Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Home Group (11/29/07)
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TITLE: Squeals and Squalls | Previous Challenge Entry
By Laury Hubrich
12/05/07 -
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This church had Care Cottages, one name of many for small home groups. We all cherished the Wednesday nights we met together. We had a time of worship and prayer and then Bible study. Our particular group was led by our extremely young minister and his wife. This group helped us form bonds with others in a short amount of time. It also helped us grow in our faith and to learn to reach out to one another in compassion.
Sometimes real-life doesn’t have happy endings. The whole church, but especially our small group Care Cottage, suffered a terrible blow at the hand of our minister. In forming close attachments, it is imperative that the relationships are pure and holy. Men should talk things over with other men and women with other women. This was learned the hard way.
Our minister ran off one day with our worship leader. To say that it was a traumatic experience would be an understatement. It was life shattering. I was working as the church secretary at the time and when I finally started putting pieces together I talked to his wife. Between the two of us, we were able to figure some things out but it was too little too late. He was gone, just like that.
I stayed with my friend, the ministers’ wife, for days on end. It was like going through a death only worse; the person was still alive but dead in his sin. We all were faced with questions about our faith and all that he had taught us but to this day I cannot deny the fact that he helped me and so many others grow spiritually during his years of service to the Lord and the church.
Our group held together and maybe even grew stronger through this experience. The former minister had a baby with this worship leader but they never married. He married another woman and now they have children of their own. He barely acknowledges his children from his first marriage. Two families were directly involved in this tragedy including five children, not to mention the grandparents, aunts, uncles and the rest of the church family.
I am still working at forgiving this man. The day he left, he took away two of my very best friends: himself and Terry, the worship leader. He also bruised and battered his wife emotionally. Watching so many people get hurt because of sin is extremely hard. It’s like a freight train that has lost its brakes. It squeals and squalls and makes a vain attempt at stopping but doesn’t get the job done. It continues to build momentum until it causes serious damage. We all were in the path of that speeding freight train and were unaware of the danger.
Larry now ministers in another church. I can’t understand why God would continue to use him. It is far beyond the reaches of my comprehension. To this day I can’t say his name or talk about the experience without breaking out in a cold sweat. If I ever saw him I might even throw out quills, when I bristle much like a porcupine, and hope they hit their mark.
We’ve since left this church, having been released by God to do so, and are extremely happy where we are now. It’s totally different than the first. It’s a large church in a larger town but it also has big dreams.
My family and I would not be the people we are now without having been involved in this first church and the Care Cottage. In spite of the problems that came out of it, we were taught so much and are benefiting from that knowledge to this day and on into the future.
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