The following was taken from an older conversation in one of our private support groups. The initial post, along with the responses, have been shared with permission. The initial post and a follow-up are between the asterisks, followed by responses. Names have been omitted. Responses that were longer have been placed in quotes. I have added my own brief thoughts at the end.
There are those who don’t believe there is such a thing as spiritual abuse and some ridicule the thought, thinking it is about things like people being upset over not being allowed to hold some position or that they didn’t like a decision made by a pastor. Some feel people are simply bitter and just need to ‘get over it’ and move on. These individuals are clueless and ignorant as to the types of damage that being in an unhealthy church can cause. One of the most difficult things some grapple with is their trust and belief in God. Pastors, the very ones who should be encouraging and helping people in their relationship with God, have instead helped to destroy the faith of some and caused others to question it. Listen to ‘J’ as he shares the pain and aftermath of dealing with his unhealthy church experience.
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Possible trigger warning, I have been in a dark place recently but this week it has sort of come to a head.
Today in church, part of the sermon touched on Deuteronomy 31:6, about not being afraid because “he will never leave you or forsake you.”
However, inside a deep pit of empty despair formed because, simply put, that was not true. Having done my absolute best to follow him led me to years of abuse, loneliness, virtual slavery. All I can see there was that I was abandoned. I was in a place where I was abused and demeaned in his name, and was not helped. How can I count on him if I was torn apart in his name and was not helped? How can I trust when three years later things that were stolen in his name are not yet restored? How can I trust him ever again when I was abandoned? How can I trust when I see promises in his word turned on their head, when the exact opposite of what was promised occurs? Trust him to do what, exactly? He claims to be closer than a brother but I don’t ever even hear or feel him. I don’t see him doing anything that would merit trust. How can I claim relationship with someone who never even bothers to show up, especially when the one they claim to love is so utterly screwed over?
I tried to talk to someone I trust about this, how I feel and what I think and observe. Instead, I got met with a combination of fear and disdain. “How could you think like that?!” Even getting angry that I would not unquestioningly obey if God asked me to do it. I would in fact question.
I don’t see a reason to trust. Instead, I see promises that are empty; I see a past where I was left alone in the darkness.
…One of the hard points in all of this is, there is nothing I can truly point to and say “God absolutely did this.”
I came to my senses in the cult when the leaders royally screwed up and got a number of us wondering. It was us, together, who decided they were full of it, and us together who protected one another as we left. So by us supporting each other, and the leaders being way to ham-fisted for their own good is what sparked that.
In that, and in other things, I see other people helping me. I see lessons that I learned and applied to get me to better places. I don’t see supernatural help.
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Below are some of the responses to J.
L: All I can say is I know how you feel. I have had all the same questions and feelings. After many years, I was able to look back and I was actually able to see Him during those times. It was still hard to trust because I was thinking “Well, so You were there. But I didn’t feel You there. And that will probably happen again before my life is over. Fat lot of good it will do.” But then I had to weigh trusting vs not trusting and I felt trusting was better. It was healing. And freeing. I’m still on the journey. Jesus also felt forsaken when He said “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me.” I think God understands all these things. I think He understands all your feelings and I think He accepts them. I think part of the journey is embracing that it’s okay to feel like you do and you have a legitimate reason for feeling all of it. Here a hug and a pat on the back. You’re okay.
M: You’re describing a place that is very familiar to me, too, and that I don’t know what to do with either. I’ve gotten to a point where people’s reactions, either the one you describe or the prideful, “not Me! *I’ve* never been *there*. God is sooo good!” are both based in fear- either fear that it could happen to them or fear because they don’t want to admit that it has, even to themselves.
J: Yeah, I can see that fear. I don’t want to spark fear in others, but I DO want others to understand that it is not all sunshine and roses.
K: J, I feel the exact same way. I have lost my trust in God to protect or be with me and I am hanging onto a tiny bit of faith by a fraying thread. I prayed so many, many times at my old church for God to intervene or show me if I should leave the church, if what they were teaching was wrong. Instead, all I ever experienced was being told to submit, to trust the pastor’s discernment and not my own, and the threat that I would risk God’s judgment if I left. So much mental and spiritual abuse happened. I feel very betrayed. If my child asked me to intervene while she was being abused or led astray, I would. Why didn’t He?
I also question God’s protection and goodness after watching several wonderful people die horrible deaths, including a little 11-year-old girl. That girl was my daughter’s best friend and it crushed my daughter when she died. Her innocent faith was crushed when God did not answer her prayers to heal her friend. She was convinced He would. If I could heal someone that was dying, I would. Why didn’t he?
People credit God when someone is healed or avoids a tragedy. But according to that logic, wouldn’t that also mean we should credit Him when someone is not healed, when a family drowns in a hurricane, or when someone dies in a crash? If I had the power to prevent these tragedies, I would. Why didn’t He?
