What a crazy month May has been!! My second born celebrated his 16th birthday at the beginning of the month and at the end of that week we endured an “inland hurricane”!! The month just flew by as we are still attempting to get our house back in order after having suffered some damage from the crazy winds. No electric for 5 days put us in survival mode, then the kids were out of school, then back to school to finish the year, and Kindergarten graduation for Miss Emilee and my nephew’s high school graduation, Seth driving & working, Kayla finishing up finals and getting ready for her last year of college, Michael finishing up finals-a play-and the big Beatles show, the insurance adjusters, starting clean up…..you get the idea May flew by!! But May has also been an amazing month of – peace about our future and blessing of time together as a family and also gaining some added insight about people and situations.

Michael was offered a full time contract at MAC which will start in August! Thank God for full time employment after almost a year of not having that….talk about helping us gain some perspective! I won’t talk too much about that as Michael’s blog will be coming back online soon and you’ll be able to read his random musings there. God provided Michael with a summer job to help until he goes back to school in the fall….that has definitely given us a lot of peace about finances!! We are thankful for Dave Ramsey’s plan, we are down to not having a lot of bills, which is a lot of what has saved us this past year! To every young person starting out – I highly recommend financial freedom, wish we’d known Dave Ramsey when we were in our 20’s!!

I’ve been reading a lot recently! Looking back over the month I think….. how in the world have I had so much time to read? But I have! My “reading” swing was demolished in the storm so I’ve had to move to a “reading” lawn chair! Emilee loves it because I’m outside with her…she doesn’t care what I’m doing as long as I’m outside! We have the opportunity to have good conversations and read a little bit in her new Bible….in between all of her bike riding and swinging!!! (Her swing made it through the storm!) I enjoy reading blogs, I love all the amazing, talented people that are sharing their thoughts with the world. I’m reading a really great book for us girls and I hope to post a review here soon. Amazingly enough I’m finding great strength and peace from reading my Bible. That may sound odd that I find it amazing, but I think what I mean is that I’m amazed by my reaction to it. I feel like I’m in a place where I’m reading not because I feel like “I have to” but that I want to! I have not ever been very good about reading my bible…unlike my husband who is running out of different translations to read!! But recently I’ve found myself there a lot and completely fascinated by the people I’m meeting in those pages, currently I’ve found myself in Job. Nothing like a little reading of Job to put life in it’s proper perspective!!

May has been a defining moment in my life, despite the craziness!! I’ve spent a lot of time laughing, reconnecting with my husband and family…including my entire extended family, shaking off the cobwebs, looking to the future, seeing all the possibilities and being so very grateful for grace!!

I look back over the last 10 months of posts on this blog and I am so grateful they are here, I’m glad I continued to write, I’ll need those always to help remind me of where I’ve been. I’ve talked a lot about my church experience in a vague sort of way, some of you know that story in detail, some of you don’t really know any part of it. I’ve realized some things about all my life experiences – I will at some time in the future talk about those experiences to people who need to hear it….I will talk about any of those experiences when God gives me the opportunity. I know God can use our life experiences in a positive manner to help someone or encourage someone or challenge someone.

But for now…..I’m just content to share what’s happening, what I’m thinking, how I’m living, some of the stupid mistakes I make, some of the things I believe in, things that make me smile, things that get me riled up – you get the idea. I’m going to leave you with a few things I believe, this might be a list you want to set down and pound out for yourself and maybe it’ll be something you want to share with someone else.

• I believe………in grace – not just receiving it but passing it on.
• I believe………in a God who loves me enough to be tough on me when I need it.
• I believe………God has a purpose for my life.
• I believe………in following that purpose for my life, even during the rough moments.
• I believe………God’s not done with me yet.
• I believe………in my husband, my kids, my parents, my brothers, their families.
• I believe………in learning the most I can from every experience – good or bad.
• I believe…….that iron sharpens iron. (Proverbs 27:17)
• I believe………in the church.
• I believe………as christians we should extend love, grace, and compassion to all people.
• I believe………in taking the church to the world and not the opposite-taking the world to church.
• I believe………as christians we need to take off the blinders and step out of the bubbles.
• I believe………that this life will be a journey up mountains and through valleys.
• I believe………I am never alone.
• I believe………in a Father who loves me and has great things in store if I will only BELIEVE!

With much love and gratitude! Thanks for reading….

Mel

This post has been bugging me for months now. I’ve been extremely conflicted and made rather uncomfortable by it. I knew it was a post that would be written, but it had to be done after God brought me through this situation and after I had learned a lot about myself. I’ve felt very disjointed and adrift these last many months…..I think I’ve spent a lot of time questioning everything including God and His plan. I’ve found that the words for “this post” seem to flow better in my head and aren’t always as easy to put down in writing. But for the sake of getting “this post” done so I can move on….I’m going to give it my best effort.

I read this quote today….

