Sharon

Growing up in the church I learned to never trust anyone in the church with my secrets. It was a preacher's kid thing I believe although I am told deacon's kids suffer from it as well. You may share your problems with others outside the church but you must never ever ever confide something that is going on in your home life with someone in the church because it would affect your parent's reputation.

This has continued through adulthood. It is often said that more people are hurt by Christians than will ever be loved by them and sometimes I believe this is true. For myself I have been hurt in many many churches throughout the years. That's just the way it is but its ok because they are human too. God still loves me and regardless of what has happened I can't give up.  The reason I share this is because of Sharon.

When Charlie and I started attending the church we go to now we did not know a single person there. That was important because there we were starting with a clean slate. No one knew us from the past, we had no reputations to uphold, no criticisms to hold us back. We could just be accepted for who we were.

You see, Sharon is the pastor's wife. It took me a long time to really start to let her see who I was. As many times as I have been hurt in my life by friends and by church people I didn't want to take any chances. Even when we first started attending there I still had those walls. The walls from being hurt. Sharon through a lot of patience and prayer and love began to break down the walls toward her. She saw I needed someone close to confide in. She could see that at times there was a lot of hurt there that I needed to work through. She became my confidant. She would pray for me, with me, help me. She didn't share things with her husband unless I told her it was ok. Sharon became a dear friend that I desperately needed.

Today Sharon is one of my closest friends. I can talk openly and honestly with her about anything and know she isn't going to judge me, talk about me, or laugh at me. She will help me cut down a favorite outfit as I lose weight, color my gray for me, sit and listen as I rant and rave or cry or whatever is needed.

Sharon is one of only a very people that I know I could call and they would be there to help me out. You know a friend will help you move, a true friend will help you move a body and I know that Sharon would be right there with a shovel (along side Katie of course). The trick would be doing it without Bob (her husband and the pastor) knowing where we were moving it to (he is retired from the US govt and seems to know EVERTHING).  (Sorry Sharon guess we'll have to figure out an alternate plan to get us to the Bahamas LOL)