An in conclusion:

So my biggest question now is just where is He leading me? I’m willing to go where ever he leads, but in the view of recent developments, I realize I haven’t always been right about where exactly that was. Or is all this just really part of His perfect and predestined plan for my life?
I know this is very, very long. I’m not even sure who will be reading it, aside from my husband and the few readers of my blog. But it does seem to be helping me clear and organize my thoughts. So I think I will continue.
Summer of 1993 was the last time I saw my great aunt, the nun. At my father’s funeral.
We moved to Colorado - where Art’s mother was living, in 1994. We were pretty active in a Free Methodist Church, leading a Bible Study, Art volunteering as youth leader and me as children’s coordinator. And I was teaching in the Church school there. During our season there, Art had the opportunity to go on prayer journeys to Damascus and Tibet. Some of the elder’s were talking about helping Art start the process toward ordination but the senior pastor was not in favor of it.
In 1995 Art had to have emergency surgery, no insurance, no medical benefits, and 6 weeks out of work. That April, hardly healed, he went to a men’s retreat, where 2 of the Church leaders “ganged up” on him demanding to know why we weren’t tithing. They didn’t even seem to know about Art’s health problem. And we were tithing, but it was just my income and I was using cash because our finances were so strained due to medical expenses and our checks weren‘t very dependable. A few weeks later, Art was asked to step down as youth leader because he expressed concern that the Senior pastor was encouraging the youth to go to a mega church in the area where the norm was holy rolling, holy laughter, and even holy barking, all in the name of the Holy Spirit. And again, we moved on. To New Mexico. To pastor a small multi-cultural Free Methodist Church on the edge of the Navajo Reservation. And again, although the little church grew from 12 to 30 in 3 months, the Mission Board decided they needed a Native American Pastor. So we moved on. To serve as children’s coordinator and assistant pastor of the other Free Methodist Church in town. And again, the denomination decided to close the little church. So we had to move on. And we were offered the Open Bible Standard Church which was about to be closed down. We built it up, but our congregation was poor, and we couldn’t afford the upkeep of the church building, so the denomination sold it, and we became a home fellowship. And then…all hell broke loose.
Our little Church was pretty active. We fed the hungry, worked side by side with the rescue mission and Salvation Army. We participated in the local Passion Play. Pastor Art was part of the area Pastoral Prayer Group and the Four Corners Worship center. Even though the ministry was bringing in no money, we felt as if we were doing what the LORD wanted, our little Church was growing in wisdom and knowledge, and we were a part of the bigger, community of Churches. Until our first born son fell.
A secret, horrible sin became public. And people we thought were our friends turned their backs on him, and us. Our Church family was supportive. Our denomination was supportive, but they were centered in Denver, and we were all but alone in the Four Corners. We had a few old faithfuls, to pray with us. But the whole thing, the public humiliation, the bad press, our beloved boy going to prison for what in this day and age seems to be the unforgivable sin. And soon after this broke, our younger son’s wife had an affaire, and decided that she was not one of the Elect after all, that her sin was predestined. So she ran off with her lover, leaving our dear grandchildren with her parents and leaving our dear son broken and hopeless. We decided it was best to close our little church. To send our flock on to stronger, bigger Churches. We began to fellowship with an Assemblies of God church where we felt welcomed, where the word of God was preached faithfully, where one of our faithful friends led worship, and where we felt we could rest and be healed. Art did not want a position of leadership. He played percussion in the worship band and I taught children’s church 2 times a month and joined the dance team. Although it was a primarily Native American congregation, we felt part of the Church family as did my younger son and his children. Still, we weren’t very strong spiritually or emotionally. We were over sensitive and frustrated. I guess we felt we should be stronger, so we tried not to let our weakness show. We felt we should be able to help each other out of this funk we found ourselves in, why bother the pastor who had a flock to care for? We went to a small group for a while, but didn’t exactly agree with the teachings. We respected the teacher, and didn’t feel as if we had the authority to correct him and knew that if we were to express our opinion it would sound to the others argumentative. So we stopped attending. Eventually, we stopped going to the church altogether. The few times Art spoke up it seemed to offend or confuse the matter. Things were said, and like I stated, we were over sensitive and offended way too easily. We felt we were an unnecessary burden to the church and the pastor, so rather than attempting to work out our problems, we simply walked away.
