“Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon. . . . He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don’t listen to him. Remember that — do not listen.”
— The Exorcist (1973)
“Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
— Romans 1:29-32 (KJV)
It bothers me only a little to admit that a lot of modern Christian writing is wretched and unhelpful when it comes to relationships. The Gospel of Niceness, as I call it, tends to produce a saccharine G-rated rhetoric that isn’t much help to people dealing with the unmitigated horrors of modern life. There are people out there traumatized by what they’ve lived through and terrified by the world around them, and the saccharine G-rated Gospel of Niceness does not speak in a language that all these hopelessly broken people can understand.
What happens, not surprisingly, is that these broken people reject Christianity because (a) the church isn’t talking to them in a language that helps, and (b) the sin-filled world talks to them in a language they understand, even if it doesn’t actually help. All of this is preamble to one of the most Satanic tales I’ve encountered during my research into radical feminism. (You have bought a copy of my book, right?) What happened was that I was searching for “heteronormativity” and found “When heteronormativity means there are no other options”:
When you’re growing up in conservative Christian purity culture, your relationship options are limited. True, there are a variety of beliefs on the rules for relationships; some communities reinforce courtship, others have very stringent rules about what is acceptable behavior at different stages of relationships. But within those muddy waters of relationship rules, purity culture has the same constant: save sex for your heterosexual marriage, and marry for life.
The ideal relationship is something you’re supposed to strive for. The image of a beautiful heterosexual couple, smiling and in love, telling their story of first romance, first kisses till death do they part, is a powerful one. That’s the success story. If you can find romance once, only “give your heart away” once, and for a lifetime, you have won the game.
And while this idealized image doesn’t have the same high standards in the rest of American culture, it still exists: heterosexual marriage, for life, is one of the marks of adulthood, of success and maturity. …
When I was a Christian, I was the kind of repressed queer person that didn’t allow myself any other options. . . .
Hmmm. Check the sidebar profile:
This blog has a generalized trigger warning for discussions of sexual, physical, mental, and spiritual abuse.
Tor is a queer apostate survivor of abuse.
Pronouns are “they/them”
They live in Oregon, and are currently working on a book about their experiences with abuse, Christianity, and their dealings with trauma.
“They” is actually a she, but this is a minor quibble, because up there on the top bar of her blog is “My Story,” and a thoroughly horrifying story it is. “Generalized trigger warning,” indeed. There is just no way the G-rated saccharine Gospel of Niceness can address Tor’s life experience.
She describes being raped at age 9 by her brother who was then 15. This brother subsequently was prosecuted for another sex crime (he is a registered sex offender) and, because of the hostility between Tor and her brother, Tor is alienated from her family, to say nothing of Tor’s queer apostasy. Here, go read this part of Tor’s story. (“Generalized trigger warning.”) You’re going to need something a whole lot stronger than the Gospel of Niceness to help somebody like Tor.
The passage from Paul’s epistle to the Romans quoted at the top of this post is part of a longer sequence that is most famous for verses 26-27, but I like the way it concludes in verses 29-32 because there, tucked away amid that grocery list of heinous evil is “disobedient to parents.” Sometimes I point that out to my kids, when I need to remind them that they are also Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
The Gospel of Niceness too seldom reminds kids of that, as if kids are too stupid to look around them and notice the evil that other kids do. Or to look in the mirror and recognize that, yes, they are sinners, too. Because I was a notoriously bad kid — in the old days, before “self-esteem,” teachers didn’t mince words about bad kids like me — I was never under any illusion about my sinful condition. I was a natural-born “behavior problem” if ever there was one. Thank God they hadn’t come up with the diagnosis ADHD back then, or I’d have been doped up on Ritalin by age 4. As it was, paddling was the main form of “therapy” administered by the education system, and I know I thoroughly deserved every one.
Anyway, I was reading another post of Tor’s called “The demon of demon paranoia,” in which she scornfully dismisses a pastor:
I define my childhood religion as a bit of Baptist legalism, mixed with Penecostal Holy Spiritism, a smattering of evangelical culture, all under the belief that God is some kind of magical genie who directs and takes care of every little thing we do.
When we moved up to the area we live now, we started attending a nearby Foursquare church. The pastor was an arrogant, hard preacher . . .
