Understanding God and myself in abusive situations. ( A Christian’s Story of how God healed her step by step over a 30 year period).

It’s over 30 years since our family were the victims of what I believe was abuse by the ‘spiritual leaders’ of a ‘Christian’ organisation. I don’t know if it would qualify as spiritual abuse as such, though the end result has certainly affected our whole family spiritually, and in many other ways.

After struggles in several designated areas of ministry I decided those years ago, when people are given responsibility for a job within any organisation, they must also be given appropriate authority to carry out the task whether they are male or female. This is particularly true when the leadership does not have the knowledge, skills, or training to do the job, and the person assigned does. Isn’t it right and Christian for believers to practice what their training, conscience, and integrity dictates? Over time it seemed impossible in our situation for these aspects of ministry to be balanced enough for the work to go forward. Eventually after years of trying to get better understanding with the leadership I had to accept that God shows His will through the leadership and our only option was to resign. The pain comes when the calling of God to the tasks had been so clear. Does God deliberately make a fool of His children by calling them, and then allowing them to be put in an impossible position? Apparently, yes. The thought that held me together through this time of overwhelming sorrow was: when good or bad men have done their best or their worst, they have power only to do that which God allows, even ordains. The Saviour on the cross is a case in point; I cling to that, but the conflict between calling and the impossible situation in which we found ourselves caused extreme pain.

Another principle, one taught in the Scriptures is: people under authority have authority. “I am a man under authority, therefore I say to one man go, and he goes”, the Centurion said to Jesus when he acknowledged the source of Jesus’ authority to heal. From this, I think that leaders, if they abide under God’s authority, have authority to command what God commands and forbid what God forbids, nothing more. They do not have authority to dictate how a marriage relationship will be conducted – the Bible clearly teaches that the husband is head of the house and therefore will be held accountable. They do not have authority over other’s children, not even for their education, because the parents are responsible for the outcome and, therefore, have authority to make decisions about their children that they see fit. Leaders, who have responsibility for our souls, can certainly reason with their members about the appropriateness of partners’, or parents’, decisions in the light of God’s word as they see it, but no authority to force their interpretation. If the leadership are so strongly convinced they are right they should ask the person/s to leave their organisation giving full reasons in writing for their request, so there is no future debate about what the issues were. If this had been done for us, I believe the damage would have been less, because there would have been a degree of closure.

How then can abused persons regain balance after leaving an organisation as victims of perceived power mongering by the leadership, under a cloud of ill-founded accusations, misunderstandings, and poor communication?

· I found it was necessary to grieve many losses, including the perceived loss of integrity as a person, particularly as one who had sought only to be true to the calling of the Lord which, in this case, had been ratified by the national church. As a Christian I was fairly ignorant about grief. It took me years to understand that the anger I felt was part of the grieving process; it didn’t have to be directed at anybody in particular among those whom I perceived had wronged us.

Another big loss for me, that caused enormous grief, was the loss of confidence in God’s leaders, and the loss of the respect I had for them. I followed them thinking I would be led along God’s path for me, and I believe I was led astray. I felt betrayed. I thought they knew the Lord they professed, and found out they didn’t! That was loss; it had to be grieved. Of course in later years I understood better that I had an unhealthy dependency on them and their opinions, as well as unrealistic expectations of my fellow man. Our expectations must be from God alone.

· I had to forgive whether the offenders thought they were at fault, or not. Many years later I was comforted by the Bible teaching that it’s the one who forgives who pays/suffers – the forgiveness extended by God to us sinners was paid for by the sufferings of His Son. (I had this pointed out to me by a Christian psychologist, who happens to be a pastor, and to whom I was taking a friend for counsel. He seemed very uncomfortable with my story, though – one of the offenders was a member of his church.) I found I am not good at forgiving in spite of knowing God’s suffering for my forgiveness, and that is humbling.

· Reading good books can help insight. ‘Don’t let Jerks Get the Best of You’ helped me accept it is OK not to want to have anything to do with the people who abused us. (Forgive them but don’t put yourself in a position to be abused again.) I have continued to pray for them and support them, and the organisation, as a discharge of my obligation to love, even enemies. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him…”

· And then, consider, there is coming a final day of accounting when the righteous Judge who knew all the facts will hold all of us accountable; justice can be safely left with Him.

· In later years, as my life’s load increased, I suffered physically from what has been diagnosed as ’emotional stress’. This resulted in changes to enzyme production with serious deficiencies in nutrition and I must take nutritional supplements to maintain health. Our physical health is important to spiritual recovery.

In trying to deal with a backlog of emotional damage over the years, even as far back as childhood, I consulted a psychotherapist who accessed and helped me to attend to many of the unconscious, unknown factors contributing to stress overload. So now, these years on, I can see my own brokenness contributed to my difficulties while in the organisation; it wasn’t all the leadership’s ‘fault’.

My recovery from the emotional damage done prior to working with this organisation is helping me to put the abuse in healthier perspective. After psychotherapy I found I could pray about the abuse issues without experiencing a surge of related emotions. These had always limited my ability to pray objectively. In other words, I learned by experience what I had always known in theory that we are integrated beings. Our emotional health is important to spiritual well being and Christian functioning. We all are ‘in recovery’, called sanctification, until the day we leave this life. We must attend to the personal issues He brings to our notice if we are to survive and be useful in His work.

I have built on those gains. I find spending more time each day in praise, meditation on Bible stories, and prayer for many others keeps me emotionally steady no matter what the stress load.

· Another help is understanding about “Boundaries” through the video series by two Christian psychologists. I am forced to conclude that our lack of skills and understanding in this basic area of human relationships contributed to us allowing ourselves to feel abused with nowhere to go with our pain. We could, instead, have recognised that leadership had a problem with their boundaries. It wasn’t our problem; it was theirs! For sure, we had to choose a response to their problem, but we didn’t have to go on the guilt trip they were dropping on us. I am no longer on that guilt trip, or any others, and healthier for it.

God has brought good out of those seeming evils:

· I learned to stand alone, under God and with faithful friends and prayer partners, through those difficult years without losing faith. Much later I was able to stand alone on behalf of those afflicted with prescription drug addiction. I was able go out on a limb to save a life given up by the medical profession, who came under my care. Through this, God worked to bring into Australia a remarkable technology for healing the physical effects of drug addiction. It had been invented over 25 years ago under great difficulty by one of His dear servants, now deceased. We wait to see what the future will bring in this work in Oz.

· I thank Him for every hurt, and the emotions that accompanied them, as I seek to help people caught in drug addictions. I know from bitter experience many of the emotions they feel. I can feel with them, as well as give them hope for resolution. I can bear patiently with their many pains, faults, and failings as they try to press forward, because I have been forced to face the reality of my own weaknesses and experienced God’s tender care and patience with me.

· I still don’t have a lot of confidence that I can successfully negotiate differences with peers or leadership. But, I am stronger now and will not be destroyed by conflict.

· I cautiously pursue closer relationships within the home group of my church, but retain a measure of cynicism towards leadership, though not willingly. (It’s the nature of the Church that emotionally broken people are part of it and, strangely, painfully, they are often found in leadership while being completely unaware of their limitations.)

· What role do I have, if any, in my present church fellowship? I can handle rejection of offers of input; in fact I can accept it even when I have no role.

· Our family members suffer varying degrees of indifference, even antagonism, towards the teachings of Christ and His Body. Even while I pray earnestly for them, I accept that they are adults and responsible for their own choices.

I believe recovery from the original abuse is almost complete, slow though it has been. I go forward richer by far, with a seasoned faith in God and more realistic expectations from man, which is as it should be.