Part 3: Missing Music

Then something strange happened the month after the second Elder and his wife left (remember this makes two Elder couples within a span of 5 months who have left). We had started our marriage counseling with the Pastor, and Geoff and I, rather than discuss our upcoming wedding, took the opportunity to express our concerns again about this Elder/Director living on the pastor’s property with no other governing accountability to the Pastor himself, and this Elder’s treatment of those in the worship arts department. Another email had come from the Director that was total lies and it implied conversations that hadn’t happened and required “accountability” from me and informant attitude from the rest of the worship arts department if I didn’t comply to the “rules”. I was appalled! The email banned me from borrowing anyone not assigned to my team, but my team was severely short handed without borrowing a guitarist and singer. I’d been begging for some new people, specifically a guitar player for months!

That week, it was my week to lead. We had met with the Pastor on a Thursday morning. The night before, the Wednesday night worship practice had been great and had been fluid. Friday we had co-op like we always do, which consisted of my kids, the pastor’s kids, and the other worship leaders kids. Three moms, just a small co-op and we always had a blast. Saturday, no one but the worship director and his wife were at the church and they did some cleaning. Sunday morning, all my binders with my current week’s music was missing from the stage as well as from our filing box where all our extra sheet music was stored. Only my current weeks music was missing from that filing box. I’d filed and put away all the extra sheets just the Wednesday before and they were missing. Every team member went on a hunt and looked everywhere in both buildings. The binders and the extra copies of the sheet music were missing.

Thankfully, one of my team members, who showed up late, had been trying to get better at the guitar and had taken his binder home to practice. I made copies using his music. When I asked the Director if he’d seen the missing music, he blamed it on the Co-op kids that were at the church on Fridays. He called them the Classical Conversation kids, or CC kids for short. He had no clue that the co-op that met on Fridays weren’t Classical Conversation kids, but just three families meeting and he was accusing the leadership kids of sabotage.

I couldn’t prove it, and I still can’t. But I’m fairly sure what happened. Coincidences just don’t happen like that. My Fiance and I had voiced concerns about the Director’s conduct and then two days later my sheet music goes missing! The music binders did eventually turn up in the second building, in the kitchen, three weeks later, in plain sight, sitting upon a stool. Tucked into one of the binders was the rest of the missing music that had been previously filed, but removed from the filing box. My Daughter was the one who came upon the missing binders!

Part 2: Second Elder to leave and the carrot

When that Elder and his wife stepped down there was a big business meeting where the Pastor’s wife cried in front of everyone claiming she’d been victimized by the other Elder’s wife, claiming she had written a document where she had accused the Pastor’s wife of 6 sins. Both the Pastor and his wife stood in front of the congregation vilifying this Elder and his wife, claiming they were too harsh on sin and not enough grace and emphasis on building relationship. Sin, they claimed, should only be exposed within the confines of close relationship.

At that time, Geoff and I had been hearing consistently all the gossip from the Pastor and his wife about the other Elder and his Worship Director wife that had left 3-4 months before. The common thread was that both the Elders and their wives had been in sin themselves and falsely accused godly men and women of sin.

Initially, we felt bad as we watched her cry in front of the congregation. Then one bold couple defended the Elder and his wife and then another. Geoff and I sat in silence and tucked it away. We both knew that something wasn’t right. We glanced at each other and gave each other the “look”. The look, with the raised eyebrows and big wide eyes that only takes a second to pass between a couple that says, “we will talk about this later because this crap is seriously messed up!”. Every couple has this look that speaks volumes without a word passing between them.

It was just prior to that whole debacle, about six weeks prior, when the Pastor was seriously talking to Geoff about bringing him in on staff and giving him a housing allowance. The conversation was a constant from the pastor but always there was something in the conversation putting Geoff off. Prior to the other Elder leaving, the Pastor gave Geoff the book about biblical Eldership and talked to Geoff about coming on as an Elder first, then staff member.

We think it was just a hook to keep us in line and keep us serving in our positions as Men’s ministry leader and Worship Leader as we later found out during a conversation with the disgraced Elder and his wife (the ones that were discussed wrongly in the business meeting) that the Pastor had openly discussed in Elder meetings that he had no intention of bringing Geoff on as an Elder, nor as staff. The plan was always to bring on the Elder who was serving in Afghanistan as staff when he returned from deployment. None of that was ever mentioned to Geoff or myself.

