Month: October 2016 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

When No Must Mean No: Setting Boundaries

It’s kind of odd, when you think about it, that people who otherwise have strong convictions on issues such as religion can be somewhat ambiguous when it comes to expressing disagreement, largely out of fear of offending someone. Nobody wants to have a lot of conflict going on, particularly in family gatherings, but at some point you do have to set and enforce your own boundaries.

We set boundaries in our lives all the time, often without recognizing them as such. How often have you decided you won’t discuss politics with that annoying co-worker, won’t bring up an issue with a relative who won’t respect your side, or have decided to leave the room when someone in your home watches a political pundit or televangelist you can’t tolerate?

A lot of trouble that occurs in a spiritually abusive setting happens either when we don’t set ground rules to govern our interactions with others or don’t enforce our own boundaries once set. Had I learned this particular lesson years ago, I might have saved myself a lot of aggravation.

One example I can think of: very persistent, unwanted church invitations, regardless of whether you have a church home or even have interest in one. At one time, I had to cope with a lot of this from United Pentecostal people, and know this is a very real problem whenever you have relatives or friends who don’t accept where you are on your spiritual journey.

Don’t leave it up in the air about whether you intend to follow up on their invitation. If you have no intention of going with them, nicely tell them you appreciate the invite, but you are not going.

If you do want to attend with them but aren’t interested in joining, make it clear that you are visiting – period. You don’t need to get into any theological objections.

Another thing I have observed, especially in social media interactions, is that some people with no respect for the beliefs of others treat social media as a free-for-all. In some cases, it is easier to control your interactions with others by restricting which posts those with no self-control can see and interact with.

We probably all have that family member or friend who gets hung up on the same few issues where it comes to religion. When they continually refuse to respect how others think or misrepresent opposing beliefs, your safest bet may be to nicely tell them the subjects in question are off-limits.

By nicely telling someone no or otherwise setting boundaries, you are controlling your interaction with them. Staying in control of the discussion makes things less frustrating all around.

Handling Adversity: Are You An Egg, Coffee or a Carrot?

A former boss sent me this awhile back and I thought it might help some people. I think it applies to those who have been exposed to unhealthy churches and spiritual abuse. Some become hardened to God and Christianity when they have been hurt in a church. We’ve seen people who, often for just a time, go out into the world and fall into various sins due to a reaction to their experience. We could take our past and turn it around, not allowing it to pull us under.

Think about it.

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A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity – boiling water. Each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, It releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; They just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

It’s easier to build a child than repair an adult.

May we all be COFFEE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iObc293g8wo

Pausing for a moment

I want to pause a moment from my other series and discuss on something major. Please feel free to offer insight as this subject is something I ponder and study quite often. The subject of tongues.

As I mentioned in my previous writings of “I Just Couldn’t Stay” this is kind of vulnerable for me to write about. My main questions are do tongues have to be an actual language for it to be real, or validated? How about where did the doctrine of the tongues in Acts are different from the tongues in Corinthians? I need some scriptures that say just that to see to difference.

Why is ok to add to the scripture the phrase “with the evidence of speaking in tongues” when it is not there at all? Yes, they spoke in tongues, but it doesn’t say “You shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues.” How come no other apostle in the New Testament spoke about tongues other than Paul? Why didn’t the others speak on it, especially the ones that where there on Pentecost day? If you have reference where they did please let me know.

I can remember some of the teachings and experiences on tongues in my former churches. The church I attend now believes in the “evidence of speaking in tongues” but not as a requirement for salvation. Salvation happens at repentance and placing ones’ faith in Jesus.

I ask these questions because I struggled in my early walk with Jesus. Most of the time what I heard come out of my mouth was not an actual language. When I asked about it was sometimes said “It’s okay mines sound different as well.” Then how is tongues languages? Does it have to be languages or what?

In Acts tongues were clear cut languages that were understood on the day of Pentecost. I go back to Pentecost because if you hold to the soteriology of Acts 2:38 then those tongues are what is important to get you saved. The tongues in Corinthians are just for a few folks who have the Holy Ghost. You can see where someone would be very concerned if they aren’t speaking something just right. If our whole salvation is based on water and Spirit doctrine, and tongues is what lets us know if we have the Spirit and you can’t get the Holy Ghost without speaking in tongues, then we better make sure it is done right, right?

I have heard ministers say some people fake tongues in their churches. I have so many things I could say about that but I’m not. During my early years, I can assure you I was not faking. I tried my best to speak in what I thought at the time was tongues. I would panic if I didn’t speak in tongues on a daily or weekly basis. When I told the pastor, who talked to me after my conversion that I got the Holy Ghost I was not faking. I truly believed I had gotten the Holy Ghost and no one was going to tell me different. I wasn’t going to spend the next few months and years fighting at the altar.

However, as time grew on I doubted that. I didn’t hear languages. I heard something I can’t explain. I prayed and prayed that God would give me a new tongue. After a while I believed he did. I was fine for awhile. Then I become enamored with tongues. It was a big deal to me. I reasoned that my whole salvation was tongues. If I didn’t speak in tongues I was not saved. When I went down to pray I would get horrible headaches from praying so hard to “stir up the gift that was inside me” ie. tongues. I hated to pray sometimes at home, for prayer meant tongues. Tongues, tongues, tongues, I had to have them. Forget faith, that was for only financial needs, healing needs, marriage needs, my husband to get saved needs, tongues were for salvation. I didn’t even know how to have faith for my salvation. Who needed that when you had tongues?

