Our first home was built in the early 1900s with plaster and lath walls, a coal fireplace, and all kinds of character. But with the lights off, sunlight streamed through tiny cracks around the fireplace from settling that had taken place years before.
Sometimes light is like that, making its way through the smallest cracks in our well-built houses.
And when light seeps through, we are wise to pay attention.
Beautiful churches can be full of character, too, with hopes and dreams and lives pieced together, captured and held by the good news of the gospel being played out and a beautiful vision of home and life, redemption and promise. But over time, cracks can form in the foundation—of our lives, our institutions, our churches, our homes. And it’s hard to face them. We’d rather not look.
In one church I was a part of, light again seemed to sometimes seep into dark corners. But it was easier to second-guess my own eyes instead of the fissures that were evident, especially with so much life and goodness happening all around me. Trained not to trust my own instincts in this arena as much as those of others, I became practiced at explaining away gifts of exposure.
This was all the more confusing because my instincts and gifts in some areas were welcomed and highly lauded. And yet—how I wish I’d paid attention to the small bits of light, and eventually the glaring ones:
My boundaries being stretched further and further
An instinct that I was being used at times
Questions that could only be asked in private, never in public (and some questions that should never be asked at all)
Stories from the pulpit that were embellished by the pastor—and what seemed like a bent toward shading the truth
Being caught off guard by a lack of grace for people’s mistakes (even though publicly we were all about grace)
Subtle messages that kept leaders in line—shutting down concerns in the name of unity
Witnessing the undue negative consequences of saying no to any request
If you had a list, what might be on it?
When we bought our house and I saw light seeping in through the plaster around the fireplace, I didn’t wait for an expert to tell me what I was seeing. I knew something was wrong. Thankfully the house was an easy fix. The fissures in the foundations of the church and its pastor were not.