‘Reading the Bible and feeling lost….I wrestle with my theology and with God on how He wants me to live.’ - Journal entry 

I have stood atop the precipice and looked down into deconstruction. I can feel the temptation pulling at me. It seems that to just close my eyes and fall into the darkness would be a relief. 

But I can’t let go. I can’t let go that He has been with me through dark times. He is with me now. Even though I don’t feel it. So I do not find myself in full deconstruction, however tempting. 

Sitting in pain trying to undo a huge ball of wire is exhausting and discouraging and maddening. 

I can understand many who have left a ministry, like IHOP. Those who were wounded deeply and end up leaving the faith. I get it. 

Holding onto what beliefs I have left from the wreckage has been one of the worst most painful experience of my life. Until now, I have never felt that my inner compass was broken and that I could not longer trust what was in me. And here I am. Facing the most nightmarish wake up call. 

I sit alone with my thoughts. Like sitting alone in the dark. I cannot trust my own thoughts. I cannot trust anything. It’s too cloudy.

Even in this night season where my faith feels very weak, God gives abundant blessing. Through all these hard questions has been my husband holding me as I cry, my friends bringing us meals and carrying the burden with me and my church being the hands of Jesus. These ones close to us have allowed me to be angry, sad, confused, broken. They have not rushed the healing. They have relived some of the sting. 

Their love and care would show me that even though I am wrestling with God, I am still in His hands. 

I have not been angry far away. I was angry with Him. I was sad with Him. I said a lot of harsh things to Him. 

But I have not run. 

I may not feel the spiritual high and walk the same paths to find God as I did at my time at IHOP. And that is ok. It is actually good. Because maybe now that the façade has been shown, I can find the way of following Jesus. One with less burden of carrying the world’s woes on my shoulders. A faith that is true. A faith that is dependent. Childlike. 

I can practice this faith with a healthy community that doesn’t put my nervous system on high alert like IHOP did. I go to church with my family and no longer not equate high stress with the Holy Spirit.

The incessant, ungodly sobriety of the ‘urgency of the hour’ no longer drives my life or my decisions. 

Was this why a normal church felt odd if I ever went to one when I was still at IHOP? They were boring. No one was talking about how bad the world was and was continuing to get. No one was talking about changing the expression of Christianity in one generation. And absolutely no one was talking about how they were leading the global church into the end time revival to usher in the coming of Jesus. 

They would just talk about Jesus and how to follow Him. 

I have let the old paths of IHOP die and weed over. They were meant to be left behind. Teenagers are not meant to have vivid dreams of how they would die in a concentration camp. Teenagers are not meant to think they would be dead before 30 and therefore have no plans for their futures. 

I am not special. I am small in this world. I am insignificant. Deeply loved and unimportant. The earth will not stop for me. And thank God I don’t carry that powerful burden. There is a deep peace in not being unique. 

I follow Jesus. 

I extend my hand to my neighbor who knows how to build anything and doesn’t need me, but needs to feel needed. I listen quietly to the woman on my back porch, her nest is empty, her friends have passed and talking about plants brings her joy.

I keep my house and I keep my yard. I give thanks to God. I tithe and serve at church. 

I hug my kids. I tell them that being normal is good. I tell them they don’t have to be super at anything to have our approval. I will still raise them in church. I tell them no matter what they’ve done they can always come home. I’ll leave a light on. 

I hope they get to feel surrounded by a community that loves Jesus and holds them up when they fall. A people that hands them a candle in the darkness. The people I thought were boring are the ones carrying faithful, fruitful, quiet life of following Jesus. 

Yes, a boring church might be just what you need.