From Wit’s End

[Leanne continues to tell her side of the story. The following is an excerpt from her journal, which she later typed up and gave me to tell me the whole story. It’s used with her permission. Later notes from Leanne are in italics, and notes from myself are in brackets like this.]

Then this past Tuesday [April 24th, I think] Billy yelled through the house full of kids that we were tutoring, ‘Leanne, your boyfriend’s on the phone.’ Startled, I asked, ‘Which one? – Just kidding,’ hoping Billy would laugh and hand the phoneto me. No, he asked, into the phone, ‘Which one are you?’ I snatched away the phone and found that it was Ben and both his parents. We talked for two hours and Mr. Wisdom asked some very thought-provoking questions, and further convinced me (well, not really, just confirmed what I already knew) that I didn’t have to stay here, that I can leave whenever I want to. The problem is, I don’t have anywhere to go. Billy’s church or a housechurch would be my best bet, but I’d still be excluded and shunned. Not that I really care.”

(Ben, his parents, and I, talked about men who had lost their work due to sin. Jonathan taught that authorities shouldn’t lose their position because of sin, but Judas and Saul both did. See Acts 1:25 and I Samuel 13:13-14. I asked how I was supposed to believe that I could claim to have enough wisdom and knowledge to judge such an important thing, because Jonathan said that we as women could not do that. They showed me II Corinthians 6:14-7:1. I found that I was unequally yoked. Not with unbelievers, per se, but with believers in something else than what I believed in, and I had to leave. Ben’s father explained that as a child of God, I am entitled to what comes along with that: knowledge and understanding of Him. He said that nobody has a right to withhold that from me. He said that on a spiritual level, God deals withus all the same way, and that I have an obligation to follow Him, not my authority, when they contradict, and that I, as a child of God, have the ability to discern the Word of God. That was incredibly wonderful to hear, and so different that I almost didn’t believe it. But it was true.)