I have been in the process of reevaluating everything...and I mean everything... I have ever believed for the past 24 years.
This became necessary after leaving the church our young family helped establish with my husband’s sister, her husband who was pastor, and their young family.
Paul and I had only been married a little over 4 1/2 years when we left our home in Houston and moved, site-unseen to Oklahoma to help start this church.
There were eight of us altogether. Our two families--their two babies and our two babies--became the first and only members of the church we planted.
We built the church together, lived next door to each other...eventually growing our families to our eight and their five children, all while navigating the difficulties of this convoluted alliance.
On the surface, it seemed ideal.
Often, it felt ideal.
Sometimes it even WAS ideal.
What could be more ideal? A church founded by two closely related families who agreed to agree on most everything having to do with God, the Bible and all that our common Baptist heritage entailed.
What could be more ideal than two closely related families rearing their children with cousins in close physical proximity (we built houses next door to each other) so we could all enjoy the family stuff as well as a best friend kind of fellowship with our sister and brother-in-law?
But there was one who did not see this as such a good idea.
In fact, he was against it altogether.
This person was Paul’s dad—veteran missionary of 52 years (at that time) to Korea and one with far more experience and wisdom in such matters than Paul and I at the tender ages of 25 and 25.
Turns out, we should have heeded that advice.
Nevertheless, we were determined, and we made it work for nineteen years and three months…
until gradually,
then suddenly…
it didn’t.
You can read a somewhat lengthy summary of those years by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.
Once our ideal little family-as-church-leaders’ alliance crumbled and fell, we had to leave that church.
And leaving, while necessary, was catastrophic on many levels.
But still, we had to leave. There was no other way.
Over the years since, two questions have lingered and insisted they be answered,
"What happened to us and why did it all have to end so terribly?"
As time went on, I gained insights I never could have except by reflecting from the outside.
This blog will detail the next leg of my journey towards rediscovering who I was meant to be before the Independent, INDEPENDENT Fundamental Baptist belief system hijacked everything I formerly believed... even to my very identity.
Our brother-in-law came to believe that para-church organizations were unscriptural and only individual local churches were biblically authorized to establish such ministries, thus, their Independent, INDEPENDENT fundamental Baptist distinction.
But this blog is not so much about that as about our journey from our beginning to now and then the endings that brought about our new beginning.
It's about the harms extreme fundamentalism of any religion bring to individuals and their families.
I also want to tell the story of our lives from The Exodus to the Years Beyond. I want to address the far-reaching effects on my family: areas where we still struggle, how we are recovering and all we have gained in the process.
It will be 24 years in June.
Meanwhile?
Live in The Truth that sets you free!
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