spent the entire time talking to God about being confronted with my residual anger at that guy. I thought I had forgiven him. How many times have we heard that one before? Ha. I took comfort in the message I heard ealier that week. I took the time to dunk in God’s provision to help me get over my issues and fear of that guy. Relief!! By the end of worship, I was free from the bondage of unforgiveness and fear of the guy. Happy Joy Joy!! God is soo good. I just bared my soul to God and He did the rest! Funnily enough, the sermon that day was on the church in Revelations that was guilty of legalism. He preached how it is not merely seperation from bad stuff, rather, it’s actually a seperation TO Him. Completely different foundation and spirit. THANK YOU!!! That’s exactly what I’m always trying to explain about the atmosphere in the other church. There, it’s all about seperating from the world and bad stuff because God wants us to be holy and sanctified. Here, they’re saying sanctification is seperating TO God so that as a result, all that other stuff starts to lose it’s significance and hold on you and drops away the closer you come to Him . Hello!
Last week, was great. After 3 other visits to the new church, this fourth one was the first time I was able to truly worship freely. In the other church, you are told that if you are really worshipping God then you’ll raise your hands. Instead of a “God is so awesome lets raise our hands to Him”,  I felt like it was a command almost. A few times, I felt that the Pastor was so frustrated with some of us not raising our hands and “getting into” worship that he went on and on mid-worship about how we should really worship and how that means raising your hands and a few other things. Again, sick of always being told what to do, I started to refuse to raise my hands. So, now, in the new church, I found I could only sing. I stood with my hands clasped in front of me. You know what? I felt happy doing just that because I knew I wasn’t being frowned upon for not raising my hands even once and only singing! Anyway, this last Sunday I finally felt free to worship. After being sick for two weeks – so sick I didn’t go to either church- I felt so happy to be back in the new church Sunday that I couldn’t help but raise my hands and sing for joy to God. I felt free to worship God how I wanted to, and I wanted to raise my hands! The songs were particularly good songs, too, all about God’s mercy and compassion and how indescribably awesome He is.
Today is Saturday. I can’t wait for church tomorrow morning! WOW! If feels so good to say that. I WANT to go to church. I can’t wait! I still dread Sunday and Wednesday nights, but gosh, I love Sunday mornings!
Head Space Vent Space
I’m calm now. The other night, however, I was a wild imp. I got reminded why I started this blog and how much I need it.
I started it as a nuetral place to be able to process my thoughts and questions. I think it may also need to be a place for me to vent. I vented recently on Facebook and ended up in big fight with my hubs over what I said. He didn’t appreciate that it essentially cut down the Pastor. I see it as venting on the aspects that are so typical of this orgaization seeping through. I don’t mean it as a personal attack on the Pastor or local church. I blame the whole denomination and the way it “dicsiples” and it’s fear based sheparding movement ways and guilt trip methods.
My husband and I have this unspoken understading that we’re better off not discussing things that have to do with church right now. It’s such a sensitive topic for me right now that I get way too emotional and ridiculous. So does he. He probably thinks I’m the one making it emotional, but he is really touchy too. So, it’s better to back off that topic. No sense in creating WW3 repeatedly by constantly touching two live wires together. Relationships have enough issues without any extra help.
I was reminded that I need to A) vent and B) do so in anonymity. It’s a process. I am indeed emotional. I am not level headed right now and too quick to see things from the most negative possible standpoint. So, for me to vent in public right now is not healthy for those around me. The only ones that can handle it are those who have already come to terms with what this organization really is. They are often my cheer squad on FB. They understand that silencing critics (rebels) and questioning (rebellion) is such a fundamental atmosphere that it is good to see someone having the guts to say it like they see it and not pretend. Pretending and always saying the “right” or expected thing is so much a fabric of life in that church. You’re so saturated with expected behaviors and answers to everything that you know saying or doing otherwise is going to make major waves. To do so takes guts and overcoming fear, so my friends applaud me for it. However, there are others who genuinely won’t understand and be weakened in their faith by what I say, so I should probably leave it for another arena.
