Red, pink and white rose petals, along with tiny yellow leaves, lie scattered on gray paving stones

To the exiles scattered by toxic church

Maybe the church has become bewildering to you. Leaders you trusted and people you respected are acting in ways that do not reflect who Jesus is, nor what they profess to believe. They have turned on anyone among them who appears to threaten the status quo. What is going on?

Seen through raindrops on glass, a hazy view of a weak sun in a sky full of gray clouds. Also hazy: the black silhouette of dark, hilly, overgrown terrain with what appears to be a church steeple rising behind it.

Witchcraft in the church

In the church, those obsessed with manipulating, intimidating and dominating can pose as those serving God. And we can be very fooled for a very long time.

Against a snowy background stands a black iron gate, locked with multiple padlocks of different colors and shapes.

Shunning in the church

Any group that shuns is withholding your deepest needs in order to control you. That’s the opposite of loving you. It’s people you trusted, trying to erase you.

Back view of woman with brimmed straw hat, standing in field of tall grass, her arms outstretched at her side, her face toward the setting (or rising?) sun

Cries of the shunned

In the middle of that dark-valley time, I often found myself alone with God, crying aloud and writing passionately in my journal. During that time too, I came to identify with David, the shepherd-poet-warrior-king, in ways I had not before. For David was also ostracized by people he trusted. And he cried out in distress - and in faith.

Woman on mountaintop, above the clouds. She stands with her feet toward the camera, but her face turned away into the wind, as she looks out on the clouds behind and below her.

I will change your name

No longer wounded, outcast, lonely, afraid - your new name shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming one, Faithfulness, Friend of God, One who seeks My face.