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Syncretism: Where the Odd and Unholy Come Together

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

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graveHere’s a new one for you: Grave-soaking, also known as grave-sucking. Closely related to the sport of mantle-grabbing, the idea is that the dearly departed leave behind whatever anointing they carried while alive in the box they’re buried in when deceased, free for the taking. Takers can either sit, stand, kneel or lie in front of, or on the grave of, those who are no longer sitting, standing, kneeling or lying and summon the vibes of saints whose bodies are six feet under. It’s a new and disturbingly creepy trend that some of your friends and fellow pew-warmers are engaging in.

Bethel Church, in Redding, California, the same church delivering the dubious ministry of Sozo (along with gold dust, diamonds and bird feathers) has long been known for a host of unholy behaviors and associations, but this one steals the show. Once you’re all cleaned up and cleaned out from Sozoing and Shabaring, you can embark on a church-endorsed field trip of grave-soaking (a.k.a. grave-sucking). A quick internet search pulls up disturbing images of the people from the church – leaders and youth included – draped over headstones or lying prone on slabs inscribed with the names of prominent, long-dead Christians.

As a result of all of the bad press Bethel has received due to the photos and videos on the internet, Beni Johnson (her birth name is Brenda) took to her Facebook page to make the following statement: “I am not what they call a grave-sucker. Just so you know. That’s creepy.” And yet, that’s Beni herself in the photo above, lying on the grave of C.S. Lewis. To give you an idea of the mindset of those perpetuating the practice, John Crowder (a Bethel associate, whose ministry is endorsed by the Johnsons) was taped while kneeling at the grave site of Alexander Dowie. Looking into the camera, he stated:

And we’ve just come to the grave today to release to you an impartation of  healing revival; of city-building, restoration, city-taking anointing, master-building anointing, and so we just rip it right out of the ground; we just suck it right off his dead bones, in Jesus’ name, and loose it to you; a healing-revival-glory-master-building-apostolic anointing glory …

If this sounds to you like the confusing mess that it is, it’s simply a reflection of the New Apostolic Reformation and Third Wave movement that has been propagated by those who have declared themselves to be the new apostles and prophets of the end-time generation. People who flock to these movements are found on the Elijah List, in the Healing Rooms, and trying to work their way up the Seven Mountain Mandate. Think this can’t happen in your church? That surely your leaders are so rooted and grounded in scripture that they would see right through all of this? If your church is utilizing Sozo materials in their ‘Freedom and Deliverance Ministries’ then know that it has already happened – the lion is no longer at the door, but is roaming freely up and down the aisles, and in and out of our classrooms. The Bible is clear: Satan doesn’t appear to us with a pitchfork and horns, otherwise we would recognize him for who he is, but he appears instead as an angel of light, promising blessings, healing, and untold wealth and prosperity to those who are desperate, vulnerable, needy or blind. And the shepherds (the pastors, deacons and elders of the church) have a God-given mandate to protect the people entrusted to their care.

The lure of mysticism is subtle. Syncretism is that odd mix of the holy and the profane that we are seeing with ever-increasing frequency in our church services. Syncretism, as defined by Webster, is simply this: “the combination of different forms of belief or practice” and to syncretize is particularly telling: “to attempt to unite and harmonize, especially without critical examination or logical unity.” It appears to be a politically correct form of Christianity, not just in America, but one that has spread rapidly around the world. Celebrity Christians are selling ideas such as ‘contemplative prayer’ and the ‘breaking of soul-ties and generational curses’ to a people who are more interested in having an emotional experience with God than a solid, biblically accurate relationship with Him. The idea of soul ties and generational curses, along with the perpetual quest for inner healing are nothing more than New Age, occultic, and mystical teachings that have infiltrated the church to such a degree that people are signing up for (and paying for) counseling sessions and classes without batting an eye. Combining any false teaching with the Word of God is absolutely forbidden in scripture, which clearly commands that we are not to take away from or add to the written Word. When we do, we end up with a confused and unhealthy church; one that is both deceived and diseased, and we are left with nothing but a chimera for a God. We’re a group of people who can decree, declare, and rebuke everything right down to the consequences of our own foolish choices, but who can’t walk straight when the fog-and-light-show ends.

Bill Johnson, Beni’s husband, and the senior pastor at Bethel, believes that:

There are anointings, mantles, revelations, and mysteries that have lain unclaimed, literally where they were left because the generation that walked in them never passed them on. I believe it’s possible for us to recover realms of anointing, realms of insight, realms of God that have been untended for decades simply by choosing to reclaim them and perpetuate them for future generations.

Nothing in scripture supports this.  The anointing of God is not just lying around unclaimed, waiting for us to soak it up at will. We don’t serve a hapless God who is sitting in the heavens wringing His hands, bemoaning the fact that we’re all down here stumbling over years of unclaimed anointings and mantles.  Spiritual growth is not a Christian version of an Easter-egg hunt. We develop insight and spiritual maturity by spending time in the Word, not by laying on the graves of those who have already left the earth. If the normative Christian life were to include going back to suck the glory out of dead bones, wouldn’t the letters to the churches have been the logical place for the New Testament writers to tell us so?  Instead, we’re told to learn from the heroes of the faith, and to emulate their faith, but we’re not told to try to dredge the rewards of their faithfulness for ourselves by lying on their graves. 1AA4

Sunbathing on grave sites didn’t originate with the large church on the West Coast, however; Benny Hinn has been known to try to suck the leftover anointing out of the graves of Kathryn Kuhlman and Aimee Semple McPherson. The practice stems from the idea of transferable anointings, or mantles (a teaching made popular in the Word of Faith and Latter Rain movements of the last century), hence the term mantle-grabbing. These aren’t teachings you will find within the pages of scripture, however. What you will find is that necromancy is absolutely forbidden by God. In the Old testament (see Deuteronomy 18:10) those who practice it are called an abomination to God. This includes any form of communicating with the dead, whether it’s channeling, praying to a dead saint, calling up your beloved grandmother, or grave-soaking. Nor will you find that any mantle or anointing was ever transferred from a dead person to a live person in scripture. In fact, the only time a mantle or anointing is transferred from one person to another is through relationship, as in the case of Elijah and Elisha, so the next time you find yourself cozying up to a skeleton, you might want to stop and consider the health and depth of your relationship with your fragile friend. And while you’re down there, you might want to stop and think about the health and depth of your relationships and associations in general.

grave-sucking-2 So shake off those mold spores and grow up.  You’re not supposed to smell like a cemetery.  You’re not supposed to sprout gold dust and feathers; to bark, foam at the mouth, roll on the floor, or shake and laugh hysterically, or participate in any of the other mindless activities associated with hyper-charismania. You don’t need to lay on the ground and try to work yourself into a trance by singing the same verse of a song over and over until your geese bump and your flesh tingles. (There’s actually a name for this unholy practice; it’s known as “carpet-time”). Read the New Testament carefully and you will find that not only is self-control listed as a Fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:23) but in almost all of the letters to the churches we’re encouraged to control both our minds and our bodies. Christians are people who should be known for our resemblance to Christ. We’re not supposed to be known as people who post “selfies” of odd behaviors that nobody naming the name of Christ should be engaged in, but rather, we’re exhorted to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting the people of God.