His biggest hang up was demons. I first heard of Frank Peretti’s book This Present Darkness from him, and he considered the book Biblical. He had pamphlets on the demonic in the church office; he spoke out against the evils of Halloween and trick-or-treating. My mom already had some fear of demons being everywhere, had already stopped letting my brothers go trick-or-treating the year I was two, and she very easily was sucked into this pastor’s paranoia.
Evil is real, Tor. You might not like the way this “arrogant, hard preacher” dwelled on the subject of demons, but certainly you cannot deny that evil is real. And ask yourself this: Considering what you went through in your childhood, was your mother’s “fear of demons being everywhere” irrational? Was it not the case that there was evil in your home? And isn’t it possible that, providentially, God sent this preacher to your community to warn about demons that were actually there?
People laugh at me for believing in the reality of evil, but I’ve seen evil with my own eyes. Sure, maybe you don’t believe that evil is supernatural. Maybe you can explain all the evil in the world according to “science so called,” but am I the only one who notices that certain biblical prophecies about the proliferation of evil seem to be coming true in the 21st century? There are no accidents, Tor. It wasn’t an accident that I found your blog, and read your description of your condition:
You know what? I am a sexual abuse victim. Of course things suck. Of course everything is hard, and nothing is right. . . .
But you know what? I don’t owe the world my healing. I don’t owe it to anyone to make them feel better about what happened to me. . . .
I’m fucked up. I’m self-destructive, I’m fearful . . .On the days when God still gets back into my head I look at how perfectly everything lined up for my destruction and think God wants me to die. I’m fucked up to a level I don’t even talk about. I have coping mechanisms I have never heard anyone ever talk about. And maybe they’re like me; too shameful to talk about. Or maybe it’s me; alone in this sea of oh my god how fucked up am I.
No, you’re not alone, but God doesn’t want you to die, either. While it would be presumptuous for me to claim to know what God wants for your life, the fact that you wrote that in 2011 and are still alive today tells me that you are alive for a reason. There are no accidents, Tor. Whom God would destroy, no man can save; whom God would save, no man can destroy. Therefore, your existence — even as a self-declared “queer apostate” — must serve some purpose in the divine plan, if only to wake up those Christians who think the Gospel of Niceness is sufficient to help someone who is “fucked up to a level I don’t even talk about.”
When you notice the trackback to your blog and read what I’ve written, you’ll probably hate me, Tor, and that’s OK. But let me ask you, what do you think the odds were that (a) I’d be crazy enough to write a book on radical feminism, (b) that this research would lead me to your blog by searching for “heteronormativity” and (c) rather than dismissing you as just another crazy feminist, I’d actually take time to read your story and recognize your unique value? The odds against this sequence of events have got to be a million-to-one, but it happened.
There are no accidents, God exists and, yes, evil is very real. Here’s the end of your post about demons:
I still am afraid of mirrors (mostly when it’s dark), I still see silhouettes when my sleep schedule gets too erratic. I still have nights where I’m awake for hours with the most horrible sense of my own guilt, afraid that demons have taken hold of me, and God hates me, and I am the worst sinner in the world. Fear pervades my life, I live under the weight of nightmares, flashbacks, and body memories, and a constant sense of foreboding, all because of this. Those are my “demons” now.
Let me repeat something I wrote in January:
Satan is the Father of Lies (John 8:43-45). Satan is the false accuser (Revelation 12:9-11). Satan constantly tells us lies about ourselves and lies about God. If you listen to that satanic voice, you will drive yourself crazy, because the lies are contradictory. Satan will tell you whatever you want to believe, whatever it takes to destroy you. Satan will tell you that your sins are so wicked that God cannot possibly love you. Then Satan will tell you there is no such thing as sin. Satan will tell you that good is evil, and evil is good, and that you should do evil because that will make you happier than doing good. Most of all, Satan tells us to reject God’s law, to instead make our own judgment of right and wrong.
This was the original lie of history: “Ye shall be as gods!”
Satan hasn’t changed at all. It’s still the same old lies — the demonic voice of the false accuser who wants to destroy us.
You survived, Tor. You survived for a reason. The voice in your head telling you that God hates you? Don’t listen to that voice.
Better watch saying “you wanna piece of me?”
