Woosh! Our last post stirred up a hornet's nest of hurt and frustration with the church, didn't it?

I have such mixed emotions about that. On the one hand, I get it. Trust me, I do. I have worked in the church for the last 25 years, so I know how the sausage gets made, so to speak. Real humans with real flaws doing the best we can to steward the message of the grace and mercy of God in Christ. It can get real messy.

And we get it so wrong sometimes. So devastatingly wrong. And the results are painful, the wounds are deep, the scars are everlasting.

At the same time, even in the angriest comments, there exists a longing ... a longing for a place to call home, a place to let our guard down, a place to be comforted and challenged, a place where spiritual conversations are real, where spiritual questions are encouraged, a place where spiritual needs can be met.

The church can get it really right sometimes, too. And the results are sweet, the nourishment is rich, the impact eternal.

I will say more about the church and church trauma in future posts, but for now I feel the need to simply leave us all with a quote from my favorite alcoholic, ex-priest, and writer, Brennan Manning.

Here is what Manning writes:

"If you took the love of all the best mothers and fathers who have lived in the course of human history, all their goodness, kindness, patience, fidelity, wisdom, tenderness, strength, and love and united all those qualities in a single person, that person's love would only be a faint shadow of the furious love and mercy in the heart of God the Father addressed to you and me at this moment."

(Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God)

In the midst of all our spats ...

In the light of all our failures ...

In the dead center of all our theological disagreements ...

This one truth still shines:

We are loved. We are loved. We are loved.

You, my dear reader, you are SO loved.

AMEN.

Photo by Nicole Mason on Unsplash