Where's the grace?

There doesn't seem to be any room for grace for people who haven't had their lives click along the right track. Why else do the ones who are really hurting leave the church? Some of them never come back. IFB's(independent fundamental baptist) will shoot the horse with the broken leg rather than take the time to heal it. Once you've been wounded either through your own sin or someone elses, you better not let any one know it because the vultures of gossip will circle as the wolves of self-righteousness move in for the kill. IF you survive the initial onslaught; then you must harden yourself to the pain that will be yours as a second-class citizen among the righteous.

I don't have all the answers or even know all the questions; but I do know that my God has a truckload of mercy. None of us are righteous in his sight. I thank God I don't have to measure up to other people's expectations and standards. I'll just do what I do and trust God to show me when I'm messing up.

I've lived most of my life knowing I was a second-class citizen at church. My parents divorced and my dad remarried and was then publicly kicked out of church. My dad continued to go to that church until I could drive myself because the youth pastor and his wife were a help to me. I had run away from home a year before the divorce, and was gone a few days. I talked to them and no one else. My dad and stepmom put up with a lot of looks and comments for my sake. I know it hurt them. "Those people" in the church also hurt us kids. I "knew" I wasn't as good as everyone else. Finally somewhere along the way I was "good enough" to be pitied, but not good enough to really associate with because of my family situation.

When my sister was in a near fatal car accident and was in ICU for over 3 weeks the pastor didn't even come to the hospital. That was the final straw for my dad. That really drove home just how second class he is. He's been in church just a handful of times in the last 9 years. I didn't go back to the baptist church we(my husband and I) were members of because I knew they would say it all happened because of either my sin, my sisters sin or someone in the family.

Well, all that is a long story I'll start on some other time. Consider it a preview to one of the tough times in my life.