Church

Josh and I had a huge busy day on Sunday, we made it to church, I went with mom to work-out (which means: I work-out, and mom gets to sit in the whirlpool for a long time.) and went to Josh's company picnic.

Since our church is so far away, and we had a busy Sunday, the church we went to this week used be to my church as a kid. However it has changed hands, several times now, and there are still a lot of "cling-ons" if you will, staying at the particular building. I got to see a lot of old faces, get a few hugs and so on.

We chose a pew and started to watch the music team (didn't know any of the songs). I pick out the few who have talent, (ie way better than me) and watched them while they play. Then they started singing a version of a song we knew, so we tried singing it, except they kinda butchered it, but oh well, their hearts are in the right place.

I sat down and right away I knew something was wrong. Now don't get confused over this, because I was all pumped up for a new experience at my old church, that I heard had a good speaker and good music (which was proven...well....like I said, their hearts are in the right place). And I wanted to see what had changed in the place I had once lived at (my mom was involved in everything). I had seen all the changes they did to the building, the additions, the actual "sanctuary" was turned into the kids ministry, with rooms where the pews used to be. I could have cried, I can remember many times I would walk up that aisle and watch the cross at the other end of the room, above the baptismal and just knelt and wept, especially when I was going through rough times. And when we were there at night, it was a very creepy but isolated room, I could always feel God's presence there, although now I'm not so sure it was the room that was doing it.

The cross now hangs in the new auditorium, painted beige, almost melting into the wallpaper.

I was listening to the speaker and there were a few things I didn't agree with, but it was a matter of opinion. Then as a whopper of a slap across the face, he started to take what he liked out of the verse and use it, saying the rest of the verse was not applicable! I think if I wasn't so stunned I would have walked out. I was hoping he just made a mistake, but his whole next point wrapped around that section of verse he had slaughtered.

After the sermon was done, Josh and I walked out of that church, and got in the car. Josh was rather silent at first, then said, Well? as if to initiate dialog. Well, I said, there were a lot of fallacies in his sermon I don't agree with. So we talked about the whole sermon itself, and Josh brought up the same verse I had problems with! So we started to look back and find all the good things about the sermon itself, and got a really good conversation going about it. We figured the only reason we were meant to go to that church was for that conversation.

We came home to mom who was watching the younger 2 kids, and she was the one who recommended the church to us, asked how it was. When we told her what happened she didn't believe us. She stressed it was a biblically sound speaker and church.

I think that was that point that I chose to step out from under my mother's authority, and instill my Word as truth, and if she chose not to believe me, that was for her to decide, I don't need to live up to her standards. She claims that her so called standards are in my head. And who knows, maybe, but they wouldn't be there if she hadn't given me a reason to believe that she had standards in the first place. There are a lot of great qualities about my mom, but when you are struggling to be an adult and free yourself from the adult rules of your childhood, it gets kinda tough, from both sides. When you know a person pretty well, sometimes you give into things that if it were any other person you would have some hope to persuade to see your side.

Well if anything, it made Josh and I really appriciate our church, which was not a problem, but it's nice to be re-enforced sometimes.

Sorry I really didn't mean to be talking about church, my prayers are that everyone is in a church they love, and if you aren't in one you love or in one at all, that you will find one.