I Have Moved On!

One of the things I think I have feared the most is both the idea that somehow I might be bitter and with that bitterness that I will not "move on."

I think you might have heard the same thing in your own lives. If you talk about the things that have happened one of the first things said to you by well meaning friends is this idea that they fear we might become bitter and that we "won't let this all go" and "move on."

So I fear that since I am still writing about it and explaining what happened to us that the verdict will be - "see, you haven't moved on."

Well today I have had a revelation of my own heart that has helped me and I hope will help those who lovingly worry about me.

I have moved on!

I have moved on to help others either heal from their own experiences and/or help them out of their present situation by seeing someone else's story or hearing the truth about the spiritual abuse that they are experiencing.

And you know what? I think I 'moved on' very early in this blog - almost from the very beginning. If you read "The Reason for the Blog" on the sidebar of this site you will read that my desire back then was that it would help someone else. Yes, I realize that I also needed healing and a place to vent a bit but honestly the minute I was "out" of the situation I began to want to desperately help others like I had been helped.

So for those who might be worried about me not moving past this issue in my life, please be assured, I have. Yes, there are still stories to be told and even some repentance that I will still need to deal with in my own life. But my point is NOT to rehash this or to have some sort of vengeance on those still in the system.

I've moved from a house called Hurting to a brand new address called Helping.

For anyone who wants to visit me there, please write, call or come and sit on my deck and hopefully we can sort out together what Father's heart is for all of this. You may not move on yourself to "help." But your moving on can be to something that God has called you to do and be involved with.

For me, today, I'm sure for the first time of my "calling."

(Big sigh)

Family First

Overheard in all of my churches growing up and even in my last church we were always saying, "God first, family second and Church third.

The one that I have learned much about this past 3 years is about putting family first. Because we are out of a church setting and away from any formal "ministry," it has put us smack dab into the middle of our family. It is hard to put anything in front of them because there is nothing else to replace them with. It's just US here on this island for the while. Of course we have people in, one family that has always been family to us and another couple that has become just like family but in contrast to the crowds of people we were used to having in and being responsible for it has really become just our family.

What I learned is that I had never put my family first. I thought I had. I would have been mad at you if you suggested that I had put Church in front of my family but this is just what I had done.

It was hard to see back then. Sundays were always more important than family. We never missed one except for being out of town and even then we tried to plan around what was happening. If someone in the church needed something I felt totally guilty and unwilling to say "No," to the request. If we had people over to the house for an event, my kids worked like servants to pull it off. They never got a vote whether to do it or not. That is just what the "Peters Family" did. We worked hard at getting it ready and I often waived off any help cleaning it up by saying, "No, the girls will help me get it....you just run along." We were busy most of Sunday's and I always found church things to be involved with during the week. If there was a crisis with one of the kids, it would have to wait till after the church stuff we were involved in. Family first? Hardly.

My daughter just related a story the other day where she remembered a birthday of hers that happened to fall on a Sunday where we had a lot of people over. She had told some of them it was her birthday and I had urged her not to make a big deal of it in front of our guests. I did not remember this day so I'm not sure what I was thinking but we were so taught to put our needs last that I'm sure that is what I was "teaching" her. Yuck!

Plus, we were giving so much, financially, to the church that we really did not have much extra to spend on just "us." When I think of all the 100's of thousands of dollars giving in the offering plate and the building funds I am sick. My family should have had that money for college, needed cars, and time together. Family first? Hardly

See, I think that somewhere in my thinking putting God-first became putting the Church first. I showed my devotion to God by showing my devotion to the Church. Some of this was my fault for getting my identification from my role in the organization. But some of this was directly taught. Not so much directly from the pulpit but much of it by what was said behind someone's back that was not as "involved" as we were.

So I find myself here today, on a month-long vacation with my family. We have the finances, the time and the desire to do this and looking back at the time where I thought we were putting "Family-first," I just shake my head and wonder what universe I was in.

It breaks my heart now that I have tasted the richness of spending time with my kids and husband. I love them and would drop anything to be with them. We have grown to relate and listen to each other. It was intense at first. We had to work at it because we had grown up mostly being busy and avoiding the conflicts. But it is so worth it. I love my family. I want to protect my time with them. This is truly God-first, Family-second and Church....Well, Church as it happens around us.