I’ve been working on this letter for days. It’s Christmas Eve, and I am feeling so lonely. I need to hear the voice of my Father, my LORD. I need a vision, a sign, an angel visitation, at the very least, a friend. I want to play “Let’s Make a Deal” or lets throw a fleece. If you want me to be Catholic, fix the car so we can do Christmas. Should I pray to St. Nicolas for a Christmas miracle. Since I started this letter we made contact with a person who belongs to a church that is looking for a pastor. Is this a door opening or a chain rattling. I doubt very much a non-denominational church would hire a pastor who doesn’t believe in rapture or predestination.
Ah, there it is. The real crux of the matter. The doctrine that nearly killed me, and is killing me still. I understand that Augustine sort of laid the foundation of this doctrine, coming to the Faith with a Greek, fatalistic background. But I never, in my years as a Catholic, heard the teaching that God predestined who would be saved before time. That the stories of our lives were written before we were born. And only those elect, predestined by God, could be saved. Once I was “born again” that, and the trite saying “Once saved, always saved” didn’t set right with me. But I managed to avoid them. I loved Jesus. I loved His word. I loved worshiping Him.
At times I struggled with the concept of prayer. I could thank God, and Glorify His name, but if God knew all things, and His will would be done of course, why pray for things, for situations, for the sick or the lost. If God was going to heal them, He’d do it regardless of my feeble prayers. If, as my protestant friends were saying, only those elected and called by God, and who they were was foreknown by God, if only those would be saved, why pray for the salvation of my loved ones. Either they were or they weren’t. What did my prayers matter? Over the past year and a half, this became a very serious issue in my life.
My son sinned. It was a serous, grievous sin that affected many lives. He confessed, repented, and has been redeemed by the LORD, yet he is suffering the consequences of his sin, as are others, and the situation will never go away. So is this situation because he gave into temptation, and willfully did something he knew was wrong. Or is it part of God’s perfect, predestined plan for his life and the lives of his victims? That last statement sounds like foolishness to me. I always believed that God gave us a free will. Not just the illusion of having a choice, but a genuine choice. That God knew where each choice would lead, and He offered grace, guidance, mercy, to help us make the right choices. I believed that every human being created was precious to God, created in His image, and with a purpose. I believed that it was God’s will that each human seeks Him and find Him and surrender his will to Him. But that God left it up to us. God didn’t know what would be, just all the possibilities of what could be. Recently I was told that that line of thinking was Open Theism - a heresy. I’ve also been told that people like me, who don’t believe in predestination, don’t really believe in the Bible and don’t believe in the Sovereignty of God.
I’ve done some reading on Open Theism. I don’t think that quite fits my beliefs. I’ve read some of Wesley’s works. I’ve looked at some of Luther’s teaching. Boy, was he messed up. I’ve studied, with my husband, the book of Romans, and dug into the Greek and Hebrew, and the first century understanding of the Gospel, of the Scriptures. Before the Gnostics, before Augustine, before Protestantism. I have come to the conclusion, that everywhere predestination or election or the concept of the chosen was mentioned in the Old Testament, it referred to the Jewish nation. I believe that it was understood in the same way in the days of Christ, but since many of the Church fathers, and protestant leaders were very anti-jew, they couldn’t admit that it was talking about them, so they invented a whole new doctrine to explain predestination. I do believe that we are all predestined to salvation, it is God’s will for us, but that it is a choice we must make for ourselves. I’m writing this late, without the benefit of caffeine or my glasses. I am rambling, and probably not making myself clear, getting off the track, I’m sorry.
