Divorce.... a church?

***started this post on 7/10 at 4:50 p.m. and finished today 7/16***

Ok... this is a serious topic for me... and I'm going to dig as deep as I can into it for now -- well, as deep as one can while listening to the "mouse-ka-dance" "hot dog, hot dog, hot dog hot dog hot diggidy dog"... and and a scrawny, Dum Dum sucking, miss-matched, new-from-McDonalds transformers Optimus (sp?) Prime driving 3 year old can let me be... so you can understand that while this is a very serious topic, I'll do my best to give it my attention but you see, it just may not be entirely possible. :) But at least I'm attempting.

When I moved back to Texas 8 years ago and the whole divorce thing happened (long time coming but it DID happen) I knew that I really needed to get my head and heart back into church. I needed to learn and focus and keep my child grounded in the Word.

Looking back.. I grew up in a Church of Christ. I don't really remember what we did there. I remember not liking it because I was a tom-boy and really didn't like wearing dresses and that's just what you did there. There was no music - it was all a capella which I just don't really care for either.

But, since it was all I knew when I was old enough and had my own car (I think 17 years old), I actually phoned the church office and talked to someone in the office for a while. I said I'd gone there as a child, my uncle was an elder there and I was really interested in coming back. My parents were divorced and my mom wasn't a church going kinda lady. My dad went but since we weren't always with my dad and sometimes he worked weekend part-time extra jobs, we didn't always go with him either. That being said... I really didn't go much. SO, when I got old enough to realize what it was all about and I knew it was up to me to seek OUT the Word, I wanted to... So, after I'd talked to someone there and gave them my address, within 2 days I had pamphlets in the mail about how much money I needed to give them... ??? That COMPLETELY turned me off... completely. Not that I didn't believe in giving to the church, but they didn't try to do anything to make me feel welcome, it was just all about what I could do for them.

((sidebar)) right now Drew is "de-venoming" his snakes with neon orange tinker toys and dumping the venom into a squish ball. Isn't that so sweet he's keeping me safe? Ha ha...

so, that turned me off and I maybe went a handful of times... knew it wasn't for me, though. So, fast forward to getting married and moving to Colorado Springs. I knew we wanted to find a church and we began attending various churches in the area. My ex was raised in a very traditional Lutheran church (pipe organs, men in robes, etc.) I wasn't too keen on this either but we found one church that had 3 services on Sundays. We missed the first one and decided to attend the second. It was CONTEMPORARY! It was AWESOME! The minister, yes, he wore a robe but beneath it, he wore jeans and cowboy boots! I knew that was the place for me. I immediately became plugged in and was actually baptized there.

Then we moved to Ohio (military) and never really found a place we both liked going but we'd on occasion go to this one church with one of my best friends up there... it was nice... just not "home" for me.

Fast forward to moving back to Texas... I looked for another church... I looked and tried out several... going through the divorce, I really NEEDED one for Josh and myself. I just happened to try one church, Irving Bible Church, and I never looked for another one again. Its a really big church but I fell in love with it. I loved the worship team (very contemporary), I love the minister and his messages and how they actually apply to my life. I love the children's ministry team (I actually joined it teaching Sunday school for several years and also leading an AWANA class for 3 years on Wednesday nights.) I love the children's live music team. I love their outreach programs. I love their single parent ministry. I love this church. I love it.

Then I met Andy and we married and moved to Keller -- 30 minutes away. For the longest time, I made the drive... for me, it was worth it to fill up my spiritual bank. We haven't been going in a long time. My MIL was strongly encouraging finding a church in our neighborhood so that Josh could be plugged into the church and participate in extra curr activities and such... that he'd be in church with friends from his neighborhood... that it'd be more of a "community" church than us being one of only a few couples from Keller to go there. That made sense but... the thought of disassociating myself with this fantastic church just to have to go through the motions somewhere else... ??? do you do it? I feel like I'm going from a Bentley to a 70's VW Bug. It seriously breaks my heart to think I won't go there anymore.... at least if I DON'T go anywhere... I'm not NOT a member of IBC any longer. I can see the benefit to finding a neighborhood church that's only 10 minutes or so away... And with gas at $4 a gallon... I guess it does effect the bottom line but... at what cost?

We tried out another church but it felt so fake.... I honest to goodness don't feel like we should try to "fix" something that isn't broken...so is this ME being selfish or is this a message from God that I've found my home and I need to realize that it's my home... isn't home what you make of it? Your family are the people that you love and that love you.... does it matter that they're 30 minutes away? Is it really detrimental to my son's feeling of "community" if we don't attend a church that's down the road.... to one that's down the highway?

Sigh... I dont want to go through another divorce...