For any who read this, I want to wish you a Happy and Blessed New Year.

I know that there are a few here who are going to throw up their hands and say, “I tried, she is just not willing to accept the truth.” To them I say, sorry.

I have been reading posts that people have put on my site, and I really appreciate the input. I take what is written to heart, and honestly can say that some of the ideas there I am seeking hard to embrace. A few have come at my posts with statements like, I have tried, I am going to try one more time then pretty much they imply write me off as unteachable or whatever. As if their telling me something once or twice should be enough to effect a change.

I wish it were that simple, snap my fingers, and walla a new being. I know the Bible says we are a new creation in Christ, and when I was saved, I know that much was changed. The flesh though laggs behind the spirit sometimes. Even Paul said that he did what he didn’t want to do, and also did the things he wanted to do sometimes he didn’t.

It can be very condemning to be told to do something that isn’t within one’s capacity at the time. I do not mean this as a feeble excuse for not taking action, but when damage is deep, sometimes it takes more than once or twice for something to sink in.

I think that people forget that they too had struggles in certain areas of their lives, places where they had to work very hard to make changes, and some of us have multiple areas to resolve. I could see that, if someone did not move forward on their walk, that then condemnation may be in order. But if there is change, even slow change, than something good is happening.

I have fear and doubts about God at times, but I also have a real belief that He is there and that we are working things out. I do not rage at God like I used to, but at the time when I was raging at God, it came after 40 years of not talking to God at all. God handled that anger and provided me with a Pastor who helped me sort out issues, and I have since apologized to God for the rage. The sense came back to me that God was glad for the rage because it meant that I broke my avoidance of talking with Him.

Now I get hurt and upset, but the difference is, I do take these to Him and talk with Him (or at least at Him) about them. In fact I spend more time in prayer in one day than I ever did in the whole 40 years. I pray in the morning, at night, and often during the day we have moments of prayer. Yes, there is hurt, yes there is fear and distrust, but that does not mean that I am licking wounds and running.

I also have periods of running away from God, this is one of those, but even in those periods I am attending church, Bible studies, and yet I withdraw.

I am coflicted about my relationship with God, but it is conflicted about the RELATIONSHIP, that is a far cry from what went on before.

Let me give you a bit of spiritual history:

Never heard about God except by TV

Prayed to God and got no answer that I could see. I prayed for help from multiple abuses including being raped and other incestuous acts.

Gave up on God at age 8 when prayers not answered.

Father almost died, and went back to Christian science and forced me to read the Bible, I would be hit or have something thrown at me if I paused too long at a comma, too short at a semicolon, would break out into a sweat just touching the book.

Spent years trying to kill myself, planned to do so at age 18, after I had promised not to kill myself until I was 18 (when a previous attempt was foiled). Started counting hours, minutes, seconds until my 18th birthday, started squirrelling away pills.

Met pagans who gave me something not one Christian in my life gave me, love and acceptance. I apologetically told them I decided to try life for awhile. They did not act disappointed, I almost expected them to moan when I decided to live.

Became fully immersed into the occult, at one point witchcraft, santaria, macumba, etc. Was well versed and respected.

Married and had kids.

Pew sat for 10 years, arms crossed, after kids born and husband wanted to attend church.

Then the good stuff: Got the idea to read the Bible cover to cover and did so. Focused on hardened hearts, figured I was hardened.

Went to Bible study for one year – read Bible again and began to see some of God’s love. At that time I started meeting with pastor.

Went over all sins (a period I called the sins of the week). It took two years before I dared to say sinner’s prayer. Not the pastor’s fault, but I was afraid and uncertain.

I keep studying, and hoping to sort things out, but there is a lot of garbage.

Perhaps some who say that things should be instantly cured, might want to realize that there is a lot to be cleaned off. Maybe they were able to instantly resolve issues, but the abuse I received cut deep.

