Posts tagged Christianity

Why do Christians always get so upset with it being called a “holiday tree”?  The meaning of Christmas has nothing to do with the tree, right?

My husband and I were recently talking about hometowns.  He has lived in Kentucky his entire life.  Me?  I’ve lived in 5 states so far:  Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kansas, Florida, and Illinois.  Then I went back to Indiana for college.  And now I’m back in Florida for chiropractic school.  So where is my hometown?  Where do I come from?

When my parents announced that we would be moving from Florida to Illinois when I was 15, I was completely heartbroken.  Everyone knows that adolescence is a huge formative time in a person’s life.  And just as I was getting comfortable with myself and feeling like I belonged, I was going to be thrown into a new environment.  

I had always found security in my youth group in Tampa.  We had an incredible group of teens.  I loved every single one of them.  And I assumed that all youth groups were like that one.

But I was wrong.  Just when I need someplace to turn to make friends, I found out how cruel Christians can be.  I found out that calling yourself a Christian doesn’t mean you will be Christ-like.  

During a discussion in Sunday school, a boy from my church laughed at my comment on a passage and said, “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”  And no one said anything to him about it.  Not even a rebuke from the youth minister.  Nothing.

“Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”

But where am I from?  I’m still not sure.

It took a few years and some time at an amazing university to really learn to trust fellow Christians again.  That boy’s words still haunt me sometimes.  But I have these promises from God that assure me that I have a home forever.

• “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” ~~Ephesians 2:19-20
• “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” ~~Philippians 3:20-21