2nd year BSSM students at the grave site of Evan Roberts.

2nd year BSSM students at the grave site of Evan Roberts.

“For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasant and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, and will turn aside from hearing the truth and will wander off into man-made fictions.”  – 2 Timothy 4:3,4 (Amplified)

“Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them. For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret. But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear, there is light. Therefore He says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light. Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.” 

– Ephesians 5:11-17 (Amplified)

Timeout

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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SAM_4068We’re going to take a break here for a minute from all of the soaking, sozoing, and shabar-ing we’ve been doing lately, so grab yourself a towel and sit tight.

A week ago today, the March issue of Good Housekeeping hit the newsstands. I, along with five other women, were interviewed by a journalist for a story the magazine wanted to do on domestic violence. I’ve never been interviewed for a national magazine before, and I have to say it’s been an interesting experience. The whole process took about six months from beginning to end.

I wrote a lot, not just about my own situation, but about domestic violence in general, and emotional abuse in particular, which is what the term gaslighting refers to. It’s taken from the 1944 movie Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Other terms for this kind of abuse are mind games and crazy-making. They’re tactics used by an abuser that are intended to make you question your own reality, or worse, make others doubt your reality. It’s a ploy designed to isolate you, and cut off any means of support or help. It deflects attention away from the behavior of the abuser and onto the person they’re abusing. The behavior itself isn’t addressed; instead, the mental stability of the person being abused becomes the focus (yes, gaslighting occurs in counseling, and frequently results in collusion) and this is why you do not ever counsel both spouses together when there is domestic violence going on. It’s a dangerous (and in my case, almost deadly) mistake, and one that Christian counselors in particular frequently make in their zeal to “save the marriage”. But untrained and uninformed people can do a lot of harm, even when they mean well. Domestic violence is not a matter of anger management. Abusers manage their anger very well, and can stop on a dime and turn on the charm when they want to.  Most churches, at least the ones I know of, never have a domestic violence agency come in and train their leaders. This is why most of the people in the pews don’t bother reaching out to church leaders for help. It isn’t there.

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Anyway, I thought I had made myself pretty clear, both in what I had written and in the phone interviews, but I think that in the end the editors of the magazine tried to make my story fit their story. I think that what they wanted was a part on spiritual abuse, and pulled bits and pieces from what I had written and said about my own experience in order to do so. The problem is that while my husband was emotionally, physically and verbally abusive, the spiritual abuse, if any, came from the church, not him.  (I personally don’t consider my disappointment about not being able to go to Bible college to be abuse at all). They completely missed the fear and danger of what my daughters and I went through.

The part about what the elder’s wife said is true, unfortunately, but that is not the point at which I “quit reaching out and started praying I’d find a way out.” The truth is, I never did actually reach out to begin with; help found me, first from my primary care doctor, and then from a pastor at a different church than the one we were attending. The part about my pastoral counselor isn’t true at all; she never said that, or even implied it. All I said in the phone interview was that I made the mistake (huge mistake) of having my husband go along with me to my counseling in the first place, and that he controlled the whole thing from the beginning. But my counselor was never his counselor, and we didn’t go to her for marriage counseling.  Looking back, I can see that maybe I didn’t make that clear.  I thought I did, but I was so upset at the time that it’s possible that I didn’t.  I had to look over all of the notes from the police reports and court appearances in order to send the facts of the charges and orders of protection for the magazine, and in reading the court reports I can see that the counselor honestly thought we were there for marriage counseling, when, in fact, the counseling was for me. I knew I needed a witness and an advocate, and help with the grief and anger I was trying to deal with on my own.  I knew that whatever I was facing was going to be too heavy – too difficult – for me to handle by myself. Friends and family can love and support you, and they did, but they can be too emotionally involved sometimes to be of much practical help. I just needed the facts regarding adultery, from him, because those were the facts I believed I needed in order to decide what to do about divorce. I didn’t know that it was okay to leave an abusive situation if you were a Christian; I was never taught that. He went, because he wanted someone to validate him and protect his reputation; and to make sure that my counselor didn’t believe me.

I also wanted to make it clear to the editors that I, like most women, didn’t stay in the marriage because of “low self-esteem”. The average woman will leave an abusive situation an average of seven times.  The church leaders (at the time) had a “three-times-and-you’re-out” policy, meaning that they would help and support you no more than three times, and if your situation didn’t improve, then they were done with you, and you were on your own. There was absolutely no knowledge or awareness of domestic violence, or how to help people in crisis. The most dangerous times for any woman in a domestic violence situation are when she is pregnant, or during the first six months after leaving.  Another huge reason woman stay, and something I stressed to the writer, is the issue of finances. When women leave an abusive situation, they, along with their children, quite often fall immediately below poverty level. If all you have ever been is a stay-at-home mom, and in my case, a home-schooling mom, and all you have is one car, which he is going to get to take with him; and no viable means of getting employment and health insurance, you’re going to do your best to make that marriage work. Losing your house is not a small thing, especially if you have children; in our case, it has resulted in years of moving and instability that have only made things worse, not better.  I’ve never had the chance to get better, because I’m always trying to keep a roof over our head and the lights on. I can’t remember a day that hasn’t been clouded by grief and worry for over fifteen years. There are no ‘happy’ days, although there are happy moments, albeit few and far between.

Having said all of that, years of physical and verbal/emotional abuse do take a toll, and yes, your self-esteem suffers. When all you hear, day after day, is “No one will ever love you – no man in his right mind will ever want you – even your counselor is going to see what you are and reject you” (and she did, in the end) it hurts.  You don’t feel attractive, you don’t feel pretty, you don’t feel wanted. You feel pathetic. Rejection and fear are the feelings you learn to live with on a daily basis. The physical abuse is simply too embarrassing and too difficult to write about, to be honest. The whole thing is humiliating.