A colleague of mine killed herself about a year ago. She was a very beautiful, well educated woman, with two teen age children, and a husband who seemed to love her. No one that worked at her expected such a thing could happen. At her funeral I found out she was very active in her church, feeding the hungry, serving the communion cup on Sundays. I think predestination killed her. I know the circular type of thought. Life gets hard, depression sets in for what ever reason, hormones maybe, but the thought occurs. Am I really saved? Where is God when I need Him? If I am saved, then what ever I do won’t matter. If I am not saved, then what ever I do will not matter either. If I succeed in taking my own life, it is only what was predestined for me anyway. I’m only guessing, because I’ve had the same thoughts myself. But each time I got desperate, I’d cry out to the LORD and He’d whisper to my heart, Maryellen, you know better than that. That is not what I was taught from my youth. Nor was that what I read when I read the Word of God. As long as I read it with the understanding that God is Love and in Him is no darkness at all. As long as I asked myself, what did these words mean when they were written, before Augustine, Luther, Calvin, or Wesley tried to explain what they meant. The LORD is the same, yesterday and today…and His word stands firm. But what He meant when He, the Holy Spirit breathed the words into the pens of Isaiah, Moses, David, Paul etc - is still what He means…
Still, back to the question at hand. What about the Roman Catholic Church?
Since leaving the Assembly of God church last year, we have been attending an Episcopalian Church in the area. The priest there was born and raised in the same part of the world as my husband, and there has been a connection between the two of them since we moved here, about the same time as he and his family. Lately his church as been in crisis because of the situation in the Episcopalian denomination. He and most of his congregation have taken a strong Biblical stance against the increasingly liberal rulings and practices of the Bishops and leaders.
I have really enjoyed the liturgical services and especially receiving communion every week. There are so very few differences between the Anglican service and the Catholic Mass. I know the church started over the question of divorce and the authority of the Pope. Our priest is married and has a family. And Mary is not an issue there. But there are some Christians who would be as upset over the Episcopalian worship practices as they are with the Catholics. They have icons and statues in their church, candles and incense at their services, the priest is called Father and wears vestments. The saints, although not prayed to, are remembered on their feast days.
We’ve gone to their Christmas Eve services since moving to this area. This year, as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t think we’d be able to go, because of car trouble. I thought of walking to the Catholic Church in town, and called to see if they had a midnight Mass, but felt bad, because I knew, if I went there I wouldn’t, couldn’t take communion. The LORD provided a way for us to get to the Episcopalian church after all. So it is two days after Christmas. This letter is 8 pages long. And I still don’t know exactly what it’s purpose is. I heard a very good teaching on Mary and the Mary feast days in December on EWTN. I do think the protestant church should give her more attention. But is addressing her actually prayer, since prayer is communicating with God??? And why does the Church think it is important to believe that after the birth of Jesus she remained a virgin? It sounds prudish to me, like saying that sex is a sin, even within the sacrament of marriage and Mary remained pure. Are other mothers impure? I can accept the assumption, and even the immaculate conception. Does what I can or cannot accept make any difference at all? I can not accept the doctrine of predestination. What did Mary mean when she gave the rosary and said it was proof of predestination? I do not accept the doctrine of divine election. Why would a loving God allow babies to be born if he knew full well that their destiny was a devil’s hell? But does it matter what I believe? What I believe or accept or do not accept does not affect ultimate truth. And truth is not a concept to be accepted or not accepted. Truth is a person, to be loved or not loved. And I do love Jesus. But as I stand right now, am I damned? If it is true that to rejoin the Catholic Church I’d have to go to confession, get my first marriage annulled, and accept the Marion doctrine - does that mean that if I don’t do that stuff, I’m bound for hell? Does the fact that I cannot accept predestination or election in the way that it is presented by most protestant churches, mean that I am rejecting the teachings of the Bible and therefore the God of the Bible, and therefore am not truly Christian, although I confess faith in Jesus and His cross? I’ve even read that people who believe like I do are actually working for the enemy. And those words were written by a teacher in a church I used to attend. Ok, so now it’s nine pages lone, single spaced. And I still don’t know…And I want to know. Like that time, 28 years ago, when I called out - “I don’t even know your name”. A new year is beginning. Although I’m feeling pretty old right now, I could well have another 28 years of life ahead of me. I want to make the best of them. I want to live them for the LORD. I want to make wise choices and walk down the right paths.
