As I read, I could tell it was written from some of the deepest wounds a person could feel. The black letters on white paper were laced with broken dreams, and I heard I failed shouting between the lines. She was hurting. But her every word cut deep like a razor to flesh. This was my family she was talking about. That was my child she was referring to. My mother-bear instinct was enraged as I consumed sentence after sentence.
Yet, in the background I could hear the Holy Spirit whisper, she writes only from what she knows. I wanted to swoosh away that voice like a pesky fly. I didn’t want to hear anything that resembled grace toward her perspective. I wanted to hear the Holy Spirit whisper words of compassion to me, because her words were armor piercing bullets hitting my heart.
I laid the letter down. The truth is I wasn’t ready to let God show me anything. In fact, I was fuming in anger and mad at every word that cut and left me bleeding at my desk. All I could think was what am I supposed to do with this? I couldn’t unread what was written. I couldn’t undo what had been done.
I alternated between ticked off and having compassion for her – it was the perfect battle of my feelings vs His spirit. I knew I needed to forgive — you know the whole WWJD — but I failed miserably at it over and over. Eventually, in spite of my feelings, I released myself from that torment and forgave her. All I could do for months was remind myself that I had forgiven her, because my feelings were not exactly lining up with my actions.
Those were long and lonely months. We forced ourselves to stay connected to the house (our modern day word for church). We knew there were greater things at stake than our pride. Two families, both leaders, same church, sharing in the same pain, but offense, shame, and pride divided us. The enemy had set his course to steal, kill and destroy whatever we’d allow him to have.
Trust me, we wanted to close ourselves off, and barricade our hearts from everything that resembled church life. It was hard to resist dressing ourselves with the garments of shame conveniently laying around on the floor of our minds. Especially when isolation presented itself as our best friend. Tom and I knew if we gave in, the ripple effect would impact generations. The young adults in our home were watching, and neither of them were navigating this storm very well.
We refused to allow our family to be part of the enemy’s spoils. So, on the days we didn’t want to go to church we went anyway. The days we didn’t want to engage with other believers, we smiled and did. We modeled for our children what we should do, and not what we wanted to do. Even if they weren’t following us, we knew they were watching. We knew it was the only way to be victorious in a battle that was set to destroy our family and permanently take us out of church.
If the church was our God, and it’s people our atonement, we would have never made it through that season. But the foundation of our faith was more than a building, and it went deeper than the people who filled it. Since God is our foundation and Jesus Christ our chief cornerstone, when the people rejected and misrepresented us, Tom and I knew even in such pain God could still be trusted. The reality of it was, if we couldn’t trust God where would we go from there? So we stayed. We refused to leave. We were determined to heal amongst the very sheep that bit us.
That may sound all spiritual and mature, but lets be real… passing the author of that letter in church about sent me into cardiac arrest at times. God knew how hard it was for us to continue to go every Sunday without our children. God knew the desperate prayers we were praying. But eventually our feelings aligned with our actions. And it all began with the act of my will – to forgive.
Two weekends ago, I received the most beautiful birthday gift ever. As I snuck away with my husband, the children we raised in the church chose to attend an event at the place they were wounded in. In spite of their feelings they went anyway. And that weekend God delivered them from the shame that was never theirs to carry. He set them free from the fear of His people, and reminded them they belonged in that church.
When my first born text me, “I’m no longer a slave to fear – I’m home again.” I heard the compassionate whisper of the Holy Spirit say – well done you modeled and they followed.
And this weekend, for the first time in over a year, we will all stand together in the house of God. Our entire family has learned it’s possible to heal within the church that wounded us, because as my friend says – when the sheep bite the Shepherd sees. God is not blind when we’re hurt by other believers, but he doesn’t want us wandering aimlessly without a home either. If we stay planted in the house, He will be faithful to restore what was lost.
XO,