The one quote in the article that is exactly what I said is that “divorce doesn’t end abuse, it merely changes it. It may not be happening in your living room any more, but it happens on the phone, in the driveway, at school events and soccer games.” The church still shuns you, although they let you know in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they are “praying for you and hoping you come back to the Lord.” I didn’t fall away from the Lord however, or ever lose my faith in God, although I’ve lost it in people. On the contrary this experience has deepened my faith in God. The person who actually helped, in the end, wasn’t my own pastor but was Pastor John Carter, from Abundant Life Christian Center in Syracuse, N.Y.  He is the only person I actually ever saw confront my husband about the violence in our home (on the midway at the State Fair, of all places) and I will forever be grateful for that, and for his help and counsel.  I went to Abundant Life after the divorce because I felt safe there. The counselor helped in that it she provided a safe place to go and try to deal with all of it. Sometimes we need to pay someone to just sit still and hear us.  To be both a presence and a witness to our grief, and sometimes, but not always, a friend.

Anyway, I thought that everything I said in the interview was all very clear. The problem, I believe, lies with the magazine editors, not the writer of the article. She seemed to understand what I was saying, and as a counselor myself, I know how difficult it can be to try to write a verbatim account of everything that was said in an interview, especially if you don’t know them personally.  It’s easy to make a mistake, or to get a wrong impression, no matter how hard you try to be accurate. When the ‘fact-checker’ editor from the magazine called me, I did tell her that she did not have the facts quite right, and tried to correct her, but she seemed to already have the story written as far as the magazine was concerned. I told her that the quote from my counselor was incorrect, and asked that it not be included, but for some reason, they wrote it into the article anyway.

I am horrified to see that they quoted her as having said something she did not ever say, or even imply, and to see it when I got my issue last week was extremely upsetting. I can’t fix it, no matter how sorry I am, and have had a difficult week worrying about it all of it. Any relief I had from finally being able to tell my story has been ruined by the error, however unintentional it may have been. After six long months of waiting for this story to come out, I don’t think I’ve done anything but cry since it did. Believe me when I say that I haven’t slept in a week. I am just so disappointed.

What I learned from this whole experience is that the story that results from an interview is not necessarily going to be written at all the way it was said. I will never read an article again without thinking I wonder if that’s how it really happened? I learned that from now on I will write my own articles, and tell my own story.  I may not get it all right, but at least I will know why, and where the problem lies.

 

Over the Falls, by Hugo First

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

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profile_236971163_75sq_1350264225I feel like my daughter and I have just been drifting alone in a tiny boat for the last year, knowing the edge was getting closer, and we were going to go over, but I was completely unable to do anything about it.  And go over we did, in July, because there was nothing to hold onto, and nobody was watching.

It’s amazing how your life can just quietly come to a complete stop- can end-  while the rest of the world just goes on without you.  We went over the edge, and nobody noticed.  Everything just disappeared.

I’m not who I was before this all happened.  I feel it when I sit down to work and don’t know what to write, or when I pick up a pencil and don’t remember how to draw, or a paintbrush and can’t paint.  Or play the piano.

I see neither pillar nor cloud.  Just unending darkness.

The God that I have created in my head is not the God of the Bible.  This thought occurred to me the other night when I was out walking.  The God in my head is impersonal, detached. Critical, and somewhat harsh;  usually irritated, if not angry. Punitive.  I don’t even know how or when everything changed, I only know that it has.  I see Him as another person to whom I don’t measure up;  another place where I am not wanted, or am no longer free to go.  I don’t see Him (in my mind) as the loving, gentle, forgiving God of mercy I read about in scripture.

I cannot serve both.

Forgiveness is hard work.  Not impossible, but hard.

A Collage of Many Colors

11 Friday Apr 2014

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CIMG0396In order to tell the whole story, I have to go back to how I met my counselor in the first place.  On July 8, 2000, I was invited to an event by a friend, who was, at the time, attending the church I go to now. This all came about because of something that had happened at my old church.  When my marriage fell apart, I started meeting with one of the elder’s wives.  This was not for counseling, but for spiritual guidance and accountability.  I made it clear in the beginning that this was all I was looking for.  I did not want to become somebody’s ‘project’ and said so.  My doctor had suggested that I talk to her, because I refused to go to a counselor, and I finally agreed.  I found out much later that this woman was in training to be a counselor for the church, but I didn’t know this at the time, and she never mentioned it.

It turned into a nightmare.

Somehow, she got the idea that the extreme grief I was experiencing as a result of what I was going through with my husband was really because I had been abused as a child;  specifically, ritual abuse.  (If you’re not familiar with this, bear with me, as this could all sound a bit odd.  If you are familiar with it, well, I’m sorry.)  It all culminated with a meeting in the Pastor’s office one day, when he was out of town.  I had thought it odd when she said that she wanted to meet there, instead of in her office, as we usually did.  When I got there, my best friend was already in the room.  I found out later that she was also being mentored by this woman as a counselor-in-training (I hadn’t known this, either) and, lo and behold, I was the person they were practicing on.  I have no idea what transpired between them, or how or why my friend came to be in the room that day, and had no idea what was about to happen.  As we sat down at the table, the elders’ wife said, with a nervous laugh, “If he (meaning the pastor) only knew what we were doing in here today, he would never allow it.”  That should have been my cue to leave the room.

I don’t know what made this woman think that grief from a broken and abusive marriage warranted a ‘deliverance’ session, but apparently she believed it did.  It was a humiliating and painful hour;  I sat frozen through most of it.  I could not look my friend in the eye, and the friendship ended soon after.  I had never, to my knowledge, told her anything that would have led her to participate in such an event, and could only imagine the talking that had happened between the two of them behind my back.  At one point, before they started praying and ‘casting out demons’, the elders’ wife put a wastebasket next to me, as she had heard that “people sometimes throw up when the demons come out.”  Really.

To my knowledge, the pastor never did find out what happened in his absence, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anybody.  I did, finally, tell the elders’ wife that I had heard that she was in training to be a counselor for the church, under the leadership of the person teaching our biblical counseling class.  I only found this out when I signed up for the class myself;  the unwitting secretary had told me, and suddenly, everything made sense.  So, when I asked her “Do the other church leaders think that you are my counselor?” she became very angry, and said she would no longer meet with me, or help me in any way.  And so, we were done.  Immediately.  And she stopped speaking to me completely, even in church.  But, she kept something of mine, and hid it in her husband’s office without telling me, or asking if I minded that she put it there.  (Since my husband golfed with her husband, I would have minded very much.)