Imagine having your father at the age of 8 tell you he is doing what he is doing because you are too stupid and ugly to ever attract a husband, and the only way you would ever get a man is to be versed in sex. And then threaten to kill you if you breath a word of it. Imagine having to lay in the muck all night for fear of getting up and getting killed. Then imagine your big-mouthed, alcoholic mom stating to you ” I heard him in your room last night tell me what he did.” You have to tell but do not know if she will blab it to your father and you will get killed.

Then imagine the shame of wanting to die, not killing yourself, then blaming yourself for the abuse because you did not stop  it by killing yourself.

Then imagine your mom filling up two notebooks of several entries per page of what this man did. All the while being told that you are too ugly and he wished you were not born.

Imagine being pulled from your bed of sound sleep, grabbed by the hair and slung across the room until you end up against a wall and he has your hair in his hands. Imagine wearing long sleeves in the summer to hide bruises. Imagine horrid stuff happening day after day. Then talk to me about trusting Father God.

Yes, intellectually I do know that Father God is not like an earthly father, but Please understand that to process that, trust that, and believe that is not something that is going to happen overnight, no matter how many words of advice are written.

Yes, I have anger, and Yes, I am coming to realizations that my anger is misplaced against God. But consider this, where should it go?

For me the biggest step I just took was to forgive those who hurt me so. It is freeing and I see it as a step towards healing. Please know that I want that kind of relationship you are talking about, but to have so much to accept all at once is not possible, at least not now for me.

For those who tried, who have given up on me, that is fine. I truly can understand the that frustration, and if you felt you are wasting your time, I am sorry. I am grateful for those who do try to understand.

Heather

Have you ever wondered where you would be if you were alive at the time of Jesus? Would you be a scribe, a Pharisee, would you be one of His sheep, would you be one of the sinner’s he hung out with, would you approach Him at all?

I have often thought about Jesus and how I would relate to Him. Back then I think I would have hung on the outer fringes of the crowd. My sins would have kept me from approaching Him. I would not want to draw attention to myself. I would probably be wondering if what He was doing was for show like the scribes and Pharisees. I would wonder if He would turn me away if I approached Him. Since Jesus seemed to hold stock with people having to believe to receive the healing, to reach out and touch, to ask, I would probably not have received the healing.

Only one got healed at the pools of Siloam – what happened to the other hopefuls. I would have been a left behind one there. Perhaps the one I would long to have been was the Woman at the Well. I could see doing something for Jesus, you know giving water or something, but probably I would have come at the wrong time.

His teachings would have intrigued me, and I think I would have wanted to hang around to learn, but my fear and hurt and anger at God would have put a great divide between Him and me.

Anger at God is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks in my walk. Oh it is not as bad as it used to be. I remember sitting in the back of churches, arms crossed and a simple, (what others would hear as loving and encouraging) statement would raise my ire incredibly. I remember once hearing a sermon about “God is love.” And I remember fuming, ranting and raving, “Yeah sure, what kind of love? He abandoned me. He never helped me, His love is not for me. If the abuse I received is an example of His love, who needs Him,….” etc. etc. etc.

Once I went to see Steve Solomon (Praise in the Night) at a local church during the day. If you are angry at God, never go to a prophesy service on a work day as there are fewer people attending and you cannot hide in the fringe of the crowd. At the end of the service he called for anyone to come forward to the altar. Everyone came forward but one other person and me. Steve went to pray over the other person, and I thought Oh, sh.., and sure enough he came to me and prayed. He told me that God told him he was going to remove the tares from my mind.

Talk about fuming, I thought what an insipid prophesy, God put the tares there Himself, now he is going to tear them out… Truth be told, this is happening, the tares being removed, and sometimes it is painful, sometimes not – it is a slow process though.

Then in my Bible reading (and I have read through the Bible several times) the book of Job raises my hackles. How could a loving God point out Job to satan just to win a bet, prove a point. And God took away the hedge of protection, Job’s children were killed and many others. For what. God could have told satan to take a hike, He did not have to prove anything to satan. Job held his faith. I would have failed. I am afraid I would have cursed God and died.