I would see people be in church for months and years to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The teachings I would hear on it was some didn’t get it because they had hidden sin. They were hiding hidden anger, porn, or whatever that kept them from getting it. One story was about a cop and God expected so much out of him because he carried a gun to work so he had to really get with it to get the Holy Ghost. I am not saying these stories are not true, I wasn’t there when the stories where taking place, only there to hear tell about them.

My questions are why does God make it so hard for one to get saved? Why do we have to get perfect for him to give us his Gift of the Spirit? I have some new beliefs on tongues and the Holy Spirit. Still sorting out some things on it though. What say you?….

Just Couldn’t Stay Part 4

Continued from Part Three.

I stopped everything. Pants, cutting my hair, make up, movies, music, friends, sometimes sex with the DH, being best friends with my DH, happiness, peace of mind and you can insert just about anything else and I stopped it. I got baptized to satisfy my mother and stop listening to her go on and on about it. I was okay with it, I had no problems. I was so caught up with this organization I didn’t even notice. I want to say I was so caught up in Jesus that I didn’t notice. Honestly I don’t know.

When I reflect on it now it seems like such a whirlwind. I know I loved God and was wanting to do it all for him, however I can’t lie and say I didn’t want to be a part of what I thought was going to save me. Being Apostolic Pentecostal was everything. We were not Christians, we were Apostolic for the mere word Christian was not good enough for us. That would put us in the category as everybody else. And we alone where the bride of Christ no one else was. They were not our brothers and sisters, atheists were more tolerated than non-oneness Pentecostals.

I remember after my second child was born praying for a new set of tongues because I wanted to hear an actual language. I prayed and fasted a very long time for this. I couldn’t stand the thought of going to Hell. Tongues was the Holy Ghost and without it you were not saved. Did I ever get it? I don’t really want to answer that question. I am still sorting out tongues. I believe whatever I do in prayer is real because it comes from my heart. I also believe in tongues because the bible talks about it, however the beliefs I once had about them is what I am sorting out. That was vulnerable to write to say the least. It was a lot keeping up the separated from everybody in the whole wide world doctrine and make sure I pray in tongues every day or loss of salvation.

I had a powerful moment with God during this time. Once in prayer I remember Him telling me I came to HIM thinking he was mad at me all the time, because that is what I always knew. That had to be God for no one else knew what I went through in prayer. I constantly started out my prayers with repenting and not always getting anywhere because I thought he only tolerated me, not loved me. I got in on a package deal, this whole salvation thing. He died for everybody else and I was given the crumbs. I wasn’t important in church. I didn’t hold a position in church in my early years, so that meant God felt the same way about me as everybody else did, a second-class Christian.

Then something happened, that got me to start thinking about a lot of things. I went through a couple of pastoral changes. The thing is every one of them believed different things. They all held to the three step plan, but the last pastor added on a lot you had to do to be saved. He was WPF and oh brother that is when it all hit the fan for me.

To be continued… [Note: Unfortunately it never was finished.]

Abominations

I’ve heard it preached repeatedly that we can’t give God anything but our best. Deuteronomy 17:1 is used as a reason for this. But that passage isn’t talking about giving less than the best for sacrifices. It says nothing about seeking out the very fattest and best lamb, it just says not to give one that is blemished or obviously disfigured. It appears to be talking more about deliberately giving an unworthy sacrifice. Going to the herd and finding an animal not worth keeping and killing it. At any rate, it isn’t talking about beating ourselves over the head, losing sleep over whether we could have done anything better that day or not.

Of all of these, all but Deuteronomy 22:5 obviously discuss things spoken against in the 10 Commandments and again in the New Testament by Jesus and by the writers of the Epistles.

Food laws were reversed in Peter’s vision “what I have made clean call thou not common.” Gentiles were also made clean in this vision and the activities in Acts 10 that followed. What else was considered ‘clean’ at that point? What does Deuteronomy 22:5 really mean? Does it stand alone as saying women shouldn’t wear pants? Hardly. It is part of the blended gender issue that is defined as sexual immorality. There is nothing sexually immoral, nothing about blending genders, determined by ladies wearing pants.

What things were abominable in the Bible?
In the Old Testament, certain foods (Lev 11), homosexual acts (Lev 18:22), idols (Deut 7:25, 12:31, 13:14), dishonorable sacrifices (Deut 17:1), mixing genders (Deut 22:5), cheating in business practices (or possibly favoring some people and cheating others) (Deut 25:16, Prov 11:1, Prov 20:10), frowardness (Prov 3:32), Prov 6:16 and 12:22 and 16:5, Justifying the wicked and condemning the just (Prov 17:15), Jer 6 and 8, Ez 18:12, sexual immorality Jer 22:11, were an abomination. Why pull out only Deuteronomy 22:5? Why are the others not preached often as abomination?