Be Responsible for your own Junk!

Sheila was the first to speak “We need to trust the Lord Laney. I know that is hard for you, but, until you do, you won’t find peace. There will always be something troubling you.”



Laney looked at her friend “I can’t do that Sheila. I watched a whole church turn their heads and look the other way when my mother would come in battered and bruised. I heard them ask her what she had done to deserve it. They even went so far as to ask if she wasn’t doing her duty in the bedroom. I don’t want anything to do with faith like that. That isn’t for me.”




Sheila pulled the van to the side of the road, a righteous anger spilling from her being. “Laney, do you really think that was God? Do you? Do you really think He thought she deserved what she got? Do you really think God looked down from heaven and said, that woman isn’t pleasing her man in bed so she deserves to be beat? Well, do you?”



Laney had never thought that pointedly about where she was placing the blame.



Sheila held her hands up “See this? This is flesh. It means I’m going to screw up. Every man, woman and child is gonna mess up at some point in their lives. It’s called sin. And if you think you hate it, imagine God hating it a billion times more. Sin is what happened to separate His creation from Himself. Sin is what happened in the Garden of Eden and sin has been a part of our lives ever since then. What happened in that church was not God. What happened in that church was people too ignorant to know better, people who had been brought up to think a certain way. Think about it, Laney. Don’t make excuses for people. We are responsible for our own junk.”





Sheila let out a deep breath in a desperate attempt at gaining control. She hadn’t meant to preach at her, but Laney’s preposterous belief that God was responsible for the contentious treatment of her mother made her see red. “Every time I hear someone say ‘if there was a God there wouldn’t be starving children in the world,’ it makes me want to slap them. Where is common sense? Do you know that if every Christian tithed, there would be no hunger in the world? That’s just the Christians. What if the world was giving? God has given us everything we need to feed the world. We’re the problem, not Him!”





Laney was silent. The unanswered questions that Sheila posed tore at her heart with vise like claws, threatening to tear down all the carefully erected walls she’d so painstakingly built. Had she been wrong? Did God really hate the wrongs as much or more than she did? A single tear escaped. Her vision was obscured. She no longer knew if what she saw was reality, or simply vengeance and hatred of a different kind.



Sheila sighed and looked at her friend. “I’m sorry, Laney. I sometimes forget I don’t have to defend my God. He is God. His existence does not depend on my defending Him or you believing in Him. He wants us for his own, but He does not need us. Man does not define God. He defines us. His creation, created with a purpose and a plan with a destiny to fulfill. What we do with it is up to us.



Both women sat quietly for a moment. Sheila put the van in gear and started toward home.



Today’s post is an excerpt from my soon to be released novel, Forever Blessed. This portion of writing was on my heart and I thought I would share it with you. I think it does a good job of pointing out that sometimes we, the church, mess up. But God’s grace and love are bigger than anything we can imagine. Have a great day and thanks for growing with me this Wednesday! DarleneLonely Hearts ~ a sweet Christian Romance
The Price of Trust ~ Christian Romantic Suspense
http://www.booksbyamanda.com