A 60+-year-old reader writes …
When I hear you speak (via podcasts) or read your writings, I am comforted. I committed to Christ as a very young child (am now 60+ years of age) and can’t remember a time when Jesus was not my best friend. I grew up in a Scots Presbyterian home, continued to develop as a Christian in an evangelical Baptist church and over the past 20 odd years have worshipped in an Anglican context. My journey has been challenging and so interesting, as we have met and made so many dear friends along the way from all strands of the Christian faith.
However, in recent years, I have gradually felt more and more uncomfortable with ‘church’ as I’ve known it. It is such a hard place to find myself but sometimes I feel as though I am living on the edge of a precipice and am hanging on with the tips of my fingers, no longer sure of the “old truths and certainties” and unable to share my confusion without risking judgement about my spiritual health. I live within a small island community where life and particularly church life tends to be conservative. Sometimes I wonder what it has all been about, this life I have lived and this faith I have made the bedrock of my life.
Not sure why I am writing all of this but it is my experience and I am sad and uncomfortable when the old answers no longer address the questions I have.
Bless you for your ministry. At least I know that I am not alone!
Thanks for this note. I receive so many notes like this. It’s sad to think of so many people feeling “on the edge of a precipice and hanging on” by fingertips. But at the same time, that means that the conditions for change – resurrection, rebirth, renewal, revisioning – are improving, and that means hope for all of us. Let’s not give up hope. Let’s dare to believe.