Time Machine

So I'm sitting here listening to a tape. Ok, tonight my Mom came in and handed me a cassette tape by Bro. Garrett. It's called The Solemn Feast and he preached it August 1993 at Legacy Holiness Conference. That is the Conference our church hosted each year in Balch Springs where I grew up. Mom said she thought I would enjoy it because it really spoke about how I'm feeling right now.

He is preaching about hell being present even when you are doing nothing wrong. He talked about how sometimes our wounds are so deep and hell won't let up. It's amazing how something that has been bothering me so strongly and desperately was brought out in that sermon. He talked about how in his text the Bible spoke of when you went in the gate of the temple you left through a different gate. He said it's time to quit coming to church and leaving the same way we came in. It's time Christians stopped going home still hurt and dry. This sermon was preached almost 16 years ago but it rings so true.

Something else he said that really struck me was that there were people there that if they weren't careful they were going to wake up one day and realize that they had lost it and not even know where it went. Mom commented how true it was. It made me really sad that the power my former church had is gone and we don't know where it went. Even sadder is this, it's not our fault it left. I listened to the whole sermon through and then I asked Mom, is there churches like that anymore? I can't explain it to you if you've never had it you can't understand it. But you know how if you have something really neat and you lose it how much you miss it and you will try to find it and if you can't you might try to replace it but can't find anything that fits. So you go through life with this feeling of loss.

I'll be honest I don't understand, it's very confusing to me. I was recently talking to a friend that said when she was feeling the same way she was told times change. I can't take that, I'm sorry, I was there, I felt that power, that anointing and because of sin in the leadership of our church it left and the hurt and wounds that are left are so deep. We think that be punishment being handed out it will heal our wounds but my belief is that there is more to it then just someone receiving what is handed out. It's that we lost more than just a building and the pews, we lost a level in God that I've not found. I don't know how to even get back there. I think in my mind perhaps once everything was over it would be back but it wasn't.

My Mom had to really do some talking to get me to listen because I am sitting here listening to people backing up the preacher and I can pick out voices. It's funny how much I had tucked away and forgotten until I was listening and the memories come pouring back in like floods.

Here is something to think about that Bro. Garrett said. "You have a facade up that everything is OK, you are too quick to smile and say things are good"

It has made me realize how much I have to depend on God. Sometimes He is all we have.

Good Night