Today's Mental Image:
The Unspeakable Sin Of
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A Church Anniversary to Forget!
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Oh, God Help Me Forgive! And, Oh God, If It Be Your Will Help Me Forget! Help Me Not To Wall Out The Church Universal, Your Calling Upon My Life, In A Too Late Effort To Protect Myself. You Are God and I Am Not - But, Oh God, Again, I Am Crying As I Run Once More From The Memory And Into Your Everlasting Arms!WEBMASTER
- A PARALLEL JOURNEY
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---- I learned that, as past trauma surfaces, children process by reenactments. I grieved for the lost innocence and struggled with the deep sense of helplessness and shame. This evil thing had happened to my kids in my own home, and I hadn't protected them. God hadn't protected them.
---- For four intense years, my faith was shaken to the core. Everything I had ever believed about God, the church, my friends, and myself came into question. God hadn't protected me or my ... children. The church wasn't equipped to minister to my needs, my closest friend had abandoned me, and I had failed to see the evil lurking under my own nose, I despaired.
---- At some point, I realize that I no longer trusted God-- at least, not the God I thought I knew-- the one who was supposed to keep me from pain, sorrow, heartbreak, and hurt. Yet, I discovered that, somehow, my faith was intact. Instead of expecting God to be my genie-in-the bottle, I learned to pray for things like peace and wisdom.
---- Step by step, I am learning to trust God for who he is.
---- I still struggle with doubts. However, I am beginning to embrace the paradox that somehow my doubts silhouette my faith, that I can know God differently as I walk with him through suffering, and that God is my protector in ways that I would have never dreamed.
Quoted from April 2009,
The Voice of Evangelical Friends in North America,
author's name with held.
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THAT WAS THE MOTHER!
THINK ABOUT THE CHILD AND THE ADULT CHILD
WHOSE LIFE WAS BUILT AROUND UNDISCLOSED CHILDHOOD ABUSE
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Now imagine what happened in the life of the child -- and in their adulthood and faith journey. Imagine the sense of loss, abandonment when later crises in life hit that are linked to the responses learned in the time of their vulnerability and/or immaturity. And - because we are silent, because we shut the conversation down, because we flee from what we don't know to do, they indeed are abandoned by the church, friends, sometimes parents and spouses. Left isolated in the midst of their finally unmasked crisis of faith.-
And Yes I Do Have
And Yes I Do Have
A Shunning
A Church Anniversary to Forget!
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I know. I've been there and the stripping and lashing and shunning and punishment I received from the church has been more devastating than the original abuse. It is a horror story unfit for the Kingdom of God in the Body of Christ. If God had not held on to me, reassured me, I would have been hacked off at the root, thrown out of the kingdom, and banished from any future fellowship. The verdict was loud and clear - We Don't Need You ! Whatever happened to 1 Corinthians 12? Let alone 1 Corinthians 13!!.
I am not perfect. Nor am I without blame in my own responses. But - when you are disemboweled and your guts left hanging on the floor while the church-in-governance walks away with a smile ...
When they come back and, after painful shunning, stab you directly through the heart with a clear aim - if it were possible - to kill spirit and soul - it is a God sized stun to try and navigate, to try and even want to live through.
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[Webmaster - Micah 6:8]
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POSTSCRIPT: I am aware that often what we do, and especially what we fail to do, is not consciously motivated by the hidden motive which become transparent by the open result. But scripture is clear, Jesus is clear, that we will be judge by what we do, and by what we neglect to do. It admits no stay of responsibility due to ignorance. Especially when we obey Micah 6:8: "to walk humbly with our God," we will have that immediate, active, vocal leading of the Father through the Holy Spirit, that produces godly actions, ie.; godlike results, unless we have turned our back and are walking in our own understanding, or are neglecting some part of obedience, or, may God grant us repentance, our hearts have become hardened.
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Wow, what a reality check. Thanks.
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