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.