Plus, nothing I say will change people brainwashed by this church. It has to be God. It has to be them choosing to think. They should take the organization glasses off and just read the bible with their own eyes.
It’s pretty simple. God rocks so that you don’t have to. He’s so awesome that you want to hang around Him all the time and be just like Him…and He generously helps you out with that because that’s just the kind of guy he is. Simple. Take Him or leave Him. All these bazillion rules and “have to’s” Â beware of this, watch out for that, do this like this or this will happen blah blah blah is so unnecessary. I better go before I get all excited again! Haha…
Reason X
So much has happened. I wanted to write several times, but each time my browser could not find blogetery. Strange. It’s working today!
The story is this:
Week after week of sitting in church filtering every word coming from the pulpit to find the balance eventually turned into putting up an iron curtain of anti-dogma walls. Even with the walls up for protection, there were two problems. One, it gets tiring and kinda depressing. I love God and want to be in a church where I can hear from Him and it’s saddening to have to get to the stage where I’m closed off completely. Secondly, the walls still can’t keep back all the dogma. Even though I’m not being deceived by it, some things I hear still make me sooo angry because they’re indicative of what thousands of others hear and I know the harm that it causes in so many lives.
Enough is enough. I felt like exploding with frustration and anger at what is happening in peoples lives and at the blind ignorance of so many.
As I mentioned before, I got to the stage where I felt that my only option was to rebel. Truly rebel. By doing something really bad, I would be ousted and in a sense excused from being at that church. And by doing something really bad… I would feel free. I would be doing something that would be breaking the rules and of my own choice. It would be breaking the monotony of this BOOOORING existence and excuse for Christianity. I know what it’s like to be a Christian in a good church- it’s the BEST. I LOVE being a Christian. God is awesome and it’s the best life ever. THIS existence, however, is not true Christianity. I wanted to break from the church’s control, my perceived control from Reason X and from the incredibly lame life that I didn’t even believe in. I felt that I might as well do something…anything!!! Anything that felt loud and alive. For the first time ever, I was tempted to do things I would have never even considered before. Drastic things… some with life long repercussions.
I realized that it was all an emotional response to control and domination. So, I rebelled lightly by just watching some movies that I would normally never have watched. Like, all three seasons of Dexter. Which, I quite liked if truth be told. I also listened to Lady GaGa, Santigold and Kings of Leon like a drug addict. They were great emotional releases.
As you know, Reason X is what has kept me in this crazy excuse for a church. Well. Reason X has been partially resolved. I realized I couldn’t take it anymore and HAD to have a break from this church. Reason X is my husband. He is slowly coming to terms with all the dogma and that he has invested 20 years of his Christian life into it. It’s harder for him, because this church is what led him to Christ. He strongly feels he needs a clear “release” from God to leave the church and that he needs to do it in a right manner at the right time. While, I understand where he’s coming from…. I could no longer survive or wait. I spoke to him about my going to another church on Sunday mornings. That I needed a mental and emotional break and to be be fed at good church. At first…that went really badly. In fact, that first request was just before I went on that rebellion temptation struggle. I think it was having that last door of hope slammed in my face that pushed me to extremes.
There are so many emotional responses to my request that my husband went through. Try not to judge him too harshly. However, after I calmed down myself and after three weeks of struggling against the desire to just throw everything to the wind and go wild like a maniacal beast… I realized I should pray. That’s when the Hope and Validation blog happened. Shortly after that, I spoke to my husband again. This time, he must have prayed about it, too. He said that God had clearly told him not to stop me if I still wanted to go elsewhere. This is very important to me, because it means that we are still united even though we are responding to a difficult situation in different ways. I can go to another church without having to fight him and have there be “thing” between us.
RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, a heavy weight disappeared instantaneously after our conversation. I felt that there had been a strong impenetrable wall between us that finally dissolved at that moment. I feel freed from the church’s control and felt relieved that I was also not being dominated by my husband. Suddenly, now that I had proof that my hubs was not trying to manipulate and control me, I could hear his side of the story without fear. It legitimized the things he had to say. That brought us back together.
