I’ll just stay here with Jesus. Thanks anyway.
Okay, this might surprise some people, unless you know my journey in and out of church. I’m sure it’s made some heads spin and likely raised that yawning question: “So, what’s new?” Well, this announcement is actually a revelation – seriously!
If you haven’t managed to follow along on this rollercoaster ride of mine, let me catch you up. You might need to grab a coffee and sit down. Go ahead, I’ll wait here. Okay, here’s the condensed version of my God adventure. Just to clarify, I’m referring to God as “him” for expediency, though I don’t believe God has a gender.
Growing up, God was not around. Not that he didn’t want to be; he wasn’t welcomed. I didn’t really know him until my husband, Tom, and I married when I was twenty-five. Even then, it was a relationship of convenience. Because Tom was Catholic and our kids would be raised Catholic, I may as well ride along. I was about as serious as I was about anything else in my life.
Twenty years later, I had my first real conversation with God when Tom and I separated. That conversation went sideways when he said he loved me and I responded with, “Oh yeah! Really? If you love me, where were you when my mother was abusing me?” I did sense his response in my heart: “Linda, I was with you through all of it. My tears mixed with yours. I can’t control the sinfulness in this world, though I wish I could.” A few months later, Tom and I reconciled – sort of.
Fast forward to 2006, my Pastor, in a surprisingly serious tone, offered me the opportunity to attend graduate school, FREE through a grant from Eli Lilly. The plan was for me to obtain a degree in Pastoral Studies and become a Pastoral Associate. That seemed pretty funny considering that I never completed an Associate’s Degree. But I graduated, and just before I could settle into my new position, we moved. That’s okay; I contacted my new Pastor and offered to help him as a volunteer. And his response? “No thanks. I don’t need a woman’s help; I have four ninety–year–old deacons” (I’m paraphrasing). I walked out the door and roamed around in the desert for twenty years. Not an actual, sand and rocks and sweat desert, but close.
Fast forward to 2022, Tom passed away, and I moved. Thinking I may be missing out on something important in my life, I decided to try the Episcopal Church, then another Episcopal Church, then a “Progressive” Catholic Church, then another Episcopal Church, then another Catholic Church. I rarely attended any of them consistently and didn’t get involved in anything outside that occasional one hour on Sunday.
Fast forward to yesterday when I had my most incredible AHA Christ moment ever! For a long time, I have said and believed that God dwells within us, in our very being and that Jesus never said, “Go to church”. He said, “Follow Me. Get out there in the muck and mire of the hurting world and care for those I care for. Love the lost and suffering among you. Sitting in a pew for an hour on Sunday and then spending the rest of your life ignoring those I love most is not what you were sent here to do.”
So now, when I sit with God in the morning and pray for his guidance, then follow it, I believe that is all he asks of me. I don’t sit there to get my card punched; I don’t bring him the receipts for the donations I made. I don’t show him screenshots of me serving in a food pantry. I simply bring my emptiness, my sinfulness, and my longing to offer a bit of his love to someone who’s hurting. And I hope that at the end of my life I will hear those beautiful words: “It took you long enough, but well done, my good and faithful servant.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. This is what I believe works for me. I’m not saying it is what you should do. If you’re part of a church you love and it fulfills you, great! If you attend church and serve others, even better. I’m just sharing where I’m at. So, please, no hate mail.