“The Christian army is the only one that shoots its wounded.”

and this from Facebook…

To my mind, the meanest, cruelest, most hurtful human beings on the planet have been Christians. It’s no wonder that so many non-Christians don’t want anything to do with the faith. It’s because of the way believers often treat one another.

You would think these statements came from someone like me….someone disenchanted with “the church”. Not so…these statements come from authors, leaders…..people who have some influence in the world of Christians. Churches today love the idea of being “seeker-sensitive”….and while I think that’s very important….it can’t be the only thing churches do. When churches are leading people to Christ but also creating an “army of wounded” something is very wrong. (Please note I AM NOT making a broad statement to cover all churches…but it is a problem that effects all churches. Some churches take on the task of healing the wounded and those churches have certainly taken on a huge task.)

I’m going to share a few things I’ve learned lately. After Michael was released from his employment at the church we attended some things happened…..we were asked not to return, we were not given a reason for his dismissal and we weren’t allowed to speak with “leadership” among other things. Did I also mention the character assassination, the shunning, being treated like outcasts, and feeling like our freedom had been ripped from us….making even a trip to Wal-Mart excruciatingly painful for all of us. I know that’s a very negative statement, but it’s true and I’ve never been one to back away from the truth. But….here’s what I have learned….it’s not something exclusive to just the Goldsmith family….it is a very common, painful experience that a lot of Christians face and handle on their own. And mostly they handle it very quietly, because it’s the right thing to do….or is it? Then why are so many “christians” no longer attending a church? Why are books like “Pagan Christianity” and “Unchristian” so popular not only with the disenchanted but with church leaders? Something’s broken……

I’m pretty sure that a lot of things that happen here won’t ever be understood while we are still here on this earth. That being said, I still believe we can gather knowledge that might make things a little easier to process. That’s were God always comes through….whenever I seek him whether in prayer or by reading the Bible or listening to other people’s stories….then I learn something.

I’m a gatherer of information – it’s one of my spiritual gifts !! This is also one of the reasons I love the internet…it puts you in contact with people you would never otherwise meet. So I started contacting pastors and authors and anybody else I could think of to get a feel for what was happening. I wanted their opinion…I wanted to know what they would have done, how they would have handled things differently, what we should do…..I was looking for sanity. (You have to remember that Michael and I both were fairly new to the “church” thing so I really had only the experience of church as a child and Michael came from zero church background.)

Everyone I sent our story to…they responded. I still have all those emails and sometimes when I’m having a truly crappy day…I read them to remind myself we are not alone. I was truly amazed at the number of people who had a story so very similar to ours. People who are still in leadership positions at churches, one pastor that shared his story with me…had a story so very similar to Michael’s and he was out of a job for 7 months before God brought him to his current position as Outreach Pastor at one of the largest churches in the nation. It also gave me hope to know that there are pastors out there truly doing the right thing by not only their congregation but by their staff.

As we’ve continued down this path…God has sent people to tell me their story. People I’ve known for a while that I didn’t know had a story, people from my past, random people I’ve never met before that know us by our story. (Because if there is one thing small towns know…it’s your business and they will form their own opinion based on their knowledge of you or relationship with you.) I’ve felt an extremely huge burden for these “forgotten” brothers & sisters. God’s really spoke to my heart through this situation and over the next several weeks or months or years or however long it takes I hope to share their stories with you here. So that we might never forget…that we never become so insulated by our own “church comfort” that we miss seeing somebody hurting. From experience…I can tell you it is a bone crushing pain…it is now something I will be extremely sensitive to and about.

Could things have been done differently, could I have handled my frustration and disillusionment differently? Absolutely…..things could always be done differently…..but with hard lessons come learning and hopefully, a little bit of wisdom. At some point I want to talk about my own participation in being part of the problem and also share with you why I’m not attending church right now. But for today…”this post” has finally been put to rest and as I find a new purpose for this blog and a new passion to help those forgotten I realize that God uses every situation, even if it’s a bad one, for His ultimate good.

Since I blogged last this family has celebrated two birthdays, Christmas, and rang in a New Year. It’s been a month full of reflection for me personally. Having turned 40 in December I felt the need to evaluate – who I think I am, where I’m at, and where I’m headed. I also needed to put 2008 to rest. My one word description to sum up 2008…insane.

I had the pleasure of spending my birthday with a crazy, funny, loving guy. (Thanks, Michael for the surprises!) We left the kids with family, left the world behind, and we relaxed. We disconnected from all the craziness of this past year. I received a daily journal for my birthday. I can already tell it is going to be very important to me this year. It has become a place where I truly have some “quiet thoughts”…moments between God and I.

