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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
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I ended up handing June a letter at the end of church this morning. I hope she takes it seriously. I am not comfortable there at all, and it's kind of hard to explain. I didn't got here looking for a church to pray for me, but things like this make a difference to me. When my need (or desire, or whatever motivated me to seek their support) came up, June's response communicated to me in the end that I was getting along just fine (in her eyes) and that I should just deal with my life as it is.
This is hard for me to sort out, but I have to sort it out. I think that if God's answer was no, I would recognize it somewhere in me. Unless I have a pretty serious blind spot within myself, I think His no answer would be clear to me. He has told me no before, and I believe He would tell me no again. I don't believe that He is saying no right now. I don't know exactly how to interpret things that have happened at my church recently. There is a big inconsistency that I see. June has talked a lot about suffering being part of God's plan, which bothers me. On the other hand, she has talked a lot at the same time about bringing our needs before God. I see a few possible explanations (not necessarily in this order):
1. I am in the wrong place, and the message that church needs is not what I need.
2. I am receiving a no answer.
3. The church (or June) is not ready or willing to stand with me on this.
The big question I have is: If trusting God means simply accepting our lives the way they are and allowing Him to do what He will without praying, then why pray at all? One of the questions I posed in the letter was why is it easy to pray about unemployment or terminal illness, but not to pray for a person with a disability when prayer is desired. My heart is not bitter, I don't think. There was a time when I didn't care whether I could see or not. But I do now. I understand that there are times when God says no. But when it is something that is a burden for me, I cannot sit back and hide my desire. Sure, He knows our hearts, but He says to ask.
I believe I heard Him answer yes, and to this day I have never heard wrong, even if I didn't always trust. If His answers is no, He will have to be clear, and I believe that He will.
Anyway, this whole thing has come up again, and it makes a difference in how I view my relationship with this particular church. I need to decide whether or not to stay there.
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