Today I found myself working on resentments and judgements and really having to face some stuff that I thought I had faced once already but obviously given the thoughts I had today I haven't dealt with all the way.
This last week at Community Church, the children of our community participated in Vacation Bible School. A totally awesome program for sure. Then as I sat there, I felt resentment boiling up in me. I was angry and bitter. One of the people chosen to be a leader was a person who concealed and protected a child preditor. While the law did not go after her, because she eventually did the right thing~ still there was the fact that she did NOTHING for weeks (perhaps months depending on what story you believe) and hid what she had seen to protect the man who damaged so many lives.
As I sat watching her stand in front of the congregation with the children, I felt the anger rising in me like vomit. It was frustrating to sit there. I felt like there was something wrong with the leadership of the church that allowed this person to stand at the front of the church like that, to watch our children... she protected someone who harmed children in the past... what is to stop her from doing it again in the future?
She was a supposed Christian, attending church, asking the church to pray for restoration of her relationship with the person she was protecting, all the while allowing the person to have unsupervised contact with children, her own grandchild, while she knew who and what he was. What is to say she won't do it in the future?
Is it wrong to harbor the resentment in my heart? That the church permits this person to be in leadership?
It is~ I know it is. I need to let it go and let God deal with the heart of this woman and the heart of the church and it's leadership. I have gone to God in prayer, praying for the power to do what God requires in this situation and STOP trying to understand any of it because it is beyond my understanding.
My awesome husband pointed out to me that once a person has saught forgiveness, forgiveness is given by God. The sin is as far from God as the east is to the west. And so, trying to judge the person on human terms violates what God has told us to do. I know I have to let this go... I know it.
Man this is just eating away at me... I have to get to a place of peace with this...
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many
Hebrews 12:15
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I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Matthew 12:36-37
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Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:1-2
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if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
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For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:14-15
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Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Colossians 3:12-13
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