I've posted pretty honestly about where we're at with church, and it's embarassing to feel like i'm always going to be a complainer... but i think i'm getting to the crux of my problem.  and yes, it is my problem...

But first a picture of my two little honeys (well, two of seven, two who got up early to get ready for church with mama as i had to be there early today - I grabbed Haven on the way out of the door, brandishing her hairbrush and promising to be ready by the time we got there, and T walked the rest down in the torrrential rain (sorry T!) and was a teedle bit late...

Anyway, i'm realizing that my problem with church isn't really a problem with church - it's a problem with me, and the fear of man.  I want people to like me.  I want to fit in.  But i've come too far to compromise now.  For me, a very black and white thinker, any bit of compromise and i might as well  just give up.  It's a curse and a gift.

So Sunday School doesn't work for me.  And I have a horror of sitting in the nursery for any more years - thirteen years is long enough, don't you think?  It just doesn't work for me.  At all.  But that's okay, right?  Because if i just said it aloud and didn't worry about hurting people's feelings, they would get over it and quit trying to bribe my children with candy to Funland on the one day we're getting together with "church family".

You see, that's kind of how i've been feeling.  That we have one day to get together with other Christians, and worship together, and learn together, and instead my children are basically bribed to be bad, and taken away to learn to hate sitting in church (your mileage may vary!  Sunday school can be a boon to a lot of parents - but i need mine to learn to sit still in church so our at home Bible time can go smoothly...  This is what is important to me at this point in my life.)  If i went to my mom's house and every time, she had lined up a babysitter i'd never met who would talk about the deep things of life with my children, i would resent her too, and i would end up not going very much.  Love me, love my kids, type of thing i guess...

But when i'm not totally beaten down by life, winter, snow, i think "maybe i can just struggle past this".

How about membership?  We're just not member people.  I don't mind joining groups - i just joined Kids First this week - (www.kidsfirstcanada.org) - i agree with their statements, reading list, aims.  There's not a lot of extraneous things there that i have to weed out.  It's pretty cut and dried.  Church membership and different denominational priorities are not that cut and dried, and i'd rather not sign a document i can't endorse whole heartedly.

But that's not a problem is it? 

What i realized today is that as flawed as church can be, there is something good there too.  Something that, despite feeling oftentimes harried, hassled, misunderstood, gives me an idea of belonging to a great community of believers in a way that internet or books can't.  Flawed human beings in my town.  None of whom thinks the same way as i do.  But united in love for God, expressing it in the way He has called them to.

I'm for freedom in a lot of ways, and i know i will be misunderstood in the days to come because of that.  But today i helped play for worship with a young teen drummer, an older male songleader, an energetic tambourine lady, and many hearty voices.  A mom who is all done raising her five children saw us stealing out instead of staying for the potluck afterwards, and i cringed a little, but she said "You need to do what's right for your family!  I learned that too late!" and telling me what a great family i had...

I need to remember how that felt, and be that lady.  And to do that, i need to be there...