thanku 4 saying that friend.
I look forward to perfect love forever. I cant wait much longer.
I will continue my testimony of God's Goodness in a few days.
Meanwhile I wait to see others share!

please share

My past seems so bland and milquetoast, but there have been a lot of internal struggles while the outside was calm. Raised in an Adventist home. My dad was a Literature Evangelist for about 10 years (well, LE, then assistant Pub. Dir, then Pub Dir). Went to SDA schools. Moved around and made new friends. Etc.

Then grade 10 came along. For about 2 years, my dad had been working under a Pub. Director who was a really "great guy" to everyone except his associate directors. As a kid, I really liked him. But he started doing worse and worse things to my Dad and several others of the associates (I think he was quite insecure for his job, because he always attacked the most successful leaders under him), till it came to the point that it was either get "transferred" or quit (or fired--I honestly don't remember after all these years). They of course pressured my dad to get the 'honorable' transfer, so that they wouldn't look bad. But my Dad stood up to them and said, no, I'm not going to cover up for you guys. So he was fired or quit.

I was 15. During that last year, my parents couldn't hide what was going on, so they told us a lot (doubt if they told us all) that this guy was doing and pulling. I had always so much admired the conference workers. I had grown up with them knowing me and me playing with their kids. Now to see this happen . . . . I couldn't believe it.

So I started separating myself from God. I figured that if God couldn't have stopped this from happening to my dad, I didn't want to have any more to do with him. I still went to church and didn't get in any more trouble than usual in my academy, but I was completely empty and hollow inside. This continued through academy. I think maybe one teacher reached out and tried to reach me, but most of them saw the mask and didn't look further.

I intended to attend state college, but my cousin, who teaches in the seminary at AU, convinced me to give AU a try. I went there and met my future DH there. But still it was all hollow inside.

It took going to China for me to really open myself up and cry out to God to help me. I remember that our SDA sending organization was going through some bad times (eventually closed down), and I asked one of the other English teachers, who was a former pastor in NY, how he had been able to deal with the stupid politics for as long as he had. He looked at me for a long time and, just as I was apologizing for having asked such an insensitive question, said very sadly, You're too young to have to know about all of that.

I still struggle constantly with separating the church's politics from my personal relationship with God. I am a very jaded and cynical person in many ways. I don't want to be, but I feel that I must protect myself from being hurt by the idiots. I have several friends whose fathers have had similar situations, and we all struggle with the church we were raised in. As two of these friends told me, on separate occasions, I'd leave the church but I don't know where I'd go. Kind of how I've felt.

Now I'm married to a man who is an administrator. He has gone through some nasty situations and I just hate it. It is difficult when you are the pastor's or principal's wife, because there is NOBODY with whom you can share problems. You end up bottling it all up or crying out to God to take it away and then wondering why it doesn't go away.

So there's my story, boring as it is. I actually wonder why I'm sharing it, but I was so touched by G4J's willingness to share that I decided to. Maybe I should just delete it.

M

"I am a very jaded and cynical person in many ways. I don't want to be, but I feel that I must protect myself from being hurt by the idiots. I have several friends whose fathers have had similar situations, and we all struggle with the church we were raised in. As two of these friends told me, on separate occasions, I'd leave the church but I don't know where I'd go."

Michelle ... that is so just how I am inside of my heart to SDAism right now. Due solely by my 8 years of SDA online experience.

My sda-life where I live has never given me hurts directly by any of it's leaders or church members. I was close to it's politics but not involved enough to experience disappointment after having put trust in some man leader. The main burden of not feeling well with SDAism in my part of the world is the lack of Church profile identity or the measuring up to EGW's mission statements for the Church. Being part of the ecumenical movement is no hard thing to adjust to and that is what hurts me most.

I have names and mental pictures of such wonderful true SDA's here in my part of the world. Wonderful in the sense of meaning me being able to see Jesus in them in their actions and words. So my fuss with the SDA.org politics is not so actute as most of what you all cope with because of my lovely SDA believers I know and because of the new sda church I am now regularly attending weekly for the last months. Not new as a church to me because of visiting off and on there over many years. The new road is finished to that town and using it saves me a whole 40 minutes of drive. I still need to drive 55 minutes to reach it. They are so loving one another there as I have never experienced elsewhere. I have other positive things to report but know this is not the right topic thread for it.

Turmeric

So glad I came back to this thread this morning.

