more chocolate

Having eventually got to the stage of thinking I was getting somewhere with dealing with all the mess that's happened, we got a letter from one of the higher-up-ones who was directly involved in it all. And all the anger came flooding back...
Well, actually, not ALL of it, just alot of it. Mr pastasmissus said I was reading said letter with my very negative filter firmly in place, which is probably true. And he asked me what I was going to do with my anger.
My answer of cry, eat chocolate and wait for a bit and then somehow take it before God didn't seem to go down terribly well. I did point out that at least I was directing it outward, which is a definite improvement on turning it into thoughts of self-harm (don't worry,I don't actually self-harm, just think about it).
Taking it before God is going to be a challenge. I don't WANT to forgive. I want to carry on being angry, because then I can feel self-righteous. How come I think forgiveness is a great idea when it's me on the receiving end, but not if I'm not? And that's not just about me forgiving someone, it also applies to God forgiving them too. Am I really vindictive enough to want God to not forgive them? In which case, am I forgiveable? (A particularly pointed thought of "forgive us our trespasses, AS we forgive those who trespass against us" comes to mind.)
I'll get there in the end. In the meantime, it's done me good to get some of it out. And now I'm off to overcome some Gates of Hell :-)

Jealousy

This morning I was in church - not the church we were in before, but a different one, some distance away. They have just appointed an evangelist to help with outreach in the area. So they are consequently very excited about what God is going to do. And I'm happy for them.
But...
There's a bit of me that thinks 'why didn't it work when WE tried it?' and 'we could have had that, if the church leadership had backed us'
And there's also a bit of me that thinks 'we started off with all those ideals too, but when things started actually changing it was a different story.'

I don't like myself for being jealous. I don't like the cynicism I've developed.
Why can't I just feel at home in a church that is on a similar wavelength, instead of thinking about what might have been?

what is important?

I've not blogged for a while as firstly mr pastasmissus went away for a few days and the laptop decided it wanted a change of scenery too; then, when they did both come back, we discovered the technogizmo that allows internet access had obviously suffered a withdrawal reaction and consequently died!

I'm starting to realise that maybe I'm actually getting through this. That even though it feels as though I've been cast adrift in the middle of the ocean with no map, compass or supplies, I'm actually managing somehow to navigate my way through uncharted territory. Even though I've been expecting to capsize at any moment, the reality is that I haven't.

And I'm learning things from it. Not always things I wanted to discover...
When I last posted, I was non-specifically angry about the whole church mess/ situation. A throw-away comment by mr pastasmissus that he hoped that God would bless the church here resulted in me having a rather incandescent internal reaction. I didn't want God to bless the church here - I wanted it to fall apart, to prove that we had been right all along. And then some unwanted scripture popped up in my head: Some say 'I follow Paul', others 'I follow Apollos'. But this should not be; it is Christ we follow. (based on 1 Corinthians 3:4-8). Was it more important to me that I should be proved right, or that the kingdom of God be extended?
When put like that, there could only be one answer. And somehow, alot of the anger seemed to melt away.

choices

The last couple of weeks have not been particularly good ones for me. I have been angry (although when asked why or with whom, I couldn't specify). I also tended to cry for no obvious reason. And I was having major issues with God.
Feeling that somehow God has let me down and therefore can't be trusted is an all too familiar temptation for me, going right back to when I first became a Christian. I was a teenager at the time, and the prevailing theology I had picked up was that if you prayed for something hard enough and believed 'properly', then God would do it. The brother of a girl in my class had leukaemia. So I prayed - fervent, naive, trusting prayer. A month later, he died.
This had a huge impact on my relationship with God (the Father) for the next 20 years. Yes, I came to understand that it was bad theology, that God's ways are not our ways, that He knows what's best etc etc. But deep inside there was still that little niggle from a devastated teenager that God could not be trusted.
I stayed a Christian because Jesus was different, being a fellow victim and sufferer. In that way, projecting all the bad stuff onto God the Father at least allowed me to keep some kind of faith.

I think last year was the first time I again took the risk of trusting God by praying in that way - not that I didn't pray, it was just always slightly guarded - why give God another chance to disappoint me? After all, if I don't ask, I can't be let down. I prayed for a friend to be healed from a chronic illness that was causing considerable pain and difficulty. I expected a miracle. In the end, it did all get sorted out, but through major surgery - not quite what I had expected. I again had to live with God apparently letting me down. At that time I made a conscious choice that I would NOT react the way I had before, that I would continue trusting God.

And now with the recent situation I find myself having to choose again. We prayed so hard about our church situation, and believed God was telling us to stay. Right up to the very last minute I was expecting God to intervene somehow - to do a miracle, cause an outbreak of mass repentance. It didn't happen. So, what do I do this time?
I have a choice: I can either stay bitter and resentful about what happened, and become cynical and mistrusting of God; or I can decide to trust God, and use this as an opportunity to learn and practice Christ-likeness.

I can't alter what has happened. What I can do is realise that the way in which I respond to this shows how deep my faith actually goes. It's only when things get tough that you discover what you really believe and who you really are.

a tricky situation

So, mr pastasmissus is no longer the pastor. We're still living in the manse until we get housing sorted out. The church does not have a building, so our phone number was the contact number for the church (although I have to admit I took great delight in changing the answerphone message!), so we still get occasional phone calls about church stuff, which we deflect on to the church secretary.
But this morning we had a call that one of our members had died, and a request from their relation for hubby to do the funeral. This relation didn't know he is now the ex-pastor. He told them they would need to talk to the church secretary.
So what is the etiquette in this situation? It's made more difficult by this being a small town, and our church being a small congregation.
Yet one more thing they don't cover in the ethics course while training for ministry....

going round in circles...

I've spent the last week going round in circles. Or rather, going part-way round one circle and ending back up where I was. Rather disheartening. All the anger, bitterness and cynicism have been back with a vengeance. And I know it's part of grieving, and I know it's normal, and I know it takes time. But I don't like it. I don't like myself when I'm like this. I end up focussing on how bad I feel, how I feel I've been wronged, and ultimately blame God for allowing it to happen. All of which is stupid, destructive and pointless.
Right now, trying to follow Jesus is hard. I don't particularly want to pick up this cross of accepting these feelings and yet choosing to forgive. I'd much rather sit down on the ground and kick my heels and scream 'It's not fair' in best 2-year-old tantrum style. Except I've done that before. I thought I'd learned from it, and grown up a bit. Maybe the fact I'm posting this is a sign that I have...