White-washed tomb full of dead man's bones

Matthew 23:27 says, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." Now, I may be taking this out of context as to what Jesus was saying here but I don't think I am. The Pharisees were doing all that they could to look Holy yet they were weighed down by traditions and self imposed limitations. They had the outward look but inwardly they were dead.

In many ways I feel I can relate to this scripture. When I came to church in 2021, I was dead on the inside. There was nothing within me that brought any joy, any happiness or where I felt I had or could find meaning for my life.  I had only those dead bones inside of me and I knew they were starting to stink. Thoughts and ideas that I had squashed decades before were starting to look tempting to me as I contemplated the logistics of how and when. But just like that, I had an encounter with Christ that started me on a new path.

When I said yes to Jesus I meant it with every fiber of who I was. Questions that I had since my childhood were suddenly being answered right before my very eyes and I was fully of amazement, worse than a kid on Christmas morning. I hit the ground running and didn't want to stop everything. Late nights with early mornings having to be at the plant, it didn't bother me because I was where I belonged and I knew it.

Then it started to change. I don't know when or what happened to cause it exactly but it did. I know this sounds harsh and I am good at making excuses but I feel that it changed when Matt started coming to church with me. I know we started out coming together but then he stopped coming. I pushed and cried and pleaded with God for Matt to get into church and find what I had. Once he did start coming, I retreated in many ways.

What do I mean? I saw him get into church, watched him pray in the Holy Ghost and watched him be baptized in Jesus name. Those were huge things for me to see. But then I watched as no change was evidenced at home and in the way I was treated. I felt disrespected and neglected, so I retreated into my old thoughts. I retreated to what I had known from my previous churches, fighting hard the "once saved" mindset. I stopped opening the Word, opting instead to reach for the remote or the phone to play the most current game I had downloaded.  

Once I finally realized he was going to be at church, I gave in and dealt with it. I started back trying to do my studies, whether it was the Apostolic Bible College course I am doing or something I was reading for study, it quickly became a fight of "won't you put that phone down and talk to me" or "turn your light off, I'm trying to sleep." Once he was up for work then, I'm so tired I'm falling asleep while reading and I get further behind. I pray and I would make it as far as "Lord Jesus, tha k you for this day, thank you for waking me up this morning and"....out like a light. That went on until he was asked not to come. Then that's a whole other issue I had to deal with. 

But in all this, I have presented the "white washed" exterior as if everything were ok. I used Matt as my excuse for laziness and allowed the bones of a dead man to remain inside the grave, stinking and rotting away.  Now that my excuse is gone, that which was hidden is coming to light. I don't want to be this person anymore. I hid behind the "oh whoa is me" act while caring for Matt to get sympathy and care. I used relationships and friendships for what I needed without being able to be the friend in return. I was selfish and me centered. I always said that he was the narcissist when I am beginning to believe it was me all along. 

For the entirety of my walk with Christ, across every church I have ever been in, I have picked a person to be my go to, my everything. While ya'll were there the night Matt died, I have had to purposely stay silent and away for a season. I had to hear what I needed to without outside influence or me probing for a hint as to what lay behind the veil so to speak. And what I have seen these last few weeks, I have not liked at all.  I came into this church with a head full of knowledge that I had learned from the teachers I had along the way. I learned that when foundational teachings are not founded upon the true Rock but upon a knock-off watered down rock that crumbles under pressure, failures happen. 

While I have been able to stay in the building and maintain an outward appearance, the foundation has been falling out from under me. I feel like a failure writing these words because I should be so much farther than this but I stopped.  I stopped pressing and pursuing. I'm at a place where I don't know where God is any more in my life. I feel absolutely broken. I feel exposed and naked. This is what I feel so deeply. I know God is in me, I am sitting here with fire flowing down my back and tears in my eyes writing this because I know there's more. But I have to get out of the tomb. 

I don't even know if this makes sense. I wrote and haven't read a word of it back to myself so...here goes nothing.