[Faith-talk] being healed from blindness

[debby phillips]

Hi Ashley, I know that it's very easy to generalize, and I 
shouldn't do it because I hate it when other people do that.  We 
started attending a small Free Methodist church, and I soon was 
on one of the worship teams, and volunteered at the office.  I 
made phone calls, answered the phone for the staff, and did other 
things.  I had a pastor who was a good pastor, he helped me a 
lot.  I was praying about what I should do with my life, and was 
feeling that perhaps God was calling me to some kind of full-time 
ministry.  One day he suggested that I should begin the process 
of becoming a pastor within our denomination.  I began filling 
out the papers, and reading the books that they recommended.  
Then I went away for the winter and did some work in the RV park 
where we stayed for the winter.  The pastor of the church in the 
park asked me to help with the ladies' Bible study, and I 
preached a couple of times.  All of this, of course, I reported 
to my pastor back home.  When I returned that spring, everything 
was awful.  There was a huge division within the church, and 
there was talk of the pastor leaving.  Instead of coming back to 
a situation where I was going to be more involved in things, I 
came back to fighting.  I was allowed to go to staff meetings.  
They were stiff and horrible.  At the beginning of the summer I 
was hopeful that something good would happen.  But as I left to 
go south for the winter I had a sad feeling about the church.  My 
friend the old pastor was no longer there when I returned in the 
spring, and there was a new pastor.  He clearly had no time for 
me, and was not willing to mentor me oh do anything to help me.  
The Board had a discussion in which I was not involved, nor even 
informed of the results.  Eventually I found out what the results 
were, but only because I blew up.  Anyway, I left.  I have had no 
desire to return to church anywhere since then.  I tried a couple 
places while I was a student at CCB, but I just couldn't get 
myself to care, I guess.  Anyway, that's kind of where I'm at.  
my old pastor, Pastor Greg definitely had some issues which I 
think eventually led to his leaving and retiring.  But he really 
did care about people, and he did his best to show people that he 
cared.  One summer a group of us went to Alaska on a mission 
trip.  I actually wasn't going to go, but he encouraged me to 
think about it.  So I ended up going.  It brought about huge 
changes in my life, or so I thought.  Sigh.  But he did some 
interesting things.  We played games like croquet and some other 
games, and everyone else had to be blindfolded.  I didn't suggest 
it, I didn't even know that he was going to do that.  Anyway, 
anything I wanted to do he always let me try.  I miss him a lot, 
and I'd probably still be in church if he was still here.  Sad to 
say, I probably had my little part of causing him to leave, 
because there were times when he did make me angry and one time 
when I felt he went over the line and I probably added a little 
bit to the drama.  I am so sorry for that.  I wish that I could 
go back and live that part of my life again.  Sorry, I didn't 
mean for this to be my whole life story.     Blessings,    Debby