Despite the duplicity, and hardships placed on us both ministries were growing. Geoff had only 8 men the first week he took over the men’s ministry. By the time we left in May, it was 40 or so. For myself, the church was growing and despite being prohibited by not having official team members and my team being so small, I borrowed those who weren’t officially on anyone’s team and made it work every week that I led.

Every time I led worship, there was always some type of issue with the Director. Songs that I’d previously used, under the other Director’s leadership were no longer permissible and had to go through an oversight process. Even my own worship songs that I had written had to go through this approval process. There was a process and rule for everything. I even had to seek permission to use a binder system to keep my teams music in so that if ever we needed extra music/songs we had them on hand since memorizing songs were so hard for myself and some teens. I never did get that permission, but utilized it anyway. It was silly to have to get permission for something that was so common sense.

So every three weeks, whenever it came to my rotation for worship, there would be an email, or a discussion from the Director that I’d done something not to his liking. I never once received an encouraging word and every request I made was disregarded.

Side note: We spoke to that Elder and his wife and the story and evidence that they presented was completely different than what was presented publicly to the congregation. The Pastor and his Wife flat out lied and misrepresented facts!

Part 1: Elders leave and misunderstanding

Let me start off by saying I believe God led my husband and I to that church, not only to get me out of it, but so we could meet and expose the corruption. That church, like most abusive churches over time, is slowly dying and more and more families are leaving it and have been for over a year. It’s not just due to the catastrophic hurricane that hit our area either.

So, I convinced Geoff to start attending in August of 2017. We were friends, possibly band mates, and He most certainly had a calling for ministry on his life that was not being utilized in his current large church. By the end of September we had realized our feelings for each other after months of just being friends and numerous hours of bible study and discussion. I was so extreme in my anti-dating that I was clueless as to what was developing and everyone else just looked upon us with gleeful expectation. We were kind of hilarious. I was the last to know and realize something was going on.

By the time Geoff joined the church, I was pretty involved in the music ministry and the current director was easing me back into being a worship leader. But then shortly after her and her Elder husband left the church and she strongly suggested to the leadership that I take over as director. Instead the Senior Pastor promoted the only remaining, in town, elder to the position, who had little experience to my 12 years. The Pastor claimed ignorance of the prior Director’s recommendation even though she immediately upon leaving told me she had made the recommendation.

Okay, it was no real bother. I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility as I was a single mom anyway. I had enough on my plate during that time and in all but one position, (remember I was promised a paid staff position, but they never followed through), I’d been paid staff. Not that I won’t do it for free. I had done it always for as little as 200 per month. But to take on the responsibility as a homeschooling single mom without pay, in a church that was bigger than my first ministry position church and consistently reaching 175 people, that was a bit much to ask for. I brushed it off and gave the Pastor the benefit of the doubt that he’d somehow misunderstood.

Also, we’d later find out that the Elder and his Worship Director wife leaving was because of serious conduct issue with the Remaining leadership running the church. They DID NOT agree with how the church was being ran and left. There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes.

So, it ended up the Pastor came and asked me to run a worship team under the headship of this Elder, the new director of Worship. I offered all my years of experience but it was dismissed at every turn. The current volunteers were divided up into three teams and rules and guidelines were put in place.

Within a month, my team members were being borrowed and overworked by the director and it left me scrambling to fill slots. I had me, my two children and a single male singer that were consistent and available, yet the rules stated I could only lead maximum 2 out of 4 to 5 songs. I kept trying to talk to and reason with the Elder/Director to give me a guitar player and some more singers. His own team had grown to over 13 people and he required that every new member to the worship department be on his team for at least 3 months. Meanwhile, I ran my team on a skeleton crew. The other worship leader was fortunate to have 8 people on his team, which also included his wife and two children.

So there was this very big, extremely obvious power struggle going on. It was like the silent war against me and my family and privately, when no one was looking, this Elder got pretty nasty and condescending.

  

There were a few times that Geoff and I went to the Lead Pastor/Elder for advice and help. Also we expressed concerns over the fact that one of the Elders was on deployment and the only active longterm Elder/Worship Director lived upon the Pastor’s property. We felt like that was a serious conflict of interest and if the Pastor were to be caught in sin, who would hold him accountable? Surely, not the Elder living on his property who could be evicted just because of offense. Two other Elders had stepped down recently and then one Elder was brand new. But within just a month more that Elder too stepped down.

