They've made me very sad; because of a group of people who are suppose to exhibit the love of God - to be this petty and vindictive? If I wanted to play these kinds of mind games. I'd go back to my family of origin.
And here's where this hurts a lot / a lot; because I don't have any body else to go to. I say this half jokingly - I came out of the kind of family psychiatrists read about in their text books. My mother was an alcoholic (both of my parents are deceased). There was a lot of neglect, psychological abuse (not as much physical abuse), but my oldest brother is a pedophile. So, I don't have a family to fall back on.
Now granted there are Christian friends that I have been friends with for 10 / 20 / almost 30 years. Some of them now live in the next state though. There were Christian neighbors who were foundational to my faith as a teenager who are now deceased. (I'm 48 years old.)
Yet too many, when I really needed them walked out. Had one family who we'd gone to the same church. They'd introduced me to my husband. The marriage didn't end up working. Husband had a couple of affairs and two years ago committed suicide.
Now the husband of this family; always proclaimed how he loved and cared about us (me and my son) yet when the marriage fell apart; he wouldn't have anything to do with us. (How do you "love" someone and don't want them in your life?
) He was convinced I wasn't raising my son right. Well the kid has autism and epilepsy and he does not behave like other kids do. (My son is 17 now and if something happens to me, he goes in a group home. He's that disabled.)
The father of this other family believed my son's behavior problems were a result of my poor parenting. And I got that a lot. I got that far more from "church people" than I ever got it from secular society. And
THAT is really sad! Basically my support network consists of one neighbor; a couple of friends from this former church and and a whole slew of social service providers. Some of the best evaluations I'd gotten for my "parenting abilities" came from social workers, doctors, and case workers who worked with my son. Now when a senior Child Protective case worker doing an investigation, who's been on the job 25 years tells you your a good parent - I'd say that person is qualified to know what a bad parent is! LOL
The constant barrage of criticism I got from a lot of "christians" about my son's behavior, was very hard for me to deal with. Even now, the kid is a believer and "good Christian folks" don't believe that? Now when you got a teenager with a serious chronic medical condition who goes into the ER because the blood vessels in his brain may be bleeding. He prays and then faces the doctor and says - I'm ready for the test / what ever may be wrong / even if I die. Now that's real faith! But because he can not sit quietly in a pew for an hour - he must not be a real Christian!
The "church" in America today is in really bad shape.
I'm also a mobility impaired disabled war veteran. I'm female and I have a strong personality. I never would have survived everything I've survived if I didn't. And that seems to be an issue for certain "Christian" people. I guess I'm not "meek" and "mousy" enough for them? I get asked quite frequently if I'm really saved?? "You don't have the fruit of the Spirit". You don't act like (we perceive) Jesus would act." (Well guess what, if you met Jesus in the flesh, you probably wouldn't like Him!)
Now I have a pretty strong faith and a pretty good grasp on Biblical knowledge. I'm a research nerd. Being retired, I have a lot of time to do Bible study. I like to learn and I like to be around people who like to learn. Spit something at me I don't know; and I'll go research it. And doing that, I've found a lot of interesting things in the Bible.
Admittedly, I'm outside the box in many ways. That part of who I am and finally (after how many years??? LOL) I've finally given up on trying to be something I'm not. Time is too short to try and make all these fake people happy and God has given me things to do.
So yeah, all this stuff has affected me a lot.