Michelle, your father's (and husband's) experiences are more common than not - sad to say. The politics of the SDA organization is just like the politics of any organization: those who are greedy and selfish will step all over anybody who's in their way. The only consolation is that they'll all come tumbling back down again, sometime. It's the secure, steady, unselfish mainstream, Godly men and women without personal ambition, whom you can always trust and count on. And since they don't seek "higher office," the good ones usually can't spare you from the meanness of the bad ones.

Here I need to say that the SDA organization is NOT a hierarchical organization, in spite of what the conference "officials" seem to think. The power is at the grass roots -- the pastors and teachers -- because that is where souls are won and saved for the Kingdom. Our officials sometimes forget that they work for US, not vice versa. [Knowing this gives little comfort, however, if one is being battered by those officials.]

I've been "in the work" and know something of the stress it places on those in pastoral work and school administrators in particular. There's never enough money for the things you need to do, and so MUCH "busy work" is required of you [score-keeping, I call it] so the Conference can rate your effectiveness. (Which is NOT a good way of measuring effectiveness, by the way.)

When I was on the faculty in one of our Adventist colleges, was engaged to be married, one of the college officials began circulating a false rumor about me, disparaging my morals. Turns out she was just jealous. It was a horrible few weeks for me.

I've lived long enough to see that it's the LEAST charismatic, LEAST brilliant, LEAST intelligent members of my college graduating class - who have "risen" to being Presidents of Conferences and of Unions and even of NAD. They are NOT there by virtue of their skills and ability; they're there by accident - by "knowing the right people." The truly bright ones have instead written books, have stayed in pastoral or teaching ministries, etc. And that's why we have some Union Conferences making such unwise mandates of their conference personnel -- all just in order that the President can say "See this Great Babylon which I have built."

So please don't feel you're alone when you run into this type of thing.

The gossipy, power-hungry, selfish people will always be with us. But remember, "the Lord looks on the heart." Truth will come out, if we are patient.

God bless you. You're making a difference in the lives of those you touch. A good motto is: Bloom where you are planted.

You don't have enough room for me to tell my story....But I'll tell you this: Until the local Adventist's churches renounce their legalistic gospel and preach the truth as it is "in Christ" I won't be attending. Been there, done that, won't do it again....

"The Bible and the Bible alone, is to be the rule of our faith. It is a leaf from the tree of life, and by eating it, by receiving it into our minds, we shall grow strong to do the will of God. By our Christlike characters we shall show that we believe the word, that we cleave to the Bible as the only guide to heaven. So shall we be living epistles, known and read of all men, bearing a living testimony to the power of true religion." RH 1897

"There is no excuse for anyone to take the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation." RH, Dec 20, 1892

"Those who cling to old customs and hoary errors have lost sight of the fact that light is ever increasing upon the path of all who follow Christ; truth is constantly unfolding to the people of God. We must be continually advancing if we are following our Leader. It is when we walk in the light that shines upon us, obeying the truth that is open to our understanding, that we receive greater light. We cannot be excusable in accepting only the light which our fathers had one hundred years ago. If our God-fearing fathers had seen what we see, and heard what we hear, they would have accepted the light, and walked in it. If we desire to imitate their faithfulness, we must receive the truths open to us, as they received those presented to them; we must do as they would have done, had they lived in our day." EGW in Historical Sketches, 196

Now, let me ask each of you---this was written over a hundred years ago!!! Is it any less true today than it was another 100 yrs ago?

Ponder this.

Ben

Never thought i'd end up in the Adventist church. was raised in Unity -which is rather like Christian Science. my dad had been raised an Adventist-by legalists-and couldn't get out fast enough. all i ever heard growing up was that Adventists were kooks. by age 12, i knew Unity was clap-trap but didn't know what else there might be that wasn't. went to Catholic college & ended up joining-didn't believe in any of it except the Apostle's Creed, which i clung to. i knew in my heart it wasn't the place to be. prayed for several years that the Lord would put me where i needed to be. a friend sent me a copy of Great Controversy.i read it & was struck by the fact that it was presenting exactly the same history (in the same way) that history teachers had at Catholic college-unapolegically, i might add. shortly thereafter saw a poster for a Revelation seminar & was struck by the depiction of the beasts-what could they mean?the same friend who sent me Great Controversy invited me to the seminar! i went & bawled all throught the 1st 2 presentations-i knew i'd found the Truth and the place i was meant to be. was prayed into the church by loving friends & an aunt who was determined to see me in the church before she died. have never looked back. if one left the Adventist church, there'd be nowhere to go.

Gay4Jesus,
I am very touched by your story so far, and I am very interested in what you have to share. I just wanted to let you know, that if I knew your personally, you would be welcomed in my home, and I would pray with you and be there for you. {{{hugs}}}
Toni