Respect the place God has placed you

My experience at my second church, a college ministry focused missional church, has left me with more pain and wounding than I thought possible. I know this isn't everybody's story but for me my departure was a hurtful one of which I continue to feel the fallout from. As a result of the situation I was depressed, disillusioned, mad at God, myself and my friends. I lost my hope, my joy and though I longed for something more. Believing that it was my fault, I started doing things to hurt myself. Even now, two years later, I am so full of pain that I wept for some time last night.

Is it not hard to understand that I would do everything I could to reject and walkaway from these people and the theories they operated by. As a student, I started going to a community church that was quite a distance from campus. I made friends with people who were from Columbus and those who never went to school. God blessed me with my new small group and God started healing me.

Now that the grass is not so green anymore at my current church, I learned that the denomination of my old church is replanting the church. This means that new leaders from another church are coming here and trying to start up something new. Discontent with my patchy grass and upset, lonely, and bored, I was attracted to this new thing.

In this process I realize that the rejection of the old church and it's methods was not based on solid grounds but actually stemming from emotional wounding and hurt rather than logic and principles. In this, I have to accept that I am dealing with massive unforgiveness and not too much else.

Now that the viability of this way of doing things is no longer in question as a primary issue, I now think I could be a part of the new church plant. In this though, my desires are partially rooted in a desire to recapture the good community and relationships that were lost when I left the old church. Now, 24 and in grad school, I'm not the same person and I have to deal with the fact that I can't go back and expect it to be the same. Certainly there is much sadness in this realization that this chapter in my life is closed — you're only 21 and an undergraduate once in your life and I finally realized that a realistic hope of reliving this is gone. This is why I wept last night.

Like dealing with loss after a fire, when your house burns down, you remember half of the things you lost but over time, you slowly remember the rest and this is where I'm at right now.

Though I'm not completely sure that I'm not to be a part of this new church plant, this decision can't be based on my desire to relive the past for this is not possible. Certainly I can try to experience things like I did in the past — build relationships, socialize with others, have fun and this is fine. Though these things may make my experience similar, I can't relive the past.

I have to come to terms with the fact that the Mosaic I knew is dead and has been dead for a long time. The reasons why I left are the same reasons why it has died. Now a part of a church that I agree with in theory but not always in practice, I've got to respect where God has placed me and try to make the best of it. At least I agree with the vision at my church and now the church just has to apply it justly and though this can be annoying, I can live with slow change.

I must persevere. I must trust and have faith that God will work. Please pray that I can get to the point where I can forgive GCM, Mosaic, and my friends for what they did and (in practice, not theory) and please pray that I can realize that I can't relive the past or vicariously live through the past. Please pray that I would have hope for today and tomorrow and that something would happen. I need friends to help me through this and I need to meet a few good friends who have time to help create that beautiful community I desire.