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I have an issue with church.  Point blank I don’t believe you must go to church in order to be saved. I was reading in the Bible the other day from my Holy Bible app a scripture that basically said that Christ or “God” is not in a building. However many believers who do attend and are active in the church on a pretty regular basis believe that you must go or you’re not “saved”.

In my journey thru mourning and coping with the loss of my son I’ve honestly encountered way more so-called Christians or believers who negate the pain of loss.  They say “just pray about it”, or “give it to God”… and many other cliched sayings. These sayings are used for every type of issue and problem they encounter, never really giving thought to the unique needs and pain of a mother (or person) in grief.  This isn’t something I can just “pray” away. It takes alot of faith,  perseverance and many other adjectives that sometimes I’m just too weak to have. So when people say these things I have to fight back tears and rude quips. Because they don’t really know how it feels to dread the years passing,  me getting older every day and yet my Hillkiah not getting older. Not passing any milestones. Not making me happy or disappointing me. Not just living. 

But this post isn’t about that. Its actually about how when I do go to church, there’s always been a word for me. Today September 29th, 2013, one year 1 month and 17 days since I gave birth to my son, and one year 1 month and 14 days since he took a nap and woke up in Heaven, I just didn’t want to go to church. Im now 27 weeks pregnant and I’m getting increasingly tired. I’m also super lazy.  You try getting pregnant 6 months post partum and tell me how YOU will feel. I honestly didn’t want to go from last night.

But I don’t work currently so I sometimes tell myself to snap out of it and I got dressed and went to church.  I was not feeling it. I had a permanent frown on my face. I frequently cry at church because there’s so many little ones around (last time I went there was a dedication service and I saw a little boy who reminded me of my son, skintone, age, big curly fro which maybe my son would have now and I just kept feeling like he should be up there). At church my tears pour like water.  And sometimes I feel so sad and in such pain because while so many people want financial miracles,  or healing for ailments,  etc., my heart hurts cus these things mean nothing to me. Yes my family needs a financial miracle but it wouldn’t take the pain my heart feels all the time away.

So I sat there. No singing no worship.  Just sadness and feeling miserable.

The guest preacher/teacher had everyone given a little workbook called “Every Believer A Witness” which I kinda decided to tune out during the service.  Not helping was my 6 yr old wanting to chat and giggle during the service which meant my mind couldn’t focus on the lesson. However as the preacher started talking and had us go thru the workbook, I became intrigued.

The first thing he said that struck me as interesting was he was talking about how believers don’t like to witness; they like to put it off on other people. Yes, we are not all blessed with the gift to be an evangelist but we can and should witness to those we love/care about and whomever comes in our path that the spirit moves us to witness to. I had told myself some time ago that witnessing is not for me. I’m kind of scared of people and I’m totally not into being Judge Judy which too many Christians and religious folk are guilty of. So I kind of begged off on witnessing.  But listening today really made me feel like I am not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. He said ALL believers are witnesses. Even the “agoraphobic” mourning ones.

The next thing he spoke about that intrigued me was how most believers have misplaced priorities. We’re more concerned about our troubles,  wants and desires.  Im going thru some serious life changing issues like who am I really,  what do I want to do, who do I want to be and more importantly how in the world will my husband and I have enough money to meet our needs and wants and raise our family. We just went from being able to pay for anything we wanted basically to living separately until we can afford a place together.  Its really not a great situation BUT we do have what we need right now. But in the midst of all this and asking all the time about these things I haven’t really concerned myself with what the Father wants from me.

The third thing is that as a believer,  we get super caught up in the issues of life so we dont witness and forget that we don’t want those we love and care about to go to hell. I believe hell is real. But I also believe that many people who are going to hell aren’t axe murderers or super thieves, its just those who don’t believe.  It doesn’t matter all the “good” we’ve done, we will not end up in The Promised Land if we don’t lineup with that one base requirement.

Even some so-called believers are headed to hell. Carrying around malice in your heart, lying, gossiping, etc. is a surefire way to go to hell even if you attend church 52 Sundays per year and any days in between that the church is open.

I think often that if I could have traded my life for my son I gladly would have. I however would have went to hell. I still want Hilly back. Sometimes the pain is so strong I just want to die on the spot, but I can’t be certain I will make it into The Promised Land (some call it Heaven) if I don’t fix what’s wrong with me. I can say though that my desire to witness is not about wanting to change people or trying to get anyone to change. Thats your personal journey.  Instead I’d like to simply introduce you to my friend, you can work out the kinks in you with him.

Thanks for reading and I’ll try to not make such long posts in the future. But don’t quote me on it.

-D

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