I’m in the middle of week two, and I realized I haven’t blogged as planned! I really thought I would use this as a journal, but realized I would probably bore you poor folks to death if I did. Funny thing, I have been journaling since I was very young, until 2009. That’s when it came to an abrupt halt.
If you happened to see a post of mine on Facebook, this is old news to you, but in 2009 I did something I swore I would never do. I walked away from a 29 year marriage and an equally long career as a church admin and musician. I was a Sunday School teacher, worship leader, and women’s Bible study teacher. I really thought I had reached everything I wanted in my career.
Suddenly, it all came crashing down. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it the past couple weeks, and it’s interesting that part of our sabbatical practice is called “redemption.”I found that an odd name to call the practice of meditation and reflection. Only now do I understand why, in my opinion, it’s called that.
I walked away from my entire life. I quit having a quiet time, I quit reading Scriptures, and I quit attending church. I was hurt and I was mad. Never mind that everything was done at my hand. God didn’t do anything to me, and God’s people didn’t do anything – at first. I decided that a divorced woman who was on church staff had no place in church work. I had fallen and fallen to the very bottom. There was no coming back from this one. There was certainly no forgiveness for this girl. I knew God couldn’t possibly hear me or see me ever again.
I did everything to hide from God and to ignore Him. I even thought I would renounce my faith. I gave away all of my Christian books and all of my Christian CD’s and printed music. I didn’t want anything to do with any of it. I put my Bibles on a shelf – funny those are the only things I purposely kept.
I went on like that for about 5 years knowing in the back of my mind that I may have changed the course of my eternity. You have to understand that I spent most of my life in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist Church that preached once saved always saved, so I tried to believe that I would be okay. However, the last four years of my church service was in the United Methodist Church. I heard for the first time that a person can lose their salvation if they didn’t want it. Oh my, was I in a mess of guilt and confusion and fear.
Fast forward to March 2015. I interviewed with FDLIC, a Christian values based company, and I thought to myself, “Why in the world and I doing this?”I was so afraid to go back into anything that had any attachments to Christianity. I knew I wouldn’t fit.
In the same month, a small Methodist Church asked me if I would lead worship on a part time basis. Yikes, really? God, what are you doing? I reluctantly began to sing and play again, but my heart was still a bit hardened.
Coincidence? Maybe, but I’m not so sure. Slowly, but surely over the last two years, I have started to open my heart again to God, but something magical happened the 2nd Sunday of my sabbatical. I searched for my Bible because I wanted to take it to church with me, and before service, I spent some time revisiting the Psalms that I once loved. It’s like a chain broke lose from my heart and soul, and I made friends with an old friend – Scripture.
I’m not sure where I go from here, but for the first time, I prayed – really prayed, and had a conversation with God. He didn’t go anywhere. He was waiting all along.