Stages of Grief/Blogging

Wikipedia, in its article about the stages of grief gives the five commonly known stages that people go through while experiencing grief of all sorts. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Today, while I had a few minutes to catch my breath in the middle of both my busy season at work and my father's decline in health I pondered those stages. Many of you are asking why we are not blogging about the church or our situations as much as we were last year at this time. I realized today that in a lot of ways, the stages of my blogging mirrored the stages in my grief over our church situation. I wonder if many of you are like me too.

In the beginning, there was the denial. I just did not want to believe these people would not turn around and be my friend again. I did not want to believe that they would simply turn away from our leaving without coming to reconcile the seeming dichotomy of what they knew of our lives and what was being said (or not said). I could not believe that if I could figure out the inconsistencies of the doctrine and practice that they would also soon figure it out. Denial was a large part of the beginning of my journey and then my blogging.

Anger. Oh how the anger phase fueled my fingers as they ranted and exposed and cried out for justice. I almost look back on that phase with a bit of longing. I was feeling, thinking, reacting and if nothing else, I felt alive. I tried to "tone it down" because some friends were reading, but trust me, it was born out of the anger I felt for being duped and then in turn duping others as I was their leader. I was just waiting for God to get a clue and straighten them all out and show everyone that we were right!!

I think for me, I skipped right over bargaining to depression. I remember posts that I would weep over. Nights where I would dream of former friends and then spend the next day in a fog. I did not want to do anything. All the pleasures of life were reduced to gray - no color. Even in this phase it fueled the mind to write. I needed to reach out of my pit and at least know that others were around who understood me. You all were great. You reached right back and loved me. I think the time of depression would have lasted much longer with graver consequences if it were not for the online community that I experienced.

The bargaining phase though did pop up here and there. I wanted to offer God something else that might work. I wanted community like I had before. I wanted to belong again. I wanted the "church" to change so that I could belong. I entered a period of wondering how the "church" could be structured so as to prevent any abuse of power. How would we all get together to pray and share and learn?

And then, somewhere in the past few weeks and months I think the last phase has descended. Acceptance. I have learned to accept the place where I am. I have learned to accept my kids, my husband and my friends just as they are. I accept the "church" and realize that while others may go and find a place of community, I will probably not ever be there again. Acceptance that the friends God places around me are the friends that I am to have - no more - no less. Acceptance that the times around my dinner table or out to eat are my church. Acceptance that my kids, their friends and their parents are here for me to love.

Most of all this acceptance phase has decided to accept the path that the Father has seemed to place us on. Maybe we are crazy. Maybe we are hard of heart or even more likely, hard of hearing. But, as much as I may not really love it all of the time, it is where we are.

The thing lately that has brought me peace in this place of acceptance is a memory. When Nathan, (now 14), was born, I distinctly felt that the Father told me that I was to give him a middle name of Dabar. Dabar is a Hebrew word for "a new thing." Of course, back in my old group we were always looking out for the next NEW THING!!! that was just around the corner. I thought maybe he was to be a great leader, prophet, evangelist. But just the other day I was reminded of his name and it made me laugh a bit. What if this "new thing" is the absence of all of the old stuff. What if the Father wants my kids brought up outside the confines of the institutional church? What if He wants to teach them about himself - all by himself - in an organic kind of existence?

I guess I'll never know really. All I know is that today as I look back and evaluate, I am at a place of acceptance like never before. I feel like I have finally sunk to the bottom of a warm ocean, I have sand beneath my feet and I am stable for the first time in a long time. I'm surrounded by the sea of His love. I breathe in the water and am amazed that I can exist in this place with such health.

Not much to write about down here. But it is nice.

It is Done....Again

A friend and I were talking the other day. The conversation drifted to the church she was attending. She loves her church. She was telling me how much she loved the people, loved them being around her, her husband and her kids and how much she trusted the leadership there, what a good heart they had and so on.

I found myself being inwardly very cynical. The conversation in my head was something on the order of, "Yeah, right. That is what I thought all those years. You had better not put your trust in anyone there. It is only a matter of time till you really find out what they are like."

I guess it showed on my face. Sometimes it is hard for me not to let you know how I'm feeling if you are sitting across the table from me.

So we talked about it. I told her that I felt like a woman whose husband had cheated on her and left her. Now I don't trust any man. I know the hurt they are capable of. I've been through the divorce. I can't imagine trusting again.

We started talking about trying to visit other church bodies. She understood how it would be hard but maybe if I tried now, in two years I may have a different perspective.

I laughed and told her I felt like the wife again who's friends are trying to get her out there to date a little.

