I have seen your heartache. I know the person you are. You are people I dearly love, who I know have hearts of gold.
My heart cries out for you because of what you have been through!
This one has a child who is transgender.
Another was sexually assaulted by a man in authority and then told she deserved it.
Yet another, questions the very existence of God because of the many trials that they have gone through because why would a loving God put her through that?
Another just never felt close to God and no matter what he does, he feels nothing.
Oh, how my heart bleeds for you all!
I see your pain and anguish.
I don’t purport to know all the answers. I wish I did. I’ve had my own path to walk with things I have had to plead for help and understanding.
My path hasn’t been yours.
But with everything I have been through, with the answers I have found, this is what I know:
God knows the answers.
And even more than that, he understands.
I think one day when we are able to have a conversation in person with him, he’s going to clear up a lot of confusion for all of us. He’s going to know that one person dealt with life long depression which made it extremely difficult to feel his presence. He’s going to take that into account.
He’s knows the horrific experiences you went through and the effect they had on you. That you were blamed and told you deserved it. That for your own health you had to separate yourself from the church. I believe he has compassion and love for you and he’s going to understand that you did the very best you could.
Sometimes we get so caught up as Christians on things we think we are supposed to do, that we forget the core principal of the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.
We forget that those who have made different choices than we have, deserve love and respect.
We want to grade someone else’s sins greater than our own, and regard them as less worthy. But we don’t get to make that call. Only God does.
So when all is said and done, and judgement is given, I think we’ll see a lot more of those people who left the church, unable to walk our traditional ways, with God. Even if I’m wrong, God says to love him and love others, so I’ll keep walking that path and keep reaching my hand out to you in friendship.
Just because you left the church doesn’t mean God, nor I have to leave you.
So we’ll be right here loving you.
