OH MY GOD!!! You are so being lied to!

Let me get something straight, WE ARE HUMAN!!! We aren't overcoming our sins because WE CAN'T!!! I feel so sorry for people who think that that is something we are supposed to be doing. If we could overcome our sins, God wouldn't have had to send JESUS!!!!
The other thing I keep reading is that people realize that the preacher/elders/whatever other morons that set themselves up as gurus, aren't always right, Godly, or loving. Yeah, ya know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE HUMANS! We suck! And the only thing that makes "pastors" different from the rest of us is the piece of paper in the frame in their office from some seminary that is probably the reason he's screwed up in the first place! Can you tell from my run-on sentences that I have an opinion about this?
Remember the stories of the priests that went into the Holiest of Holies had to have a rope tied around their ankle? Because when you enter the H of H you have to be pure or you'll what? Drop dead, that's right! So why the rope around the ankle? To pull them out when they drop dead! You see?
This overcoming our sins thing is bullshit! Do we try to do what's right? Yes. Do we do whatever teeny tiny "good" things we can? Sure. But only because we've asked Jesus to come and live in us and that's Him trying to push His love through our misersable, rotting flesh!
And any preacher that sets himself up as anything but one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread is dangerous, run away!
Any other explaination is a LIE!
Hey, don't take my word for it, take His.

Where Have All The Friend Gone?

What happens to our friends as we grow older? And those of you who have managed to keep your deep, abiding friendships, how did you do that? Or those of you that have created new ones, how is it done?
We used to have these friends, ones you would die for, ones you could say and do pretty much anything and they knew where you were coming from and either laugh or keep you accountable.
I had a best friend in high school, a guy ( as were most of my close friends, because, well I don't care much for females in general. Explaination to follow...), whom I loved dearly. He was one of those friends that you talk to for hours on the phone, about nothing but you still seem to have a lot to say. Or we'd watch TV on the phone w/ eachother. We'd go to dances, we went to the same church, youth group, sang in the youth choir, went to the same high school...he'd eat dinner with us all the time, and my parents loved him like a son.
We started MTHS at the same time. I transferred there my junior year and he was starting his freshman year, we were at orientation together. He was really depressed all the time about school, hated going! Which I never understood because he is still one of the smartest people I've ever known. He was in the "gifted" class, and I sucked at school! You know "free spirit", or "ADD" as they call it now. I just had better things to do! He wrote my father a letter once thanking him for his humor,and our family ,that when we came into his life he was considering suicide, but we had changed his mind, pulled him out of the hole.
Anyway, we were close.
So I went to college, (from PA to IN), we stayed close. I flunked out of college, moved to VA, met new friends, one of which turned out to be my husband, we stayed close. My then boyfriend, now husband knew all about Paul*, and he knew that if he wanted to be with me, Paul* had to come with the package, and without any jealousies.
Paul became friends with my friends here, he went to college, got an internship near us, came down every weekend, was in our wedding. We even had a special dance, just the two of us.
Then we didn't see him much anymore, but he stil called me. I called him a year later to tell him I was pregnant, he told me he was getting married in the next July. We didn't hear much from him over the year until closer to the wedding. Then he'd call to nail down plans. Plans for what I don't know because I have never felt more alien than I did at his wedding! His new wife acted like I was some kind of charity case, the presence of whom she was merely tolerating.
Then his brother gets up and makes this toast about how 2 years before Paul had been to a friend's wedding and it totally depressed him. So he ( the brother) told him to come home, hook up with some "real friends" and that was when he fell in love with Yoko*!
My husband and I looked at eachother. I cried. My husband drank. It was one of the most hurtful things I have ever heard. We'd brought our 2 month old son, Paul barely noticed. Not that he had to make it a huge deal, it was his wedding day, I understand. But he could have been a little interested.
Two weeks later, my father died. I called Paul. My mom wanted him to be a pallbearer. He said he would be here. He called back a couple of hours later and said they couldn't come because they were going to open wedding presents at Yoko's parents house. WTF? Really? He could have had the decency to lie to me! We haven't spoken since. Not because I'm mad, I just got the message that there was no room for me in their world.
Here's where the homosexuals have it right, they are a loyal community! You come in with all of your oddities, all the quirks that people have given you shit for all of your life and THEY LOVE YOU ANYWAY! They celebrate those quirks and figure out a way to use them to your advantage. They're fiercely loyal! I watch Will and Grace (oh shut up it's funny) and find my self so jealous of their relationships! Why aren't Christians like that? Why didn't Paul fight for me, the way I fought for him? Will and Grace are a package deal, Ross and Rachel, the 4 sad Sex In The City sluts, all a package deal (yes I know they're TV shows! I'm not a loon) .
These are shows written by people I can only assume are non-believers. And I bet you this is one of the reasons they don't care to become one. We are told to be this to eachother, this unbreakable relationship, right? Isn't that what Jesus does for us? Why aren't we that way to eachother? Does anyone know?