And then it hit me. I don't want to "date" around. What I truly wanted and I think was waiting for is for my own "husband" to come back to me. I did not want another church body. I wanted my old church body. I did not want to really make new friends as much as I wanted my old friends back.

But here was the hard part. She said to me, "Barb, even if they re-established a relationship with you...even if you could go back...it could never be the same because of these last two years. For two years they have not talked to you. For two years they have acted as if they did not care. For two years they have not answered your emails."

And, she reminded me, "in the two years you have been gone, you have become a different person."


I feel stupid verbalizing that I was waiting to have it all go back to the same way it once was. All I needed to do was to read my own blog over the past two years to see the ways I have changed and the mindsets that I no longer have. I could not go back to them. They probably won't come to where I am. It truly is done. The relationship is dead.

Relationship with the individuals will always be an open door if they want to walk through it, but the "thing" I had with them for so many years is passed. Done.

Again, I feel stupid for not realizing that this was what I was thinking all along. It seems like such a "duh" kind of thing. But it is better to realize it now I guess than later or never.

After letting that set a few days I realized that my heart somehow turned to the future in ways it had never done before. I realized that I was no longer waiting for the old things to come back. It was just us...here....now. It was suddenly what lies ahead. It was like a ship that had been loosed from its dock.

I wonder where we will go, what we will see, who we will be with in the next few years. And that is a new thought to me today.

Families and Toxic Churches

One of the things I have come to appreciate in my journey out of the institutional setting is my family. They are precious. They are funny. They are amazing. They are and have become so much more a part of my life. They are mine!

In our church we were subtlety taught to discount our extended flesh and blood families. That might horrify you but it was true. It came up in so many ways. We would call ourselves a family as we gathered together at church. The pastors would wax on about how THIS was true family. How our blood families just "did not get it" like our church family did. How true love could really be shared by those who "loved God" like we did. How, yes, we must honor our given families but we knew who our REAL family was.

There were those of us who would "bear through" family gatherings only to get together with our 'real' family later in the day. We judged them for their values, beliefs, customs and lives. We would roll our eyes and sigh about having to spend time with them. If we could - without guilt - divorce our old families we probably might have.

Then IF EVER there was a disagreement with our families about our leaders, our church, our beliefs or anything regarding our group/church we were sure that our leaders knew what they were talking about all along. I have seen children barely speak to their parents. Holidays spent with the church "family"/or leaders in lieu of spending time with one's own family. It is/was heartbreaking.

The erosion of these bonds was subtle. If asked, no one would have actually said to leave your family (except if the family was making it hard to stay in the group). No one would have gone on record to do that. But as you just hung around the group you caught the flavor. Little things were said.
"We wish you did not have to go to home, we will miss you at our gathering."
"I know you HAVE to go home this Christmas but maybe you can come back in time for our gathering."
"It must be hard to go back there and sit through their church....I'm so sorry."
"You know, you don't have to go to everything they plan."
"They should not expect you to just drop all the important stuff you are doing here to run to their little affairs."
"I know you would rather be here with us."
"Why do your parents seem to want you at everything?"
"You know...we need you here too."
"It is just not healthy for you to be there."
"Well...you know who really loves you."

Husband and I are trying to be a part of our families lives. We didn't realize just how much time we were taking away from our families and giving it to programs and other people. We simply did not realize the condescending attitudes we were giving off to our extended families. We did not realize just how precious and fun our family was.

I never again want to come in between a child and their parents. I want to do everything I can to encourage the involvement of a husband and wife with their own children or a young family with their parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and such.

Our families are given to us by the Father. Make sure your church is promoting this. If you sense the other...RUN....Run back to your family. They need you and will still be there after all the others have left.

The Road To Restoration

I have written this post 3 times now. Each time I see what I have written and delete it. I'm so frustrated with what is being thrown around about this wonderful word 'Restoration.'

We are in the midst of a restoring war. We argue and squabble about restoring this man or that man.

We are now restoring in public so everyone supposedly knows what is going on. All the sins will be aired. We even get to send in our hard earned money to fund this process.

We are restoring for YOUR EDIFICATION. We are told that this circus is to encourage us, build us up.

We stand on each side of a river with the sinner in the middle and throw mud balls at each other about the restoration process. One one side we have the (purportedly) side of Grace. The other side that of (again purportedly) a Pharisaical spirit. Say ONE word and you are thrown to one side or the other and handed a mud ball to join in the fun.

