Either Take Time to Hear our Hearts or Don't Waste Our Time
Both Rob and I are really tired of the emails and phone calls offering advice from people who don’t bother to call/email and ask how we are doing. And, folks, let’s cut to it. If you call and talk more than you listen or interrupt us so you can give us your pre-packaged speech, you really aren’t calling because you are concerned about us. You are calling to give your opinions and tell us how to fit into your box. You want to offer fixes, not an ear, not compassion, not a safe place. Even the kids have figured this out. What dumbfounds us both is if you are shocked we are separated, you didn’t know things were wrong to begin with and certainly not the extent of problems we were having. If you don’t know the problems or how serious they are, you probably don’t have advice or counsel on how to fix them, and that scatter-shot approach so many are using is simply unfounded guesses formed into judgments, and you know what? They don’t make us feel any better. They just make it so we don’t answer the phone next time your number comes up.
One of the things I have found dumbfounding through this are the Christians who tell me to have faith for healing but seem to have none of their own. I cannot tell you the number of people who have formed condemning opinions of Rob based on information that I incorrectly trusted them with two months ago. In those two months, they have been judgmental at best and flat out hateful at worst, even going so far as saying Rob is headed for hell, without calling/emailing for follow up or assuming things could remotely change. And they NEVER contacted him at all. They said, “I’ll be praying for Rob’s healing and the healing of your marriage,” and instead of truly expecting healing and periodically asking, “Has the healing begun to manifest yet?”, they have taken on unrighteous indignation and offense that was not theirs to take. They did not take on concern or compassion. I have seen nothing that suggests their interest was in the restoration of the brother…just the condemning of him.
Folks, if that is really what Christianity in the church is, then Rob isn’t the only one that “has a hard heart and needs to get right with God”. In fact, after watching him humble himself over the last two months, maybe he should show you a few things.
Continued in Part 3-Institutional Idolatry
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