Job's Erstwhile Comforters

I spoke this evening with a friend who has known me since before I was married. That makes our relationship stretch back to more than 35 years when we attended the same church - a good one, for the most part - then- although it was led by a bully pastor who ended up disgracing himself without room to recover from his demise since he killed himself. But as my friend and I reminisced over the various shared griefs and triumphs that make up the fabric of our relationship, I realized anew that we Christians have a terrible penchant for abusing each other in the name of love. In my friend's case, she had what many in her circle of friends considered too many children too close together beginning when she and her husband were too young and, probably even more problematic for most of them, she was a strong woman who contributed what many consider the man's role in the marriage. The critics' solution was to equate their criticism of my friend with God's. Unfortunately, like Job's erstwhile "comforters" they forgot to get God's opinion before presuming to articulate it. It reminds me of what happened in the story, Pastor's Ex-Wife, to Terry when the members of the congregation she had served for decades decided to agree with the authoritative but abusively twisted opinion of Pastor Ed. So she was discarded as a heretic, anathema. Unfortunately, I have suffered that treatment and witnessed it being served to numerous victims from more than one pastor endorsed by many more ignorant bystanders who unknowingly bought into the unfounded opinions of the same just because it was the opinion of the pastor.

You can read Pastor's Ex-Wife by Lesley Barker on the Kindle. If you don't own a kindle, you can download the kindle ap for free to your computer desktop or smart phone and then you can buy the book in the Amazon Kindle Store here.