At one point in meeting with this woman (before the casting-out party) she had asked me to make a collage;  it was a project from a book that she had ordered for the bookstore.  I thought it was somewhat juvenile when she suggested it, but went home, borrowed some of my daughters’ glue sticks from her home school supplies, and sat down with a pile of magazines and a pair of scissors.  I started cutting out pictures, and little snippets of headings, and parts of sentences.  I couldn’t find anything sturdy enough to use as a backing, so I took the cover off an old copy of the church directory, and glued the pieces around the logo of the church.  So much of my pain was about the church, and my experience there, that it seemed fitting, and made the finished collage make sense.  To the right of the center fold was everything about the church and my divorce, and my adult life, and the left was about my childhood and growing up.  (For the most part).  This wasn’t really planned, but is just how it worked out.  I worked on it for at least three days straight, and did very little else during this time.  The collage really created itself, as most artwork does.  I can remember it clearly, if I think hard enough, but it, too, is gone now.  I cry about that, a lot.

After I finished the collage, I took it to her, and we did talk about it a little, but it seemed to be a bit too much for her, so we put it away.  Actually, she put it away, and that was how it ended up in her husbands’ office.  When I finally asked for it back, she told me where it was, and went down the hall to get it.  But it was ruined;  without even so much as asking me first, she had put it through the laminating machine in the office.  She said she was worried that all the little pieces of paper would come unglued, and she had hoped it would come out of the machine okay.  Then she said that she was going to use it to show to other people she was meeting with.  There was nothing about ritual abuse, only a lot of hurt and confusion, all poured out on paper.  Some of it was spiritual, and some was about abuse, but none of it was intended to be about the things that were in the books she was ordering.  (About ritual abuse, which I had never heard of until I met her, and started reading these books.)  I have no idea how many people in the church she showed it to, without my knowledge or consent.  Only God knows.  To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.  So, this is how it came to be that my friend, out of sheer desperation, said she wanted me to meet this counselor, who went to her church, and was going to be speaking at a women’s event in July.

I don’t believe that all therapy needs to be an intensive archeological dig, but mine did, only because of what I brought with me.  I brought my collage, and wanted my counselor to help me make sense out of it.  I desperately needed help.  I was a confused, depressed mess.  Although, come to think of it, that is how most people end up in a therapists’ office, so I guess there’s nothing all that strange about that.  What is strange is how it all ended.  But we’re not making a collage of that.  Or anything else, for that matter.

 

 

Savage Wolves and Jezebels

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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Leighton, Frederic - Jezabel and Ahab - c.1863

Leighton, Frederic – Jezabel and Ahab – c.1863 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I want to explain what happened as I remember it, because I want this to be an accurate and truthful account of everything as much as is humanly possible.  If I misrepresent anything, or leave any part out, that has not been my intent, and I’m sorry.  I am not sure when all of this started, but will never forget, nor will I ever get over, how it all ended.

There were two women who used to go to my old church, the Chapel, back while I was going through my divorce.  They had both started attending my current church long after I did, although at different times.  They were also both clients of my pastoral counselor (I believe) and at the same time were also meeting with another leader on staff.  (The Blond Elder.)  I’m not sure why.  One of the woman was also a client at my place of employment, which was a local domestic violence agency.  She and I shared the same legal advocate.

One day, one of the women (who was the wife of my ex-husbands’ best friend at the time) called me at home, and said she had the other woman with her, and wanted her to talk to me because of a situation she was dealing with in her marriage.  Both women knew where I worked, and why and how my own marriage ended, so they thought I could help.  The other woman then got on the phone and proceeded to tell me what had occurred with her husband.  She also said that she was seeing my counselor, and had been told by her something to the effect of “If she just took her medicine, her husband wouldn’t do those things.”  This is the gist of what she said to me, although I honestly can’t remember her exact words.  I did not want to get involved AT ALL, because it sounded like a mess, and I didn’t want to be put in the middle, and risk my job or my counseling. So, I told her that whether she took a medication or not, what her husband did was wrong, and she needed to call the crisis line where I worked.  That is all that I said to her.  I didn’t malign my counselor;  in fact, I defended her, and said that I was sure that wasn’t what she meant (if she said it at all) and made it clear that I wouldn’t be put in a position of being in the middle.  I don’t know what the woman thought she heard, or where things went wrong, or who she said what to after we hung up, but somehow I guess it was conveyed as though I had told her not to take her medicine, and not to listen to my counselor, but to go to Vera House instead.

It’s not what I said at all.  I don’t believe she was lying;  I honestly think she was just too upset and too high-strung at the time to hear anybody clearly.  I certainly would never have told anyone not to take their medication.  However, I hung up and didn’t think any more of it until I got a call at work from one of the women, who told me that there was a meeting scheduled at the church “for 4:00 on Monday.”  She said that the two of them, myself, and my counselor, along with at least one of the elders and another staff member were going to be there, and that we were all in trouble.  (Me and the other two clients.)  Well, I worked, at the time, every week until 5:00 on Mondays, so it wouldn’t have been possible for me to be there even if someone from the church had called to see when I was available.  I hung up with the woman who called, and immediately called the church myself and found out that yes, this meeting was already scheduled, but neither my counselor nor anyone else had called to tell me about it.  Everyone else knew about it except me;  I’m not sure why.  Nor had anyone called to even see if any of this was true, or asked me what I actually did say.  It would have resolved the whole thing, and none of this would ever have happened.  One phone call.

So, I said to the woman who answered the phone that I had to work until 5:00 on Monday, and that I couldn’t possibly come to this meeting.  I also said it sounded like it would be a conflict of interests, and that I would have to ask our senior legal advocate at Vera House what to do, as she was also my advocate.  I was worried this would cause problems at work, and the whole situation had ‘conflict of interest’ and ‘confidentiality’ problems written all over it.  I didn’t want to lose my job, although I did shortly after, as a result of all of this.

You know that game where kids sit in a circle, and whisper a sentence into the ear of the person next to them, who then turns and whispers it to the next person, and so on around the circle until what the sentence repeated at the end is nowhere near what was originally said?  That’s what happened next.  As far as I can tell, what ended up being said to my counselor was “Stacey refuses to come to the meeting without a lawyer.”  I don’t know how this happened, or who turned it into that;  I only know what has been told to me, first by the blond elder, and later confirmed by my counselor. (All of which I wrote about in a previous post;  this is how all of that happened, and why the elder was telling people to stay away from me.  So she said, anyway.)

I wrote a letter to the elder, while still at work, and as soon as I left I drove to the church and asked to speak with her.  I went upstairs, and she read the letter while I sat there.  She agreed with some of it, but then said that there was no confidentiality when it came to my personal counseling and the church, and that they had “an open book policy”.  I said that my counselor was my privately paid service provider, and as such, any concerns involving me should be handled by her supervisor, herself and me, except in cases of informed consent, which I couldn’t give, because I hadn’t been informed.  I also made a copy for my counselor, and an extra one for the pastor, in case anyone ever asked exactly what I said.  I wanted to speak for myself.

