Church

4 years ago I found a church that I absolutely love. The minute I walked in the door it was if my spirit sighed a sigh of relief and said "we're home".

I was a troop leader with a great Christian program called American Heritage Girls. You guessed it; my daughter was in the troop. This was the church that they moved our troop to when the new troop director took over and boy, was I glad! I don't know that I would have found this church otherwise.

On the way home from our first troop night there I found myself telling my daughter how much I loved it there. It turns out, she did too. She said "Mom, I don't know how to explain it but I felt at home". Interesting that she used that same exact words that I said to myself. So, I asked her if she'd like to start attending with me and she very excitedly said yes.

Rich and I are Christians. We're followers and lovers of Jesus but we did spend our years together (up until this point) in the Catholic church. When we moved to Tennessee, we were told that the local Catholic church was a satellite location and we just kind of never checked it out even though we hadn't discussed it. My point is, at the time of finding Highlands Church of the Cumberlands, we didn't have a home church.

My daughter and I attended every Sunday. I didn't invite Rich because this wasn't a Catholic church and I figured if he was interested, he'd say something to me. I would never invite Tom because he was like anti-God everything since his cancer in 2008. It got to the point that when he came over for Thanksgiving or any dinners, we just stopped praying before our meal because Tom made is so awkward.

That made it awkward for us because we pray before every meal as a family, even when we go out to eat. I just can't believe how much we changed, shifted and excused or justified just for and because of Tom.

Well, my daughter and I loved this church so much that we started going on Wednesday nights as well as Sundays.

One Wednesday I was walking out to my car and saw Tom walking his dogs. I have NO idea why I asked this following question because I knew how much he "didn't believe in God" or so he said.

It was if the Holy Spirit grabbed hold of my tongue and blurted out "Do you want to come?"

To everyone's surprise, he said yes.

It turns out that he loved our church too and asked if it was okay if he came back with us on Sunday. I was so excited and said yes!

Week after week he kept coming back and finally on 9/1/25 when Pastor Jason was explaining the horrible death that Jesus experienced he asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and become born-again.

Tom raised his hand.

I was like a proud parent and walked with him up to the alter where Pastor prayed with him, the church body surrounded him laying hands on him and praying with us.

Proud was an understatement.

But little by little, Tom started changing.

He started to gossip about church members on the way home from church and eventually on the way to church. He started complaining about things that Pastor had us do.

Worship lasted too long, it was too cold in the sanctuary. It was ALWAYS something and eventually, it took away my joy. I haven't looked at my church the same or enjoyed it at all since Tom became a toxic, negative version of himself.

Not knowing how to "fix it" I bought him a bible. I thought by reminding him of what truly matters (Jesus) maybe he'd stop his griping. I prayed for him, over him and installed the You Version Bible App on his phone. Nothing was helping.

One day we're in church and a couple people popped off in Tongues and Tom blurts out "It's like a clown show in here!" I wanted to crawl under the seats and hide, I was so embarrassed.

I found myself not wanting to go to church anymore...at all. He rode with me and him just sitting next to me, sucked the air and energy right out of me in the car. Then, sitting next to me in church I found myself not wanting to hug him when Pastor said "hug the person next to you" so I stopped going on Wednesdays and pick and choose the Sundays that I attend.

It has absolutely nothing to do with my church and it has everything to do with Tom's energy and attitude.

How can one person have such an impact on us? Is it just me? Am I in some weird, battered woman syndrome that I can't see?

I even stopped going to events and volunteering for everything like I used to because Tom would always come just to get out of the house and I had no joy at all anymore...as long as he came along.

But then when I went somewhere and left him home, I had guilt.

This sucks...