I have very rarely shared these doubts because almost everyone would chastise me. But they are not going away and I can’t get by with platitudes like “God’s ways are not our ways”, or “God uses all things for our good” or “Praise God anyway.” Platitudes do not help when the One who could have intervened, protected and healed people chose not to do so.
You are not alone with your doubts and hurts and it is OK to acknowledge them. Please keep talking here without fear of judgment.
J: I hear you. It frustrates me to no end when people say God took away their headache when they prayed (or something like that), yet others go through horrendous fates praying desperately for the help the bible promises yet are left alone.
J (written several weeks later): This hasn’t gone away. In fact, it gets worse as more and more things go badly and as no evidence of help comes forth. I honestly don’t see my prayers having any impact. My fear isn’t that there is no god. My fear is that he is malevolent, or at least indifferent.
K: I hear you and I empathize with you. I feel ripped up inside because I have these same thoughts and feelings. I am sorry you are experiencing the same.
M: I can’t think that if there is a God he would be malevolent. He may view things very differently than we do, he may not be as actively involved in ways that we were taught, but that wouldn’t make him malevolent. I’m not sure it would even make him indifferent, just with a very, very different perspective than we have.
I wonder if there is a God, why God would allow things he does, how to protect myself from this upside down, crazy life if there isn’t a God who will protect me. I’ve struggled with this for 17 years. I prayed and begged God in 2000 not to let me be thrown out of a church because the pastor falsely accused me of lusting after the pastor. Fasted for days. Did everything I could to repent of things I’d never done. And I found another church and ran to it. And at that church the pastor’s wife was in an accident. The pastor started inviting young women to his house to visit his wife, who was bedridden. The men would lay hands on me. I was so freaked out, so terrified that I would be falsely accused again. And I was trying to hide what had happened from my parents and others, trying to keep a ‘good witness’. So I moved to the next state and went back to college. I spent thousands before discovering that I couldn’t get the certificate I wanted without quitting work and going to school full time. So I dropped out. I hoped that at the church I was in at the time that I would finally get married, that I’d finally have the respect of the pastor, that I’d have a church. The pastor died. People in the church picked at me. A man stalked me. The new pastor was cruel. And I stayed, still hoping.
So I get it. Way too well. If those things hadn’t happened I would still be attending a UPC, blissfully ignorant of how far from faith in God I actually was, holding on to terribly false ideas about God and about what faith in him looked like. I was begging God to let me stay but was to the point that I was taking risks with the thought that maybe I’d just die and get out of the situation.
God didn’t answer my prayers. But in a weird way he did. Not that I can trust him yet. It’s frightening to trust an all powerful being who not only doesn’t do what you ask, but is so unpredictable that he doesn’t even do what you think he wants done, doesn’t even help you to do what you think he’s commanded. And it’s terrifying to think that we’re in his hands. It’s easier to think maybe he’s indifferent or even nonexistent than all that. It sure seems like it would be a safer, more sensible world at times. And yet I know that through all of it, better things happened by far than what I begged for — I got out. I left and I’m glad of it, and without dying to be rid of them.
It’s a slow, slow process. Friends like the one you mentioned don’t help. They just make me mad.
I picked up a book at Goodwill tonight. Not my typical read. It’s titled No One Cries the Wrong Way. It’s about grief, and the title itself is comforting somehow.
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It is impossible to know how much damage has been caused at spiritually abusive churches led by unhealthy pastors and other leaders. Thousands upon thousands of people have been harmed and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Some have great difficulty separating the distorted view of God instilled in them by these churches and what the Bible shows. As they try to recover and heal from their experiences, they may still view things through their former church teachings. There are things each of us have been taught that are not found within the Bible. Expecting that God will keep all believers from harm is one of those.
As to the question of ‘why does God allow this or that to happen,’ I liked how they touched on this in the movie, Love Comes Softly.
One of the central characters is a man who lost his wife and he is raising his young daughter. He made an arrangement with a woman whose husband died and they had a marriage of convenience. He needed someone to help him raise his daughter and she needed a place to stay for the winter until she could catch a wagon to take her home to the East. The scene I am quoting from happens after the man’s barn burns down.
The woman he has married asks him if he prayed for these bad things to happen and says, “I just don’t understand why the God that you pray to would let such unthinkable things happen to decent people.”
He replied, “Missy (his daughter) could fall down and hurt herself even if I’m walking right there beside her. That doesn’t mean that I allowed it to happen. She knows her father’s unconditional love. I’ll pick her up and I’ll carry her. I’ll try to heal her. I’ll cry when she cries. And I’ll rejoice when she is well. You know all the moments of my life, God has been right there beside me. The truth of God’s love is not that he allows bad things to happen, but it’s His promise that He’ll be there with us when they do.”
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