She disagreed.

What hurt was that my counselor had never called in the first place to talk to me about any of this.  I don’t know why.  I only know it hurt.

I carried this hurt with me to my counseling, along with the letter for my counselor, because it was important to me to clear this up.  I knew it would affect  the counseling process, and didn’t want it to. I believed that anything we talked about openly could be dealt with, and resolved.  Healed.  I still believe this.

But, she refused to read the letter, and suddenly said she didn’t want to be involved, and that it wasn’t about her.  The problem was that she was the one who called the original meeting, so it did involve her, even though it wasn’t about her.

This became a problem, mostly because I wouldn’t let it go. This is how it happened that one day several months later (yes, I did drag this out that long) she asked “why she should believe me over other people who are more credible.”  And that stung.  I should have dropped it long before, but for reasons God and I alone understand, I didn’t.  And she was understandably frustrated, and angry.  At the end of that appointment (this was in early summer of 2010)  she turned to me at the door and said something to the effect of “You need to go home and look up the spirit of Jezebel, because you have that spirit all over you.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but was embarrassed and sick over the whole thing.  It hurt like hell, and I made more and more mistakes at work, huge mistakes, and cried all the time, while sitting at the front desk.  My lack of focus and poor performance eventually cost me my job in the first week of July.  I wasn’t sleeping at all, or eating, and was exhausted all the time.  I’m not angry with Vera House for firing me, I’m angry at how they did it, but that’s another story for another time.  My counseling continued, and I tried to not bring any of this up any more, but I guess it was still there under the surface.  I still wanted the whole misunderstanding “fixed”.  It just bothered me that it had all happened in the first place, and no one had ever done anything to set things straight.

“He who conceals a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separateth [very] friends.”  Proverbs 17:9

I blame myself for not letting this matter go;  it was only important to me, but looking back, it should have made no difference to my therapy.  I had things said about me back in high school that were not true, and I think a lot of this triggered old stuff that I have never even yet talked to my counselor about.  For no real reason, other than the fact that we were dealing with the whole immediate divorce crisis.  And I made a complete and total mess of that;  brought it with me, in fact, from my old church, and it is so much my own fault for wasting so much time over things that either didn’t happen, or weren’t all that important.  I may have been confused, but I was also just extremely stupid.

Fast forward to the week of Halloween in October of 2010:  I had fallen asleep on the couch one night;  I was home alone, and it was late.  I slept with the television on, and when I woke up, there was a program on that I don’t normally watch.  It was Criminal Minds, which is an extremely graphic fictional program about solving murders.  I do like forensic shows, but not this one.  I was too tired to get up and find the remote, so the program went on, and I continued to lay there, and half watched it, and half slept.  It caught my attention finally, because it turned out that the murderer in this particular episode was killing all of the women in his town whom he believed to be ‘Jezebels’.  He targeted women who were cheating on their husbands, and then trapped and killed them by tying them up, and letting them be eaten by dogs somewhere out in the woods.  Throughout the show, they went back and forth to the scriptures about Jezebel in the Bible, and how she was eaten by dogs for her sins, and the end of the show was the most horrific, bloody, terrifying scene of the murder of the last victim.

I should never have watched this.

Extremely distraught, all I could think was “Oh my God, this is what she thinks of me?  That I should be eaten by dogs?”  And then I did what ultimately ended it all.  I went to the computer, still groggy and half-asleep, and sent her an email saying how upset I was at what had happened to my counseling;  how frustrated I was with all of it, and ready to give up.  Not because of her; because of me.  I don’t remember exactly what I wrote;  I don’t believe I wrote anything bad about her, just how I felt about the whole situation.  The whole mess.  Never heard anything back.  By the next morning, I had a sinking realization that I probably shouldn’t have done that, and that she would most likely be upset, but was totally unprepared for what happened when I walked into my next appointment.

The moment she came into the waiting room to get me, I knew it was bad.  We sat down in her office, and I think she asked if I had anything to say.  I didn’t know what to say.  I remember feeling very cold.  She said she was sure that I was aware that this would be my last appointment, and that she was done;  she would no longer be my counselor.  This is very difficult to write about, and I’m not really sure of everything that was said.  I knew she was extremely, extremely angry;  it was one of the most humiliating and traumatizing things I have ever been through.  I was numb with fear and unbelief.  I could not believe what I had done.  She said she would “refer me to another counselor” and do whatever she had to do to facilitate that, but that she herself would no longer work with me.  I don’t know that anyone has ever been that angry, or said such harsh things to me.  I don’t know how I made it out of the office, or through the rest of the day.  It was surreal.  That day will forever be part of me, and I can’t ever get away from the memory of it- from the feeling of the memory.  Not even for five minutes.  I wasn’t allowed to explain at all, nor did we talk about the email, which is what I had expected.  I did not expect ten years of therapy to end, suddenly, without warning, right in the middle of the work we were doing.  So this is what I mean when I say that “We ended over a very bad episode of Criminal Minds” because, in effect, we did.  Ten years of the hardest work I have ever done, thrown away, in less than an hour.  Over.

Finding the right therapist happens once in a lifetime;  it’s a one-shot deal, and this was mine. I waited my whole life for it, knowing God would eventually send someone to help me, and He did.  She and I both knew it when I first asked her to be my counselor;  she said God spoke to her in that moment and told her she was supposed to help me.  My pastor confirmed this.  It doesn’t happen twice, nor will it. This is the person God ordained to walk alongside me on this journey;  it is the person He sent to help me, from back when I was a little girl.  Our lives had intersected long before we had ever met, in the way that only God can weave two lives together, for a purpose that lies far ahead in the future.  There is no one else I would have trusted, and I considered her to be not only my counselor, but also a mentor, and a friend.  I both loved and respected her;  still do, in spite of all of this, especially considering how much of it all is my own fault.

I will not ever trust anyone to this degree again.  Not ever.

My counselor has a small sign, or plaque, in her office;  she bought it in an antique shop one day when she was out for a walk.  It says something like “God will not look you over for medals, or degrees, but for scars” or something to that effect.  Had I known I would never see it again, I would have made a point of memorizing it, because that sign was the thing that had told me from the very beginning that I was in the right place for me.  It is my favorite thing in the office, and I miss it.

