Waking from the venom.

Over the weekend I had some amazing time to spend with some friends that I don’t get to see all that often and just talk. Talk about life and events and spiritual concepts and revelations. It was iron sharpening iron and the first revelation God sent me this weekend was just how much I have NEEDED that. God as clear as day just dropped it into my head that I have been starving for a very long time now. This is why I was seeking churches in my town to visit to try and find something to feed that empty consuming hole. I have been starving for Christian interaction, not just a good sermon, not just fellowship and fun, but debates and sharing insights and in my case many of the things God reveals to me are in verbal revelations. I will be talking out a concept when it just clicks and I understand what God is trying to tell me. That hasn’t happened in a long long time.

The first drought was when Reality Check ended. There was NOTHING to fill that empty place where so MANY of us found refuge. Not that I don’t understand the adults ending it because they had been doing it for YEARS and I understand burnout, but the church let us down by destroying our one place to sharpen ourselves under the careful oversight of a trusted elder and not proving ANYTHING to take it’s place. How many of those kids were cast adrift on the wind because they weren’t members of “our” or even any church and when their support network fell eventually, so did they. They hadn’t had enough time to build their own support and when the structure that was holding them together was dismantled they had nothing and eventually, all of them are gone now. ALL of them are gone! Truth, is that I could even have seen a temporary discontinuing as a positive thing because I don’t think we knew the value of what we had, but what happened still makes me sad.

Then, after YEARS of nothing and empty lonely wandering in the desert alone, God provided home groups again. And one of those groups was made for people like me. People who are bound by love to this church but don’t live in that community. People who cannot afford to come several times a week to Marianna, but could hang out in town on Sunday to meet that evening. In fact, I HATED the teaching tape that we had to watch at the end. I (and I honestly think most of the people were not in a place to listen or even understand Dutch Sheets). I could have, but for the most part just kept an ear open and did my own thing. I was there for the interaction with my Christian family. I was there to listen and give my thoughts about concepts as we talked them through. I learned VERY LITTLE for the videos (not really a video learner) but I learned a LOT from the conversations and revelations afterwards. It was such a special time, some of us didn’t want to leave and would linger as long as Tammy would let us.

And then, the home groups ended. And now there is a bible study group that meets on a weekday afternoon that does not allow those of us who REALLY want to be there to go. It just is not a physical possibility for us at the moment. Then I get a bit annoyed with some of the attitudes I see now that were not there 15 years ago. We haven’t met on Sunday nights for years? WHY??? Any other church considers it standard operation to meet on Sunday for general sermon and Sunday night for specialized training or learning. But I have heard that people get upset when their “family” time or their only “free” time is taken away from them on Sunday night. I don’t understand that attitude AT ALL!!!

All I want to do is “eat”. I have been starving for so long that I cannot imagine not wanting to be in the house of God if I am physically able to be there. Even if Sunday nights were just congregation ministry to each other nights and had canned CD music, or even better, let some of the people who want to sing but never get the chance to take a mic. These are just ideas, but they are born of frustration and desperation.

I am so tired. And before I say another word, I want it known that I am as guilty as any other person if not more so because God has shown me where we are failing. I hate that when trouble comes to our members there are plenty of people offering to pray but offer nothing else. And I am working very hard to not be bitter and hurt but I am not always succeeding when I think about the fact that 3 people called me while I was in North Carolinia. No excuses of we didn’t have the number or didn’t want to bother you, or any other excuse they have because they are NOTHING more than excuses for not having to actually give of their time or heart. Plenty of people were talking on FB and the Reduced, but NOBODY was talking to me. Then, when I was asked “what can we do to help you?” I was too proud to ask for money and couldn’t think of anything because I didn’t know how much my life would have to change, I asked only that people come and see me because I would be so alone and isolated. Do you know who showed up. 1 person. 1 person who also happens to be one of my best friends from church. No other single soul could be bothered to comfort or visit or even help do a little cleaning for a member of their church family who desperately needed it.

I know I am ranting at the moment and some of it may be unfair, but it is all I know. If I have learned nothing else from what happened to me, it’s that I can depend on very little in this world besides God and myself. But there have also been about 3 people who have been there for me and blessed me with their time and money and to them I am so grateful. They gave without asking me if I needed it becuase they knew there was need. I ask the God bless them abundantly 100 times what they provided for me.

The second thing I learned is that even the people I have always called my best friends in the whole world. Friends that I would willingly die for, didn’t care enough about me to even call me back on Saturday to see if I lived through the night. So if the people who are closest to me can’t be bothered it is stupid of me to expect anyone else in the church to do so.