What advice can I offer? Maybe not a lot, but “curse God and die” is not the correct answer to suffering.
That’s your first problem, right there. Advice is not called for at this time but you’re too bull-headed (and male) to see that. If you see what Tor’s doing as “curse God and die” then your assessment of the situation is beyond wrong. You can’t help someone heal by first misdiagnosing the problem.
Job’s friends offered him plenty of advice: “Dude, just admit that you brought this on yourself by offending God.”
Their advice was wrong, their theology was wrong, and their “comfort” caused pain instead. They needed to sit with Job in his pain and console him for his loss, not be fixated on what they needed to say.
Essentially what he is saying shut up about your faith
Hello Christians! Would you rather apply healing balm or would you rather be right?
Can you not just listen with the intent to understand rather than to react?
Do you not know that when someone is in excruciating pain, you make things worse by indulging your theories and theologies?
Here’s an analogy to illustrate what you’re doing:
Let’s say you were abducted as a child and spent years locked up in a basement where a sadistic pervert subjected you to all manner of sexual, physical, psychological, and emotional abuse. Every time the freak went downstairs to torment you he brought a boom box that played Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” on endless loop.
You’re eventually rescued. Years later we meet and I invite you to my home for a visit. I know your story. I put on a CD of “Rhapsody in Blue.”
You turn pale and ask me to turn it off. “Dude, you gotta get back on the horse,” I say. “I know someone who listened to this piece and it totally HELPED him.”
You begin to tremble and ask me to turn it off again. I express how much I like Gershwin. “He’s a genius, and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a masterpiece.”
You stumble into the corner and retch mightily. I say, “Hey, I just got that cleaned! Besides, Gershwin didn’t do anything to you.”
As you lie there in a quivering heap, the track changes to play Gershwin’s “Concerto in F.” You moan “please turn it off,” and I say, “What’s the problem? This is a totally different piece,” then I commence to unload my knowledge base on music therapy and suchlike.
Your friend walks in and sees the situation. Your friend delivers an almighty wallop upside my head. “What the hell are you thinking! TURN THAT OFF.” Your friend unplugs the stereo and helps you out of the room.
Did I deserve that wallop? Damned right I did. I was so wrapped up in what I thought you needed and in my delight in Gershwin that I totally disregarded how much pain I was inflicting on you.
You’d be right to stay the hell away from me, too, because I’m too thick to know how not to hurt you.
Tor was injured in the context of Christianity and God-talk and churchy stuff. Is it any wonder Tor wants nothing to do with it anymore? Is it really that hard to understand how God-talk and scripture might provoke a visceral reaction in them?
Things like “God sent me to you,” “Jesus died for you,” and “I’m praying for you,” might be inspirational and comforting to YOU and to some other people — but in Tor’s case the God-talk stimulates the memories and triggers the horrors.
Can you see your way clear to adapt your language to this specific situation?
AND YET ANOTHER ANALOGY
You wake up on Thanksgiving Day with a tremendous case of stomach flu. The merest smell from the kitchen sends you to the toilet with the dry heaves.
It doesn’t matter how well-prepared that dinner is, how nutritious or how delightful or how good it is to enjoy other people’s company — you simply cannot endure being anywhere near that table.
Should I come in your room and lecture you about the nutritional value of the dinner? Should I try to shame you for retching in the face of all this wonderful bounty? Should I describe the food in great detail, disregarding utterly that you’re writhing in agony the longer I talk?
Or MAYBE I should ask YOU if you can stomach a bit of broth or a soda cracker, and if the answer is no, I do what I can to steer you away from the smell of dinner.
You know, out of basic human kindness.
Those who suffer from emotional and psychological injuries as well as mental illness often have a negative reaction to God-talk, just as someone with stomach flu doesn’t find Thanksgiving Dinner to be delicious.
I know what it’s like to sit in the pews and feel like a freak, loathed of God. I know what it’s like to be hurting so badly that religion sounds like a sick joke rather than the source of healing.
I ESPECIALLY know what it’s like to hear exactly what you guys are saying in this thread and to want to run screaming from the room. It’s as if I were lying on the ground with my guts spilled out over the ground, and all you well-intentioned rescuers don’t have the sense to not tread upon my viscera. When I cry out in pain, you get all offended, because you are well intentioned and Theologically Correct and so what the hell is my problem?
