A reader’s story …
A reader shares her story of pain, love, hope, and God’s faithfulness …
I just wanted to thank you for your fascinating books! I loved Generous Orthodoxy, Everything Must Change, and The Secret Message of Jesus! In fact your story is very like my own. I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran in an extremely legalistic home, had a salvation experience at a young age even though there were no altar calls in my church! By 1972, I considered myself a full-fledged Jesus Freak and within three more years had meandered into the charismatic movement. By 1976 when I began college I had left the Lutheran church in search of real Christians who didn’t see me as a religious fanatic only to waltz right into a charismatic cult-like group that was heavy on the legalism and control of its members. By the time I graduated college in 1980 I was one wounded individual. Fortunately that summer I married a man who, although controlling in many ways (all because he had been taught in the charismatic churches we were a part of that this was the meaning of being the head of your family!), was also very much a Christ-follower who never lost sight of his love for Jesus and everyone around him. We walked the extremely legalistic and oftentimes bizarre path of the charismatic odyssey until the last charismatic church we were in blew up in our faces because of rivalry between our senior pastor and another well known pastor in our area, followed by a huge scandal where women in our church were fondled by a self-proclaimed prophet in the guise of praying for them for healing! By then we’d had enough and went on a quest to find a better church home for us and our soon to be four children. All our charismatic so-called friends dropped us like hot potatoes, because we had to be in error to walk away from such a great move of God. We eventually wandered into a Lutheran church that my husband had heard good things about, and it truly turned out to be a fabulous place for many years. It extended us grace that we had missed hearing about for so many years. It gave us opportunities to serve at soup kitchens, to reach out to our community, and to once again get to know non-Christians! Our charismatic churches kept us so busy we hardly had time to know the neighbors let alone to cultivate friendships with them. Once we got out of that limiting cage, we were amazed at how wonderful it felt to embrace the world around us rather than being too busy for it or afraid of it! Our kids had cracked that door open prior to this to some degree, because they played with all our neighbors’ kids, and since I was the only stay-at-home mom, they all ended up at our house! Those kids all still consider me mom to this day! When my husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2002, I thanked God daily that I was no longer in churches that taught that every heartbreaking thing that happens is a punishment for sin! I couldn’t have borne it! Instead our church carried us through this pit from hell! This became even more important when I had a heart attack in 2006. I have never felt so weak in all my life but as Scripture says: “when we are weak, He is strong.” Six months after my heart attack I suffered a mild stroke and two weeks after that the oncologist called to tell us my husbands’s cancer had returned. It was relentless from that point forward. I laid him in the arms of Jesus for complete healing on February 5, 2010. It still hurts every day to face the world without him, but I am also encouraged that I am alive to participate in this new move of the Spirit of grace and love! I am sorry this is so long, but it is quite a story to tell. Thank you for listening!
