by Michele Connell

Created on: August 06, 2008

This title, I'm sure, will evoke many emotional responses from all those who have ever been wounded by fellow Christians. It is a tender subject and involves a myriad of responses depending on each person and their personal walk with Christ - and also relevant to note is that it also depends on where you are in the healing process.

From my own experience of being rejected and shunned by my home church, I have grown and flourished since those days. I can look back now and see that I am in a better place; however, while enduring the process I was a broken, bleeding mess. I felt as if every person that I had known and trusted, within the sanctity of my church, stood around and spiritually jabbed my heart with swords.

My initial reaction was anger. I wanted to march into that church on the following Sunday morning and give those people a huge piece of my mind! Number one, because I hadn't done anything wrong. My "crime" was the fact that I sought more from God, and I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (I might add that this was considered Taboo in my denominational church). Though I had originally joined, and faithfully attended, this denomination for eleven years I never knew of this "rule" and their little black book (the Discipline). When the pastor informed the head deacon I was told, and this is a direct quote, "She needs to go and be with her own kind." It was September 12, 2001 - right after the huge 9/11 attack, and when the twin towers crumpled to the ground - I felt as if it signified my life being destroyed as well. (And I want to add that I am by no means comparing my heartache to all that was lost in 9/11. That was a tremendous tragedy felt by the whole nation).

My husband wouldn't allow me to create a scene with the deacons - and busybodies - so I resorted to intense prayer. It was in this posture that I discovered the healing balm for the open, festering wounds. Now, I will say that this didn't happen over night. I spent many weeks in prayer, fasting, crying, aching, and especially longing. What most people may not understand is the fact that, though wounded, many Christians (that have been established for quite a while in one place) experience an intense longing to return to that "home". I deeply missed the people that I had considered friends, and I grieved over what I had lost. It didn't matter that they had literally turned their backs on me in an old fashioned shunning. My heart was broken and bruised.

But the Lord is faithful, and He began

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