Lead me, not into temptation, but deliver me from evil…protect me from the evil one.
I guess, on that note I will close. And wait. And see.
The lazy time between Christmas and New Years…time off from School…quiet time, warm and cozy time…I’ll just wait. And watch. And pray

The continuing saga...

I knew I'd get some interesting comments on the last blog, if I dared to publish is. I think I will send this on to the priest in Albuquerque when it's done...but until then, if anyone is interested...here is part 2
We were married on New Year’s Eve, by a Baptist minister in Colorado Springs, and 8 months later our first son was born. We were self-proclaimed Christians, but did not belong to any church. We prayed, read scripture, listened to Christian radio and watched Bob Schuler on Sunday Mornings. Eventually the LORD led us back to my home town, Rochester, NY, where we became members of the United Methodist Church my father and his third wife were attending. It was a wonderful Church, where we grew in faith and knowledge. It was a multicultural and intergenerational Church with an old time preacher, a classically trained choir director, and plenty of old saints who took us under their wing, teaching us to pray, understand the Bible, and to seek first the Kingdom of God. Our two sons were baptized there, as was my husband. My little family grew up there. Spiritually and emotionally. The church was our family, our purpose in life. It was there that Art heard the call of the LORD to go into ministry. In 1988 we both graduated from Roberts Wesleyan College, Art with a degree in Religion and Philosophy and me with a degree in Elementary Education. But the United Methodist Denomination was becoming more and more liberal in their beliefs. And Art, who had been seeking ordination as a UM minister was told he could not continue in the process, when he blatantly declared to the ordination board that he believed homosexuality and abortion was a sin. For the next few years, I taught first grade at an interdenominational Christian school, and Art worked at a homeless shelter, attending a Free Methodist Church and seeking the will of the LORD for our lives. More than once Art had conflicts with Pastors and leaders of Para-church organizations because he would call them on certain Biblical issues. God language, tolerance of sin, letting a Jehovah Witness teach Sunday school in a Christian church, not allowing the use of the Bible when counseling people in an agency that called itself Christian but was funded by state funds. One time, a guest speaker at a Church we were visiting spoke a word of prophesy over us. Something about refiner’s fire. That we would be rejected by people we trusted, and hurt by pastors and friends alike, but that these trials would actually be coming from God who was preparing us for a great work.
His words rang true when we heard them, and have proved pretty true over the years.
Once, when the Pope was visiting Denver, Colorado Art watched all the pomp on TV and llistened intently to his speech to the youth. He commented how refreshing it would be to belong to a Church where the leader wasn’t compromising on basic issues. Who called sin sin and Jesus LORD - the only Way. But, still there was the issue of Mary and the Saints and the idea that the Church was infallible. At least Art conceded that Catholics were indeed Christians. And this idea led to several heated discussions with other Christians who believed that the Roman Church was the great Harlot, and anyone within her walls was deceived. Should they actually find Jesus there, they would surely be led by the Holy Spirit to leave, and expose its faults to the world.
Art is quite a scholar. Although he only has a BA, he has kept up his Greek and Hebrew, and has continued to study, reading everything from Augustine to Wesley. At Roberts we had several excellent professors, mostly Wesleyan, one Messianic Rabbi, and at one of the Churches we attended, we took college level classes in Bible and Theology. Seeking earnestly Wisdom and Knowledge and the Will of the LORD in our lives.
