Unapologetically Apostolic

I want to say that I love the Lord. I'm grateful for the precious gift of the Holy Ghost. All of my life, I have had a longing within me for something that was greater than myself. I would throw myself into things desiring to be the very best that I could so that I didn't feel like a failure. Anything less than perfection was not an option, especially for my dad. When I started faithfully attending church as a teenager, I wasn't surprised when it began to be used as a form of punishment when I failed at something. Church meant something to me, therefore if I failed I would not be allowed to go until that failure was rectified. Then, attendance became a means of manipulation and control. Yet I still desired to go.  There was something within me crying out for more. Week in and week out as I sat on that pew listening as the preacher shared the Word, inevitably to find myself for the 30th, 50th or 100th time quietly making my way to an alter because I felt drawn to something d...

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting a different outcome. But is it insanity if you do the same thing because you know no other way? For as far back as I can remember, people that were in a position of spiritual authority for me would constantly ask me the same question, "How many times are you going to go around this same mountain?"  It was a question that I could not answer. I was in a spiritual wilderness, wandering and waiting, hoping that one day I would make it to the promised land. The issue with what was occuring for me was a bit two-fold. One: I was raised in a church that told me that if I was saved I was ok. And two: how was what I was doing different from what others around me in the church was doing? Why did I feel guilty for it and "unsaved" and they are in a position of leadership? Even as a teenager, I constantly stayed in an alter begging God to cleanse me and "rededicating" my life to Him. Then reac...