My Story (email)

After having grown up there for eighteen years, I left LFF about four years ago. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I needed to leave, but I did not fully understand why at the time. At first, I was happy to be moving and grateful to be away from Pullman. Then, we started attending other churches. I recognized the same songs that we had sung at LFF and the same catch phrases. I began dreading church. I hated going and drug myself out of bed every Sunday morning. I would often cry through the service, or do my best to ignore the sermon. Also, I was starting to realize how horrible LFF had been.

I started feeling abandoned. None of my friends at LFF were still my friends save one. I would cry a lot and would go for long walks by the river. I was so lonely. I did not feel that I was able to make friends at the church we were going to because they were too Charismatic. I liked them, but every time I hung out with them, I was thinking “they are just like LFF.” I realize, now, that I had set up a mental block against them. I was prejudice because they reminded me of LFF.

It did not take long before I stopped sleeping at night and started skipping meals. I read all the time; I could not stop and I could not sleep. Therefore, I read all night long, mostly Lord of the Rings. I was trying to escape the problems in my life. I could handle neither my own pain nor that of my family.

I started yelling at God. “Why did you make me like this? Why did you let this happen to me? How could you! Don’t you care at all? I thought that if I believed You would cushion me against all my problems! I even wished that I could be back at LFF and everything could be normal. Oh, to live in a happy and ignorant bubble again!

Depression is a hole out of which there is no ladder. So many times, I felt that I was so depressed that I was drowning in my own tears. I used to hope for rain so that I could feel that I was not crying alone. Later, at another school, I spent all my time watching TV in my dorm room, and doing cross-stitch. I spent at little time as possible thinking I would take walks and hope that someone would ask me what was wrong. Strange, I know, but I didn’t feel like I could hold it in anymore.

At school, I would go to the youth group and spend the whole time crying because of the memories the songs aroused in me. I don’t think that I was ever able to fully explain to my friends there why I did not hang out with them as much as I could have. Eventually, I would make up excuses to arrive late just so that I would miss the worship time. I hated LFF for what they had made me.

Praise God for His Divine Intervention! Else, I would still be caught in this endless cycle of depression and anxiety! Just before I moved to my new school, I had a long talk with my father about Salvation by Grace and Pre-Destination. We had started going to a new church on the recommendation of another Ex-LFFer. Salvation is a gift from God. Therefore, it is only by God extending his hand toward us that we can be saved. Righteousness is a gift from God to sinners. I have no need for that salvation unless I see my self as a sinner. I am a sinner, a horrible sinner (Isaiah 53:6). Without God’s gift of Salvation, I know that I would not really want to be saved. I would want to go to Heaven. Without God, I would not see my sin.

Romans 2:22-24 “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

I know, so much of this sounds just like LFF, so what is the difference? “Not the Labors of my hands could fulfill thy laws demands” (Rock of Ages). The absence of works is the difference. Despite all that the LFF says, their salvation was on of works. Do you remember being told that you can “earn your place in Heaven?” Romans 8:29-30: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Glorification is a part of God’s gift to us. We did cannot earn it.

How proud of me to think that I had a hand in my own salvation! I have been predestined for Salvation since before the creation of the world. I have been called and been declared righteous.

It is hard to forgive those that have wronged me, especially when it pain like that was caused by LFF. I take comfort in remembering that Jesus understands my pain. My pastor made a comment that the only requirement for us to have been saved was that Jesus had to die. He did not have to suffer on the cross; he could have died peacefully in his bed for us to be saved Instead, he chose to die in extreme pain and humiliation, so that he could identify with human suffering. “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows” Isaiah 53: 4a. CS Lewis has written two books on suffering, which I have had recommended to me (The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed). One was written before he lost his wife and another was written afterward and each looks at pain from a different angle.

I would like you to know that to this day, I still cannot listen to Christian music after four long years I want to pull back from any sort of volunteer church work mentioned. I cannot stand Charismatic Catch Phrases. I take pleasure in drinking beer out of the mug I got from the JCD retreat.

Healing for me has been a long, slow process. I still struggle with depression and anxiety. It helps me to know that God chose me. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit” (John 15:16). He knew me in my mother’s womb. Everyday I face the pain. Nearly every day, I feel like crying about it. I understand what you mean and the struggles you face about not wanting to go to any church. I lived there for a solid two years. It is completely normal.

It grieves me to think about all of the people whose faith was crushed by LFF. I, too, am praying for you.