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"How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!
How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you!
I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand sanctity.
I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often
I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.
No I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, although not completely.
And where should I go?"
- Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes
2 comments:
Wow.
You probably don't know much or anything about the last church my dad pastored. But let's just sum it up with my family was really wounded by that experience. Right now some very special people in my life are in hurtful places with their churches. Which hurts me. Those words that you posted were something that I needed to read today. Thanks.
I don't know the specifics about your dad's last church, but it seems like most (every?) ministers have a similar story of conflict / pain and wounding.
I have also had a less than ideal church experience, though even in the midst of pain God created some very special and lasting relationships that I would not trade.
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