Recap of recent years: Prelude to Spiritual Abuse from another church

My heart is a bit heavy and prayerful today. Yesterday, I ran into, at my new church, a beautiful couple who had stood by me 9 years ago. It brought up all the memories and resurfaced the recent hurt my New husband and I had just gone through just 9 months ago when we left a toxic church. Yesterday, and this morning, before he went off to work, we found ourselves comparing my experiences from 10 years ago to our experiences 9 months ago and the similarities between them.

For months I’ve considered restarting this blog, because after going through spiritual abuse yet again, I realize how pervasive it is and how centered it is upon false teaching.

But I’ll back this train up a bit and go into a bit of background of my life over the years because it’s been a bit of a roller coaster. There’s loss, heartbreak, love, victory and a bunch of crazy stuff and yet in the midst, when I said I would never do ministry again, there was ministry and healing.

So, In 2009, October to be specific, I left a very toxic church where the Pastor was not only spiritually abusing me, but sexually harassing me. After I left, there were crazy things that happened like phone calls, lunch and dinner outings with all my friends and them being encouraged by leadership to cut all ties. Then there was the mysterious cut underground electrical line that ran to my air conditioner unit. I didn’t discover it until we went to sell the house as-is to a couple years later. 

My husband (now ex) and I had gone on a cruise the week after we left the church and had come back to discover a non-working central heat and air unit to our house. We had someone come out and they never discovered it and we couldn’t afford to replace the whole system like they suggested, so we purchased window units and moved on with our lives. We never realized. We also never found out who intentionally sabotaged it. It was dug up, then cleanly and purposefully cut.Then there was the Private investigator that hung out, parked across the street in our country, middle of nowhere neighborhood for a week straight. I recognized him from when my former Pastor hired him to investigate his own mother’s boyfriend and then passed out the report among most of the church and literally faxed and mailed it to other pastors who had booked the man to speak at their church. He effectively destroyed that man’s entire ministry.There was also the threatening phone call after I had reported the abuse to higher ups at Rhema Bible institute and to AFCM International by the Pastor’s wife where she yelled and screamed at me promising I’d see cursing upon my life.

I hate to admit it, but all of that, coupled with other incidents, like having people spy on me and phone calls to every church I visited, had me fearful to leave the house for almost a year.

BUT…. It was a training ground that lead me to recognize other abusive church tendencies and call attention to and speak out boldly!

After the church in 2009, I went on to enter back into ministry on staff at a church plant in 2011. I was there for 4 years until I stepped down in an attempt to save my marriage. I wasn’t able to do so, since my now ex husband, was having multiple affairs and refused to repent and seek out counseling. I had also suffered domestic violence at times and as a dutiful wife I stayed and prayed for too long. In 2015, I divorced him and was done with his affairs and abuse.

I briefly helped out a church in the midst of my divorce for a few months until complaints started circulating that I didn’t sing the hymns old school enough. The treasurer kept refusing to pay me my wage and so after my experience with my first staff position, the abuse of power prompted me to walk. I’m still in good standing with that Pastor today. Poor guy just had a jerk family who ran the church and wanted their own personal agenda and I wasn’t going to stand by and have my kids eat nothing as a single mom, just because someone didn’t care for how I sang their hymn.

In 2016, I was recruited by a pastor who I met by accident in the grocery store, and he’d coincidentally heard about me, to his church. I visited and checked out his church, and got drug up on stage that same Sunday with no preparation. That next week he offered me a staff position and asked me to mentor a young man who had little experience leading worship but had great potential. I agreed and waited patiently to be brought on payroll. Little did I know the same offer was brought to the young man. During the course of the few months I was there I discovered some real issues and my prior experience with spiritual abuse was again my red flag indicator! There were some incidents that happened and I was very cautious as a single woman in that church as it was full of single men involved in a men’s rehab center. I was NEVER alone with any man ever and my teenage son acted almost like a bouncer. I was extremely intentional about protecting my integrity around these recovering addicts and even the pastor who ran the program as he was former alcoholic. My past with my former husband, an alcoholic, made me cautious in my dealings with every man in that church.

