Christianity Oasis Forum

[dema]

I've had a number of people ask me how to handle the dark cloud that sometimes seems to settle. I was listening to Joyce Meyer and want to share.

Sometimes it feels good to count and figure out. Sometimes it feels good to think about old things that made you angry.

Sometimes we have to count and figure out - but a lot of times we really don't - and David was badly punished for doing so. He took a census without God's permission and God gave him a choice of how he wanted people to die.

When you feel the dark cloud settle - think about what you have been thinking about - now that's what Joyce says. But I know that a lot of the time that isn't it. It just isn't.

But, I do know that the first reaction is "Why am I feeling this way?" and that is where you can get a grip. Don't worry about why you are feeling this way. Think of ways to not think about it. Think of ways to move on. Quote scripture, praise God, play PacMan (after a little praising and scripture) - get your mind off of the tricks of the devil.

Don't spend time wondering why.

I call it getting into the boat. Don't get into the boat.

I would have people want me to talk doom and gloom with them or get into useless arguments. And I would know I didn't want to discuss it and say I didn't discuss it and change the subject. But, somehow, ten minutes later I would realize I was discussing it and be so angry - as much at myself for getting into the boat as at them for talking me off of the dock and into it. I did not want to go there - but there I am, puttering along in that boat.

Took my a while to realize what got me there. I cannot stand to have people not understand me. I was a teacher - nursery school, Sunday school, junior high, high school and college. The trap for me is, "But what I don't understand is....." and wham, I immediately start explaining.

The thing is, that the reason I wanted to walk away in the first place is that it was an old and unresolvable discussion that was not going to be resolved by another run through. I had explained. Over and over. But that, "I don't understand ..." in the boat.

Now I know.

You each probably have other things that get you in the boat. That roap you into useless wonderings and puzzling throughs and trying to figure outs or into repetitive arguments that can never be won.

Figure out how you are being trapped and enticed. Quit getting in that boat.

I'm 9 days out of the boat. God willing I don't have to start the count over.

[stillstanding]

I soooooo get this!
thanks for posting dema.
i am learning to catch myself as i start to "get in the boat"...sometimes before i get one foot in; other times after the boat's leaving shore - not so far i hafta swim. when i catch myself i first think "right thoughts. think on right thoughts."
The more i dwell on "right thoughts" the less frequently i get in the boat

much loves and blessings

[dema]

Matthew 22 (New International Version)

1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.



This came to me this morning during devotional in the context of the recession and worry. Put in the context of today, the people say, "I can't afford the plane fare." "I can't afford to leave my business."

In fact, I think that many people are sitting at their desks worrying when they could be at the wedding banquet, and return to work in much better spirits, being much more productive.

This time will not return again. Follow your calling. Attend the banquet. Be filled with joy.



Matthew 6 (New International Version)
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.



Working in drudgery to atone for an imaginary sin isn't what God wants for you. Trust God! And don't doubt yourself. Drudgery and pain are not what God wants for you.

Nehemiah 8 (New International Version)

10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

[jayney]

What great words!! I am so in that boat, sometimes I get so cross with myself because I keep getting in the boat.
Will think of your wise words
Thank you
GBU

[realtmg]

I have enjoyed your postings and feedback!

GBU


Real

[dema]

Thank You. All of you.

[dema]

I own my own business. Lately, the work has been coming in like it did pre-recession. Some of the work requires travelling. I am trying to delegate some of the travelling, but sometimes it just has to be the owner.

Currently, I don't have a laptop. I had one for the business, but after two years of barely using it, I didn't replace it when it became obsolete. I have a blackberry that picks up my emails and my OM's on here. But, I can't chat. and reading OM's is pretty tedious.

Just thought I'd let you know in case I don't get back to you for a while sometime. I'm so happy to be working a lot. It is good for the soul.

If I get this one big job I bid, I will buy a laptop and some sort of service - I think Sprint has a laptop service now so that you can use the laptop anywhere with cellphone coverage.

Just FYI.

[dema]

When something really awful happens, a person goes through stages. The first stage is denial.