I think now, perhaps we took some wrong turns along the way. I know now we made some mistakes in the rearing of our sons, in the career choices we made, in the risks we took and the paths we didn’t follow. But as we prayed our way through our lives, we did sincerely try to “seek first the kingdom of God” and “ trust in the LORD with all our hearts, lean not on our own understanding, and believe that He would make our paths straight” Be not wise in your own eyes.
We’ve been married 27 years. Over the years we have lived in Rochester, NY (13 years), Denver Colorado (Aurora and Littleton specifically - 5 years), New Mexico (the four corners region - 9 years). We’ve been active members of the United Methodist Church, Free Methodist churches in NY and Colorado, and Assemblies of God. Art has been an assistant pastor in a United Methodist Church, Free Methodist Church, and senior pastor in a Free Methodist Church and Open Bible Standard Church. We’ve taught Sunday School, workshops on the dangers of the Occult, I’ve coordinated VBSs, Children’s Church, Summer Camp Programs for the Salvation Army and Free Methodist
I’m not writing a resume, or blowing my own horn. None of our “ministries” have been very successful or long lasting. Art’s emphasis has been prayer, study and worship. My emphasis has always been children and youth. The last 5 years have been the darkest, most hopeless years of our lives. And the only light I see in the distance is burning in the Roman Catholic church. Could it be possible after all this, Catholicism is where I’ll end up? One of my sons, who is cynical and claims the Jewish blood that my German ancestors and Art’s Russian ancestors denied for many years, while still believing in Jesus and the Holy Bible, can hold his own in any debate, argues that Catholics are just as Christian as any other so called Christian group, but all have strayed far from the 1st Century Church and Jewish understanding of the Gospel. The other of my sons, an ex-con, registered felon, who has strong faith in the Jesus of the Bible, had some bad experience with the Catholic ministry in the prison system and says he can’t trust any church that says it’s the one True Church, also knows it to be true, that Catholics can be just as Christian as any other Christian in any other church. Funny how that one statement gets a rise out of so many non-Catholic believers. I was once told by a Christian friend that the Catholic Church teaches a false Christ. Yet the Jesus I believe in now is the very same Jesus, born of a virgin, worker of miracles, second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Died on a Cross, Resurrected on the third day, coming again (soon LORD please) to judge the living and the dead…the same Jesus every teacher in my Catholic schools taught me about. Well, you may read on if you are holding these many pages in your hand. If I blog this, you’ll have to take a break - as I must make an early morning run to the LaundryMatt. I think I’ll take my “Catholic” Bible with me and read some psalms while I wash my clothes and wait for the sun to rise.

True Confessions of an old tired woman...

whose interested anyway?
but it's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to...
Where to start?
Why I am writing this…
I was born and raised a Catholic. Graduated from St. Agnes High School in Rochester NY (class of 1970) with an award for Excellence in Theology. Fell away from the faith. Fell away hard. Was “born again” in 1979, married a Catholic hating Christian. Now, many years later I am living in Farmington, NM. My husband (an licensed minister with Open Bible Standard Churches) drives a propane truck across the Navajo Reservation and the only radio station he picks up is Catholic. We’ve been listening to it a lot actually, and watching EWTN as well. And I heard about your organization on the Radio, my confirmation name is Bernadette, and I guess you could say, I’m feeling compelled to write. In all honesty, I can’t believe I am even remotely considering going back to the Catholic Church. Perhaps the compulsion is a result of my great aunts prayer. It was her prayers which brought me safely into this world. And although we have been out of touch since I moved away from Rochester, I just found out that on November 18th she celebrated her 100th birthday at the St. Joseph Mother House. Aunt Gertrude has been a nun, a sister of St. Joseph for most of her life, being brought up in a Catholic orphanage and taking vows in her teens.
