Please pray for me about this: I feel that my church members at the church we joined this year sometimes get upset/hurt if my mother and I cannot attend every single event at church. Some of these hurt feelings are likely a result of spiritual warfare that has targeted me since I was a child which influences people to do terrible things to me (or react in abnormally negative ways toward me) to push me toward deep unforgiveness. However, I think there are some hurt feelings that are just generally there outside of the warfare. I want to make it clear that I am not trying to forsake assembling with my brothers and sisters in Christ - that is not the case AT ALL. I love going to church and would be there 24/7 if I could. We attend many things (and sometimes more than other people in the church do). However, there are also several other factors: my father does not attend church with us and is being very resistant. Also, we have family members (from our natural family) who we also have to spend time with and they do not attend our church. Also, I have health concerns that sometimes make it difficult for me to be able to leave the house all the time and my mother is also elderly and sometimes has pains and aches; and regardless of what we are doing whether it is inside or outside of church, we are not people who are always out, we actually spend a lot of time at home mostly because we always need rest and can't handle being out all the time physically. We've always been this way. In the case of my father, while I am sad that he won't go to church with us and am constantly praying for him to start going to church with us (and he does sometimes attend church events with us outside of church services), God has personally convicted me that it is disrespectful and inappropriate toward my father as the head of the household and as my mother's husband for my mother and I to constantly be out leaving my father at home. It would be one thing if it was just me going out and that would be different (but even then I still have been personally convicted to spend time with my family and not be out all the time) but my family and I do everything together and that's the way it is with church too except my dad won't come. We are a very close family and my parents and I do everything together. We moved to this area to be closer to my siblings and we do have my sister who is still living here along with her family with us but my parents and I only have each other most of the time. I can tell that my father gets deeply sad when we are constantly out without him - he basically is sitting at home alone when we're gone. Imagine the mental and emotional impact of that especially in the context of a very tight knit family. While we do always invite him to church events and pray for him to come and are sad when he doesn't, God has personally convicted me to stay home with him sometimes. As part of my witnessing to my father and loving him toward Christ, God has convicted me to spend time with him as well and not go out all the time. He has convicted me (and I have actually seen it transpire) that it actually hurts our witness when my mother and I leave my father out constantly. My father also has medical conditions that make it where he should not always be left alone constantly. My mother and I also have obligations to spend time with our natural family as well. God gave them to us and we cannot ignore them. Please pray that the people at my church would understand these things where need be. We have told them some things but perhaps there is also a need for more communication about these issues which please pray the opportunity will be given for that if necessary. Again, I believe a lot of these hurt feelings are due to spiritual warfare but please also pray about any that exist outside of the warfare. Please also pray that I would remain Christlike and spiritually mature in the face of the spiritual warfare I've mentioned and remember its existence and not get angry with people when I know that they are being influenced by Satan and acting outside of their usual character. Thank you.