The thing about sexual abuse is that a lot of other people try to force the victim into denial. And the victim has all sorts of reasons to want to stay in denial. But a person doesn't get well if the person doesn't go through the stages.

The next step is mourning. And in sexual abuse, you need to mourn. Let yourself be sad.

And the next step is anger, and you need to let yourself be angry.

And then, one needs to learn how to give it to God. To release. To learn what forgiveness means in this context - it is a release. It isn't rushing off to hug the abuser.

But, the reason I am writing is because I see so many people who think that if they can't forgive today, that they just can't get well, that they are sinning and God doesn't love them and they slip back into denial.

It takes time. Months and months if not years and years. And each stage takes time - at least months and months in the case of sexual damage. At least. Not days. Not weeks - months. Be patient with yourselves.

1. You need to face it - it is best to face it in counselling with someone who has specific training.
2. You need to grieve. Let yourself cry. Mourn. Write poetry. Be sad. It is part of the process.
3. Get angry. The person who did this committed a crime. He HURT you.
4. And then, work on releasing the whole thing to God. Work is really the wrong word. Learn to let it go to God. More like a bubble or a balloon.

But, you cannot expect yourself to leave a hospital after a rape kit and just forgive everybody and be happy. You are a human being. You have feelings.

Don't have unrealistic expectations.

Facing it can take years.
Mourning can take years.
Being angry can take months - hopefully not years. But anger is a part of the process.

These things can overlap. You can be angry about part of it while still denying another part. You can forgive part while still being furious about another part.

You don't need to be being impatient with you. It isn't fair. You were the one hurt. Be patient with you.

And it wasn't your fault. But you still have to deal with it. You can't just deny it because it wasn't your fault. It has to be looked at, and worked through and THEN given to God and released. It just does.

Hugs and tears and more hugs.

[dema]

True faith in God isn't saying, "Protect me" it is saying "Stay with me." And knowing He will.

[dema]

I wrote several books full of devotionals for my husband while he wasn't attending church. Several hundred. Ended up sending them to an email distribution list - it would come up in conversation and people would ask to be included.

I did most of these by putting a common Christian word into the online concordance and then reading the resulting verses until I saw a theme. Others were due to a thought or heavenly lesson that I was on.

Here is one of them:

Day 1 - Conditions
Psalm 37 is a wonderful chapter to read when feeling beaten down.
It tells us that God will take care of us.
Psalm 37 (King James Version)
25 I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

And He will lead us.

Psalm 37 (New American Standard Bible)
4Delight yourself in the LORD;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
5Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

The two are totally interrelated. Delight yourself in God and THEN He will give you what you desire. Commit. Trust. And He will fulfill His promises.

This is a strong theme in these devotionals – one present in the Bible that is frequently left out when quoting out of context.

The Bible requires us to fulfill the condition before we get the result.
Have extreme satisfaction, pleasure and joy in the Lord and He will give you what your heart desires.

Learn to be delighted with what God has already done and He will fulfill you beyond your wildest dreams. But, you have to be delighted first, and then you will be fulfilled.

That is the way of the promises of God.

[dema]

What I am hearing from people's hearts goes something like this:

"How could he do this to me? He was a nice man. Everybody liked him. I liked him. I even liked him after he did it - well, not when he did it, well, maybe for a minute when he did it, but then it was scary and then it was awful... But, maybe it was me. He was a nice man. He bought me presents. He said nice things to me. If he was evil, them maybe all the nice things he said weren't true. He took me to the zoo. He came to dinner. I liked him. How could I like him if he was evil? Something is wrong with me. It is. Something HAS to be wrong with me for me to like an evil man. And if something is wrong with me, then maybe it is all my fault."

In abusive marriages, the husband tends to give a lot of feedback. After he has beaten his wife, usually he is so sorry. And he brings her presents several times a day. Because he is insecure, he may call her 15 times a day. Girls in foster care are very susceptible to this kind of abuser so as foster parents we were warned about it. My foster daughter dated a normal guy briefly and the mother called to ask why she called so much - that it annoyed her son and he didn't want to see her anymore. I asked my foster daughter how much she was calling and she said, "Not much. My other boyfriends would have been mad if I didn't call them more." and I asked how many times, "Four times a day."