I guess I’ll start with her. My mother converted to Catholicism when she was 14. She married my father just after she turned 17, an Italian/German Catholic. They were much too young to get married. My mom got pregnant right away, but was told at 7 months that I was going to be still born due to the RH factor in her blood. They suggested terminating the pregnancy because if I were to begin to decompose within her womb it would kill her.
My father’s aunt, Sr. Theresa Clair, counseled my mother not to let them take me, and called her friends together in the convent to pray for me. I was born, without complications on February 11, 1952 and was named Mary Ellen. I was born a month before my mother’s 18 birthday. As I said, my parents were way to young to get married, my mother was a stubborn woman and my father had a hot temper. By the time I was 4 years old, their marriage was over and I was living with my paternal grandparents who raised me Catholic and saw to it that I received a Parochial education.
Unlike some of my “born again” counter parts, I have no horror stories about Catholic schools, no negative Catholic memories. I have always been grateful for the fine education I received, and for the foundation of faith that was laid.
Upon graduating from high school (remember the award for Excellence in Theology), I attended a community college, remained active in my church, joined the Newman Society at school, and in 1972 I married a young man who had been adopted into a Catholic family and also educated in Catholic Schools. We were married in a Catholic Church.
But shortly after the wedding the emotional and sexual abuse began. He forced me to watch hard core pornography, and in the four years that we were married, he actually “made love” to me less than 10 times, preferring unnatural sex. I decided to leave him, hoping that once I was gone, he would come to his senses and we would be able to work things out. Although I had stopped going to church, I had not stopped praying, and I decided to go to a friend of ours, a priest, whose name I don’t recall, pastor at Holy something church in Charlotte, NY I think. I told my husband I was going. He was already living with and sleeping with a friend of mine, but he said he’d go with me. We sat in Father’s office and I spilled out my heart. Then I was asked to go into the other room so Father and my husband could talk. After that, I was called back in and Father told me that he had wanted to talk to him privately because he surmised that I was exaggerating and he wanted to hear his side of the story. After having my whole story confirmed, the priest asked me why I had stayed with him for so long. I said it was because I had vowed to stay, for better or for worse, until death do us part. He said that I would have no trouble getting an annulment from the Church and he would begin the proceedings as soon as I said. But I said not to bother, that I’d never get married again anyway, and that I felt God was letting me down because the Bible, Jesus says, that whatever we asked according to His will he would give us, and I wanted our marriage restored not annulled. When I walked out of that office, I walked away from the Church too, feeling angry and rejected by God.
And the down hill spiral began, faster and faster I fell.
God hated divorce. Even if I found a decent man, it would still, according to Scripture be adultery. A piece of paper wouldn’t change that. Prayer didn’t work.
But I was always a very spiritual person, so I started looking for truth, enlightenment in other places. This “good” little Catholic girl sought after false gods and goddesses, took mind altering drugs as if they were sacraments, and allowed herself to be talked into murdering her unborn child because it wasn’t a convenient time. You can’t kill a living soul, I was told, we’re simply asking it to go back and wait until we are ready. I knew it was a sin, I hated myself for doing it, I remember sitting on the edge of the procedure table feeling as if every angel in heaven was trying to pull me out of the room. I remember hearing the doctor saying at the end, “from the pieces of the fetus we found…”
In 1979, I was alone and meditating. I had been disillusioned by all the other paths I tried to follow. I had encountered a group of followers of Wicca who were, I told them, “just as hypocritical as any Christian I’ve ever met.” But I was so alone and so hungry for the truth. I called out to the light from a single candle, “I don’t even know your name” and I heard the answer, deep in my soul, all around me in my solitude. “What do you mean you don’t know my name? I am Jesus. The same Jesus you prayed to as a little girl, and I’ve been waiting all this time for you to come home.”
