No Home Church

Kathy from Our Life said she'd like to know more about my choice to stay home from church every Sunday morning. I touched on this a bit in this post.

Being without a home church is quite lonely. I was reading a short story today about a woman who was in a terrible car accident, and about how much outpouring of love she got from her church family. I worry about who would take care of my family if something awful happened to me, and I know that my support system is very fragile. I feel that I should have a home church, a network of believers on whom I can depend.

But so far, I haven't found such a thing. Since I'm close to forty than not, I daresay I never will find such a thing.

This is one of the reasons I hope so strongly to raise up an extended family, yet I know this is a very dangerous hope. I know that siblings get into irreconcilable disagreements, and that children move far from home, but I just keep hoping that they'll stay nearby so that we can all benefit from the support system that extended family can provide. Because I have no siblings and no mother, I often feel very alone and feel that I have no one to turn to when I truly need a friend or just someone to keep me company when I clean the house.

So I cling to the hope that I'm raising friends, that I'm creating a support system for myself and my children by bringing up a family. That's why it's especially devastating when, like tonight, my kids fight with each other, or I make dinner alone, or I look around the table and I'm just too tired to even speak.

I suppose that, in some ways, it would be easier to have a home church than to try to grow a support system for my family by raising my family, but I've been touched by toxic churches before, so I'd have to say that if it is easier, it's not by much.