The next part of the story, is how I felt going to a new church on Sunday morning. I’ve gone about 4 times now. It would have been 6, but I was sick for two weeks. In a word: RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eventually, the next part of the story will hopefully show us all reunited and in full agreement. I want to go to church as a family, so for now, this Sunday morning separation will just be for a season. I’m praying and believing for God to bring a resolution to this whole thing for us.
To Quote a ______
To Quote a
Phrase Book:
“…when the devil comes and says, ‘You have no standing, you are condemned, you are finished’, you must say, ‘No! my position did not depend upon what I was doing, or not doing; it is always dependant upon the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Turn to the devil and tell him, ‘My relationship to God is not a variable one.
The case is not that I am a child of God, and then again not a child of God. That is not the basis of my standing, that is not the position. When God had mercy upon me, He made me His child, and I remain his child. A very sinful, and a very unworthy one, perhaps, but still his child!
And now, when I fall into sin, I have not sinned against the law, I have sinned against love. Like the prodigal, I will go back to my Father and I will tell Him, “Father, I am not worthy to be called your son.†But He will embrace me, and He will say, “Do not talk nonsense, you are My child,†and He will shower his love upon me!
That is the meaning of putting on the breastplate of righteousness! Never allow the devil to get you into a state of condemnation. Never allow a particular sin to call into question your standing before God. That question has been settled.â€
- Martyn Lloyd Jones, The Christian Soldier, p. 255
Well said!!
Hope and Validation
You know my complaints in the last blog? The ones about not wanting to face my pride and actions even though I know if I just cast my cares on Him that God would give me the help I needed?
It seems He read my blog. Wink.
Two things happened. One, I ended up having a very unexpected conversation with a trusted friend. I told her how I felt and filled her in on the things going on in my church. I’m usually silent-as-the-grave on the subject because I’m so incredibly embarrassed that I go to such a church. She totally understood. Knew just what to say. Prayed with me. Gave me some encouragement because she understood what I was saying and confirmed that I’m not nuts.
It was just what I needed to bolster my faith. To be reminded that God sees where I’m at and cares. He won’t leave me in this scenario. He will help me sort out Reason X so that this situation is resolved. I am encouraged enough to pray about a few specific things. I just wish I had a date or clear mark on the horizon to look forward to. Even still, I’m not going to succumb to the fear that I’ll be stuck here forever.
I found a couple of interesting tweets on legalism.
When we try to work OUT what God has not worked IN us: that is called legalism!
Legalism has two unmistakable marks: pride in those who feel like they live up to the standard or guilt-complexes in those who don’t.” Ps J.D Greear
Perhaps what I was calling pride is actually just a guilt-complex. I just need to remember that He is the Master Artisan, not me. I just have to give Him the OKÂ and He does the rest.
Second, I read an amazing book. Breakout: How I escaped from the Exclusive Brethren is about a person who escaped from an even more strict churchified cult. I soo related to everything he described in his book, even though I know his experience was way more intense and severe than my own! I too experienced so many of the same emotions and situations. It validated my feelings. Here’s proof that I’m not making up my emotions and dramatizing things! It’s a common response to control and having what should have been your “normal” life stolen from you.
The “church” I’m a part of is listed as a cult on the internet. A close friend needed to have counseling a few years after leaving. Upon hearing what church she used to go to, the therapist pulled out a big fat book of cults and showed her that our church was on the list. Of course, she freaked out to find out she had unknowingly been raised in a cult. At least we are vindicated by the fact that this organization has been recognized by other sources as being extreme.