I was asked out on a date by a guy 10 years my younger and of course I turned him down. Well that apparently stirred up a whole hornets nest and malicious gossip began because the young man didn’t like being turned down. There was also an incident with one of the pastor’s long time friend who came to visit. He was a pastor from another state and led me to believe he was a single man and asked me out on a date. I accepted, but after the date, even though he seemed charming enough, turned him down for anything further. He was pretty persistent and he’d gone back to his home state and his persistence and promises of connecting me to music industry leaders prompted those spiritual abuse red flags. I googled him and found his beautiful worship leader wife! I exposed it to not only my pastor, but to the man’s wife and to district leaders of his church in the Southern Baptist convention, and with the leaders of the district, brought attention to the Deacons and Elders of that man’s church. My Pastor actually defended his friend’s actions and shortly after preached a scalding sermon about the Jezebel spirit and publicly suggested that the Jezebel spirit attached itself to attractive, single, women. There was only one other single woman in that entire church besides me.

Needless to say, I packed up my equipment, turned in my keys, and walked. Six weeks later that church shut it’s doors. I never said a word to anyone why I left, other than to tell the Secretary/Women’s ministry leader that I was leaving as Sunday’s sermon was divisive and abusive to the body of Christ and that it was false teaching. I handed her the keys and didn’t even step into the building when I did so. I had caught her in the parking lot. I dusted my shoes off before I stepped into my car.

I didn’t talk to any one. I didn’t gossip. Just left.

I chuckle now, because essentially, I just took my toys and went home. I was a single mom, with no one to protect me or stand up for me. I had left an abusive marriage, I wasn’t going to be a part again of an abusive church. I cut everyone from that toxic church off, and chalked it up to more experience and prayed God would lead me to safe church for me and my children. It was months before I learned about the church no longer being in operation. God has a way of doing that I’ve found. The first abusive church I was apart of went from 175 to just a handful of people and has no influence in the area at all now.

Well in May of 2017 I came upon a new church that hadn’t been around long and they were meeting in one of the schools. I immediately felt connected and loved and protected. I needed a safe place. By that time I was done, done, done, with dating! I’d completely given it over to God and put safe guards in place to protect myself and my kids by having any potential suitor go through my Pastor and my friends first. Any man who tried to date me had hoops to jump through. Because of me being a worship leader, many pastors, many false teachers, had tried to date me.

But during that time, God brought the right one along and my good friend Geoff, became the love of my life and it really kinda snuck up on me. He went from just a guy I had met on a dating app a year prior that was way too baptist for me, to a friend on Facebook, then to my musician, funny-as-all-get-out buddy, who was also crazy good at the drums, to my bible study nerd who was just like me. Then suddenly, during a walk down at the marina, discussing what we wanted in a future spouse, it hit me, I was describing him!

There’s a lot more to the love story of course but seven short months later we married.

Just prior to our wedding is where the next serious story of spiritual abuse began and God’s provision to lead us out of there!

09/10/2018 Don't pray for me: Witchcraft in the church

I wrote this post on 9/10/2018 months ago but didn’t post it. I’m choosing to do so now.

Last night there was a simple message sent to my husband, that seemed innocuous at first; harmless in it’s intent and possibly even loving, but something didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but something stank of manipulation and it had me searching scripture today on manipulation, witchcraft and the occult in the church. As I started researching and delving into what the word of God says about witchcraft, I was shocked and concerned and now I know why, such a simple message of “we are praying for you” concerned me so greatly.

That may seem silly. To be so concerned about something that should warm the hearts of most people, knowing that the individual loves and cares so much that they were praying. But what I don’t know, is what exactly were they praying?

I have long suspected this person’s intent and knew them quite intimately for a time, but during the course of that friendship didn’t quite pick up on what set me on edge about this individual's beliefs and what they were teaching in the church. But last night, it hit me what was so “off”. Witchcraft.

