I came back to church in September of last year. I went to that church for 6 months. In December a pastor was visiting and got up and prayed one morning. I knew when he prayed that when they started their church that I was supposed to go there. So for several months I wandered from church to church. A big huge church where I was a nameless face in the crowd, a tiny church where I was friends with the pastor and his wife and my son and daughters church. I would make the rounds trying to fit in somewhere and waiting for the new church to start. On the morning of the first preview service I battled to get there. I knew from the minute I got there that I was supposed to be there. Every week is a major battle to get there. And every week Pastor Troy says something I need to hear. But I'm miserable there.
Now it's three months later and I still feel like I'm supposed to be there, but I'm seriously considering just walking away. I go late so I don't have to sit there all alone waiting for church to start, I bolt for the door as soon as church is over because I have no one there. Nobody talks to me, if the pastor's wife is making the rounds greeting people, she greets me. But no one else does, it's like I'm invisible. I have no family there and only one friend who has family there. I feel so alone when I'm there. It was so much easier to go to the big church and be a nameless face in the crowd. I could go in, sit down, worship, listen to the message and leave as soon as it was over. It didn't matter that I was alone in a room with 1500 people in it. If people were socializing, I didn't see it, so I didn't feel so alone. It was also easier because I went on Saturday nights, so when Sunday comes it just feels like any other day off.
But now here I am in a church of about 50 people and I leave there every week feeling more alone than I can possibly describe. Every week I ask someone to go with me and every week whoever I've asked says no for whatever reason they have.
I'm giving it one more week and only because I think the boys will enjoy what's going on next week. And then I'm done, I give up. I can't keep doing this week after week. I leave church almost every Sunday in tears because I feel so alone. I look forward to the weekends when I open at work so I don't feel all alone on Sundays. Other people spend the afternoon with their families or they go to lunch after church. I come home to be by myself. I have considered trying to find a way to work every Sunday, but then if I wanted to do anything for a weekend I wouldn't be able to.
I don't know why God has called me to go to a church where I so obviously don't fit in.
I don't know what else to say about this except that... I'm just done, I can't do it anymore.