For the curious, I’ve tagged this blog with a bunch of legalistic bible based cults. The one I’m stuck in is among the list of tags. I’m not yet ready to divulge any more details.Â
I can’t wait to be free and be able to flourish in a real church. To be free to just be a christian and to be ME. I am being me, but I’m having to fight to be me under a constant awareness of the fact that it’s not “in-line” with what is normally taught and expected by this church. I’ve also broken out of the fear that is instilled in you. I’m not afraid anymore, for the most part anyway. I just have to still be in it even though I hate every minute and I still have the shame of being associated with it.
Luckily, we are a fair distance away from other churches and so our lack of being ”in-line” has thus far gone undetected. If they knew how our Pastor doesn’t make everyone live up to the expected standards, we’d ALL be branded rebels. Not just me. The Pastor would immediately be brought in for correction and a new hardcore “Pastor” would be sent in to crack the whip and get the troops into shape.
The worst crime is that these kinds of groups and so-called “churches” twist the truth and pervert the Bible and effectively assassinate the character of God.
Â
If you need to be shown or reminded of the true, beautiful and loving character of God that lines up with the Bible, I highly recommend The Gift by Max Lucado. It’ll make your heart swell with joy, your eyes tear up by His great love and replace the fear of hell and condemnation with a peace that surpasses understanding.
Â
Bottled Up makes for a Bitter Brew
The whole point of this blog was to have an avenue to vent and avoid bottling up all my emotions until it’s unhealthy.
I think I left it too long between blogs. So much has happened since the last one. I almost laughed when I read my last one. I was still trying to have a good attitude and trust God. Somewhere a long the way I got too upset and shut down. Completely. I’ve put up major walls. I don’t listen at church. I barely talk to anyone.
I’ve become like the bitter haters I mentioned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can pinpoint a few catalysts. One, was a vacation. On this vacation, I had a LOT of fun with friends and family. I mean LOTS of good, clean fun and laughter. Returning to the dreary depression of home just painted such a clear contrast. I barely have any friends because my life is sucked up by constant, pointless church attendance. I normally love church attendance because there is usually a point to it and it’s not an excessively busy schedule sucking up nearly every day of the week. Wow, to not have to go to church all the time and to actually have fun with friends was really GREAT. Fancy that.
The other was that, upon my return, we had a visiting preacher. I had heard from others that he was a fair and balanced guy. So I went to church with my heart and ears open for the first time in a while.  He was NOT legalistic. He was very balanced and just LOVED Jesus. Just loved Him and exuded the love of God and His grace. It reminded me of what church is supposed to be like. I was touched and blessed by the presence of God. When you have a taste of something good, you crave more. When you know you can’t have it…it’s depressing. Especially when you know it’s out there but for reason X you can’t go to it. As I mentioned in my first blogs, I won’t really go into reason X just yet.
I felt trapped. I felt upset that I’m somewhat robbed of a normal life… at least what should be normal for a Christian. You might ask at this point, why don’t you just leave and go to a good church? I can’t. Reason X, remember? I should probably mention that it’s not MY reason. I don’t really have a choice in the matter. SO >>> I felt like fighting back in an odd way. Suddenly, I wanted to buck everything and was tempted by things I never imaged I would ever even consider. Wild, crazy things. Very rebellious things. Things that in the past repulsed me but suddenly seemed VERY attractive…. like an escape and a release. I fell off the deep end and into a very dark hole for about a month. I very nearly willingly walked into The Forest of No Return. I didn’t do anything truly wrong, though. I may have been tempted, but I didn’t actually go through with anything.
I recently spoke to God again and was honest with Him about how I felt and acknowledged that I need to trust Him in this situation where I don’t have a choice. I don’t have any other avenue. I have to stay in it and I need Him to help me through it. I know that God doesn’t actually want me in a church that distorts Him. But, I think He also understands Reason X and will help me to resolve the Reason X issue.