It is SO INFURIATING to watch you guys tromp around in Tor’s guts, and then when I say “WHAT THE HELL YOU GUYS STOP THAT!” you return a blank stare and keep stepping on the intenstines because you’re a bunch of dumb oxen who don’t know what you don’t know.
HERE IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER SOMEONE IN AS MUCH PAIN AS TOR
You say, “I’m so sorry you have to go through that. You didn’t deserve that abuse at all. You’re not a freak. Here, let me sit with you in your private hell for a bit so you don’t feel so alone.”
That is all you do.
But you can’t even do that, can you? You’re too interested in saying what you just gotta say to care what effect it has.
What the hell good is all your theological musing if you can’t even tend to a wound without making things worse?
Stay the hell away from Tor.
And while you’re at it, stay away from everyone else whose suffering is in their head and not on their body. You haven’t got the understanding to deal with that situation. You just don’t.
The least you could do is recognize the gap in your knowledge and back off.
I don’t think Tor is dying. And I think under the circumstances, “Christian” water will just make her angrier.
She’s going to answer that for her self.
Of course you sanction your choice. It is your choice, after all.
You for example would rather talk with those who you consider Christians.
*shrugs*
He did ask.
I also consider pop-up ads and music in stores an imposition. Especially when the commercials interrupt every thirty seconds or so.
It doesn’t mean I don’t tolerate them. Just don’t expect me to celebrate how well made they are.
No, what I am saying is that evangelical Christianity is an imposition.
I’d be very happy with live and let live.
“Freely chosen.”
Last time I looked, ISIS wasn’t interested in that.
I come here because I don’t want the progressives to win. I can work with conservatives. We can even have civil conversations.
Sometimes.
http://www.paganvigil.com/files/IPreferConservatives050618.html
Wait.
It’s not going to happen on your schedule.
Yes. This.
So, what is called for? Nothing? Knowing nods and affirmative touches of some sort?
You have said the commenters here are like surgeons refusing to render treatment? What treatment then? Consolation is one thing, but it does nothing to alleviate suffering.
One can do both, incidentally, and no one here is refusing consolation.
Your anger is rather remarkable and a complete misrepresentation of what the majority of commenters here believe.
Further, your analogies are flawed. Gershwin is not the problem anymore than God is the problem. The fact that a human perverted Gershwin or God to cause pain, does not invalidate the artistic genius of Gershwin or the mercy and love of God.
You suggest that we’re “tromping on Tor’s guts.” Really? She placed her predicament into issue in a public web journal, presumably to invite some sort of response. She claims to be writing a book about Christianity, which, I presume will be some sort of indictment.
Yet, we’re the bad ones for contesting her assertions? We’re the bad ones for attempting to demonstrate that her conclusions are in error? We’re the bad ones for attempting to offer some solace to her situation? We’re the bad ones because we recognize a person for whom modern psychological intervention has done nothing? For whom healing is nowhere to be found by any generous reading of her own words.
You presuppose that none of us have ever experienced pain, suffering, heartbreak, betrayal, injury or any of the myriad of things which are accouterments to what we call “The Human Condition.” You don’t know what I’ve experienced. In point of fact, you’ve not a clue. With all due respect, I suggest you step down from the summit of Mount Morality, turn off the CAPS LOCK, and perhaps give the commenters here some of the consideration you claim we’re lacking relative to Tor.
This is great writing, and so true. I haven’t been here in a while; I’m glad I did today.
No she’s not. She can’t. And she hasn’t so far. So this poor woman lives every day in a dark world. She needs to be brought into the light where she can see and think clearly, and then she will know what to do. But she needs someone to give her a hand up.
I loved the Hornblower series so much it’s nearly beyond words.
I think it’s the best thing my TV screen has ever displayed.
Calling Tor “she” is really no different than calling President Obama “she”.
No, the one is true and the other is false. I’m sorry I have to be the one to explain this to you. Did mommy and daddy not tell you about the differences between girls and boys?
So if what if I kept a public blog about how much I hate Gershwin’s music, I blame his music for what happened to me, and I’m halfway through writing a book about my experiences with Gershwin and sexual abuse? Are people allowed to tell me in those circumstances that Gershwin’s not actually at fault for what happened, and that blaming him is getting in the way of the healing process?
