Get out

I heard something recently that really broke my heart.
A man who was a leader in a church(not the church building I currently attend), it was found out that he was having an affair. Not just a one time indiscretion but he was in a relationship with someone who was not his wife. When his wife confronted him about it he admited to the affair, he told his wife that he wanted to seperate, that he wanted a divorce, that he loved this other woman.
Obviously my heart broke for the wife.
But that is not the part that really broke my heart.
Obviously since he was a leader in the church, church leadership was going to get involved. They would ask him to step down from leadership, which I feel is appropriate, but I also was informed that they were going to ask him to leave the church, and my heart broke for him. My heart broke for him. He is a wounded individual, he is a hurt man, he is a sick man. He obviously needs the healing and love of Christ.
But my heart also broke because of the way this other church is responding to sinners. To say no you have to leave, instead of we are going to stand here with you though this and love you through it. And obviously there is the thought that this is the church the wife goes to and wanting to protect her. And that I understand, 100%. He caused her harm and we should want to protect this woman in the church. I feel like we should do everything we can to protect the victim. But when it comes to an act of sin, and granted he has not asked for repentance, he is not repenting of his behavior in any shape or form but I feel that that does not give us as a church justification to say you cant come here any more. My heart breaks for this man who is obviously troubled and stuck in sin and the devil has a hold of him. And instead of our response being hey I am going to fight for you and instead of fighting for him and saying no this isn't appropraite behavior, you can't do this, I am going to stick with you through it, we are kicking him out until he changes his behavior.
One of the things I have heard from my own church recently that makes me love my church so much, is the phrase, Belong, Believe, Behave. First we get to a place where we feel like we belong and out of that belonging can come a belief in Christ and out of the belief, comes a change a behavior. So its not that we have to do good in order to be saved, and its not that we have to do whats right in order to be saved, and in order to feel like we belong. First we have to feel like we belong and we have to feel safe, and out of that comes a sense of belief and a sense of trust in Jesus Christ and out of the trust in Jesus and relationship with Him comes a change in behavior.
So my heart breaks for this man who is stuck in sin, my heart breaks for this man who is being kicked out of the church.
My heart breaks for his wife who is heartbroken at this betrayal.
And my heart breaks for the church.
I pray that he can be loved, I pray that he can be known. I pray that there is someone out there who will say I am going to fight for you brother. I am going to walk with you through this. And I will be here, til the day that you believe and I will be here til the day that you repent, and til the day that your behavior changes. I will make you feel belonged, I will make you feel loved despite of and because of your sin.
Just the way Jesus loves us because of and in despite of our sin.

What do non-Catholics do on Ash Wednesday?

As a former Catholic and current Christian, Ash Wednesday is a weird day for me. 

I feel like I should do something. But not sure exactly what. 

Going to Catholic mass isn't really an option, as I have some pretty mixed feelings about that whole thing still. (15 years after I actively stopped attending mass)  

One of my friends agreed stating "#iwanttheashes #idontwanttheashes" 

It's not even so much the ashes that I want/don't want. 

Maybe it's the sense of community that used to come from attending Ash Wednesday services and being marked for the world to see. 

Maybe it's my current desire to spend my days in scripture, discussing concepts, and reading articles/blogs on Christian topics. 

Maybe it is a recognition of today being the start of something big. 

No matter the reason behind the feeling, it is there. And I am not sure what to do with it. So like I do with most things that fall in this category I will just try not to think about it and move on. Maybe read some scripture too. 

Failures

I had a moment of panic last week during church that when it comes to judgement day and I am standing before the cross that I will fail for the times that I have been a poor friend, for the times when I have failed to proclaim God's name, for the times I have failed to hold on to God and nothing else. For the times when I have saught the pleasures of this world instead of holding out for the prizes of heaven.

Tonight as I drove around after returning a movie that I thought was going to be a comedy but was actually pretty deep and brought up some nasty things in me, I started to feel bad and like a failure. But this time not in God's eyes but the worlds.
I am 31 years old. Single, never married, no kids. Work a job (two actually) not because either of them are something I love but because I have to pay the bills. (Frankly I dont know what I would do if I wasn't just working to not be in debt.) Dont own a home. Live in a shoebox of a studio apartment that I struggle to keep clean, because even when I have time off from work or my non booming social life, I can't seem to make myself get off the couch for more then 5 mins at a time.

Lucky for me these two feelings didn't intersect and tonight as I drove around listening to K-love (because that is the Christian thing to do [cheesey]) I didn't feel like a failure in God's eyes and I knew that even though I am a bit of a screw up (sometimes larger than others) that God still loves me and is still proud of me and doesn't care that my house is a mess or that I dont know what I am doing with my life. He knows that I love Him and that even when things suck a lot that I won't turn my back on Him. That everyday I am becoming less of the person I was before, and more of the person He wants me to be. That as long as I try to please Him I can't fail and failure in the world's eyes mean nothing.

Good Enough

I walked into church this morning not feeling good enough.

Feeling like there was no way the man sitting a few rows in front of me would ever be interested in me.

That I wasn't:
tall enough
skinny enough
blonde enough
stylish enough

I lacked any self confidence that would make up for some of my physical lackings.

As I sat in church and felt bad about myself my pastor started speaking about Col 2:13-23.
Usually I pay attention and take detailed notes as if I am in a class and will someday have a test over everything I have learned. But today I spaced out. I let the lack of sleep and coffee and self worth take over.
I laughed at Pastor Mark's comedy not because I thought it was funny but because I felt I had to.
And then he said, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you." and I started paying attention.
He talked about legalism and the measuring stick we use to see how we are doing.
He talked about how we do things for the benefit of others, not for the benefit of God.
Then, THEN he talked about how we should use the measuring stick to measure against God's perfection. And how that leads not to trying harder to fix it ourselves but to a deeper dependence on God.

He summed it up by saying that we don't have to live up to the human standard.

And I smiled. A big dorky inside joke smile.

God knows me, He KNOWS me. He knows what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. He knows that if He tries and tells me something early or later, that it will go in one ear and out the other.

He knows that if I would have walked out of service feeling the way I walked in, that the rest of the day would have been lost. I would have pouted in the corner at our leaders meeting, and backed out of leading this year. I would have come home and bawled about my brother and sisil selling their house and moving in less than a month. I would have drunk myself silly that my parents left shortly after I showed up.

But none of that happened. Because someone who loves me more than I can imagine made sure that I heard the exact words that I needed to hear at the exact moment I needed to hear it.

I am beyond blessed.