Broken Dreams

I am about to tell a story about me that very few people know about. Some of the things that have been happening lately concerning pastors/churches has really brought this terrible thing back to my memory. In 1975 my husband and I quit our jobs here in Chattanooga to serve in full time ministry. We were so excited. We had made several visits to this church and felt that God was really calling us there. I knew after about a week or two that we might be in a situation that was going to be bad. We arrived at the church to go visiting. The pastor called my husband into another room and told him that I could not go on visitation because my dress was too short. Evidently he saw me when I was getting out of the car and my skirt must have been above my knees. Regardless, my skirt was below my knees when I stood up. Anyone who knew me back then knew that I was a very conservative person. I made all of my clothes and made sure that they were not offensive in any way. I had to sit there until everyone got back. I felt so humiliated. After we got home, the pastor’s wife called me and asked me why I was trying to entice her husband. Entice her husband???? Today I would have told her that if I wanted to entice somebody they would not be old, fat, bald, and wear ugly black glasses. As we stayed, every three months the pastor would call both of us in. I wasn’t even on the payroll but I got a lecture every three months. We could not do anything right. I could go into so much detail as to a lot of the things that happened, but as time went on, we knew that it didn’t matter how we left, it would be terrible. We learned that the pastor had stood a deacon and his entire family in front of the church and told all of the terrible things they had done and had the church vote them out. The previous associate pastor and his wife had to stand in front of the church while the pastor proceeded to tell all of the bad things they had done. The church not only voted them out, but went to their house and sat all of their furniture out in the yard. We heard these stories when we visited members trying to get them to come back to church. We knew that this would happen to us—there was no way of getting out of it. So my husband resigned at a deacon’s meeting. The pastor got so angry that he turned blood red and threw his glasses across the table. He said you can’t. My husband said, I just did and walked out. The pastor lost his chance to stand us in front of the church. The next week was like a week in hell. We proceeded to get all of our things packed and get out of the house. Oh, did I forget to tell that by this time I was teaching kindergarten there and I dearly loved all of those children. The pastor went to each family and told them what a bad person I was. After we got back to Chattanooga we received an 11 page letter written by the pastor. He went into detail about all of the things that he thought we had done so badly. He made copies of that letter and handed it out to every church member and also mailed that same letter to several pastors here in Chattanooga. I took the letter to my attorney and he told me that this man must really be crazy because the things he wrote were just crazy. I wanted to sue him so bad for slander but my attorney said that this man would probably love to have a good fight. He said to ignore it and it would probably drive him crazy. I don’t know who went crazy because I had nightmares every night and had to go on nerve medicine. I couldn’t believe a man of God could treat anyone like he was treating us. We truly thought that we would be serving God and instead it felt like we went straight to hell. It didn’t even end there. When we finally decided to move our “letter” to a church here in Chattanooga, we told our pastor that he would probably get that 11 page letter. Well not only did he get that one but the pastor wrote another personal letter. He outlined how the church had grown while we were there and how it dropped off to half its size when we left. Did he not realize that he was the cause of the loss of membership? We didn’t talk to anyone there except one deacon and his family whom we had gotten close to. We knew that the people loved us. During the summer they filled our car with vegetables. At Christmas my high school girls’ Sunday school class took me to Montgomery for dinner and gave me a present. They loved going on visitation with me. Oh, and about my high school girls class. One of the girls got pregnant. She was the daughter of one of the deacons. The girls and I wanted her to know that we loved her so we planned a baby shower. I got a phone call from the pastor. He told me that not only could I not give her a shower but I could not attend a shower or give her a present. It would be like the church putting its ok on premarital sex. I told him that God had forgiven her and so had we. He said you heard what I said. After we left that church this girl married the baby’s father. They had a little girl. One night it was raining and they ran off the road and hit a telephone pole and killed all three of them plus another friend in the back seat. I wanted to go to her funeral, but guess who was going to do the funeral? You guessed right the same pastor who said I couldn’t give her a baby shower. I lived in fear of this man until after I had married Charles. Charles and I had gone back to the church we got married in for a homecoming. The pastor who married us had moved to Georgia but he was the preacher that day. I told Charles we had to go to let him know we were still married and happy. The church was packed. They introduced some of the preachers there and the first one was, you guessed it, my biggest fear was right there in that church! I told Charles I had to speak to him after the service. I went over to the fellowship hall where everyone was eating and I went up to him and he stood up to shake my hand. He kept looking at my name tag and I introduced myself as Diane Rizzo but you know me better as Diane Gasaway. I had a death grip on his hand. I could tell he wanted to let go. His wife looked down at her plate and never looked up at me. I smiled so big at him and it was like the heaviest weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I faced my fear and I think he was actually afraid of me. Charles told me he wished he could have video taped his face. He said his expression changed from smiling to like he wanted to bolt and run. Well, I’ve told most of this story. But I just think that Christians don’t act like that. It took me a long time to recover, but it taught me a lesson. We answer to God. Not all Christians are really Christians. We should pray and help one another. There was only one perfect person, Jesus, and I am certainly not even close to perfect. I try to treat others the way I would like to be treated. I have found that kindness outweighs any ugly words that you can ever say to another person. This was hard for me to write. It is tough sharing something this humiliating. But, it became a stepping stone. I never want to set myself up as judge and jury against someone. Would Jesus had treated anyone like that? And there you have one of my broken dreams. DR 8/23/13