Also, nobody’s forcing Tor to read this. If she finds this blog upsetting, she’s at perfect liberty to close the tab and stop reading it. What you’re asking is less “Don’t invite someone into your house and then play ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ at them” and more “Don’t talk about ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ in public, in case Tor hears you and gets traumatised.”
“Tor was injured in the context of Christianity and God-talk and churchy stuff. Is it any wonder Tor wants nothing to do with it anymore?”
Tor currently has a blog and is in the process of writing a book on being “injured in the context of Christianity and God-talk and churchy stuff”. Those hardly sound like the actions of someone who “wants nothing to do with it anymore”.
“I know what it’s like to sit in the pews and feel like a freak, loathed of God.”
Cool. So do I.
Now, as I see it, there’s two ways this could go from here. Either we could turn this into a sort of “I’ve got bigger mental health problems than you do” dick-waving contest, or you could get off your high horse, stop being such a presumptuous jerk, and stop assuming that you know anything at all about the past psychological histories of the other commentators here.
I wonder if you even looked at her blog. You know, she has a page entitled “What Christians Can Do” which also contains a list of “Don’ts,” none of which have occurred on this thread.
I mean this with no rancor or disrespect, Di. As I said above, I see you around the webs, as we frequent many of the same locales. This reaction you have to Stacy’s post–a post which I’ve read now multiple times–and the comments is unwarranted. It seems this has morphed from being about Tor, to being about you.
Tor’s story is truly horrific; no one doubts that or seeks to minimize it in any way. Sadly, she has generalized from a particular set of circumstances. For her, her conclusions may seem reasonable and her attribution of evil intent on the part of all Christians everywhere may seem justified.
Yet they are not. And they certainly do not justify cursing God or Christ. Again, this gets back to the problem of suffering and evil in the world. Why does it exist? Why do bad things happen to innocents? Those are the questions Tor asks, either directly or implicitly. There are answers. To refuse to attempt to provide them because of some misbegotten desire to be compassionate does no one any good.
There is a big difference between sanction and encourage. I expect, however, that the difference is more nuanced to you because you over think things.
As for the rest, what you know of me, if it were converted to explosives wouldn’t blow your nose.
It wasn’t an accident…
Yes there is a difference between sanction and encourage.
That’s one reason why I asked you previously if someone could be a good person without being Christian.
But of course it’s been your observation that only Christians could be bothered to help someone like Tor.
Yes, she is.
Even with the best treatment, she’s going to have to come to terms with what happened.
You can’t do that for her.
If you try to take that away, you’re telling her that you don’t trust her to make that choice.
That’s not something she needs to hear.
You are so predictable.
If you knew what you pretend to know you would know what scripture says about men being good.
I don’t expect you to understand what is going on with Tor either. With her you are utterly out of your depth. It’s something that only a true Christian will understand, so I’m not even going to attempt to discuss it with you.
And it’s usually teachers as henchmen of school systems anymore who are pushing the latter. One more tick mark in the “Coincidence – I think not” column.
So your “solution” is that we let her maintain this delusion that Christianity is evil and the enemy?
Did you even read the other parts of this thread? Because every time you say something, it’s like a response to some other random comment.
I was talking about one thing…to wit, understanding why God allows things to happen…and now you’re talking about me somehow offering myself up as a therapy proxy for her. Or some other kind of strawman argument.
It’s a complete waste of time to talk to you about anything.
Another solid piece.
This article shows something I’ve only managed to express well once: in a healthy society, we need our hardasses, our curmudgeons, and our most experienced citizens. You know, the ones we hated when we were growing up. The strangers who tell you to get a haircut while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store. The old guys who told us to learn a trade while we were busy trying to be rock musicians (to get the attention of women, of course). The older ladies who would tell us we were going to hell if we didn’t go to church once in a while. The aunts who told the girls to say no, and uncles who told the boys to be gentlemen.
They’re a royal pain in the ass, all of them. But someone has to remind us of ways that worked for thousands of years. To remind us that nothing we think is new among and between humans is really new at all.
Once I realized this, I learned to be slow to dismiss those corny, patriotic, church-going types that I spent years avoiding. It made it easier to caucus with conservatives, and to speak up for those frustrated, hard-working folks who do not write or speak for a living, and tend to speak first and think second.