The practical side is… I’ve developed a very bad habit. I avoid the Pastor like the plague. I realize now just how incredibly RUDE I am. I don’t look at him unless I absolutely have to. I don’t speak to him unless I absolutely have to and even then it’s very brief, almost one word answers. So horrible. It’s like I am protesting the situation by not speaking to him. I suppose that’s manipulation. The other reason is that I’m freaked out by him. I’m afraid he’s going to confront me and that I’ll blow up in his face. I also don’t want the emotional fallout of being confronted. I walk on very thin ice all the time. I barely can keep it together and the slightest thing might make me lose it. I don’t want to have to pull myself together again if I can avoid falling apart in the first place. If he confronts me, I’ll fall apart. How do I stop!!?? How do I go from a completely rude SNOB to adopting decent civility again?
I’m so proud, I don’t want him to think I’ve come to my senses about the whole church/fellowship being fatally flawed by severe legalism. Ooohhh, I don’t want to face my pride. Even more so, I don’t want to drop my defenses!! I guess I need to trust God and let Him help me. I’m fighting it, though. Handing it over to Him seems so scary right now. I never had trouble trusting Him before. I even know that if I just cast my burdens on Him that He’ll actually help me do what I wouldn’t be able to do on my own.
Then there’s the issue at church. I put up my walls and never listen to the sermons. I have found it way too taxing on my emotions. I know there’s truth in there and a word from God that I could glean out of it. However, I find I’m too exhausted now to keep gleaning. I’m always wondering what the Pastor meant by this or that. Then there’s situations like today. The Pastor recently visited with the new area leader. This guy has a reputation for being VERY legalistic and VERY militant. Very hard. However, he’s trying to win everyone over by being super nice and understanding. I know it’s just a temporary act. He’s getting everyone on side with him before he turns back to his normal self. I’ve spokn to people who knew what he was like in the church he used to pastor before becoming the area leader.
It’s what this fellowship/denomination does with new christians. They give them very balanced christian advice and teaching for the first year or so. Then, the dogma comes out. They start to bring out the rules and real beliefs of the church. That’s what this new leader is doing to get the pastors on side with him. Anyway, our Pastor mentioned how he opened up to the new area leader and spoke from his heart about things. That totally FREAKED me out. Why? Because the new leader will be very sweet and understanding to win our Pastor’s trust. Our Pastor is naive enough, because of his sincere desire to be full of faith and do the right thing, to be duped by that. This means, that our Pastor will be easily swayed by this man’s leadership from now on. I should post an audio of some of this leader’s teaching. It is hardcore FREAKY stuff. Like, pray for protection from the spirit of false religion type stuff.
Now, I’m REALLY going to be freaked out and weighing everything the Pastor says and looking at it from every angle. I just can’t handle that. I also worry that there’s no hope of our church pulling out of this aweful fellowship. (There has been the occasional glimmer of hope that our Pastor could pull us out.) Which means I worry that I’ll be stuck here for several more years. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Get me out!!!!!!!!
I like big….
This past Sunday was an interesting one. Our Pastor preached a good sermon, but the last 15 minutes of it was all about defending the organization we’re a part of. Our Pastor is good and not legalistic anymore, but he still believes in our fatally flawed fellowship. He did say that if it was a work of man it would fall, but that if it was a work of God it would come good and that, meanwhile, we should all continue to build. I do get that, but what really frustrated me was the following 15 minutes bent on trying to convince us to believe in the fellowship as a whole and support it. I wish he had just stuck to the message and left defending the organization out of it.
I had just come to a positive goal and perspective after many countless months of figuring out how to cope in our church. Then that. I guess I wasn’t really ready or settled in my focus enough and wavered. I felt a bit battle weary and that my walls weren’t ready for another defensive.
For the evening service (our church has a morning and evening service on Sundays) I was still a little ruffled. I was desperately trying to pray before service, but struggled to focus. In my distraction I texted a tweet to Twitter. I’m @destiny_jae by the way. I decided to use my alter ego for this blog. So, anyway, before service started my friends came over to chat. Two of which were the pastor’s daughters. In the chat, I vomited all over the girls. Not really, but verbally. Two issues that really bug me came up in the convo and so I barfed my bad attitude right out. I try to keep my tongue in check as I sort my issues out, but failed here.