My anger has abated somewhat since I got saved, and I remember apologizing to God. I did get a distinct impression that God was glad I was fuming at Him during the time I was, because at least I was talking with Him, something I hadn’t done for many years.

I still have anger arise at times. Often I apologize about it later, but the anger is still there.

Today, I am not sure I would approach God any closer than I would have back when He was on earth. As a child survival meant not being noticed. I think I still carry the need for survival into God’s kingdom.

People have told me to crawl into Jesus’ lap. I cry when I see the drawing of the woman sobbing into Christ’s lap, and any song that talks about closeness with God is listened to by me with whistfulness. It is something I don’t think I will ever attain. Something so distant and removed from any aspect of me.

When it comes to God’s kingdom, I feel like a starving child with her nose pressed up against the bakery shop window, looking at the goodies but knowing I have no way to get them, and I should just go away and starve.

Does relationship with God ever get any easier?

Heather

I am looking at the incredible horror of what has been going on because of the tsunami. I have been reading posts of others who have been hurt so badly by others, by ones that they should be able to trust. Oh where is the love that we are supposed to show to each other? Why is there so much hurt?

It is easy to say that this is the province of satan. That he is the author of all this evil. God, according to the Bible, will come and rectify things in the end. But why is he waiting so long? I couldn’t sit back and watch so many people hurting and do nothing? I would have to intervene.

Someone mentioned that when they are hurting, they tend to withdraw from others, and even from God. Lately I have been running from God. Running scared.

Spiritual autism is sort of what I feel when it comes to God. Perhaps I am so far gone that God can not reach me. The yearning is there, but fear is much greater.

I can’t wait until I can push the memories down deep again. Then maybe the depression and hurt will ease. Right now a look, an expression, the brush of a hand, or a word can bring back a visceral memory.

I walk around feeling dirty, and unable to get clean. People talk about feeling washed from their sins, I feel like I end up falling back into the muck. Is what people do, forcibly putting things aside and pretending that they are not there? Are they really healed from the hurt? Sometimes I feel so condemned that unbidden the memories return over and over to haunt. I don’t seek them out.

Heather

Can’t sleep. Figure I will write a bit, then try again.

Was thinking about how individual everyone’s walk with God is. For some, they seem to immediately come to God, open up, feel his peace and love, and joy. Some seem to have a true religious conversion that is so real and tangible.

For me, this has not been the case. Every step with God has been hard fought. It took so much energy to be able to crack open a Bible and read without sweating in fear. (I had been beaten as a child by my father for reading a passage wrong – pausing too long at a comma, too short at a semicolon). It took much to be able to read outloud from the Bible in front of others. Fortunately no one has reacted.

People speak so blythely of crawling into Christ’s lap for comfort. It is all I can do to imagine glimpsing Christ from a distance. The idea of going boldly into the throne room of grace is so difficult for me. Agape love scares me, I wouldn’t know what to do with it or how to react with that kind of love. It took a long, long time to be able to just say I love you to God. I figured that He wouldn’t want to hear that from me.

The abuse I received as a child made it very difficult for me to want to be noticed. In fact my life depended on not being noticed by my parents. To be noticed meant to be beaten, to be hurt, to be berated and in a few instances meant a real attack on my life. Do I want a Father God to notice me – the jury is out on that. No matter how much people say that God is loving and kind and merciful, how would one handle that? Being backhanded by God I could understand. But love, beyond my conception.

Is it possible that one can be so broken that God cannot fix you? I know people say God is all powerful. They say that one should trust God. They say that it is my fault that there is a problem with God. But then God did not intervene when I needed Him to. He did not stop my father’s actions. He did not comfort me.

People say he was there collecting my tears in a bottle (whoopee – a lot of good that did), they say that there was a purpose in what went on (what purpose is rape?), they say God will restore what is broken.

What if what is broken is innocence that was taken by force? God wants us to come to Him as a little child – but I was never allowed to be a little child. My kindergarten teacher wrote on a report card that I acted like an adult (got a beating for that remark too, and had to imitate what kids did)- I had to act adult in order to survive. There was no one to trust with childlike faith as a child. There was no love, in fact there was no safe place.