I know that no one has asked me what I think. But this is my blog so if you are reading you are going to hear what I think.

I think everyone needs to put down their mud. I think we need to go and get the man out of the middle of the river and take him away from all of the circus. He can't and won't be restored while he is standing there. It was the center stage in the circus that helped to create the problem in the first place. In the place of quiet where everything is stripped away and nothing is promised he will find a place of true restoration.

There was a man once named Saul that needed restoration. He was a murderer. I think he disappeared for quite a few years. He somehow found the heart of the Father there. He never had the same stage as he had before. But everyone can agree that he was restored.

There was a woman once that needed restoration. Her name was Barbara. She abused others in the Body. She has gone through a process of about 2 years of what I would call restoration. She won't have the same position as before. Her restoration was TO SOMEONE not to a place or office or a gift.

And therein is what I think everyone is missing. We are not to see the end of restoration as an end of being back at the same place where we started. Sometimes we mess up enough that it physically can't happen. How can you be restored to a wife when you have married another? How can you be restored to a ministry when you destroyed it on your way out. How can you be restored to being fake when everyone now knows who you really are?


The restoration process is to restore our HEART back to the One who loves us. If our goal is to restore a person back to where they started he will forever remain unchanged. If we have any goal other than to restore the heart - to the Father - we will miss our mark entirely.

A New Year: Of Brokenness and Healing - Alex Blanton

A man named Alex Blanton left a comment on my post the other day about a Hope Deferred: Heart Flat Lined. He gave me a link to something he had written at the beginning of this new year. I wanted to highlight his post today in its entirety as it answers my post with wisdom and insight of what is going on in so many of our lives. Enjoy!

A New Year: Of Brokenness and Healing

Here we are again at the brink of a new year. In the past, I have usually taken the opportunity of breaking away for a little planning, a little casting of vision, and a bit of praying about all the shining new opportunities that the Lord would have in store for the coming year. This is all just fine and swell.

This past year however, I feel like Father has been slowly and methodically taking every plan, dream, vision, etc. and put them through the shredder. (It's funny - I actually remember praying and singing that they were His.) Now I stand looking into this new year, and you know what? I am pretty desperate for something completely new.

No - not just a new vision, plan, dream, whatever - I desperately need Him to pop me open and pour bucket after bucket full of Himself into my utter emptiness. It has not been fun to watch Him unravel and deconstruct all my false notions and paradigms I have had about following and living for Him, and I am not sure He is done yet, but I realize that if I do not have He Himself fill me to overflowing with all of who He is, then I am utterly without hope.

But is this not true of all of us? Why must He use our suffering to expose our illusions, fallacies, and delusions - to reveal our true emptiness and brokenness? But why do we run from it?

Funny thing is that I have watched many that the Lord has had us in contact with in these last few years, and it seems like they are all going through similar transitions. The Father has taken them through disruptions and other unpleasantness to find their former expectations unfulfilled and oddly hollow. It's not like God takes pleasure in thwarting our pursuits and expectations, but strangely, it is as if He is not content in letting us chase after these things any longer, no matter how worthy or meaningful they appeared to us before.

Does anything compare to receiving and experiencing the depths of God Himself? Could it be that "we have all like sheep gone astray, each of us to chase after our own vain fantasies?"

We have been told for so long, with the best of intentions I think (and not without scriptural precedent), that we should all be seeking and listening for God's will for our lives - looking for "God's purpose for our lives." He is the King. Yes! Pursuing our own purposes and expectations for our lives has never worked out, we think to ourselves, so knowing and following His plan would be so much better!

So, we wait for some divine message. We parse the heavens and the earth. We look at our lives and our circumstances for signs that help us unravel this code for why God has us where we are, going through what we are going through. Surely, we think, this is all happening for some greater purpose, that we are supposed to be a part of something greater than ourselves. If somehow, we think, we can figure out what that thing is, then all the pieces of our lives will fall into place. (Or at least the ones that make it bearable.)

Okay - so, now something happens and we are convinced this may be an overture of divine grace upon our lives - God's immanent hand moving to reveal to us at last His intentions for our mundane existence. So, we jump into it, full of gusto, and get on with the business of fulfilling God's purposes and expectations for our lives. No pressure there! But we jump in nonetheless. This is God's plan, right? What could possibly go wrong.

Then things go wrong.