Witchcraft has infiltrated into the church in the form of prayer. Witchcraft is simply doing spells or incantations to get a desired outcome over a circumstance, or person. So I googled how to do a spell ...now that was eye opening. It literally involves seeking the gods for that person’s desire to be manifest in the natural world. An individual, will say essentially a prayer, and release it, believing it to be done. Sounds very church like doesn’t it? Some spells or incantations involve rituals or burning of papers or involving shells, some kind of symbolism involved. But the main part, is speaking out loud, the desired outcome, to over ride the Will of another! That desire is the caster imposing their will over that of the One true God, or the will of another individual. Doesn’t that sound like how some people in the church pray? I’ve heard of people naming and claiming their “blessing” of that person, house, job or situation to change in their favor. What if that person isn’t supposed to be that person’s spouse or friend, or business partner? What if that house isn’t God’s will? Oh, clay, can you say to the Potter, how you are supposed to be made?

Can you see how that would be an incantation or spell? Whose desire does it focus on? It focuses 100 percent on self, the desire and wishes of the caster.

Toxic churches and toxic leaders ALWAYS try and impose their Will and Desires upon the congregation in which they lead. The teaching is always that of self, as well as soft on sin, and soft on accountability. Incantation prayers are always used and it seems like these people are praying with such conviction the Will of God. I wish I would have realized this earlier, before I got involved in some of the churches I have in the past. Some will go so far as to rebuke individuals for hindering the “work of God” in their prayers. People will say things like that they are just praying in authority, but I’ve seen and heard people pray their agendas. I’ve even done it!

I, myself am so fearful of God today, that I will more than likely be praying only scripture for a while as I sort out what is my desires and what is God’s. I’m examining my own heart today and whether or not, I pray witchcraft prayers. Am I attempting to force my agenda upon God to do my will, or am I submitting to His will?

So why did that simple message of a woman telling my husband that she was praying for us concern me so greatly? For one, it was a married woman messaging my husband. For two, I’ve prayed often with this woman in the past and recognize in hindsight the prayers of witchcraft that I’ve heard and the false prophecies she’s spoken to manipulate others. I’d rather someone not pray over me and my family, the desires and agenda’s that she wants in place. I’d rather that God’s will be manifest in my family’s lives.

It's been a while...

I just had some musings tonight and have been thinking for the last two months or more of the importance of strong, biblical teaching in regards to spiritual abuse. Maybe it's because my new husband is such a excavator of the word of God, digging it apart, and looking for the truths revealed by the Holy Spirit and is so grounded in sound doctrine.
My husband and I recently came across some examples of spiritual abuse and as we watched the drama unfold we pondered and speculated and both of us came to the same conclusion....sound doctrine is the key to a healthy church.
If you have false teaching, you now have a key ingredient in the recipe for spiritual abuse. In all the books that I've read on the subject, there wasn't one that I know of that really focused on the false teachings. It was because of my husband, and my own biblical grounding, that lead us both to see the very real spiritual abuse that was being perpetrated in front of us and all of it led back to wrong, false teaching.
Many books focus on the types of leaders. One book I recently read, not only described the narcissistic leader but the insecure one as well. The insecure abusive leader is obviously less dangerous than the narcissist, and is less noticeable, but both use control and manipulation of people to fulfill their personal, professional and spiritual needs.
But again, the common denominator is not the people but the teaching. False teachers, falsely teach! So, if you can identify the false teaching, you can identify the false teacher and avoid abuse.
I look at the false teacher, as to like the flour in a bread recipe, and the teachings like the yeast. Or maybe it's the other way around...who knows...there's no perfect analogy. But my point is, if you pay attention to the teaching, you can identify the teacher.
There's a lot in the new testament regarding false teaching and false teachers. The main issue is a teaching of self gratification. That can be hard to spot sometimes. I'm thinking of a particular instance where the false teaching I heard was on gossip, but the text was 2 Tim 2, which didn't have anything to do with gossip, but everything to do with false teaching! The minister, preaching, clearly was having an issue with supposed gossip in his church and hammered his agenda message home, imposing on the text what he wanted it to say....BUT....the text didn't say anything about gossip.
Taking a step back and evaluating the message as a whole it was clearly a subtle way of enforcing the "don't talk" rule with a false teaching on gossip, gratifying the needs of the minister or ministry as a whole. Clearly, it was a message to create a cover up of some sort! The teaching wasn't to educate or build up, or even to bring correction, but to clearly bring condemnation, shame and guilt to anyone in the congregation who may have "gossiped". The message itself was so clearly stretched to have a false definition of gossip as well, even going so far as to say that any mention of good news, that wasn't yours and yours alone was gossip! Wow...by that definition, we wouldn't have the spread of the gospel! Look at how fast "gossip" spread among the people in Jesus' day, how quickly the crowds formed to hear him teach, or to just touch him! All, it was, was a message designed to gratify the needs of the leadership in the church, and protect their positions of power and authority.
I just want to point out in the bible, in the Greek, every mention of gossip, or slander, has to be malicious and false! I'm not saying go spread truth everywhere if it's bad news to just anyone who will listen. But, telling the truth isn't gossip if someone shares good news or even bad news.
To take such an extreme view as everything you share with others, whether good or bad, that isn't directly related to you as gossip and thus sin...wow, that's some legalism there. I don't want to be under that kind of mindset or leadership! I cannot imagine being under condemnation for excitedly telling someone my son got a job, or even sorrowfully sharing some bad experience that happened to me or my family and being labeled as a gossip.
Shutting down truth sharing, or the "don't talk" rule, is classic symptoms of spiritual abuse. It's about bringing shame and condemnation to the individual that the leader is trying to control.
So in our spiritual abuse Bread recipe, we've got our false teacher and our false teaching. They kinda go hand in hand, but there are more ingredients to add into the mix....