So how does one come to God trusting like a child when that was never a part of your life? Perhaps I fail at God, or trusting God 101. Perhaps the sins I did in rebellion to what happened make me way too far removed from God.

I wish there was that simplicity that people seem to think one should have in their relationship with God. I would love to find it, but for me it is a struggle to just be this damaged around God. To seek the answers in His Word. Each step closer to Him is a battle frought with fear. Does it ever get easier?

Heather

CURRENTLY READING:  ETHICS by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Interesting thought on P. 32 Bonhoeffer states that what takes place between Jesus and the Pharisees is a repetition of that first temptation of Jesus. That both satan and the Pharisees are trying to get Jesus to do something of his own understanding, not the will of God.

He also states that when questions are put to Jesus, he is not drawn into our problems. That there is not a single question that Jesus answers with acceptance of the human either-or that the person wants. He does not want to be held by human alternatives.

Jesus’s main concern is to do the will of God, a will that was in place before the fall of man, before man ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Before man became conscious of good and evil.

An interesting concept for me. I guess I always saw that if the actions stemmed from love, then we were doing God’s work. But sometimes what is love may not look like love on the surface.

 

Took my kids skiing today. It was bitter cold. Tomorrow they go to the dentist. To their way of thinking it is a waste of a good holiday day off from school.

I am surviving Christmas. I enjoy being with my kids and not having the scheduling that three kids with busy schedules entails. It is nice to relax. I spent time studying more of Revelation while the kids were skiing. I am not one for skiing – perhaps if they develop skis with cleats I might consider it.

Sometimes it feels like I am  navigating through landmines to walk through life. We never know when things will trigger memories, memories that one thought were safely buried. A look, a glance, a word, a smell, a sound can trigger the memories.

Has anyone wondered if God is as fickle as some of those  whom we have known. Can we blow it big time?

Heather

Sorry to make two entries in one day, but there is one more great quote from Vanier.

He talks about how when someone receives a special call from Jesus and starts growing in greater love and compassion it begins to show the mediocrity of others and their spiritual paths. That real growth in a community is only possible if people are respected for their personal development. That many of the prophets of old were killed for their spiritual growth and value.

Vainer makes the distinction between community-oriented groups and issue-oriented groups (such as save the whales, political parties, etc.)

P. 49 “There is a danger, in issue-oriented groups not based on community, that the enemy is seen as being the one outside the group. The world gets divided between “the good” and “the bad.” we are among the good; the others are bad. In issue-oriented groups, the enemy is always outside.

Basically the focus has to be within.

p.50 “True community is different because of the realization that the evil is inside—not just inside the community, but inside me. I cannot think of taking the speck of dust out of my neighbor’s eye unless I’m working on the log in my own. Evil is here in me. Warfare is in my own community, and I am called to be an agent of peace there. But warfare is also in me and I am called to seek wholeness inside of myself. Healing begins here, in myself.”

It is so easy for myself or others to find the faults in others, and not look within for where we are deficient. I guess it is a way of protection, and it is tough to remember that what we usually find fault in others about is exactly what is weak in ourselves. Far easier to judge others than ourselves.

Hope the exerpts that I shared are helpful. They got me thinking.

Heather

Currently Reading: From Brokenness to Community by Jean Vanier, two lectures that he gave at the Harvard University Divinity School.

Vanier was the founder of the L’Arche community, a community dedicated to providing love and care for those rejected from society, mentally ill, multiple handicapped, people unable to care for themselves. This small booklet seems packed with many interesting ideas that can be applied to us today.

A couple of interesting quotes:

P. 16-17 “To be in communion with someone also means to walk with them. Those of you who have had the privledge of accompanying people in distress and inner pain know that it is not easy to walk with them, without having any answers to their problems or solutions for their pain. For many people in pain there is no solution; for a mother who has just lost her child or for a woman who has just been abandoned by her husband, there is no answer, there is just the pain. What they need is a friend willing to walk with them in all that pain. They do not need someone to tell them to try to forget the pain, because they won’t. It is too deep. When a child has experienced rejection, you can say all sorts of nice things to the child, but that will not take away the pain. It will take a long time for that pain to diminish and it will probably never completely disappear.”

