Home Sweet Home

I have been thinking a lot about God lately and the way he works and how I interpet His place in my life. Those of you who know me well, know I have had a long history of not feeling comfortable in church. I was a member for almost 30 years at my first church and it all had to do with Sunday School, a few comments made by the higher ups and a few other things I won't mention. Now, I have always had my faith and believed in God and miracles and so on, but just did not feel right in my church where people are supposed to be accepting of everyone.

Then, I meet my husband, and he is from a small town where his father is a pastor and his mother is very involved as well. A couple Sundays after we met, he picks me up early and we drive the two and a half hours to another state to attend church and to meet his parents. We sat up in the balconey(sp?). The first thing that happened was everyone was so nice to us. Then, I heard his dad preach...not only did I hear every single word, I got the message, too! Then I had a lightbulb moment...during communion, from the balconey I saw the long lines of people heading up for communion. I had this image in my head of millions of Christians all over the world doing the same thing and what an overwhelming sense of how powerful He is. Well, I felt like I was home and this is here I should be. The problem was, of course, the church was two hours away and at the time we were going there once a month, but as our family grew, it slowed down to about once every three months.

A few years after our daughter was born, we moved from the east side to the west side which in our town is like switching from the Packers to the Bears but we wanted her to go to a different school. My five year old says to me, "Mom, we have to start going to church...let's look for a new one." (Both my kids have strong faith) So after a couple of months we found one and again, for me, the same reasons as the one that was two hours away...they had large print bulletins, assisted hearing devices, the pastor spoke clearly and I heard his message and most of all, the people were soooooo nice. Once again, I felt like I found a family and I almost cried tears of joy.

But then, something happened, somthing really awful happened. Something so awful, I can hardly talk about it but it has been on my mind so much that I have to get it out of my system.

Since this is already long, I thought I would write the rest later, but that would not be nice, right? Besides, I am writing this for me in hopes to get it out.

It happened a few months ago, the end of October to be precise. I was feeling good again, we had gotten good results back from my son's bone scan and he was finally doing well in school. My daughter had gotten a good report and well, life was good. But this Sunday, it all changes and I have not been able to GET OVER IT!!!

I went into church and sat down and it seemed so dark, as if they did not turn on half the lights in church. I could barely see the people sitting in the pews. I sat there and tried my best to follow along, but my mind was not paying attention. Were people standing? I could not really tell...the pastor was but he always does.

I decided not to rush to judgement and wait until we are in the car where I ask Pete if it was unusually dark in church today. "No, I did not notice it." he says. My heart sinks as I realize my condition has gotten much worse.

So, why am I thinking so much about God? Because I wonder why church, the one place where I have been lost for so long, is the place where I am suddenly made aware of the substanial vision loss?

Because He loves me and there is no better place to find comfort.

I did not realize it until just now...sometimes it pays to get it out.