Lie Dissectors

The last post I uploaded, "Have you been hurt by the church?" has triggered the most interest so far of any. For Terry, the pastor's ex-wife in the story, church and her ex-husband, Ed, were barely distinguishable from each other. At least that was true for a long time while she came to terms with who she was and how she wanted to live. Over and over again, for Terry, it meant drawing a separation between Ed and God and discovering that she had allowed Ed to become the lens through which she viewed God. I know I personally have been guilty of the same mind games - probably that is why I was able to portray Terry so. She doesn't quite know this about herself at the end of the book but she has also allowed the people of Ed's church to come to define THE church for her - even though they have not applied enough critical thinking either and basically function as Ed's abusive echo. Of course, idolizing the pastor, the elders, or a denomination leads to the kind of inflexibility and judgmental-ism that ostracized Terry without even considering that there might have been another way to evaluate the situation. How hurtful to learn that the basis of one's community, identity, and barometer of truth and morals has shut you out! How freeing truth inevitably is if we allow it to dissect us away from these lies. It reminds me of Job and that makes me confident that people like Terry really do get the chance to come face to face with the God who speaks out of the whirlwind in His own time and with His own set of challenging questions. 


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.