McCain manages to deliver a needed kick, which the wise know is delivered with love, concern, and for their own damn good.
Rare is the person who makes it to maturity without experiencing great pain.
You could have saved yourself a lot of typing if you’d have recognized that.
One would do well to mull over the phrase, “choose to take offense.”
The same concept applies to “imposition.”
Lawyer-cally correct comes frist.
He was also excellent as William Wilberforce in “Amazing Grace”.
Someone’s been reading too many comic books.
A gallon of HF? I once used a pint bottle of the stuff, was always extra, extra careful.
As soon as I saw the first adverts for “Forever” I thought, “If it ain’t better than Highlander, they’re wasting their time.”
I was right (and I freely admit Highlander was cheesy).
We went through a lot of HF at my place. And I was wearing all kinds of protective equipment, but then, you can’t be too careful with HF, as you say. One little side splash and you’re in trouble. I was actually pretty sure my protective gear did its job, and I didn’t spill the entire gallon, but medical made me come in for the full treatment.
One problem was that, for some stupid reason, the HF was stored on a shelf above shoulder height. Reason being, the guy who stocked the chem shelves was 6’5″ and I am a foot shorter, but the tall shelf was more convenient (for him). Combine that with the fact that the blithering idiot who used it last didn’t put the cap back on really at all, he just laid it on the top, and the fact that I worked an off-shift with no one else in my particular lab, and certain disaster looms.
I griped about the potential for disaster to my manager probably 1000 times. I also griped to the safety engineers, thinking that because I was an electrical engineer, I’d get, you know, some kind of engineering courtesy, but I wasn’t allowed to move the HF because “we already put signs on that shelf and posted the MSDS”. Oh, and I had also asked for at least some kind of step stool in there, but “oh no, that would be dangerous; someone could trip and fall, or fall off the step stool”.
This is the nature of bureaucracy.
Not in my experience. Increasingly there is an attitude that assumes that accidents and incidents could not occur if management cared enough despite the fact that the individual violated safety rules deliberately in spite of being properly trained. If someone falls within or off a building because they didn’t use their safety harness properly by not ”hooking” up. The proposed solution is to install a passive physical system such as netting. The actual problem is one of attitude. Two workers are tasked with doing work at the building edge. Jose A determines that it’s not worth the trouble to set up a life line to tie off to because while it’s possible he could fall he knows that he won’t. Jose A also believes that Jose B should install that life line because while Jose A could but won’t fall Jose B might fall. Construction safety may be the only industry that might benefit from more behavioral psychology. The problem is that we think we are teaching children when we should be converting pagans.
Well I can see how it seems that way in a construction zone. But everywhere else, overlawyering is on the increase. The pledges, the insurance, the drug tests, the signage, the inspections regimes, and on and on. And that doesn’t include what they’ve done to accounting. Everyone’s jobs are now ridiculously harder because of the added reporting requirements.
I have an amazing memory, which is triggered by feelings, which are triggered by certain smells, sounds or even colors. One of my earliest memories is being sexually molested by my grandfather. I was three years old. Another family member tortured this way as well.
So I grew up angry. Angrier than angry. On the outside, I was high-functioning and high-achieving, but on the inside, I was a cauldron boiling over. As a teen I abused my own body because . . . whatever . . . it was trash, or so I had come to understand.
In college, I found a deep kinship with the campus feminist group. At last, I found women who were as angry as I was. I connected with them because they had holes in their souls, as I did. I felt no affinity with/for men. I thought they were evil and had no feelings. I hoped I was gay. But I knew I wasn’t. So I began to accept that I would forever be alone.
I denied God, and I told Him so. But I also kept asking myself, aloud sometimes, “If I don’t believe in You, God, then to whom am I talking?”
