Walking Away

There are days when I can understand how people can walk away from a church and not go back and yesterday was one of them.

Every so often there is a sermon that hits you right where it hurts.  It's not intentional, unless you believe that a sermon can be directed at you.

Sometimes the minister manages to hit you right in a spot that really hurts or that you are struggling with.  Maybe it's a challenge about how children are God's gift, which they are, and there you sit with an inability to have them or your attempts have ended in heartbreak.

Maybe it's a sermon about Godly marriages and how divorce is a sin and you sit there thinking how you promised to love someone forever but they chose to walk away.

Maybe it's an illustration of life as a race when it hurts you to run.

Or maybe it's a challenge to do something you did once, poured your whole heart into that and have it completely and utterly implode.

It's difficult in all those situations to find a way to rise to the challenge, to find a way to honor the mandate, to try again when everything in you says not to.  It would be easier to simply walk away - not just avoiding the circumstances that hurt, but avoiding the place where you are reminded.

It's worse to walk out of a service knowing that you have no idea how to come back without feeling like you failed.

Comments

[valerie]

so true
:)