I also wanted to say that she did, that same evening of that horrible day, call and apologize for saying the statement about Jezebel, and said she never intended to call me that, or imply anything by it.  I sincerely believe her.  I have said many things in my own anger that I hope people can forgive me for.  But we have never reconciled, or healed, or resolved anything else.  Things remain as they are, or rather, as they were left that day in her office.  The day (that first week of November) was the day before I was to start a new job.  I lost that job shortly after, and the next one, because of how this has affected me.  I am currently on disability, because I just can’t meet any employers expectations, nor do I care to.  My grades immediately fell, as I was in my last year at Syracuse University at the time, and I cannot now get into graduate school to finish my Master’s degree.  Everything has fallen apart.  I’m not doing anything until this is resolved.  Can’t do anything;  can barely function.  For me, every day is November 4th, 2010.  Time stopped that day, and all I am doing is going through the motions, because I have to. Only because I have to.  This has destroyed everything;  my life, my health, my home, and my ability to trust people.  My hope.

I will not ever go to another counselor;  like I said,  this happens once in a lifetime, and she is the person ordained by God for me.  Not because it’s about her, but because that is what God intended.  I know this to be true;  I had it, and I lost it, mostly by my own doing.  She helped in more ways than she will ever know, in spite of everything that happened to threaten the whole process along the way.  And a hell of a lot happened.  In saying that the ten years were wasted, all I meant was that it is a waste if this is how it ends.  I am at a complete loss out in the world on my own;  counseling helped me to get, and keep, a job;  to go to school;  to deal with trying to raise two girls on my own.  It gave me a safe and private place to deal with stress, and emotions, and fears, both real and unreal.  I will not do this outside of the privacy of that office, and all of my undone work is still in there.  Still needs to be done there.  Not forever;  in my silly, stupid fantasy life that all avoidants have, I thought that once we had worked through the trauma of my divorce, and what that all meant for me, that she would help me learn how to deal with people, especially men, which I am definitely not good at.  I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.  She’s a pastor;  I thought that she would help me learn how to date, or interact with people, so that I could eventually meet someone and get remarried, without making the same fear-based mistakes I made the first time around.  I knew I needed someone not only for accountability, but to help me work through the issues I will most assuredly have when it comes time for that. Then I figured I eventually wouldn’t need her anymore, and my therapy would come to gradual and healthy end, and I would know when I was ready to move on.  It’s how good therapy should end.

I was not ready for this.

Know this:  As much as God has a plan for your life, so does the enemy.  And he will use everything and everyone he can use to keep God’s purposes from coming to pass in your life;  when he cannot tempt you into outright sin, he will use distraction.  If that doesn’t work, he will cause dissension.  His ultimate goal is always destruction.  I walked blindly into this one, and didn’t see it for what it was.  This was my fault, and I have been left in a mess I can’t get out of, but I still trust God.  If He truly ordained this, as I believe He did, then no demon in Hell can destroy what God calls and ordains.

I have tried to write only what I know, and believe to be true.  I’m tired of writing around things, and not feeling free to be more direct because of what people will think. I don’t want to hurt, or misrepresent, anybody or anything.  There is so much more that could be written, but this is already long.  I am tired.

So good-night.

A Lie by Any Other Name….

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Small Bird

Small Bird (Photo credit: e_monk)

Some people have letters after their name;  I have numbers.  This is so that, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (a ridiculously over-priced book)  if I sneeze sideways, someone, somewhere, will be able to diagnose and treat me for it.  It insures that they will get paid to do so;  hence the word ‘insurance.’

Sincere and well-meaning people have tried to convince me that my problem is a chemical imbalance, and that taking a pill will fix this.  (i.e.  make life easier for everyone else.)  Having not been stuck with the requisite needle so that the evidence of my low serotonin could be dropped into a test tube and measured (against what?)  I wasn’t buying it.

“Depression is just like diabetes, and you would take your treatment for that, wouldn’t you?”  Depression is not at all like diabetes;  this isn’t rocket science, and doesn’t require a specialist to connect the dots.  If you’ve ever been depressed and suicidal, you know that it is not like having cancer, or diabetes, or anything else for that matter.  My brain is working just fine, thank you.  But I’m sad, and could say why, if anyone cared to ask.  Grief is not mental illness.

Our pastor sat down with me a few years ago and tried a different approach. (He had already tried the ‘depression is the same as diabetes’ one).   “We read in the Bible that God delivers us out of everything we’re going through.”

I looked at him thinking:  “Shipwrecked, imprisoned, sawn-asunder, beheaded, and burned at the stake.  So don’t give me that crap.”  Sorry, but that really is what I was thinking at the time.  Still do, come to think of it.

There is a reality here, but that is not it.  We don’t see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane saying “This isn’t happening, and I’m really not here.”  To say any less is to make a mockery of the cross.  Christ was in so much mental and emotional anguish that his blood cells burst their boundaries and poured out.

When I saw the movie the Passion, I was in such deep grief and emotional numbness that the thought that Christ, and Christ alone, knows how badly I feel, was immensely comforting.

This is not to say that God never delivers us, but that he does not always deliver us, especially from consequences, whether our own, or the fact that we live, most of the time, with the consequences of others’ choices, like it or not.  There is a Heaven, but we’re not there yet.

Sometime after that meeting with the pastor, it got back to me that one of the elders was telling people they shouldn’t be friends with me.  As juvenile as this sounds (and was) she admitted, when asked, that yes, that was exactly what she had been up to.  (This did not at all have anything to do with the pastor, who in all likelihood has little knowledge of any of what has transpired under his watch.  It’s a big church, and no man in his right mind wants to get caught up in witch hunts and cat-fighting.  This is what delegating authority is for.)

So I said to this woman “In all the years that our daughters have been friends, you and I have never had a five-minute conversation.  You have never sat down with me over coffee, or made any attempt to get to know me.”  (A Biblical mandate, by the way, for the elder [spiritually mature] women in the church.)  “So what in the world are you basing this on?”

She blinked several times before admitting that  yes, she had been telling people to stay away from me.  She had “heard that I had problems with people at my old church, and she also heard…..and…”  and proceeded to tell me with blond certainty that she had been doing this out of the goodness of her heart, to protect the innocent and unsuspecting, who might choose to befriend me, or actually get to know me.  All because of “what she had heard”.  Nor would she tell me where and from whom she was gathering all these ‘facts’.

My counselor had also asked me once, in a session in which we were discussing this mess a couple of years ago, why she (my counselor) should believe me over “other people who are more credible.”  Another head-scratching moment, and those people also remain unnamed, presumably to protect the innocent.

I said (to the elder):  “That would be gossip.  And you should know better.”

And she proceeded to tell me that she had heard that, too;  that I had a problem submitting to authority.