Why do these guys do this? - they are insecure. They don't believe anybody could want them - so they have to MAKE them want them. And the girls feel the same way. And the guys frequently keep them by trapping them financially with babies and no training or freedom and repeating over and over that the girls are worthless.

This makes some sense. It is sad, but it makes sense. But why would a grown man, a respected man of the community, use similar techniques on a child? I suspect part of it is self-doubt and a lack of self worth. A lot of people over achieve because they have that self-doubt. But, no matter what they achieve, they don't get the self-worth. The self-worth comes from God. (By the way, you don't know what is in the abuser's heart - only God knows. People can look saved and act saved and still be a servant of the devil.)

And more so, I personally believe that that self-doubt opens the door to evil spirits. A lot of times there is a rush, a thrill, to doing what we know is wrong. For those of us with an intact sense of right and wrong, the feelings that follow it a short time later are so awful that the rush just isn't enough of a stimulus. Many of us hear the little evil voices - but we are children of God and we know the voices are evil and we rebuke them and do something opposite. Sing a Christian song, do something nice for someone, pray loudly - and the voices go away. Even if they don't go away - we know right is right and wrong is wrong. And we are cognizant - we KNOW - about the harm it does to others.

If you think about it, it is rather amazing that a four year old, who doesn't have any concept of sex, should feel shame after a sexual act that didn't hurt him. But, he does. Down to his core. Why is that? A doctor could do the same thing and he wouldn't be damaged. What is it with that?

How do these monsters do what they do? You see they ought to be monsters. They shouldn't be the guy who drove a little car in the parade, or who donated money for a kid's kidney transplant, or who bought their wife roses or that is the only one who knows what our secret desires are - to be a doctor or fly a plane - and doesn't belittle them. How can this person who seems to understand better than anybody else be a monster? But how can a person who isn't a monster fill a child with such shame?

I personally believe that they are possessed or else thrilled to listen and act on the instructions of the evil one. I don't mean possessed like they don't have themselves left. I mean that they have this evil thing on their shoulder that gives them thrills when they listen.

Only 10% of abuse victims ever abuse someone else. But most abusers were abused.

I think what this means is that the wall that you have inside of you, that wall that says how evil this is, has been broken down in the abuser.

I think he can lie to himself and say, "This isn't so bad. She isn't bleeding. A doctor will do this to her. I'm not hurting her. She isn't crying. Well, maybe a little bit."

Actually, I don't think they think any of it at the time. I think they think it in retrospect - after it's over when there should be guilt. Or before they do it the next time.

Now, some of the predators are monsters. There is no doubt they are monsters. And, from what I've seen, even though they hurt their victims worse, their victims don't have all the same problems. They have some self-doubt. But not this all permeating self-doubt that the victims of "nice guys" have.

Ladies, whether the guy was driven by a devil spirit or a perverted sexual desire or both - the guy is a criminal. Period.

I don't care how many hospitals he builds or if he was the only one to attend your dance recital.

He is a criminal. He chose. People choose and he chose. And he chose WRONG.

Or she chose wrong. I've heard of some abuse by women also. Sick, sick, sick. They are sick. You have an intact sense of morallity. That's what is screaming at you. Yours works. You need to help it to get well. But yours works.

The person who abused you is a sicko. A criminal. A predator. A pervert. An actor. A pretender.

And it was WRONG!!!!!!!

And it isn't your fault!

And yes, if this person knew just how to make you feel loved, you did enjoy the attention. And maybe you enjoyed it a little too long. And maybe your body responded to inappropriate touches.

That is normal. He or She is still the pervert and it still is NOT your fault.


NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT!

You didnt' do it. Just because you were young and poor and confused and he was rich and strong and handsome and so self-assured and did nice things. NO!

He was a predator and you were a victim. You ARE a victim until you work through it. Please do. Please work through it.

I recommend reading Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. Beauty for Ashes is a wonderful book - but if you can't make it through cccc on this site, I doubt that you can handle Beauty. Even some people who did find the book to be too hard.

