Though My Heart Is Torn... I Will Praise You In This Storm!

Today my heart is torn... There are no words to describe my grief... After youth last night we were called into the pastors office and told that they had decided to suspend us AND the student ministry for 60 days. He absolutely refused to give us a reason, just saying he feels like Satan is attacking our student ministry and he wants time to discern where the attack is coming from.

We were able to ascertain that there is some accusation against Paul & myself that prompted this, but he categorically refused to tell us what the accusation is and who is making it. We are completely in the dark... There will be no student ministry during this time, our youth are for all intents and purposes cast out... I am bereft... For some of these kids this is the only church they get... We will never get some of them back...

Paul and I have wracked our brains, we have always acted above reproach with these kids... Paul's teaching has always been biblical and in alignment with the beliefs of our church... We try our best to conduct our home life in a honorable way... Our daughters are living examples of this... We, like all people have sin in our lives, but nothing that we know about that we are not actively dealing with, and definitely nothing that would preclude us from serving in this ministry... We can only assume some lie, some slander has been leveled against us, but since we don't know what it is or who it comes from we too feel cast out.

Paul is angry...He feels our integrity is in question. I am... There are no words... We know it can't be a question of our conduct with these kids since Paul asked if this ban extends to the youth who tend to hang out at our home regularly and without batting an eye we were told they could still hang out here as long as it was in an "unofficial" capacity. No responsible person would say that if we were being accused of some kind of physical misconduct with these kids, so we have (kind-of) ruled that out.

I begged and sobbed and pleaded that they not suspend the entire ministry, that these kids need it, to please bring in someone else, but it fell on deaf ears. We were told by our pastor the most cold hearted thing I think I have ever heard... That they (he) had done a "cost/benefit analysis" and decided this was the way to go... What cost/benefit analysis, what pro/con list would come up with the souls of these kids on the losing side?

We had to go home and post the suspension on our facebook page then deal with the emails and phone calls of our kids for the rest of the night... One boy was so upset he had to call me back he was crying so hard... Some are like him, grief stricken, others are mad and want to stage protests, others are (and these are the ones that kill me) not surprised... They said they feel like second class citizens in the Church (not just ours but any church).

Please lift us up...
Thanks for listening,