That is so true. In a Bible study our pastor was talking about this. One person asked about smoking. Our pastor said that some people are instantly delivered from smoking (or so it seems). That they spent years getting to a point where they were ready to be instantly delivered. But they forgot those preparatory periods of time. And then they come up to someone who still smokes and makes them feel bad because they are not instantly delivered.

He said that the Holy Spirit works on each person individually and that we have to be so careful about how we talk with others, that maybe some other aspect of a person needs healing first, then the area that you think they need healing will come at a later time.

I know that often when I am hurting people give advice, meaning well, but it becomes so condemning. Some Bible verses, I think are terribly misused, when people say forget what went behind and move on. That is true, the ultimate goal, but often God wants to heal the hurts first so that you are free to move on. It is not always instantaneously. Don’t know if I am stating this clearly.

This statement from page 21 I am wondering about. “I do not believe we can truly enter into our own inner pain and wounds and open our hearts to others unless we have had an experience of God, unless we have been touched by God. We must be touched by the Father in order to experience, as the prodigal son did, that no matter how wounded we may be, we are loved. And not only are we loved, but we too are called to heal and to liberate. This healing power in us will not come from our capacities and our riches, but in and through our poverty. We are called to discover that God can bring peace, compassion and love through our wounds.”

What troubles me about this is that God wants to be invited in, and when we are hurt so much in childhood, those places are so closed off. I know that in my case I had to defend against the hurt by completely walling in anything that was vulnerable. So how can God get there, when I can’t even access that. I think that we learn to love as children – Erick Ericksson said that in order to have basic trust we have to feel loved as an infant. If there is no love, do we have the capacity to feel love from even God?

I guess God can bring compassion through our wounds because when we have been hurt we have two choices, to hurt others or to reach out to other hurting souls. Unfortunately, often in this life hurting people hurt others. I hope and pray that I continue to do the opposite and reach out to help others.

My pastor once asked me how I learned to be a good parent. I told him it was because I did the opposite of what my parents did to me. Often that was the right thing to do. At least my kids feel loved most of the time. Of course they do not like to be forced to do homework or act responsibly, but then again I am their mom, not their buddy. But they know through all of this that I and their father love them very much.

Vanier then talks about the challenges of being in community. That it is more than belonging, but should rather be for becoming. That community gives the freedom to change through love and acceptance. Community is tough to do, I think. We all have our own fears, insecurities, and inadequacies, and we all have a need to appear to others as we are not. To be totally open in a community is quite challenging. Vanier says that it must be through brokenness, because then we have the capacity to be more open.

This is a small, but packed full of interesting thoughts book. I don’t know if it is currently in print. I got it at a used book store. Sometimes you can find real gems there.

Heather

Well, it was a Merry Christmas and all kids seemed very happy with their presents. The hit seems to be a small security camera that my husband bought for my middle son. All three kids have been “spying” on the cat, the lizard and snake by placing the camera near their areas, and watching from the living room. They have big plans for it. My son got a small servos and spun the camera around. He wants to put it outside and see what wild life comes across our lawn.

I have to tell you that Christmas is way more fun with kids around. We do keep Christ in Christmas, and I enjoy so much the fun the kids have with their toys. When I was a child I used to count the hours, minutes and seconds until I was safely back in my school classroom. Home was not a fun place to be.

We were watching the Wizard of Oz the other night and I kept remembering how puzzled I was that Dorothy would ever want to return home. If I were in her ruby slippers as a kid, I would never have left Oz.

We were talking about Hezekiah in our Friday Bible study. Hezekiah puzzles me. He moaned and groaned so much that God extended his life for 15 years. God stopped time. Wonder why God, who could do this, was powerless to intervene in my life? But what did God’s intervention produce. A son for Hezekiah who did more evil than any of the former kings. What was God thinking? If Hezekiah had just put his house in order and died, that whole life of Jews would have had a different outcome. Why did God go back on his word that Hezekiah would die?

