There Aren't Enough "Thank Yous"....

I am on chapter 12 of the novel "So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore."
http://www.jakecolsen.com/contents.html

I have found myself crying and flooded with....gratitude.

Yes, I was kicked out of an institutional church.

Yes, it hurt like hell.

And it was THE BEST thing that ever happened to me.

For over a year I've been wondering if I did something wrong to get "punished" by God. I have turned over every possible angle in my mind about HOW this could have happened to us, to our family. I have thought of it as a tragedy.

It is only now that I am beginning to see it as the beautiful, marvelous, grace-filled, glorious gift of my sweet Savior.

God wasn't punishing me. He was delivering me.

He wasn't just "there in the midst of my pain." He was hearing and answering my deepest heart cries of knowing Him and walking intimately with Him.

Am I saying I'll never be angry again? No.

Am I saying I won't keep realizing more and more of the false thinking and doctrines that I experiencing? Probably not.

But I think I am finally beginning to see that this wasn't to my detriment. It was for my glorification and His.

I'm free.

Free to live in Him and move and have my being.

Free to answer to Him and live for Him. Free to focus on Him and Him alone as my spiritual "judge." No games. No gimmicks. No emotional hype. Just free.

Ever since I was a little bitty girl, I have loved Jesus. I would read the big family Bible that no one else did. Look at the pictures. Get engulfed in them. I would talk to God and Jesus and Mary and Joseph. (Hey, we were Catholic.) I have always felt so close to Him like He was my playmate. I have always felt His nearness. I haven't ever really even doubted His existence or presence. I've always been pretty secure in hearing His voice and knowing His will.

And now it's finally dawning on me that trying to cram that type of relationship, that type of true love into a boxed package was silly and unnecessary. Not only that, it was STIFLING to that kind of relationship. Detrimental. Suffocating. I was moving backward. Away from maturity and intimacy in Christ and toward legalism, religion, and being a Pharisee.

My God loves me. He always has. I have always felt it. He loved me no less when I was at Milestone. He showed Himself no less faithful to me there than He ever did anywhere else. It was His faithfulness that allowed the sins of others to propel me out of bondage back into freedom. It was His love and mercy that was drawing me closer....to Him. That's not something to cry over, now is it? It's something to throw up my hands and dance through a sprinkler over. It's a party. A joyous occasion.

The God of the universe loves me enough to hold me through the worst pain of my life in order to draw me back to Himself. He is my lover and my best friend and He is jealous of my attention and affections. He will have no other god before Himself. He will allow no other lover or idol to lure me away. He will have my complete and full attention in order that we might live closely, intimately, side-by-side as we did in my youth.

Lord, now that I'm looking at this thing the right way, let's get on with it! Let's stop looking forever backward and begin looking forward to the future. Where would you like to go today? What would you like to talk about? To do? How can you and I grow closer? What do you have for me? How can I learn, again, to be intimate with you? To whom can I minister to? Whom can I help connect with You and Your infinite love?

Forgiveness is looking a lot easier at this point. How can I withhold forgiveness from those that actually HELPED me? They didn't harm me. They HELPED me! Sure, they didn't know it. But that's irrelevant! I'm free just the same.

It's hard not to feel pity for those still stuck in that big boxed version of our faith. Hard for me not to talk down to them as though they are brain-damaged. But being condescending will do no good. I will have to keep praying about that one. Have to keep looking to Him to help me show His love and mercy and grace to those deeply embedded in a system that caused me so much pain. And to keep from becoming arrogant about what I "see" that they don't.

Lord, help me move forward with grace and trust you with the results!