Finding the Shiny...

When I came back to England, I expected it to be hard. I was leaving my marriage, and the reasons why I was leaving were not easy ones to share with the people who mattered. A friend who has been through a similar experience said to me recently, 'in these situations, Christians are the worst.' I had to agree. I didn't WANT to agree, but this too is my experience. Both she and I are Christians, but it is the sad truth that sometimes, in the church, we shoot our wounded.


As a result, one function of this blog is for me to have a voice in a situation where I feel I have been judged and misunderstood, or where assumptions have been made by those who didn't bother to speak to me first. (And God bless you, the dear, well meaning lady who called to let me know that I 'don't believe in repentance and forgiveness' while I was trying to work out how to survive another day!) Even as I write, I am aware that there are others who will not like me blogging about it. But I am a writer, that is how I express myself, and while, to a point, this probably is a load of self indulgent twaddle, it is also my hope that someone else may read it and not feel alone. Because I want them to know that being quick to condemn and to gossip and to hurt those who have already had their lives turned upside down - that is not God. It is not even most of the Church. But it is so hard, when you have been treated like that, to get past the fear of trusting again.


But we have to. I am an emotional, creative person - I feel things very deeply, I react dramatically, I love passionately and I forgive wholeheartedly, with a big dose of God's grace to help me. I am sometimes a mess, but I would rather be the way God made me than become someone who is so wrapped up in what was done to them that they never trust, never forgive, never cry or feel compassion, never let anyone in again. I never want to be so self absorbed by my own pain that I cannot comfort others.


So I will trust again, and love again, and be open to others, and hear the words of those who may not understand through the filter of my merciful God, because I know that He truly knows my heart. And in doing so I know I will find those who shine with the love of Jesus without even knowing it!.