At church today and doing the worship, we sang the modern hymn ‘In Christ Alone’. After reading and singing the last verse

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

It was so liberating to read, sing, and actually feel that truth in light of a ‘pediatric pentecostal’ still within me trying to convince me that what was taught as a child of losing your salvation at every sin (intentional or unintentional) is truth instead of the reformed theology of salvation.

Even though I addressed it many years ago in this article, I woke up this morning feeling rejected, inadequate, inferior, imperfect, incomplete, unprepared, and incapable of being a Christian, a co-worker / employee, a future husband, a human being, a son, a brother, and a friend. I woke up this morning feeling physically like I was involved in a back alley street fight gang attack left for dead and took the worst of life’s beatings mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

Arriving at church today single and alone and seeing the evangelical version of Stepford housewives and ‘the Joneses’ couples and families smiling seemed to further reinforce and enhance the feelings. I felt like I was 60 and my mind went numb and in migraines.

After the worship was over and I dropped the offering in the plate (to keep the ‘protection’ feeling that God will not drop his guard from me) [another theo'illogical' concept I will discuss in a future post], I left and came home because I felt as if the song verse posted above was in essence almost all that I needed today. The reinforcement that I am God’s child and no dirty word spoken in anger, no failure to see a stop sign to wreck and die (before confessing my sin, breaking the stop sign is breaking the law which is sin because it is not obeying the laws of the land – hey, we were taught this to emphasize the point of losing salvation….), no grand mega satanic attack, no failure to give a televangelist money, no deciding to vote for a democrat on the school board, was almost all I needed to receive today from church.

But I needed more…..

A touch from God……

To know of God’s presence even though I am still single and never been married (you go to some evangelical churches and you get the impression that God doesn’t like single people for some odd reason – ten years ago it was divorcees before pastors divorces and remarriages became the ‘cool’ thing to do). To know of God’s presence even though you have hit age 40 and both the wheels of time / life and the church is passing you by as if they have given up on you which makes you wonder if God Himself has also given up on you.

To quote the Navin Johnson (Steve Martin) character from the movie ‘The Jerk”:

And that’s all I need…..