I No Longer Mistrust God

I'm still kinda thinking this through, but over the years this realization has begun to dawn on me the longer I have been on this journey away from the oppressive hand of Spiritual Abuse. The realization is this: I no longer mistrust God.
A person really doesn't realize that they have God trusting issues under the prosperity/word of faith doctrine until they have left it. Many of the doctrines and teachings of that movement really set you up to fail, to be disappointed, to come to the crashing understanding that our faith isn't enough to move God's hand, that we are not enough. Somehow, we didn't believe hard enough to make God intervene. We didn't quote enough scriptures or we weren't standing on the right ones. Maybe we have some hidden sin or generational curses that are holding us back from the all encompassing redemption that happened on the cross?
Wait! Did I just say the all encompassing redemption that happened on the cross?
Just focus on that for just a second.....the ALL encompassing redemption that happened on the CROSS!
OK, so I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with what happened on the Cross of Calvary. I didn't have to quote 25 scriptures on healing to make that happen and I didn't have to go through a 10 page prayer on breaking generational curses to make the redemption of the cross effective in my life. Jesus did everything I needed to provide for my redemption and salvation. Jesus, Yeshua, the Son of God, did it ALL. My part was grace through faith, I believed; a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8
So tomorrow I must spend at least a 10th of my time awake in prayer and study of the word to qualify for any blessing that God may or may not have had for me that day. All in hopes that my prayer for God to move mountains will be answered. I must earn the favor of God with my works, with extra long prayer times, quoting scripture, and volunteer service at my church. If I don't my "Holy meter" will be too low to earn the blessing that is mine as a "King's kid". Right?.......Right......(insert sarcasm here).
There's a song that I just absolutely love at the moment and the verse is so simple. It says: All sufficient sacrifice. So freely given, such a price. Bought our Redemption. Heaven's gates swing wide.
Then the chorus simply states: There is power in name of Jesus, to break every chain, break every chain, break every chain. And just in case you really need it to sink in they repeat it many times. Jesus is the ALL Sufficient Sacrifice that provided our All Encompassing Redemption and we didn't have to do a thing to earn that or make it happen. There was no exercising our faith or activating it, or faking it till we made it. It had nothing to do with anything we did. See, as followers of Christ, he does the work and we follow. It doesn't mean that we don't need to pray, or study scripture, or volunteer at our churches or in our communities, it means that the work of the cross was not contingent on those things.
Somehow, Faith and acting out our Faith is so much deeper and more precious than what the Word of Faith/Prosperity gospel portrays. I know that even though I have gone through, and will go through, some very deep valleys in my life, the Sovereign God, my King of Kings, will make a way for me and work all things out for my good even during the darkest times of my life. I trust Him to know what's best for me and I no longer worry if I've earned His favor with all of my "works". I just take his scripture to heart (most of the time, because I'm not perfect in the least and sometimes I need reminding). Proverbs 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths (paraphrase quote there). So I try and recognize God in every situation. The situation may look pretty hopeless at times, but I know that me jumping through spiritual hoops has nothing to do with whether or not my God will come through or not. Because He will. He always does. Plain and Simple.