Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NIV)
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In May 2022, I wrote the following:
Love allows others to make mistakes. Love allows choice even when it isn’t the best option. Love allows repentance. Love allows correction. Love allows human emotions to be expressed like joy, anger, thankfulness, fear, discouragement, loneliness and more.
“Love Allows” by Sunny Cadwallader
I’ve been coming back to this post a lot lately. I think of it along with the term “church hurt”. If you’ve been on social media, chances are you’ve come across this phrase.
What is church hurt? In a nutshell, it is hurt incurred within a church framework. Generally, it is caused by those in leadership or some form of leadership positions. It can occur within a church setting or outside of it. The reasons for it are too numerous to mention.
One of the reasons that I believe causes “church hurt” are expectations. When our expectations of what or who church and church leaders should be is greater than the God kind of love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13, “church hurt” will always occur.
Believe me, I know this from experience.
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Singing was never my thing growing up. Sports was my thing. But, after I became a Christian, I found a love for singing.
I didn’t care about being on the stage. No way – I wasn’t a singer. There was just, I mean, I got saved through music, so yeah, I loved singing to the Lord. He saved me. He rescued me. He delivered me. He kept me from despair and destruction, so I love to sing to Him.
I was “encouraged” to get up on a stage at a church . Then we left – more on that in a minute. Our next church, it took a long time to get up on the stage again. In the interim, as I went to church every Sunday, I learned to worship. I learned to praise. I learned to do that in joy and sorrow.
I learned that, as I sang, He heard me. It was as if Jesus was right there before me absorbing it, taking it all in…and He would smile. And that was just while sitting on a chair every Sunday morning.
Once I got on the stage, I carried that same mindset with me. It was all about Him. In turn, He taught me how to pray and even fight in the spirit while I sang.
Things weren’t great at home. Family troubles weighed heavily on me. I learned to use singing as a weapon of my warfare. Why? The Holy Spirit showed me why:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12 (ESV)
What was going on in my family was a spiritual battle? If one is in a battle, they better have the right weapons:
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
2 Corinthians 10:4 (ESV)
I learned to battle through music and dance. The leadership embraced it. They recognized what God was doing. They saw God’s anointing on me. I believed we were in the right place, that God had placed us there. I believed in the leaders.
Until one day, they leadership chose a new path. They did a complete 180 in their belief system regarding worship. Listening to their meeting as they announced it, I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault. The feeling that they changed because of me was overwhelming.
After moving to the next church, I got involved fairly quickly. On stage again with a microphone in my hand, I thought I was over the hurt. Nope. I tried serving in other capacities. I believed I was gaining the trust of the leaders. I had expectations of them as my leaders.
They could not measure up to those expectations.
Hurt piled on top of hurt, which was actually piled on top of hurt from the first church (a leader who didn’t measure up to my expectations) and I walked away from church and God. I was so hurt that I nearly destroyed myself, literally.
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Again, in May 2022, I wrote:
He is allowing pastors and leaders to be exposed for their sin and unfaithfulness to the office He placed them in. He is allowing churches to be shaken from their man-made foundations. He is allowing people to have their worlds rocked in order to remind them their faith is in the wrong place.
“The American Christian’s Reckoning” – Sunny Cadwallader
We are at a different church than the ones mentioned above. Some might scoff at that and call us “church-hoppers”. That’s fine. But, I would ask them to read my quote above.
He is allowing people to have their worlds rocked in order to remind them their faith is in the wrong place.
My faith was in the wrong place.
My faith wasn’t in God. I cared more about human opinion than I did God’s. There was still so much hurt from my life before Jesus that it skewed my faith in Him. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now.
God allowed my world to be rocked many times over. I had these ideas and views of church and Christianity (see “What is a Christian?“) that didn’t line up with what I would read in the Bible. Christians were supposed to BE a certain way, but in reality, a church is a hospital. It is a hospital full of sick, broken and (spiritually) dying people.
And that includes the leadership.
