Blog on the Lillypad
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Incredibly nauseated today. But I'm at work. Have a meeting with my pastor at 4:00 this afternoon. My self-imposed "sabbatical" from church is not going over well, apparently. He says he wants to pray with me, and I have to take this at face value, so of course I agreed. I suppose, if it turns into an argument, I can just leave. I really don't want to argue.
After my experiences in Indiana, I realized how very little church impacts what I do. I also felt the smart of having no support whatsoever from my church while I was in a very difficult situation. (Well, there was the little old lady who wrote and told me it was all my fault.) The sermons are terrific at my church. In fact, he's the best preacher I've ever heard since Alan Cairns. (and he doesn't go nearly as long!)
And, of course, my recent back trouble was at once attributed by one woman from my church as possibly being the Lord's way of getting my attention. I think that was the final straw. For a few days I had a negative and combative attitude. But once again, my calming friend Deb up in Indiana urged me to use this opportunity as a means of letting my pastor and elders see the gaps in their own care of their flock. They left me on my own to face the troubles in Indiana, and I learned to lean on the Lord and employ His wisdom in ways they had never supposed. By relying on the principles of good and evil, I learned to dodge attacks and survive until the power hungry people attacked foolishly, and then I counter-attacked with the law and with composure and courage. Once they were under stress, they began to destroy each other; hence, they destroyed themselves. I won in a fight against very cruel and very powerful people. And now I've become even more independent than I was and cannot go back. (You can read about this battle on my web site. Check the Big Pharma link.
Well, We’ll see how it goes. I am starting to feel better. I’ve eaten everything in my lunch box and it is only 10:11 a.m. (Fortunately, I have food in my overhead, enclosed bookshelf.)
After my experiences in Indiana, I realized how very little church impacts what I do. I also felt the smart of having no support whatsoever from my church while I was in a very difficult situation. (Well, there was the little old lady who wrote and told me it was all my fault.) The sermons are terrific at my church. In fact, he's the best preacher I've ever heard since Alan Cairns. (and he doesn't go nearly as long!)
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But everything else at church is really designed for families. There's nothing there for a single, educated woman who has written advice for broadway actors and government researchers and been a witness to high powered corporate executives (as well as contract tech writers and refrigerator repairmen). I realize that I present a pretty oddly shaped peg, but that doesn't mean I'm content anymore to get jammed into any place on the pegboard. Church does not offer support to me, and so I'm on a sabbatical (six months into an 18 month sabbatical), studying out what is important to me and once again resorting to a hard seeking of the Lord's will. It may lead me to change churches, a change that I will undergo only after hard thought and prayerful consideration. Or the Lord may lead me to lower my expectations of church fellowship. Yet day after day as I pray to see the grace of God and how it falls, He shows it to me in the lives of other people. At this point in the 18 month plan (six months into it), I am realizing that the church has hedged itself in too much. Grace is at work everywhere, but we are not listening to the sound of rain that’s falling on parched earth. |
And, of course, my recent back trouble was at once attributed by one woman from my church as possibly being the Lord's way of getting my attention. I think that was the final straw. For a few days I had a negative and combative attitude. But once again, my calming friend Deb up in Indiana urged me to use this opportunity as a means of letting my pastor and elders see the gaps in their own care of their flock. They left me on my own to face the troubles in Indiana, and I learned to lean on the Lord and employ His wisdom in ways they had never supposed. By relying on the principles of good and evil, I learned to dodge attacks and survive until the power hungry people attacked foolishly, and then I counter-attacked with the law and with composure and courage. Once they were under stress, they began to destroy each other; hence, they destroyed themselves. I won in a fight against very cruel and very powerful people. And now I've become even more independent than I was and cannot go back. (You can read about this battle on my web site. Check the Big Pharma link.
Well, We’ll see how it goes. I am starting to feel better. I’ve eaten everything in my lunch box and it is only 10:11 a.m. (Fortunately, I have food in my overhead, enclosed bookshelf.)
