Nancy,
It must be a very hard thing to help your children deal with your situation and as a mother, I ache for you. When we lived in Dallas we heard gunshots every night across the tracks. I didn't realize how frightened my boys were until I heard one say to the other, "Did you get under your bed last night?" But the violence they were afraid of was an impersonal one. What you are dealing with has a face. It's personal. It's directed against you and that's a far more terrifying hate to deal with.
One thing that strikes me as I read these posts though is that we're not really talking about religion, about Christian or Jew, homosexual or racist; we're talking about fear. People hate what they fear or what they don't understand. I think we confuse issues to say that "Christians did terrible things, or homosexuals did terrible things." I think it's sad to ask for credentials before we accept people. "What church do you go to? What nationality are you?"
People do terrible things. ALL people do terrible things. Some worse than others, yes. But we need to be more careful before we blame the sickness on the wrong cause.
I think it's been painful to read the Ask God thread. When Christians can't even tolerate each other, something is not right. It's too easy to blame the appearance of the "ungodly" for the dissonance, to say "I don't enjoy this anymore. They have caused this." Is that not the same as making excuses, avoiding personal responsibility for the dissension?
You are so absolutely right about personal responsibility. But that definitely does not fall only within the realm of the Christian. It is a belief that we have all expressed here repeatedly, Christians and non alike. You and Christine are communicating as caring people, not people who because of opposite belief structures feel they must reject and turn away from each other. You're not going to be "tainted" by us, your faith won't be weakened by Christine, it's doubtful that she or X will be "saved" by you. But you have chosen to be kind to each other in your posts and to attempt to communicate with concern for the other as a person, not as opposing arguments to be won.
Why is that so rare or so hard for others to do? I don't know, but it certainly seems to be a challenge for us all. So thanks for your efforts.
penni |