I can provide more specifics on the leaders I’ve served under, but how can we not realize that the very things I deal with, they deal with too?
Think about that for a minute.
What things are going on in your life right now, what challenges, what sins, are you dealing with? Pastors, church leaders, elders, board members, group leaders all deal with those same sins or temptations.
Let me say that again another way.
Pastors, church leaders, elders, board members, group leaders are just as screwed up as you and me…outside of Jesus. And if they, like us, don’t submit to God, obey His word, and set their minds on things above, they will struggle. And if they’re not careful, that struggle will pass on to us.
When I came to that realization, God didn’t stop there. He began to ask me, “Did you pray?”
Pray? Well, yeah, God. I prayed for my leaders that one time. Didn’t I pray at least once a week for them? I prayed for them to change. I prayed for them to see me. I prayed for them to hear me. I prayed for them to be taken care of. I prayed, I prayed, I prayed.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
If that wasn’t enough, Matthew 5:44 says, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”. Add in 1 Timothy 2:1-2, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.“
Be made for all people.
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The more I have come to understand the concept of a church as a hospital, the more I understand my part in my own “church hurt”.
I used to say, “Perfect expectations. Imperfect reality.” I had perfect expectations of church and church folks because Jesus was perfect. I assumed Christians would be perfect. The church is supposed to reflect Jesus. It is supposed to represent God here on earth.
But why do we think that? Why do we have these expectations of Christians, yet we ourselves are imperfect and fallible? Tell me you haven’t hurt someone else in your life. Tell me you haven’t failed someone. Tell me that you are perfect and do everything right.
Now, tell me you have heard God tell you to do something that you knew wouldn’t go over well with others and you did it anyway. Did you actually do it? Or were you too afraid of what people would think?
Church leaders are going to fail. Other Christians are going to fail. You are going to fail at some point in your Christian walk.
Even now, I know of people who have left because they don’t understand how “the church” or “Christians” can say one thing and do another? They believe church/Christians have failed those who say they are gay. They believe they have failed in the race conversation. They believe they have failed in the abortion issue by ignoring the women who want them in the first place. They believe they have failed the homeless, the unwed mothers, the children killed by guns at school.
They believe. They believe. They believe.
That is their part.
Their part should also include love – the love that allows others their own choices, yet prays for them too.
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“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). If God is love, as some are want to say these days, that means we should love everyone, right?
When I read 1 Corinthians 13, nowhere do I read that love accepts. Acceptance means agreement, at least, that’s what people believe in this day and age. That’s not what Paul says here. And nowhere else in Scripture does it say that God – who is the very definition of love – accepts anything that is outside of Him.
Whether God accepts the things the church leaders did in my life or not is not the issue. My part in how I handled it from then on out is the issue. How did I handle the church hurt? What was my response to the pain and hurt inflicted upon me?
Thinking of 1 Corinthians 13 — Did I love? Did I forgive? Did I pray? Was I patient? Was I kind? Was I envious? Did I boast? Was I proud? Did I dishonor? Was I self-seeking or easily angered? Did I keep a record of wrongs long after the “church hurt” occurred? Did I not delight in evil? Did I rejoice in truth? Did I protect them in this? Did I trust God in this? Did I put my hope in God in the midst of my “church hurt”? Did I persevere? Did I fail?
I don’t know about you, but that puts a completely different spin on love, doesn’t it?
Love. Real, honest-to-goodness godly love…prays. My question to you now is, will you pray?
Will you pray for those who have hurt you in the past? Will you pray for them to be set free and delivered from whatever bondage they are under? Will you pray for their past hurts to be healed?Will you pray for them to hear God’s voice? Will you pray for them to see as God sees? Will you pray for them to be filled with wisdom and understanding? Will you pray for them to be blessed in their comings and their goings? Will you pray for them to be surrounded with godly influences? Will you pray for them to be blessed in their relationships? Will you pray for them to draw closer to God than they ever have before?
Or, will you continue to point the finger, complain and dwell/love in your hurt?
The choice is yours.
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Sunny Cadwallader 
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