That would also be gossip.  My problem at the Chapel wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to submit to authority,  it was that I would not participate in a lie, and was stupid enough to say so.

She left me alone at the altar and went up the aisle to leave the sanctuary  (there’s irony here, but I don’t want to stop for it)  but then suddenly turned on her little pointed heels and hurried back down the aisle, coming right up close to me.  Squinting, she hissed fervently:  “I pray for you, Stacey.  And do you know why I pray for you?”

No, actually, I hadn’t figured prayer was at all a factor in any of her shenanigans.

“Because I ALWAYS pray for the underdog.”  And with that final thrust, she tottered back up the aisle and out the back of the church.

I still to this day have not figured out what an appropriate response on my part would have been.  Well, gosh, golly, gee;  thank you.  Where in the world would I be without all those heart-felt prayers?

A pill is not going to fix this.  It may make me numb to the fact that I am sad, but it definitely won’t do what a simple re-training of the staff would do.  This particular nut wouldn’t have to be re-trained, as she is now practicing her dramatic talents elsewhere, and the other part of this equation won’t talk to me without a ‘third party present’.  (What in the world for, I don’t know.  It’s not necessary;  we’re big girls, and should be able to sit down and talk.  Without an interested but uninvolved bystander.)

Anyway.

Mental illness is largely a social construct;  part of what we do in therapy is to de-construct the cage society builds around us and hopefully, become fully alive to who we are, and in so doing, become free to be who we really are.  It’s not a biological disease; you can’t “catch” mental illness.  If you were to take one person from each of the thirteen committees that made up the team presiding over the current revision of the DSM, and put each of them in a room, alone, and asked them to write on an index card their own definition of the term mental illness, you would end up with thirteen different (albeit possibly similar) definitions.  Put them all together and charge $199.00 for it, and you would have our current Bible for diagnosing the realities of everyday life in our culture.  Or, you could ignore the labels so judiciously provided by these self-proclaimed experts, and get on with the business of living your life.  If you have one, that is.

In all honesty, this is what is supposed to happen when we become disciples of Christ.  As we read the Word, we become aware of who we are in Christ (meaning we learn to see ourselves as God sees us) and as a result, our lives become fully authenticated, and we become less susceptible to the rants and petty grievances of blond elders and pastors.

Lest you think I have something against blond hair, I can assure you that my own hair color comes straight from a bottle.  As long as my behavior doesn’t, I figure it’s all good.

And this is where elders, and pastors and counselors come in.  To open the Word, and show us that, in spite of all of our flaws, and failures, and outright wrong behavior (sin) God does indeed still love us.  And we come to know this as the people who represent Him treat us with respect, and grace, and mercy.

Anything less, according to Scripture, is to disqualify yourself as a minister.

“I warn and counsel the elders among you (the pastors and spiritual guides of the church) as a fellow elder and as an eyewitness [called to testify] of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a sharer in the glory (the honor and splendor) that is to be revealed (disclosed, unfolded);

Tend (nurture, guard, guide, and fold) the flock of God that is [your responsibility], not by coercion or constraint, but willingly;  not dishonorably motivated by the advantages and profits [belonging to the office], but eagerly and cheerfully;

Not domineering [as arrogant, dictatorial, and overbearing persons] over those in your charge, but being examples (patterns and models of Christian living) to the flock (the congregation).”   – I Peter 5:1-3 (Amplified)

When Success Fails

22 Saturday Sep 2012

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Saint George Preca has been likened as a succe...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes all it takes is one bad phone call with a creditor to make all of your dreams of success fly out the window.  Especially if the person is rude, or abusive.  (Are there any who aren’t?)  Threats and bullying do not magically make money appear in your account.  How in the world do these people sleep at night?

Many Americans are out of work;  housing, utilities, gas and food take most of our money.  Throw in some chronic health problems, or sudden illness or injury, and you have a mess.

It’s hard to remember that God is with us in our pain, not just on the other side of it.  I have been reading the book of 2 Timothy;  the letter Paul wrote to the young minister he had left in charge of the church in Ephesus.  Paul wrote the letter while he was in prison, knowing death was in the near future, while Timothy was dealing with everything from fear of Nero to church gossip.  Being young, not many thought he was capable of leadership.  Although he had a strong background of faith, he needed Paul’s encouragement and affirmation that he was called and anointed for the work of shepherding the people.

Our emotions can be stirred up by hearing or reading motivational material.  And it is good for us; it can give us a jump-start when we don’t have the energy to make necessary changes.  Encouragement helps.  A counseling session can be time well spent, if only for the emotional value of not feeling isolated.  It’s when you go home and face the bills, the phone calls, the expenses and repairs that you don’t have the resources for, that all of your motivation erodes.  Too much of it day after day, and you will end up in a hopeless cycle of despair.  It’s hard to remember that God is our provider;  our refuge and strength in times of trouble.  Even knowing he has miraculously provided in the past doesn’t always make fear go away.  It’s not as tangible as, say, an unexpected windfall that magically erases stacks of overdue bills.  Hard, but not impossible to persevere and stay the course, no matter what happens.  Laser-like focus is necessary just to keep going.  Like Paul we should be able to say:  “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”  2 Timothy 4:7

 

Recipes for Blessing in a Time of Battle

18 Saturday Aug 2012

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List of breads

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night the Pastor spoke about a vision he had a few years ago.  It concerned three angels;  one was holding a stopwatch, one was holding a trumpet, and the third was holding a sword in one hand, and three large books in the other.  This angel was preparing believers for battle (the sword) by providing instruction concerning “Battle Prayers”  such as Psalm 25, 26, 27, 37, and 51 to pray and declare over our lives; the second book was a book of “Songs of Thanksgiving” (which is a form of spiritual warfare) and  the third book was a book of specific instructions, like a cookbook.  The instructions are like recipes; to be followed exactly, not only for increasing blessing and prosperity in a time of battle, but  so that we can be prepared for the times to come.  For the people who will come.  For those of us who have been Christians for a very long time, much of this should be habit by now.  Because we are so unprepared and undisciplined, we live sloppy, unfruitful lives. Many in the Church are finding themselves going back to what they were taught in the beginning, and trying to make up for lost time, myself included. We are not yet ready.

Today I am making banana bread for the baby’s first birthday party.  I suddenly realized the cookbook was lying on the counter unopened;  I have made this so many times, and am so familiar with the recipe, that it’s now habit.  This is how familiar we should be with the Word of God;  the best strategy is to prepare before the battle: in times of peace, and prosperity.

