From a reader living in a midwestern town. She writes:
Reading of your experiences and of others who have had the courage to break away from [from an authoritarian system] has been extremely liberating to me. Though our experience probably pales in comparison to what you and others have gone through, I do believe it gives us a common bond of experience and knowledge. One of my husband’s favorite expressions is; “If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger!” I truly believe that when the dust settles, we will be stronger. We will have a renewed spirituality that has sadly been lacking for many years. We will finally realize that Christ died for all of us, not just a special and separate group of individuals who have set themselves up as God’s prophet on earth. I still feel that we have a long road ahead of us. We have not come to the point of disassociating ourselves (as related in your book, we have older parents who would suffer from such an action) and at this point we have not been disfellowshipped as we have kept “our counsel” to ourselves and have not created too much of a “disturbance” in the congregation. But I do feel that we are constantly looking over our shoulders. It is not a comfortable or peaceful place to be. But I will keep your final paragraphs in the chapter “A Congregation of Free People” from In Search of Christian Freedom in my mind and heart.
For a time, we may face a measure of loneliness. The examples God gives us in his servants as encouragement to our faith are largely of persons who also endured times of loneliness. Some even “wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground”! Remembering them, and the reward assured them, we can take heart, “lift up drooping hands, strengthen weak knees, and make straight paths for our feet,” rather than go off in a course of least resistance. If a choice is to be made, we can without fear forego for a time certain human association in the knowledge that we are never alone, that we retain at all times the transcending friendship of God and his Son. This alone we cannot do without, everything else we can if the need exists. Faith assures us that they will carry us along, sustain, strengthen, and encourage us with their love. When and as our efforts are rewarded in that we do find upbuilding friendships with others, we can view this as a plus, something added, never the essential.
That viewpoint can, I believe, actually result in our finding, if not more friends, then at least friends more worth having genuine friends, whose friendship is not conditioned on the way an organization or a denomination or men in authority may view us, but on what we ourselves are. I know that I have personally gained, in many lands, more such true friends in the past decade than in all the sixty years previous.
Whatever the case, our freedom is enhanced by knowing that there are higher friendships, more vital friendships. People may fail us. No matter how genuinely we ourselves may respect, admire, or love them, they may fail us. The experience of David and the One he at times typified, Christ Jesus, forcefully illustrate this. But God and his Son will never fail us, will never “leave us in the lurch,” will always be there for us in our time of need.”
Thank you for your books.
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