I want to go back and look at the last week of the lenten study. Were you told any family stories that were passed down about your ancestors? As a genealogist/family historian I am telling you, these are SO IMPORTANT! Write them down and ensure they are passed down to your descendants. Don't let them be lost!

We are the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

These stories shape our identity. Christianity's own past generations go back not a mere 2,000 years, but at least 4,000. We worship one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Christianity is not a new religion, but is Trans-cultural Messianic Judaism. The many different denominations are merely different branches of that same family tree, the branches rooted in Christ, reaching back to Judaism and then branching out growing greater than the original tree.

But sadly the reality is that much of the secular world sees our identity as having nurtured power-driven abuse; sexual abuse in parts of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches; financial abuse on the part of TV evangelists, domestic abuse among too many evangelical churches. Many of us are wearied with the pain of all this, but we also know there are questions that we have not finished addressing.

We have a loving, foot-washing, self-secrificing God, whose greatest Commandment to us was to LOVE, Him, each other and then others. Where did it go wrong, that abuse of the vulnerable by the powerful came about? It seems the actual structures of power and honour, the set-apartness of our clergy became a stronger part of the identity of many than actually being Christian, there are too many raised in the church who are "religious", they observe all the trappings, love the traditions and rituals and yet deep inside, DON'T REALLY KNOW JESUS AT ALL.

Rev Gend and I here diverge a bit, she thinks it may be time to put aside the stories of a judgmental, angry God calling down his wrath on those who hurt his people, and just teach love and grace. Some churches have taken that path, but as a Christian who is also a survivor of child abuse and trauma, I want balance. I value God's position as a fair and just Judge who doesn't make mistakes and VENGEANCE IS HIS! Under his commandment I have to forgive those who hurt me, because he forgave me! I gave up, the bitterness, hurt and hate knowing that HE would take vengeance, I could trust Him to do so! Be assured those who committed crimes like these better hope they get caught and go to jail, if they don't pay for it here, when they face their maker they WILL! Those priests that hurt children, know in their hearts if they confess their sin, God will forgive them, but they will be punished by God for what they did.