But, really, you need to go through your history piece by piece with a professional and feel the feelings and be absolved of them (forgiven and washed clean). And most people need a counsellor to do that. Facing those feelings, you feel them again. You need someone to bring you out of them if you go too far. I cannot do that for you.

And for each event or series of events - you need to grieve, and get angry and take it to God. I guess really you are taking it to God at least twice. The first time is when the counsellor helps you to believe that you were sinned against and it wasn't your fault. And the second time is maybe a year later when you let it go - when you give the sinner and his sin to God to handle and shake it loose from your own hands and life.

But, if you were abused many times,then you have to go through the whole process many times.

Joyce Meyer had horrible abuse and she is well. And many people in her ministries are similarly well. You can get well. You can.

But it takes work. Some of the hardest work there is.

God bless you. God loves you. God wants you to be healed.

[dema]

Well, my hubby gave me almost a month of peace. And then he joked about breaking a very serious promise he had made to me. And I burnt out so long ago. And I finally convinced him that I do not love him and will not love him. And it appears that we are going to start the separation process - and the divorce.

It is crazy the thoughts. It occurred to me that I haven't lived with anybody as long as this guy. Not my parents or my kids. We were married for 18 years. My kids lived with their dad for a little while after that divorce....

And then there is the thing of another failure. 14 years the first time, 18 years the second.

I haven't lived alone except for two months when I was 19 years old. I babysat a house in the country. I am 54 years old and I have never lived alone. I have been the main breadwinner in this relationship - by far.

I was kindof afraid of the image of "A Christian Man" and "A Christian Marriage" as it existed in the 70's. I didn't want to be told what to do. I didn't want to have to ask permission. I didn't want a husband to listen with a condescending look. My father never did the latter, but he did call a lot of the shots. Mainly for furnishings. He liked fifties modern which my mother despised. And so they mainly lived with handmedowns. Not because they couldn't afford it, but because they couldn't agree. In their retirement he has let her furnish their dream house in things she likes. "Let her" I have had a problem with "Let her"

But, I tell you, I have done a lot of being the mommy in this marriage and I don't ever want to do that again.

I think my emotions are pretty predictable - but still awfully hard to handle. Mourning, sadness at having to hurt him to convince him he really needed to let go. First he yelled and chased me around, and then he cooked and bought flowers, he never cooks.

I think his bookkeeper would love to have him. I don't think there has been even a moment of impropriety between them. But, I think she will comfort him. He is with her now - went to a cookout, but probably went off to confide in her as well.

Really, he loved me. That's part of the whole problem. Seems like so many people move on. That so little sticks around. And he awlays loved me the most that he could. He wasn't here for me. He was avoiding intimacy and saying meanness - sounds like an abused wife doesn't it? "Yes, he hit me, but nobody else loves me that much."

He didn't hit me. But, he was mean.

But, they aren't always mean. Sometimes there are roses and promises and hugs. Ya know? And fixing the ice maker or the dishwasher or jumping the car or buying sherbet when the wife is sick.

And sharing bills.

I told him I wanted him to be my cousin. We lived together so long. We have so much history. I don't see how he could ever be my cousin - not realistic. Maybe for the summer this summer - but after that it won't work. But, the thought of cutting off that huge piece of my history. Surely it would be easier to lose an appendix or gallbladder?

I am sooooo tired.

I want it to be over. I want to have him not hurt. I want to not hurt. I want him to be comforted by another woman (most of me does, really. Because then he won't want to come back to me. My first husband was unfaithful and it was soooo much quicker and cleaner than what I have been through this time. Crazy, huh? Part of the trouble is that I am a battle ax. I don't look like a battle ax, but I am one.)

Part of me would cry. And part of me would be relieved. I have made it my duty to take care of him. Somebody has to do it.

Crazy ramblings. Soooo tired. God willing it can be over this summer. It can be over and I can learn how to live alone.

Scary. Sooo scary. Anybody need a roommate?

By the way, scary to me is what you feel at the top of a roller coaster. Or when there are creepy noises in the dark. Fear is something else. I am not afraid, I know God will take care of me. I am only scared - like scaredy cat, scaredy cat.