Month: June 2018 | Page 3 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Working With Other Abuse Victims

As I continue my walk with God after leaving the abusive church environment, I learn that I am definitely not alone. There are other groups and people who share common experiences despite differences in church doctrine and teaching.

Some of the people I meet are supportive. We become friends and share much information, seeing the kindred spirit that draws us together. We know our faith must be in Jesus, not just in a man or organization. This is a blessing for me and helps me hold fast the profession of faith, even when I don’t have a church home.

Has every former member I met been happy to see me? Sadly, no. This is especially true with two guys I actually invited to my former church. They saw through the smoke and mirrors and got out of Dodge before I did, and to this day refused all attempts to reach them. In their cases, the road to healing may have required a clean and total break from the past, including anyone from the previous church. I wish them well and pray peace will come to them.

Other former members in different groups can get dicey at times. One group I was active in for almost three years was fervent in reporting corruption in the organized church; I was a regular blogger and contributor to much of their success. It seemed like this was a good project, and we were marching forward like Christian soldiers against a corrupt system.

This particular group morphed into something I couldn’t support anymore and I had to leave. The group’s founder quit for personal reasons, possibly burnout. The people who succeeded him injected politics in the discussion, something I wished not to do. I felt the political discussions were divisive and detracted from the original vision of helping others see there is more to God than just inside churches.

The final straw happened following the presidential election in 2016. I hung on for a couple months following President Trump’s inauguration, but the political divide (I am a Republican, most of the other former church members were Democrats.) drove a wedge between us. I once again had to leave a group I invested time and energy in.

As we meet others who left abusive groups, we need to be careful not to inject elements from our past experiences that could cause division or open wounds in others. We especially need to be careful not to become what we left behind.

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God Asked Me to Buy…

We all heard the news recently of a prominent televangelist who told his followers God said to raise million of dollars to buy a personal jet airplane. Why in God’s name do people who live in Section 8 housing, collect food stamps, and are on Medicaid fall for the sales pitch?

I fell for a similar sales pitch in 2002. The church I attended was looking at gathering funds for a high end car supposedly for church use. I was approached because I was careful with my finances and somehow the church knew I had some cash on hand. Being the good brother and elder, I offered to give $1000 towards purchasing the vehicle. It was a sweet ride, but then I noticed it never was used by the church as much as it was used by the pastor.

For the generous donation I made, the least the church could have done was let me drive the car. I felt like a big horse’s rear end, realizing helping with the purchase did not mean I could even sit in the driver’s seat.

For those who feel the urge to donate for airplanes and other high end merchandise, ask yourselves this: will the pastor let you have any use of those items after you donate? If the pastor is living in a luxurious home and you live in the projects, wouldn’t it be possible he could take out a personal loan without trying to dig in YOUR wallet?

Do yourselves a favor and don’t give these charlatans one dime.

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Can a Pastor Offer Destructive Advice?

In my years of being in abusive churches, I was led to trust the input and advice of the “Man of God.” Any major life decision – be it college, getting married, or professional – we were to go to the pastor for counsel.

I spent most of my military career in Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk was and still is a major Navy town, brimming with active duty and veterans. On several occasions when I was up for transfer orders, I did what any faithful member would do. I went to the pastor for counsel and direction. At this particular time, I had 11 years in the Navy and a chief at my command suggested I apply for a commissioning program. The pastor had a different recommendation: NO.

Why? He felt at that time if I pursued a commission that I would be more involved with command duties and less time with “the ministry.” Eventually he eased up his position on members joining the officer ranks, but I wonder if it was because officers could stay in the military longer plus make more money. This came too late for me, though.

I took the pastor’s advice over that of the chief. End result: I retired from the Navy after 20 years, but my advancement in rank stalled at E-6. While I am proud of my service, I can’t help but wonder if my career would have gone further had I listened to the chief.

The lesson I learned from this was that pastors may mean well, but they aren’t the subject matter experts in every aspect of a person’s life. This left me wondering what might have been professionally.

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Unbelieving Believers

“Only Jesus can satisfy your soul
And only He can change your heart
And make you whole;
He’ll give you peace you never knew
Sweet love and joy and Heaven too,
For only Jesus can satisfy your soul.”
(Lanny Wolfe)

I woke up to this song in my heart this morning….don’t ask me why…. I haven’t heard or sung it in years…..but I sat up in bed belting out the chorus like I was an accomplished singer. Which I am not!

But it’s been stuck in my head and I can’t keep from singing it. I’m sure (hopefully) this has happened to many of you too. So I stopped questioning the reason and started enjoying the message of the song.

Many of us have gone through awful and wicked abuse in our lives and going to church to find Jesus seemed the most natural thing to do. Problem is there are so many legalistic churches that we found ourselves trapped in a works-based religion that gave us very little joy and no satisfaction for our soul. So we left, bandaging our wounds and limping out of a building never to return.

Our hearts have been broken into so many pieces and our souls crushed and our emotions and feelings have been hardened and now we are numb. We feel anger against God and the church we left and let’s face it, we are just so angry.

Even with all the baggage we are carrying, our hearts and souls still long for Jesus. We still want that joy of the Lord and His freedom and His grace and mercy. Because we never found it in the legalistic churches, we are having trouble believing that it is even true.

Then God wakes you up with a song in your heart…..

I know when I left the United Pentecostal Church I was leaving a lifetime of teaching and spiritual works but I had become an Unbelieving Believer. I was lost in the wilderness with a hardened heart and an unbelieving spirit. And just like the Israelites, I wandered about in rebellion with a hardened soul so I couldn’t be hurt again. I guarded myself against God, His Word, church and people. I literally let the enemy of my soul encase my heart in ice so I couldn’t feel the pain….but I also couldn’t feel anything else but anger.

In a devotion I read a few days ago, Joyce Meyers mentioned, “The problem with being an Unbelieving Believer is you shut the door on God and what He has planned for your future” and dwell on things that has happened to you….the shame, hateful words, false accusations, and of course the shunning.

I’m seven years into my recovery now and the first thing God was able to get through to me was that to receive anything from Him, I needed to believe. As God melted the ice around my heart and let me know it was okay to believe in Him again. I chose to start believing little by little and not mix in doubt and unbelief.

Realizing that Jesus wanted to restore my heart, soul, and emotions I was going to have to let Him into those areas of my life again. I was going to have to change my ways and become like David and pursue God and ask him to change me and to give me the same kind of heart that He has.

I have come to realize that Jesus truly satisfies that longing in my heart and it comes from knowing God more intimately today than I did yesterday. I have become a Believing Believer again.

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