"Church" people make me wicked pissed!

The weired thing about what happened to us at "St. Looney's" UMC is that when we retell it now it's like a retelling a nightmare. It's doesn't sound as bad when we tell it as it was while we were going through it. That, and it started out pretty banal. Only as I look back do I see the ground-work being laid by the betrayers.
We always had haters. That is, there was always the underground uglies whispering in the halls, after meetings, and during the mysterious phone calls. We knew shit was being thrown about and they were ripping us new ones behind our backs. And until recently we thought it was the usual suspects, people I didn't give a crap about anyway. The old crusties, those that had become hardened to the needy, the nazi's (because let's face it, those that do not care for other races coming to worship in THEIR sanctuary, they are nazi's!), the usual. We knew they were plotting against us and we took pride in it! If you're not pissing them off you're not doing God's work!
It was the true Judases waiting in the wings that really sting! And the ones who still don't realize that they are Judases, they make me so mad! I just want to send a hundred impotent, yet masterful in the art of the cut-down, letters to each and every one of them! Letters that would reduce them to a pile of weeping flesh in front of their mailboxes, while I laugh like Black Bart and twirl my mustache behind a bush across the street! Am I making myself clear?
But we're out of it now. Why do I still care? We have the most miraculous place to fall now! I LOVE our new church! They are wonderful! And we found it on a total whim...and didn't like it at first, weren't gonna go back! And now it is our lifeline! Why, then, do I still want St. Looney's to get what's coming to them? Can anyone help me with that? Why should they get to keep on hurting people and not get burned to the ground? Anyone have any wisdom to share?

About me...

First and foremost I am a Daddy's girl. I say first and foremost not to take anything away from my husband, whom I love deeply, but because I was my Daddy's girl until I lost him to cancer 5 years ago. Being his daughter became a major part of my identity. I loved him, we had a great relationship. He was my rock, my sunny place, I was his little girl no matter what ugly monster, real or imagined, I brought into my life. And he would make it go away.
It was also a part of my identity because he was usually the boss of some cabinet company somewhere, and that provided me with several job opportunities etc. which made me sort of invincible because I was the boss' daughter.
Well the cool thing is now that he's gone, I think God is trying to make me see that now He wants to be Daddy. So I am still Daddy's little girl, first and foremost!
Whooo...windy isn't she? Anyway the rest of the story....
My name is Maggie. I will have been married for 7 years on June 26th. My husband is a firefighter/EMT, and I stay at the looney bin with my 3 children.My oldest son is almost 5, my little girl is 22 months, and the middle boy is 2 & 1/2. They' re 10 months apart, the last two. It had been 6 weeks, men can only be so patient...and have finally found a passion in designing and making jewelry which I then try to sell. Sometimes I feel like a 3rd grader trying to sell my art class projects, but it's fun at least.
Somehow I ended up turning 31 in January having no idea how that happened as I can still remember being 17 and not really feeling any older! Sometimes I look at my children and think I'm not being paid enough for this gig, I'll not babysit for these people anymore. Hehehe. Or I look over at my husband in bed at night and think who is this grody boy in my bed?
Then I remember I prayed for these wonderful creatures to come into my life since forever, and I remember how much I love my life.
We moved around a lot when I was growing up. Like, every two years. I've lived in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania again. I went to college in Indiana, met my husband and wound up in Virginia, again.
I have been a Christian my whole life. Not a conventional one so I've learned. But since I've been bruised and beaten by, "The Church" I realize that I am quite radical and unconventional. The pseudo-punkrock/grunge girl in me is quite impressed! Makes me want to break out my Dr. Martin's and flannels again!
In fact, it pretty much got us run-off from the United Methodist church we were attending. A church my husband attended his whole life. In fact his parents still attend and see nothing wrong with what goes on there. As is the case for most of our "friends" that still attend.
If anyone is interested in any of this, please respond. I feel a little silly thinking anyone would care, but I know that there are many poeple who have been through the same kind of thing with
church. And there are many stay-at-home moms out there that maybe would like to talk and we could get eachother through it... Let me know!