FB Note from Aug. 31, 2009: My story...Part 1

I don't blog. I don't intend to blog. [Ha! Ha! We see how that turned out.] However, I do have a thing or two to say; and I would like to chronicle a bit of my story before Super T [my adopted son who I brought home in Jan 2010] comes home and life gets too busy.

I have been a Christian all my life. In fact, I have been a "good" Christian all my life. I have never done anything most people would consider "really wrong." I went to a Christian school, went to a Christian university, returned to teach in the same Christian school I graduated from, and all-in-all had a very nice and fulfilling life. I enjoyed my job, enjoyed my church, had good friends and family, read my Bible, and was happy. No complaints, for the most part.

In 1998 I got married to Michael, a long-time friend; and we moved to Maryland. Those 10 months in MD were the beginning of my clarity about God that would take several more years to fully develop (and is still in process.) You see, good churches were not on every corner in our new state; and Michael finally got tired of the church hunt and decided that we were just not going to go to church until we moved back to my home state (which we though was going to be sooner than it ended up being.) The feelings this decision evoked shocked me. I discovered that I really equated my church attendance with my relationship with God. Those months helped me get a correct perspective: my relationship with God is not dependent on my church attendance. Of course, after we moved back, I was thrilled to be in a wonderful church again, but those 10 months without a church home made a profound impact on me.

stay tuned for Part 2...

Disclaimer: Church attendance is important and a much more involved issue than I have time to discuss here, but the simple fact of the matter is that my personal relationship with God does not DEPEND on my church attendance, and God does not accept me because of my church attendance or reject me if I don't attend. If you had asked me those questions before that 10 months, I would have given the correct answers, but when I experienced it I found out that my real beliefs were different and wrong.