Reflection #10 – Going Home
As Angel wrote in her first Summer Journal back in June I too hadn’t been home for several years, nearly four, for more than a 2 or 2 ½ week visit since I graduated from High School. I spent my first summer out in Michigan working and State Choir, my second summer I devoted completely to working and my third summer was spent in Denver where this blog originated. So I had no idea what to expect when I got here on May 12th. I knew I was going to miss terribly the friends that God had brought me so close too over the last nine months. I thought I was going to get a job and I had planned on taking a class. All of that got shot down and I ended up working specifically on our new 10:31 website and securing writers for next fall.
With coming home though came something else, a reminder of everything that I was before I my intervention by God on the side of that mountain last summer. The pain of the spiritual abuse that I had suffered at the hands of a pastor that had been released from that particular church and a sister who spent most of her time putting me down.
I was fine at the beginning of the summer, a great deal of prayer and time in scripture helped me to cope with everything that was going on around me. The constant insults from my sister continued but for the most part I was able to bite my tongue. That is until halfway through the summer when I started to slowly fall apart. I lapsed back into the depression and anger that had plagued me for so long before Denver. Instead of biting my tongue I would find back, thankfully I would catch myself before I did or said anything I regretted.
God used this to show me the strength of the friendships He had put into my life. Used it to constantly remind me through prayer and through loved ones that He was with me and I wasn’t the things that she was telling me I was.
As far as the church was considered, I met with the Youth Pastor twice and have visited on three different occasions. Through that God has allowed healing, reconciliation and restoration to come between me and the church leadership team and staff. As well as with several members of the congregation who had stopped talking to me probably at the request of the former senior pastor.
God also allowed a lot of good things to come from this, like getting to reconnect with an old High School friend, get my learners permit (Which is a long awaited answer to prayer), got to go on the radio to talk about the state choir and am now packing up for a trip to Boston. Through all of this though the setbacks continued God showed to me His faithfulness, promising that He would bring me through.
I think, dear friends that so often we forget, that when we are going through trials that God is right there with us. Read any of Angel’s articles for the summer and you’ll hear an amazing story of God’s ability to bring healing and restoration into our lives. When we are confronted by our past we want to run from it, but if God has brought us to it, then why would He not bring us through it.
In final reflection I think this summer God has reaffirmed and tested me in this fire to see if I believe what He told me in the Labyrinth. “I am here, I will be there.” The words repeating in my heart and in my head as I continue to walk this journey and reflect on the amazing God that I have the honor of serving, the same God who loves us enough to send His only son to die for us. The Same God who brought us to the trial, is the same God who walks with us on the journey, is the same God who abides in us and the same God who transforms our hearts along the way.
I pray you will continue in this journey with me as I continue to learn and grow and discover God’s Heart for Those.
God Bless You
Jonathan David Faulkner
10:31 Life Ministries
Director/Founder
