Religion wounded you, but that was God's people. NOT GOD. - Todd Mead

I was reminiscing about wounds in my own life and how I had allowed the wound to fester. Mind you this is not a physical wound, but rather a memory that I delighted to continue to stoke my feelings about and warm my hands at the coals in the barrel. A wound that after a while was giving me license to engage in behavior, verbal expression, and ultimately ongoing resentment when I was reminded of it’s presence. Streams of burning tears, hot rivulets of grief would pour out of my eyes. I would howl as though a spear had entered the depth of my chest and I would ache impassioned by my belief. The wound was really harsh in it’s occurrence at the time it was made the wound was felt on many levels of my life. If I were to describe the depth it could be seen as a piercing of a soft fruit to the depth of the seed. Not a small nick by any means. My emotions were raw at the time and numb after a while, bubbling beneath a calloused surface of irritation and anger. The edges of the wound brown and no longer firm.

It remained open because I saw to it to remind myself that I was a victim. I was a wounded person, and I was entitled. I thought I deserved different or more than what I had received. It had a certain odor or sting to it all, as well, because my wound was associated with what I thought was a good place, a wholesome hospital for the sick, so to speak. A church. A ministry. A source that for ages past, ages present, and ages to come beings enter trodden and downcast, find redemption, and then they enjoy the comforts of their place. Now I know, some Christians stay too long in this immature environment, not ripening to their full age.

I see I had stayed too long now after years of believing I wanted the place again. I was not physically there but my psyche was still stuck. Even as I write I hear the yearning for position in that statement of wanting. The Place was the focus of my worship rather than the place I was called to worship. My relationship with the Place had morphed into something greater than the relationship I most needed with Jesus. Mind you this was not an outward display, but a turning toward an idol, inside my logic. Foul now that I see it. After again tending to this wound, more insight came that God was moving me beyond. Mind you my tending to the wound is years later. I was willing to admit, reference or think such a thought at this time. Reflection on the activity of life comes to a realization of purpose for me at this time. I acknowledge the Almight was attempting to place me in a different field of harvest. I was screaming and he was saying

“Look, Andrew! Look!”

I know this now. I see consistent care. Making my faith mature. Bending my faith in a way I had not known could create purpose and beauty. Honestly, however, because that is what one says perhaps prior to a shade of a lie. Honestly, I thought I would never get over the loss of the comforts I thought I had in the Place. I learned later and now, I believed a lie. The lie was that I could or had a right to be comforted by other humans in a religion of common values. I thought the community I had was suppose to help my wound. This evil lied to me, because I placed the comfort of human connection, return to false belief and companionship higher than the worship of the Almighty. The worship that would bring the Almighty, who was already for me, more to mind than what I had felt and known. Worship of object other than God will lead to wounds.

“Religion wounded you, but that was God’s people. Not God.” - this voice rang out recently in a general forum of a meeting of wounded people.

I wrote it down. I let it bathe the wound. God was there. I had turned. I had forsake. I had caused. I errant believed.

Almighty God, I claim your mercy and seek your forgiveness.

Certainly now I have grown wary and weary of realizing the church again is not the source of comfort. God is my comfort. I am not against many moments that the Spirit of God within a brother or sister in Christ is a help. I relish such moments, but in believing that healing comes from an external source other than my Christ. God perish the thought. One might say I have become a greater fool. A fool who is wise to know the church is not the source of my comfort. I rarely choose to place a part of myself in the hands of a community of believers these days, but rather imagine the Throne of God participating in my community, so I might see true healing and worship the true Healer. My true desires are unmet when the community becomes my focus. My fallacy is to believe a human can take the place of God. No human being is God. God is God. God will heal. God, heal my unbelief. God, forgive my idolatry of ego or humanity. Nothing heals like the Spirit of God. To engage in a codependent belief that comfort and healing comes from other humans, could cause me great harm again. I desire such healing and comfort in the form of love. Sometimes, believers are conduits of God’s love. If perfect love casts out fear and God is love, then I think I need the sight of a blind man to see love that comes from God the Father.

The crazy thing was I had not been harmed directly by the community I referenced as the Place, so much as, I believed or rationed the harm was great to me because it brushed and connected to an old hurt in my template of life. The hurt had happened years before and its significance was great, but the more recent experience had fused itself somehow like taking a torch and bonding it to the old scar, in a form of abandonment and wound source I thought had power over my life. Amazing to me is the force that evil will use, and length it will go to gain control of my life. I see the evil now, and cast it aside asking Jesus to enter the depth of the depravity and clean the catacombs where anger and hatred had resided, sifted, and found me. Jesus is a Healer. A Healer like none I have ever known. May Christ heal you as well.

Be the bleach, the balm, the order, Dear Lord. In Jesus Name, Amen.