It concerned the fact that we’ve had a group of people leave church. All those people were complainers and haters. Nothing anyone did or the pastor did was good enough. Or good at all. Long story short, one guy didn’t like how tight my jeans were. Firstly, I’m supposed to be wearing dress pants or preferably a dress to church, so I was already “naughty” for wearing jeans. Secondly, I had put on some weight so they were a little tight. BUT TRUST ME, there were others who had waaay tighter pants than me on a regular basis. It’s just my rear was still of a slenderish size and the others were larger. I also don’t wear grandma underwears that make bottoms look like they’re in a diaper. Sounds so petty and horrible, but I have to show the whole picture. From what I can see, he complained because I was attractive and had snug jeans. I always dress modestly, but attractively. I don’t�think I should have to be frumpy to stay modest. He also complained because he and his wife really couldn’t stand me. At all. There are some legitimate reasons for this. I’ve done some stupid immature things to make them upset with me. I found out about this when the Pastor came to tell me that this man complained to him about my tight jeans. The Pastor said he agreed and felt they were too tight as well. However,I found out later that this guy had proceeded to talk to every other guy in the negative group about my butt. EWW!!! Doesn’t he feel ashamed talking about another woman’s butt to other guys in church???? Well, in the end, God took care of me. All the haters have left. I guess that positive spin at the end was some kind of gossip reversal. That was what my first round of gossipy puke was about.
�After talking about my buttocks issues and why I had bought some fabulous new, though slightly baggy, jeans, I said my initial reaction to hearing my posterior complained about was to wear a burkha. I seriously wanted to go get one. (I didn’t.) That’s how we launched into my second round. It was about the founder and head leader of the denomination. One girl mentioned how that leader, when praying for a new christian, had told the girl to “put her boobies away”. The next time that man came to minister in the area, that girl wore a muslim style scarf over her head and shoulders area as a joke. My friend tried to say that the leader had said that probably in a silly mood or joke and I flatly disagreed.
I mentioned that I’ve heard him use many derogatory terms towards woman’s dress or body parts and felt that was extremely wrong. Especially in light of the fact that he holds all the other pastor’s and leaders to a very stringent standard. If anyone so much as says anything contrary to him, he brands them rebels outright. To me, that’s a double standard. If he’s going to be so strict on everyone, he better be beyond reproach himself. Not to mention that a godly minister, in my opinion, would never speak that way anyhow. I personally have heard him say “twat”, “boobies”, “sluts” Â and (describing one girl’s clothing) “you could see straight through to the crand canyon”. I don’t care how old he is or what era he’s from. That’s not funny. That was puking round two.
Then service started. For me, my verbal vomit had totally wrecked the worship. I knew in my heart that the manner in which I had spoken was totally wrong. The issues might have been true and genuinly my thoughts, however my motive was not to edify or bring some kind of balance. It was straight bad attitude and gossipy wanting to get my own sort of sick revenge talk. Immediately after the service, I asked the girls to forgive me for my foul attitude and for what I had said. That did seem to make things a lot better.
It’s kind of ironic, my speak-spew that is, because in my previous post I asked people not to do that when commenting on my blog. Then I went and did the same thing in another arena.
I meantion all this here because this is a regular occurance in many of the organization’s churches. Long time members can seem like saints but still walk around all petty and jumping on people for what they wear or don’t wear. They tatter-tale to all the parents every time a teenager does something that’s not quite up to par. It’s pharisaical. The structure is so strict and has so many rules, that people lose the spirit of love and obsess over the standards and regulations . They’re so quick to point the finger and people are genuinely afraid of saying or doing things that are not exactly like the standard and pattern laid out before us in the church structure. In it’s unwritten rules. And, it’s all done in a churchy sweet or a high -calling spirituality. Legalism distorts things from how they should be to something slightly off.
Here is an interesting quote I found on Twitter when I searched “Legalism” under trending topics: “Legalism lacks the supreme sense of worship. It obeys but it does not adore.” —Geerhardus Vos