The first quote in my new journal for January 1st, 2009:

With every catastrophe comes this gift-the opportunity to see God at work in our lives. -Jan Winebrenner

That made more sense to me than I would ever be able to explain even if I tried writing a thousand words right now. (And maybe to some of you it makes perfect sense.) The one thing I was positive about, my relationship with God had gotten better in 2008. I learned a lot about what was important in my life and what really didn’t matter very much. That led me to do some soul searching when it came to continuing my online “journal”. I really felt I was in a place where I didn’t have much left to share. It wasn’t a sad feeling it was just a thought that I had no set direction for the blog and did it really matter if it continued. So I had to examine-why I blog and for who. I realized that I have missed writing, it’s something I did a long time ago that I stopped doing. My blog has become that outlet for me personally. As for who I’m writing for – I’m writing for anyone that would like to read it and even if that’s only my mom and my husband that I would continue to write. I decided to leave the rest up to God…I suppose if God uses something I write here to speak to someone then that’s okay and if He doesn’t that’s okay, too. That’s really His business and I’m not going to try and understand all of that. I’ve learned over the past year that there are lots of things that happen in this life that I don’t understand and I’ve learned that’s okay.

So, I took a look at the blog it was dark and a little sad…so it’s been overhauled. My new header is the cover of my new journal, I wanted to tie the two together. I’m optimistic about 2009. The last year has been tough and 2008 didn’t end up the way I would have imagined, BUT it ended with my family healthy and together.

It’s time to get moving forward…..SO….hello….2009!!!

Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

Who’s your safe person? I love the quote above…it made me feel very blessed to know that I have a couple of people in my life that are my “safe” people. The person you don’t have to measure words with…that is something rare and precious indeed.

It’s a tall order….accepting someone exactly as they are.

Who needs your “breath of kindness”? How many times have you judged someone instead of holding out a hand to them? What do you think that portrays to those around you about God’s love? About His acceptance? About His sacrifice of sending a Son to die in our place?

He asks us to love one another….He does not place any conditions on that command.

What conditions do you place on loving others? How often do you judge other people’s intentions? Do you think it’s the place of Christians to be the moral compass of everyone’s heart? What’s your stand on acceptance?

All hard questions….all questions I’ve been asking myself.

One more hard question…..who would consider you their “safe” person?

I’ve really struggled lately with my identity…who I am. I’ve had to look at myself from God’s perspective, from the perspective of people who will speak to me truthfully because they love me and invest in my life. I’ve had to look into my heart and find who I am, what I believe, what I stand for and what I absolutely won’t compromise.

It’s been a long and winding road of self-doubt, self-discovery, anger, sadness, wonder and an awareness of who God is and what He really means to me. God has worked me over pretty good over the last couple of years…..things I didn’t think I would ever believe or trust in I find myself embracing whole-heartedly. God knows me, He made me, He believes I have what it takes to be an amazing daughter. I’ve come to the realization over the last several months that God doesn’t expect me to change, He desires that I would be the person He created me to be.

I had to look at the good part of me and the parts of me that I would consider flaws or failures. (We are so very good at beating ourselves up for the things that we see as failure.) I also had to decide on the things that I would never compromise on….the things that are inherent to my nature and personality, the unique crafting of my heart and my soul – those things that made me who I am. I also had to see how these “failures” would become things that would make me unstoppable when it came to sharing my story with people, living a missional life, and living life the way God meant for me to.

The things I see as failures….being opinionated, strong willed, stubborn, a radical thinker, and an introvert. Oh, and I never back down from a good fight, I think they call that confrontational. I looked that list over and realized that the good was also there in the things I thought were flaws or failures in my personality. Let me explain…..what I’ve realized lately is God doesn’t see those particular things as “flaws”…He flipped the coin on me and made me look at those things through His eyes – He made me in His image, life’s circumstances and my choices related to those moments have shaped me into who I am today. I realized when I look in the mirror…I don’t see someone broken and lost, I see someone loved and redeemed…I don’t just see that – I feel that in my heart.

Those things I see as “failures” have made me resilient, compassionate, loyal, a fighter for those that need someone to stand up for them, reflective, a thinker outside the box, and someone who sees the invisible…the people that society does not notice. All things God can use for His purpose and His glory!!

I asked God several weeks ago to reveal His plan for my life, His plans for this family. I know what God is capable of….I’ve seen Him in action over the last several years. The first of September my husband lost his income and even though he has applied for numerous positions….no job!! The thought of going through to Christmas without him having a paycheck should have been terrifying, BUT….it has been an amazing blessing to watch God carry us through this time. Every time I thought we wouldn’t be able to make a bill or buy groceries….God has been there. Michael went almost 8 weeks without a paycheck in the midst of major economic turmoil, and we have not gone without. He brought Michael a sub job at the local jr. college that has given him time to heal and make decisions about what comes next. God has cleared up a lot of questions surrounding Michael’s sudden dismissal from his previous job and as things become clearer and we learn more about what He has in mind for us, we’ve realized that things happen the only way they can sometimes. God’s brought us comfort and an unwavering belief and trust in His plan for this family.

I’m looking forward to what’s coming next…I look forward to sharing those moments with you here. Who knows maybe we’ll even share some of life out “there” as well!!

So, I put this question to you:

As you’ve journeyed through this life what have you found out about yourself, what are you not willing to compromise?