Now, to the heart of the matter, now that I have gotten all that off my chest. I love my church. I love the fact that they accept my weirdness and I don’t get strange looks or have to explain myself when I wear a pirate jacket during the winter or indigo moccasins with a short skirt and Victorian top, or a renaissance gown to the Christmas party. I honestly don’t want to go through the hell of establishing my personality again with people that may or may not think I am crazy but the odds are may considering the area of the country I live in. Most people here are defiantly NOT global thinkers.

The truth is that we (YES, I am as guilty as ANYONE) have allowed life to swallow us to the point that we have lost contact with each other and even to some extent God. God showed me this morning (I think because I had been watching all those utube videos on snakes LOL) that life is like a jungle constrictor. And the snake, or devil, as often referred to in the bible has been biding his time patiently waiting for us to lie down on the path of life. When we lay down to take a nap (spiritually speaking we took our eyes off God) and the snake used its venom to inject a paralytic to keep us passive and quiet as it slowly begins to swallow us whole. Unless something snaps us out of our passivity, we will eventually wake up to find that we are inside the stomach of the snake being devoured from the environment around us. The snake is the ways of life, it is the reality of the living in this world that we have to do because we are a part of this world too. As a church we have allowed the snake (life) to paralyze and consume us.

Perhaps we allowed it because we were so tired of fighting, perhaps because we feel like we have SO MUCH that HAS to get done today. There is housework, cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, going to school, getting our degrees, work, keeping our spouses happy, etc etc etc…. and the list goes on. These are all things that have to be done. They are a part of life and we are living in this world, but what we have done, is to become so consumed with living that we no longer make time to minister to others and the ministry we do, feels more like a duty that must be done as part of our everyday living chores, not because we want to bless or minister to the body. We are so focused on our own visions of where our lives should be going that we no longer go to the Father to ask for His visions or even if we do, we don’t have time to sit and wait on Him to provide it if He can’t do it within a set time parameter. Or perhaps we feel unable to assist anyone due to our own economic situation and yet, I am in one of the worst in our church at the moment, but I still find .53 cent to get me a cup of coffee. That same .53 cent could be used to bless one of my brothers or sisters with a mailed card, of course that would require that I actually take the time to write a note or letter and find an address and mail it.

The point I am trying to make is that we have allowed the world into the church in such a subtle and insidious way that we think we are being so pious and helpful when in truth we are giving ourselves permission to not have to actually spend time or money on someone other than ourselves.

Of course this does not apply to every one and even every point does not have to apply to any one person, and I also accept that there may be acts of “charity” going on that I never see or know about. All I do know is that when I was truly and desperately in NEED from my “family”, they failed me very very badly. They left me to drown alone in an overwhelming flood and think nothing of it. It hasn’t crossed their minds that they left one of their own, abandoned to face the wolves of this world alone. Thank you Father God that you are the good Sheppard and You NEVER left me. You are always there even when I fell like I am facing the storm alone, You are still there. But your people are failing to be the instruments of Your hands. Your people, who are called to be in Your image, are not just making human mistakes and showing their human failings, they have become so consumed with their one personal lives that they never even looked outside to see the little match girl dying in the snow. How many of us are feasting on good spiritual food while spiritual children are dying around us starving and freezing from the world they live in not knowing, or thinking they are not allowed to come inside to the table of God.

So, there is a lot of rant here, which I needed to do to release the hurt and the anger and most especially the loss. Am I better, not yet, but I can do nothing about how anyone else acts or thinks, all I can check is my own attitude. Anytime I don’t want to bother because I am depressed, I am letting the snake win. When I don’t want to be nice because I am angy, I am letting the snake win. When I choose not to give that last dollar to someone in need or even ask God to show me someone in need to offer it to, so I can get my morning coffee, I am letting the snake win. When I give up trying to make a difference in people’s lives because I am tired or discouraged, I am letting the snake win. And when I say “I’ll pray for you and be blessed,” but I don’t get off of my ass to offer anything else that I am physically capable of doing, then I am letting the snake win. And it ultimately doesn’t matter what anyone else does or does not do, it is time for me to take a stand and kick my way free from the snake, then turn and chop it’s head off.

So I just ask God for an abundant blessing of His Grace and Mercy, even though I don’t deserve it, so I can get free from this snake that is the world I live in. I ask God to help me remember to find QUALITY time with him not on a set schedule, but whenever I face a decision that could a little spiritual wisdom instead of just making a choice because I am so familiar with the ground I am standing on. Help me Father to see the world through Your eyes. Help me to see Your children as You see them. And help me God to not allow life to consume me and help me keep my focus and my eyes on You so I don’t get lost in the sadness and depression of the world around us.