So, I’ll never know what an actual divorce feels like. God-willing, God-thanking, and God-praising, I have found my true partner in life.
We are one together forever and ever Amen.
I only wish it was that easy to find a good church.
Our church closed today (last Sunday is June 17), and the break-up is killing me.
It’s like a divorce. I know of no other way to describe this bloody, messy process.
Truly. Nothing else encapsulates the pain and relief and ugliness of watching something we once loved go away. This difficulty of packing up and moving on from a season of our lives and admitting that we failed. Or maybe admitting that our church failed us. Or that no one failed, that it’s just time to give up and wash our hands of the whole thing.
I would say this feels like a death, but suffering the death of a loved one is different. You have no choice. in death You can grieve knowing that there was really nothing you could do.
It’s not like that in a divorce. When I think about the families who have to find another church in two weeks, when I think about our friends we might never see again, I feel so guilty.
Was there something else we could have done? Witnessed more? Fought harder? Given more? Cared less? Cared more? Surely our the Hergenrader Family, the seasoned Christians in a church of new converts, should have lived the gospel more vividly.
Was there something more the Pastor could have done? This question, particularly, is a fun place to spend a lot of time. Just like a fresh divorcee loves to tally the faults of their ex wife or husband, that’s fun to do here. Doesn’t it feel good to look at the other party and calculate how he mistreated you? How egotistical he was? Or blind to what you needed?
But it’s a shallow pool of satisfaction. All those hurt feelings and fingerprinting take so much energy. And they don’t fix anything. We still have to explain to our kids that our church isn’t there anymore. We still have to get out there and start looking for another one. We still have to figure out what we learned from all of this, what we’ll be cautious of in our next season.
We still have to look in the mirror and see what God wants us to learn.
And, of course, we’re looking in God’s Word for answers. We’re coming to Him in prayer and asking for help forgiving and moving on.
Because, man, breaking up is hard to do.