I know that sometimes what we wish for is not in our best interest, and sometimes is detrimental to others. Why does God say yes to some of these detrimental requests and no to others where it would really be helpful?

I guess purists would say that we should not question God’s sovereingty, and we should just assume that what happens is in the best interest of us. But sometimes God’s plans take years and years, 400 years of captivity, etc. So are we just pawns in some sort of game?

Sorry if I sound so negative, but it is hard for me to trust God who seems so uneven in his interventions.

Was also thinking about a science fiction episode called, “To serve man.” It was about space aliens who came down and presented people with a book. Translators worked hard on the book and came up with the title, “To serve man.” The aliens seemed to be really serving men, helping out, giving inventions that reduced sickness, and everything looked good. People were excited to be invited onto the spaceship to go back to the aliens’ planet, and as people were loading onto the ship, someone translated the book, and found out it was a cookbook of how to cook humans and serve them. They had blindly walked through and accepted what wasn’t real.

People say that satan is the great deciever, and I know for a fact that many of the deceptions that I bought into came directly from Him. But what can we honestly presume from God? Could we be misrepresenting how much He wants relationship in our lives? Could be be misrepsenting how much He is in control in our lives? I really want to understand God’s interventions and lack of them at times. Consistency would be comforting.

Heather

Just finished the Beth Moore Bible Study THE BELOVED DISCIPLE, about John. It was an intense study from a perspective I had not studied before.I hadn’t thought about switching the focus of how you look at the Gospels through the various disciple’s perspectives before. And it was interesting to see John grow up from a teen to become a mature believer. The study of Revelation was thought provoking. Looking at the seven churches and how all but a few of them got both commendations and then critiques. I often wonder where I stand in the churches, would I be lukewarm? Have I purged out much of the false teachings I used to subscribe to (Jezebel)? At times I am more passionate about God, at other times very distant, so have I forgotten my first love?

At the start of the 10 weeks of study, Beth Moore suggested writing a letter to Jesus answering His question, “What do you want?” and then see how he answers it over the 10 weeks.

Sorry to say, that my main questions remain unanswered, which can be summed up in where was God when I was a kid.What was the real purpose behind what went on? (some recruiting system, many say that the past is God’s way of preparing us for our ministry) Do not mean to be disrespectful, but sometimes I wish my ministry was a simpler one. I wanted to know how much God allowed, how much was my father’s going beyond God’s wishes? I want to know why God hated me so.

Well, God has not deigned to answer these questions. And I know some would say that I am overstepping my boundaries in wanting answers from God. That I should just blindly trust, not question but believe that God would work everything out for my own good. I almost feel like an experiment – how much can be put on a person and them not crack.

There are times like today when I see that my past does have some good. I was in the middle school working with kids as a volunteer, and some of them are hurting so much. To be able to recognize their actions for the hurt that it is and speak a good word is a good thing. But at what price.

People also point out that Jesus suffered for me, for us, and that he suffered more than what we suffer on earth. I will give them that, but Jesus did volunteer for the job, he could have chosen at any point to not go through what he did. Not everyone is given a choice.

Then I asked if there was something inately wrong with me that caused my parents to do what they did, and not love me. So why should I expect love from God? Perhaps the crumbs of the table, but not direct love.

Perhaps God just wants us to work through this stuff on our own, and that is why His silence. Who knows. So many questions, so few answers.

Heather

Have been thinking a lot these days about free will. It isn’t exactly free when it comes right down to it. Sometimes I think that God gives free will to the oppressors, but the victims are not given the free will to choose not to be abused. Does God play favorites?

I do know that we are all given free will and that all have at one time or another abused free will. I know that if God immediately axed anyone who committed a sin there would be no population left on the earth, but some sins are far worse than others and God does not intervene.

If God really wants trust and relationship would it not make sense to protect those whom He wants relationship with? I don’t get this God at all.

Heather