Church Hurt at its Worst

INTRODUCTION

The story you are about to read is my story. At time, even to this day, I reminisce is disbelief as though it was a story, I was reading about someone else. So, at times You will see me switch my perspective from first to second and even to third person. I will do that because at times it still feels so surreal. it’s my story and this is how I choose to tell it.

Church hurt at its worst is when you are spiritually broken. That brokenness that your sprit takes on that causes you to be crippled and crushed in your soul. You feel as though you have been smothered and suffocated in a place that should be sacred and full of life. The Devil robbed you in the presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s as though you’ve received spiritual tubal ligation. your soul melted away, disintegrated right out of you, you have felt a decay There is literally a withdrawal from the Holy Spirit. You were rebirthed and blood washed and now you hurt Sunday after Sunday and all week in between, but worse on Sundays while you sit there in pain. Your screams of agony have gone unheard while the repeated crimes against your spirit of burglary and rape continue by an anonymous perpetrator. You try to put on a false face as though trying to endure a failing marriage.

You try to decipher if this bitterness was all you! Or did they cause this? Because you are spiritually dead! You now know that the prevaricators and fornicators that you have dealt with for so long caused this anguish. However, you have discovered through discernment that you are living with SPIRITBREAKERS!

You are spiritually unhealthy. Simply put, unhealthy spirits can’t occupy the space of the Holy Spirit, who is very much alive. So now you are in your lowest place, you feel worse than you could have ever imagined. You ask God: Is this Church? Is this what I’m supposed to feel? How did this happen to me after 20 years of salvation? You barely feel as though you can stand and testify that you have not changed from the godly person God has called you to be! This is my story. My loved ones know I love God. Why did I stay in this place of hurt and humiliation for so long? I was living with a dying spirit. I know my God to be: ALL power, from the one that’s Omni-presence, most powerful, worthy to be praised, and worthy of our praises, a strong tower, a wheel in the middle of a wheel, the Prince of peace, the everlasting savior, Yahweh, Jehovah, King of kings, Lord of Lords, deliverer, redeemer, bright and morning star, lily of the valley, lion tribe of Judah, Lamb of God, Alpha and omega, beginning and the end, author and finisher, maker and creator, Mighty ruler, King of glory and the God of my salvation.

I needed an internal revival. I needed to be renewed, restored and refreshed. My spirit had literally been repossessed and I was no longer going to allow that ungodly repo spirit to take what belonged to me!

It was because you Love God, you believe in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, you keep showing up and keep coming back. Once again, this is almost like a bad relationship that you stay in far too long, no matter how badly abused you are. The Church can instill spiritual pain, yet some of us will remain, believing God for a change. We stay anticipating that shift to take place. But guess what? God did send you a message. You did not activate what He said. Maybe you did not understand, or you weren’t listening in your hearing or you just simply misunderstood. God speaks and we don’t hear. Why? Because you don’t have a physical person before you giving you orders. It’s easier to understand when someone is physically standing before you.

The spiritual strife in my life was caused by the holier than thou type of Christians who don’t listen to the Holy Spirit because they think they have all the answers.

CHURCH, I THOUGHT

It was Resurrection Sunday April 16, 2006. This is when I reinstated myself along with my husband joining back at the church in which I grew up and was baptized. Many generations in my family attended there. I was baptized there at age 10 and attended there regularly until I was 20 years of age. I did visit occasionally after that and I had not attended another church on a regular basis. Not to mention both of my children were dedicated as babies there and my daughter was baptized there as well.

What led to this was I also married there on August 13th 2005. I got me a BOAZ. So, as I begin to visit after the nuptials, I was led to become a member again with my husband by my side. My son at the time as well. My daughter who had just turned 21 the day before had already come back as a member for the last 3 years. She went back as a young adult on her own along with one of my now dearly departed aunts and with my dearly departed grandmother who was of course a pillar and committed member for countless years.

She was there when they constructed a new wing. Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. She and many of my family served and built from a little corner small church to a growing in the body of Christ church, for the community and fellow worshippers. This Baptist church went on to be one of the stellar Baptist churches that the other churches in the area did a lot of fellowship and acknowledged this church as the big sister church throughout the community, locally and far off in regional areas and other boroughs.

Yes, fish fries, chicken dinners, bake and cake sales, raffle selling, bus trips and many other fundraisers and expanding and growing committees and auxiliaries, making disciples and servants. A church evolving and expanding, having different choirs and taking all within them and the power of the Holy Spirit to grow and build this great church that now stands 92 years.

Noticed how earlier I said I was led to be reinstated: QUESTION IS: Was I at that time lead by God? Was I sent there? Or was it a set up?

What I learned in this move is that we must discern and understand God’s specific instructions concerning us. God gives clear authorizations in the kingdom and as He speaks, we don’t listen. His small whispers are for you to get in your hearing and go when He says go! Move when He says move. Run to or from when He tells you to. The same God that orders our steps is the same God that orders our stops! So, if His answer is no, don’t contradict or be contrary to any mighty movement of God. The Lord gives and the Lord takes.

2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.

I was in my own spiritual warfare. Right in the church I thought was where I belonged. I was so very wrong. I struggled with whether I was where the Lord and savior my true ALL and ALL; sent me or was I set up originally by the Devil.

MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

I knew my ABC’s well. I Accepted, Believed and Confessed since 1997. Let me explain. In April of 1996 I was invited to attend my first women’s retreat by my dear Aunt. I went to this retreat with my aunt and her church sisters. Oh, this retreat was awesome! When I tell you, I literally and truly received such an amazing breakthrough! I was literally on my face, on my knees, laid out just seeking, receiving every word proclaimed, spoken and preached by these dynamic prophetic anointed women. YES! I learned that weekend. I learned that there is great power.

I knew the Lord but I didn’t know the intimately. I knew because hey, I grew up in the church. Until you are born again and receive Christ as your Lord and savior, that you are different, no longer who or what you were; there is a shift and a change in your life. That you now become another person, one with Christ. To Know him and To Know Him and make Him known in your life are two different things. My God the transformation, you have a true metaphoric experience. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Fast forward; I would visit and attend this beautiful church with my aunt that I enjoyed the services and the word. It was when one of my dearest, closest, longtime and one of my best friends asked me to come visit her church. We also had another friend who went as well, so I went! NOT ONLY DID I GO!!! I got introduced to the Bible school and this Bishop! My God! I started going Sunday after Sunday and my friend said to me. ‘See told you there’s a place here for you too!’ My kids and I attended and were enjoying it and when I tell you the preaching from this Bishop! My My!

So, since I hadn’t joined where I occasionally went with my aunt! There was not only a breakthrough here! BUT this is where I got delivered and saved in one place. That the power of the Holy Spirit became greater than life to me. Life to live daily, life to live freely, life to live acceptingly, life that changed my talk, life that changed my walk, life that changed my thoughts, life that changed my behavior, life that changed how I viewed life, life that changed even how I appeared, life that changed how I looked at others and how I looked at the world, life that became very different in me and within me, life that spoke to me, life that issued my deliverance, life that saved me, life that came alive in me, life that transformed