I came back to Jesus. But I couldn’t go back to the Church. As I think about it, there are 3 main reasons I didn’t just go find a priest. The first was Mary. When I was in my early teens, my mother’s second husband was a Charismatic, Catholic Hating, Alcoholic who showed me in the Bible where we were only supposed to have one intercessor, and equated the worship of Mary and the Saints to the worship of false gods and goddesses. I did bring up the question to my religious instructors but didn’t quite understand their answer. It seemed to me then that it was definitely anti Biblical. After all I had been through, I didn’t want to deal with the question of Mary and the Saints. Besides I had a ton of mortal sins under my belt, and going back to Roman Catholicism was going to be awfully complicated. I had tried once, before the abortion, before leaving Rochester, to go to confession. I went to a church where no one knew me, and I watched for the youngest looking priest. After my confession, he gave me a short lecture about how I was damned to hell and if I had died before going to confession I would have surely skipped purgatory and gone strait to hell. Then he told me to say 5 Hail Mary’s and 5 Our Fathers and all would be forgiven. It seemed like nonsense to me. Like saying some magic words over and over again would break a curse. The idea of Mary and Confession and the burden of a failed marriage, kept me out of the Church. At the time I had two Christian friends, neither Catholic. And shortly after my encounter with Jesus, I met the man who is currently my husband. As I stated earlier, he used to be seriously anti-Catholic, thinking of the church as the Great Harlot of Revelation. So I became an Evangelical, Bible studying, Born Again Christian. I felt closer to Jesus than I had ever felt before. I was active in the church. Gosh this letter is getting too long.
Bless you, whoever you are, if you are sticking to this. Perhaps this is being written just for my own welfare. But it is Sunday morning, and I haven’t even had my first cup of coffee, and I need to get ready for Church…I’m gonna take a break. But it won’t seem that way to you dear reader, whoever you are…maybe I’ll just post this on my blog. Then my “Christian” readers will start to pray for me that I don’t continue with this foolish idea of returning to the Catholic church. Hummm, I wonder, whose prayers are stronger. Because I’m pretty sure that good old aunt Gertrude is still praying for me.

Time? Its been a long Time...

Psalm 23:5 “You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”
I have an enemy. For at least 30 years this person has been a thorn in my side. The name and face that came to mind every time I heard a sermon on forgiveness. I thought I had conquered those feelings of resentment. Other problems were more prominent in my life. Dark days of new crisis consumed my mood, and the enemy of which I speak had faded into my past.
But just now, I heard the name again. And I heard some news that aroused the same old feelings of anger and resentment.
And I cry out to the LORD of my broken dreams. The Author of my tired old life. “It’s just not fair!”
I know.
No one ever said life would be fair.
And who am I to question God?
We were warned 18 years ago. A word of prophecy. We would be made to go through several refiners fires.
Psalm 12:6 And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times.
Seven times?
The thing is, I know that I am far from being a perfect or righteous person. I know that I am flawed. I’ve tried to walk the path that the LORD set before me. I tried to seek first the Kingdom. I believe in Jesus and I love the LORD. But life really sucks. I mean, my son’s are in crisis – I am physically and emotionally a wreck, all my visions, hopes, dreams are lying at pieces at my tired old feet. Sounds like a song we used to sing…
All of my ambitions…all my hopes and dreams, I surrender to Jesus.
Ok – Fine then.
But why does my enemy, that person from my past, who stabbed me in the back, lied about me, stole my inheritance, wounded members of my family, killed my cat, why does that person have what I want so badly. Not riches, not stuff, but something for which I have been praying and sacrificing for many years.
Keep your eyes on the goal.
So, I’ve been told.
Trust in the LORD with all you heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3)
To that I have tried to be faithful.
Yet my hope is all but gone. What I thought I was working for, I know now I will never have. But that person. That person who was so deceptive, who never sought my forgiveness, who is my enemy, that person has it…
So I will bask in the cool light of the full moon as I await my ride home.
At home I will sit in the warm glow of my Christmas Tree – so many good memories there.
Perhaps my husband will soothe my spirit with his flute or guitar.
I am conflicted, I am distressed, I am tired and old.
I will pray for the strength to face another day
He will restore my soul…