Once out of college, I landed a good job, which provided money for therapy. I found a wonderful therapist – I’m sure she’s passed on by now and I’m sure her breed no longer exists, in this “I’m ok – you’re ok,” moral-relativist world. But she was incredible. She called me on my own lies (there were a lot of them); she helped me shine a light on my fears so that they no longer looked so terrifying; she helped me grieve “my lost saints”; and she showed me how I continued to victimize myself, even though one of my abusers was dead and the other was long out of my life. I was repeating the patterns of abuse that had been ingrained in me. Those patterns made me miserable, but they were familiar, and familiar felt “right,” even though it was all wrong. As I began to test the dating world, I found myself attracted to men who could never care for me — selfish, self-centered, just not even nice. This was part of my repeated pattern. I was attracted to men who felt familiar to me — abusers. It took awhile, and many mistakes, for me to “get” it. The steps out of my emotional cistern were not exactly clean.
It took five years of therapy, sometimes going twice a week. It was exhausting. Some days I went to work, went to therapy, came home, and lay down on the floor of my living room and fell asleep. I’d wake in the morning, still in my clothes. It was worth every penny I invested, every minute I spent, every tear I cried. The only way out of the pain is to go through it, no matter how long and hard the journey. There was never a morning when I woke up and went, “Wow, the pain is gone!” But it is gone. It melted away, slowly crowded out by new and healthy friendships, new activities, and eventually, love, marriage, children, happiness. I am happy.
I’m also not alone, and I never was. God was always with me, and I eventually learned to identify how it feels when I’m aware of Him. I was talking to Him all along — telling Him I didn’t believe in Him — because I knew He was there, but I was mad at Him. Free will and evil gave others the power to abuse me, but He was there with me, never leaving my side. And over time, I realized that my suffering had a purpose, which completely changed the way I viewed it. The purpose is just too personal to go into here, but once the purpose was clear, I truly became whole. My life as a child sucked, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I also wouldn’t change a thing. I’ll say it again: the only way out, is through.
Retreating behind that “true Christian” label again.
I suppose it’s an easy way to avoid questions.
Even on your terms, she’s not ready to “understand why God allows things to happen.”
She’s got a lot of pain and misery to work through yet. Most of which she blames Christians and Christianity for.
That’s a much later step.
It’s like serving spaghetti before making the noodles or adding the sauce. Or baking just the flour instead of bread dough.
I’m not offended.
I might as well be offended at the weeds in my garden or the sand in my shoes.
Those are impositions too.
This isn’t dissimilar to my wife’s story.
She suffered sexual abuse as a teenager at the hands of her family and, like most girls that age (from what I’ve learned since), she pretty much blocked it all out after she left home. Unlike most girls, though, she wasn’t able to keep it buried (again, my understanding is that most girls manage to keep it buried until their 30s – this was from a talk I had with her therapist); instead, it all surfaced again in college.
She went from a straight-A student to barely scraping by in classes, skipping out often, not doing her work, etc, because she was focused so heavily on surviving from day to day and coping with what happened to her. Her therapist was great and helped her through so much of her anger and pain – some of which she still carries to this day, but has slowly lessened over the years as she’s learned to forgive.
She still carries emotional scars from what she went through, and I doubt they’ll ever be gone entirely, but she’s learned to be happy, to have healthy relationships, to understand and respect boundaries of proper behavior, and to forgive.
Interestingly enough, her experiences brought out secrets from my own family that I didn’t know about, including abuse my own mother had suffered – all of which brought context to things I didn’t understand from my own childhood.
Healing is out there, but it requires facing the pain.
That’s where you’re wrong. Beyond any physical or emotional damage she suffers, she needs to have the dark tumor in her soul excised, and to do this, the why’s need to be answered. She may not like the answers to those questions, and she may not agree with them; in fact, she more than likely won’t, and in addition, the two why’s I already mentioned will spawn additional why’s that also need to be answered.
Objective, absolute truth exists and the answers to all her questions are found there. That is the “soul surgery”, and once that’s done, then comes the physical and emotional therapy.
I’d also wager that I’ve counseled more people than you have, and that is my experience.
“Soul surgery?”
She needs someone she can trust.
She needs that before someone starts excising “dark tumors in her soul.” If indeed that is needed at all.
My experience tells me that can work wonders. More accurately, it can let her work wonders for herself.
All without the proper “Christian” supervision.
Homophobia and bigotry are not wrong. They may be wrong for you, but not for me. There is no one standard of morality. How dare you try to impose your values upon me. What happened to “Judge not, lest he be judged.” Judgmental people like you trigger feelings of anger and paranoia in me, and I am an anger and paranoia survivor. Hater.