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I just found this website and I am SO BLESSED and thankful already and I have only spent a short time reading some of the entries and comments.
Is there any information on here about how to find SAFE PEOPLE at CHURCH? My husband and I were New Believers who joined a Small Group and most of the couples in the group were dealing with addiction by showing the men GRACE. I was incredibly frustrated and was given messages such as… “Just love your husband”… “Be the face of Christ”… “That’s his problem to deal with”… “I don’t ask him about that”, and my favorite… “We’re not going to deal with the Pornography Addiction when the real problem is the marriage”.
It was a large church so we went to the Area Director, Small Groups Pastor, and then a Lead Pastor. At every level we were met with invalidation, told our EXPECTATIONS were too high, and that the Small Goup Leader and Group was SAFE. That it just wasn’t a good fit for us. I became the scapegoat really. I was in such a vulnerable place at the time that I started to believe that maybe I was the problem. It was awful and I was deeply hurt, and fought depression, extreme social anxiety, and a host of health issues. I felt unloved and unsafe in my marriage, in my family of origin, and the final blow… I felt unsafe at church.
It took 2 years to get back on my feet. When I say get back on my feet I mean I struggled to get out of bed, leave the house, and function without flashback and triggered thoughts pulling me under. It was scary. I thought I was going crazy. Depression medication barely made a dent. I was spiritually crushed. I had a lot of past stuff hitting at the same time, so there was a lot to sort through. I was hanging on by a thread, but the Lord didn’t let go of me.
I see a lot of recommendations on this website and others to contact a counselor or PASTOR… but when we did look to our church leaders… they did more harm than good. The leaders and pastors were not at all equipped or trained to handle addiction. It really set us both back.
How do we move forward after being “de-churched”? What do we need to look for moving forward, what are some questions we can ask?
In the battle!
GB
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Dear GB,
Thank you so much for bringing up this topic. It is very important. I’m so sorry to hear about your experiences. I am going to post about this tomorrow. God bless you.
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dear Robi, I wanted to share this with you as I shared it with Janice my mentor at setting captives free and I hope you enjoy it, thank you for being apart of my journey, thank you for your prayers , I still struggle with anxiety and am seeking God for his grace and guidance concerning communication with my husband. Please keep praying and here is little of my thoughts I decided to share the other day.
in response to finishing my course with my mentor Janice and with thoughts of others in mind but mainly her I decided to try to share this tonight:
I was thinking about old age and as we get old we might I imagine look back over our lives and think about how it was meaningful or just full. Maybe people do this at various times in their life but as we get older we might think about what we wanted to do when we were young what others we know have expressed as desires or dreams, did they come true? will it matter? so in my own life I imagined that I am very old and will I think about my life and go: Was it good? When I was a child I always wanted a horse to gallop off into the sunset , I did ride a friend or twos horses and was exhilarated. Well no horse riding adventures for me , but I have enjoyed another hobby, walking, I have been blessed with the health to go for a nice walk almost every day, and just now tonight the sun was setting casting a pink sky to the east as I have walked in the sunset. I will think perhaps of my childhood, not perfect but sweet in so many ways, my parents loved me, and I learned the song “Jesus loves me, this I know”. I was blessed to believe in Him and hear of him, I had a good childhood in so many ways, not perfect no. but good, I may look back and think , did I travel the world , did I get to see everything I wanted to see? Maybe not but I have traveled some and it will be enough, I have also been blessed to live in the most beautiful place, just today I walked along the Guemes channel trail and the water was glistening in the crisp September sun and the mountain Mt. Baker was clear and shining in the distance. I may not ever have the nicest cars and clothes and thing but I sure have had some nice ones and things, My house my not be the best decorated and my yard all manicured and filled with garden flowers but I have in my time mowed a few lawns and watered a few plants. I am blessed. I may not be the most beautiful, I may not always have my hair just so and my outfit just so but I feel pretty good about myself right now, and my health is good though of course I good be fitter but I am blessed. My children do not have perfect lives, that’s one thing that I think I would think about will my kids and grandkids be okay? They do not have perfect lives but I have shared with them the perfect Love of Jesus and I am entrusting them all to Him to hold them. They are amazing , miracles, God used me to bring human beings into this world. I am blessed. I may not be the smartest or have contributed greatly to society but I do believe God has a plan for me and I am still here because my life matters. I will not be able when I am old to look back and say I have always had a perfect marriage but today is new and tomorrow is bright because of Gods grace and power, And what I realize writing all this is that at the end of my life I will be able to say, my life was awesome because of this: To know Jesus and to be loved by Him and now to look forward to being even closer to Him is a celebration, the end of my life will not be looking back but looking ahead and holding His hand , whoever may read this, may you know your life is beautiful and the pain you go through, Christ goes through with you and He makes it all okay so you can rest and know, we don’t measure our life by the good things we did, or the good things we had, or the good things we experienced but by knowing Him and knowing He knows us, so my goal I’ve been thinking about these last few days has been along this line, hence this note, my life will not come to an end with me being able to say It was great ! Everything went right, ,I saw everything I wanted to see, did everything I wanted to do, experienced everything I wanted, even if I could say that without my Lord it would all be empty , instead I have “tasted” everything in life, the beauty and the pain and He is with me and it is good. My goal , let it be to know Him and to be like HIm.
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Hi Kayla,
That was very beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. God bless you.
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Robi- can you comment on the impacts this has on our children? Are there resources you can recommend?
Thank You
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G,
That is a very important subject. Thank you for bringing it up. I will work on a post for next week concerning this. God bless you.
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