I am afraid. I suppose I’ve never stopped being afraid since the night I was told I was being thrown out permanently and might not even be able to be saved. Seventeen years ago. And I’m still afraid. I can ignore the fears for awhile… as long as I’m not trying to connect in a church. But as soon as I find a church that might work, as soon as I start to feel myself starting to grow, to relax, to trust, I jerk away. I run. What if it’s not a safe place? What if it’s another unhealthy group? What if I’m missing something or deliberately overlooking something, some warning, some red flag… what if these people can’t be trusted?
I can’t very well walk into a church and say, “So, are you healthy? Are you abusive? Can I trust you?” I wish I could. But it would do no good because the unhealthy ones would lie anyway. And the others would begin wondering if they could trust me.
There are times a person has to take the risk of trusting, but to risk the kind of hurt that an entire group can inflict on one… That’s a big risk. Is it a risk worth taking? I can’t say. I haven’t been able to get past the fear to take that risk yet. I’d like to, and if the outcome is positive, it would be very worth it. So I either have to get over wanting to be part of a local group of believers or stop running away. But it’s going to be a difficult process, and I’m afraid.
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Author: Through Grace
I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12).
I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ.
1 John 4:7-8
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
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