Confession

I have a confession to make; although I'm not sure "confession" is really the word I'm looking for as I have no shame in what I am about to say.

I miss the church of my earliest years.

Yes, you read that correctly. When I was very young I was taken to a vibrant young Presbyterian church on the outskirts of Atlanta, a church my adoptive parents had helped to found. In those days it was a simple building with one room that served as sanctuary and fellowship hall and another wing with sunday school classrooms... mostly for kids. It was a much more simple time, and probably among the last moments of innocence I would experience.

It was a place to bring your kids and raise your family. It was the proverbial village raising up children steeped in God's Word and equipped with the tools for raising a family of their own.

The preacher taught a gospel of grace. He spoke in simple words, easy to understand and even engaged the children as much as he could. Much like the Christ of the Gospels he didn't turn the children away. He taught about a loving God who loved His children so much that He would give anything to save them. Despite the Church's Calvinist roots he taught a gospel of grace, open to all. Didn't have to do anything special to earn it. Didn't have to have some special calling from birth. All you had to do was open to Him and let Him come to you and lift you up out of darkness.

In later years, I would look back on those few years of my life in wonder. I prayed that this all loving God would come and lift me up out of the darkness and turmoil that was life in the cult. Years passed, and no one came to save me. No one came to lift me up out of that darkness.

In the end, it was my own strength and courage, and the Kindreds that I had built *ghosti with that lifted me up out of it. It's hard to come away from that still believing in a all loving God and a gospel of grace. Still, I look back on those few years of my life fondly.

Sometimes, I wish it had never changed.