I lost focus for a while;  grief caught me off guard, and while God sustained me emotionally and physically, my faith has been eroded with all of the ups and downs of life.  I feel that I was much stronger spiritually than I am now.  Not sure if it is due to depression, medication, or distraction, but the fact is I am not where I was.  A lot of it is due to the experience I went through in the church (hence the medication) but I do know that a lot of that was part of the enemy’s strategy to take me out of  a place I was called to.  It’s difficult to stay the course when things are said, or done that are not fair.  When people cause such pain that it leaves scars and memories that hurt and distract when you’re trying to keep focused.  It’s hard not to want to defend yourself, or run away.

The pastor also spoke about words, and the danger of idle words, or returning evil for evil.  Blessing someone who has done you great harm takes more strength than I have.  It also seems stupid.  Aren’t we supposed to assert ourselves, and confront those who irritate us?  Isn’t being compassionate kind of wishy-washy?

I realized a long time ago that I can be polite and still set boundaries.  I’m not good at it, but am aware of it.  It’s possible to be courteous to those who have been rude, or who have spread gossip, in an effort to impress those who have chosen them as leaders.  Those are the things we take to God, in our private and personal prayer time (or on the spot when necessary)  and leave on the altar before Him,  while getting our instruction for what to do next.  Right now, the instruction is to prepare:  to study the Word and get our lives in order.  But first I have to finish making the banana bread.

“Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.”      II Timothy 2:15 (Amp)

In Retrospect

13 Monday Aug 2012

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Barnes and noble

Barnes and noble (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, . . . nothing shall be impossible unto you.”   Matthew 17:20

Much of my life has been sabotaged by anxiety.  I was driving to Barnes and Noble last night, and decided to listen to Pastor Carters’ message from a couple of weeks ago on the way.  Two things have stood out to me in recent weeks.  One is that I do not truly understand the love of Christ for me.  Hear me out on this one, because it won’t make sense to those obsessed with doctrine, but I have loved God and His word for since I was a little girl.  What I have never been comfortable with is my relationship to, or with, Jesus.  In all honesty, I’m afraid of Him.  All of our cultural analogies (He’s a friend, a lover, a brother) make me uncomfortable.  The only role I’m comfortable with is that of Jesus as Teacher, as that one I can relate to. But as  the pastor was talking about Christ taking my place before God and bearing my sins for me; about being my advocate, I suddenly began to realize the mind of Christ towards me, and  the role He plays in my relationship with God as never before.  I cannot in all honesty fathom Christ actually praying for, or advocating for me, because I know me.  Nobody in their right mind would, and most of those who have promised to do so have jumped ship.

There are many books on the market, mostly geared toward women, that try to appeal to our sense of romance in order to illustrate our relationship with Christ.  Sorry, can’t relate to that either, having never been loved, or in love, for that matter.  (I did tell you the marriage ended, right?)  And those books make me uncomfortable.  Jesus as brother?  As peer?  As best friend?  I feel like Goldilocks;  nothing fits.  And, they seem to me to make Him less than in an effort to make Him approachable.  Less than Holy;  less than righteous;  less than the embodiment of the full power and authority of God.

When I was engaged to my husband, I was in spiritual torment.  There is a place marked and dated in my Bible, December 1, 1985.  It’s the story of Abraham in Genesis;  the supreme test of his faith, when God required him to lay his son on the altar. This particular day, while  I struggled with the knowledge that I should not be dating this person, I knew God was asking me to give this relationship up and lay it on the altar of my life.  What I failed to see until very recently, is that God provided a substitute when Abraham obeyed in spite of his broken heart.  I was so focused on what I would be losing (my only chance to have a relationship) that I never saw the whole story:  that in the end God provided something better.

The other thing that has stood out to me in the last couple of weeks has been the pastor’s encouragement to walk by faith, not by sight.  This will absolutely take  an act of the Holy Spirit,  as things don’t look very good right now.  In fact, the ship is sinking.  My hunch is that it will happen as a result of a growing awareness of God’s acceptance of me, and His willingness to provide a sacrifice in the form of Jesus.  While I have a difficult time with this, mostly due to our cultural clouding of who Jesus really is in relationship to us, I am aware of a growing understanding in this area of my life.  Without this understanding, walking by faith is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

So, those are my thoughts for the day.  Grow in the grace and knowledge of the sacrificial love of God, my friends.

Learning the Hard Way

11 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in The Journey

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English: The Arcadian or Pastoral State, secon...

English: The Arcadian or Pastoral State, second painting in The Course of Empire, by Thomas Cole (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Counseling was supposed to help me find my voice, but it didn’t;  at least not in the way that writing has.  I have a difficult time sitting in front of someone and talking about myself;  the whole setup is fraught with anxiety and performance-driven psycho-babble.  Over coffee with a close friend?  Yes, maybe.  And sometimes a good session is like that, and I leave feeling lighter, and hopeful.  Other times, interventions feel more like accusations, and I feel trapped, and say anything just to get the session over with so I can get out of there fast.  It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s just how I’m wired.

God doesn’t always redeem our circumstances, but he uses them to redeem us.  He can’t make the other person be willing to forgive, and restore a broken relationship.  He sends a Redeemer;  someone who can advocate for us, and plead our case.

Common sense and loving-kindness both require dealing with issues and facing the risk of a broken relationship.  Speaking up can be terrifying, and the consequences can be devastating.  Writing is so much easier.  Being a very passive person, I prefer avoidance, but maturity requires otherwise.  Communication is difficult;  it’s time-consuming, and often frustrating.

I don’t handle confrontation well.  Counseling was supposed to help me learn to be more assertive;  less timid, less afraid. My counselor assured me over and over again that I would become stronger, and not so insecure.  That I would learn how to handle situations that seem out of control, and terrifying.  I’m still waiting.

Someone told me once that I seem to have “an awful lot of angry people in my life.”  I didn’t know what to say.  He was right.

I miss my old friends.  I’m not good at phone calls, or actually getting together with people.  I am in my head, just not in reality.  I tend to seek out a safe person, and hide behind them.  I don’t mean to do it, I just can’t seem to help doing it.  Those who aren’t bewildered by it are irritated by it.  I’ve heard everything from “What the hell is wrong with you?”  to “Who do you think you are, one of us?”  Neither of which is helpful, and ultimately makes the problem worse, not better.  My counselor got tired of having to “prove herself” and that relationship also ended in an angry outburst, and hurt feelings and broken fellowship.  So much for that.  Can God redeem me?  Yes, of course.  Can the past be healed and restored?  I don’t know.  I only know that He who has promised is faithful.   And so I wait.  Worship and wait.

Be blessed, people.