Musings on Life from a Dead Girl

My Father's House

I wonder for a moment what sitting on that pew would feel like again. Would I be afraid like I was when I was a girl? Terrified I wouldn't have the answer to get me through the Pearly Gates. To be mocked by the other children for the faults I couldn't, see? Will my offering but too small and called stingy too large and called gauche?
I want to be His daughter. I want the world to see Him in me. I want to live in my Father's house. Where I am safe and loved. Where I know that no matter how bad today is, it is nothing compared to the joy that is coming. I want to be my Father's daughter.
But I don't belong in His house. With the multimillion-dollar buildings with chains barring the unwanted from the parking lot. I don't belong there at the altar when people are suffering in the pews in silence because it is more important to look the part of a Child of God than it is for us to act like it.
My voice shakes but I say it anyway I do not belong in that place you say is my Father's House. I have never felt Him there. I see my God in the sunsets, in the laughter of children, in the kindness of a stranger. My Gospel is mercy. My Master is peace. My God is love. He died so that we may live. Not to judge others not to hate those who live differently but so that in us, in His people the world would see just a fraction, a tiny iota of His goodness and love.
My Father wouldn't be welcomed in your churches. The dirt on his feet would stain the carpet. His clothes would simply garner looks of contempt. His smell, His appearance, maybe even his voice. The King of Kings came to our damned world in the body of a poor boy and lived like the lowest of us. How would He walk among us now? In the mortal finery befitting a King? Or as that poor boy once again. In tattered rags hoping to find a place among those who dare to call themselves His people.
Please forgive them Father for they know not what they do. They cannot lift their heads from the sand for long enough to recognize their hypocrisy. They serve the pretty, blue-eyed picture of You that the world has created. They fellowship in a building that they call Your House, do they know You have never been there?