Either through someone else, something else, or even (most of the time) through just ourselves, things manage to get screwed up. Royally. Not a little hurt and confused, we crawl back to Jesus for grace, licking our wounds. OK - this was our fault probably. So, we get back out there and go to work at The Plan again. Fulfilling God's purposes and expectations should be doable - we've got the Holy Spirit working with us and all that, right?

Well, somewhere along the way things get mixed up, screwed up, misdirected, misguided, misunderstood, again and again and again. Not enough time, not enough energy, not enough passion, discernment, motivation, money, commitment - the list of our failures and shortcomings goes on and on. The problem with living at trying to fulfill God's purposes and expectations for our lives is that when we cannot live up to them, we have to answer to God Himself. Each time things go wrong, we come back more disappointed and disillusioned. What is going on God? Was this not Your plan here that you wanted me to fulfill? It is Your purposes for my life I am trying to work out here! It is Your Kingdom that I am trying to extend! Some get frustrated and angry believing that God is distant and uninterested at best, fickle and unjust at worst. Some beat themselves up with guilt for their inadequacies, believing that God is not pleased with them, always standing just out of reach. Either way, we are rather let down that we are still left standing with a bunch of broken puzzle pieces. Everyone seems to have an opinion or a suggestion about how they are supposed to go together, but somehow we just don't really care anymore.

Does this sound familiar?

from beginning to end. What have we really been pursuing in our hopes of fulfilling God's mission and purpose for our lives? Did it ever occur to us that God may, in fact, be the one frustrating our efforts? Like, on Do you see something wrong with this picture though? This story has really been all about my purpose?

The problem with this whole scenario of discovering God's greater purposes for the universe, is that corrupt tendency in us to then chase after that thing rather then after God Himself. Why do we keep doing this? Why do things always get twisted into being about how we can fulfill our supposed needs and desires if we somehow get things right? We scour the scriptures. We take furious notes. We serve diligently. We give faithfully. We pray passionately. But we are still doing it for ourselves.

Here is the paradigm shift for me, folks: From life being about me finding and fulfilling God's purposes for my life, to life being about God finding me and God fulfilling my life in Him.

I believe this is where we get things all turned around and mixed up, and He is allowing us to get just as frustrated and disillusioned as we need to in order to figure it out. He knows that our deepest needs - the need for security and significance in life - can only be fulfilled in Him. But in our brokenness, we seek to use even God and His "purposes" as a means to find and fulfill this within ourselves. It's still all about us. Even in pursuing all those things that are good and wonderful about God and His' plan for the universe, we will still miss the mark if our goal is not deeper knowledge of Him.

Knowing God is not a cognitive exercise, a means by which we will have the tools to succeed in living life for Him. If that is our paradigm, then He will let us trip and fall as many times as it takes for us to see that we are missing it. This is a supreme act of intimacy, of laying ourselves bare before one in whom we can trust, and discovering the other has done the same. What God desires of us, is that we would choose to be vulnerable and bare - open and honest before Him. Open and honest with our shame and blemishes, to bare even the darkest corners of our hearts. To stand naked before Him and be revealed in even in our most bitter suffering.

Why? Because this is our true selves. The one that we try to cover and hide. The one that we try to marginalize through our own efforts. The one that we think that we can heal and patch up through fulfilling even the fantasies that we have about serving and following God. But God is not interested in our fantasies - the illusions we hold about ourselves, or of what we will do for Him.

You see, our brokenness warps even our love and our desire for Him. What He is interested in is us seeing ourselves as we truly are, in all of our brokenness, and choosing to not hide from Him any longer, but to stand naked before Him. In that moment, we discover that He has seen our true selves all along, but it is we who were fooled. It is this self-deception that keeps us from being healed and experiencing the depths of His surpassing love.

Until we are honest with who we really are, however, we are not open to receive the Love that transforms and heals our brokenness. In that moment, we discover that He has already returned the trust and vulnerability of love, and always has. Why would He risk so much on Adam and Eve? Why would He lay down His' own life, become a man to suffer for the sake of humanity? Could God really be so open and bare before us? Nakedness faces nakedness, and all is revealed. This is knowing and being known by God.

Each of us has an inherent need for security and significance, but we think these things are found to actually doing something. What we fail to realize is this: It is love that makes us safe and secure. It is love that makes us significant and important. Think about it: When we are truly loved by someone we experience all the security and significance that we need to simply be who we are. No more, no less. But if we feel we must put on pretenses, fulfill expectations, or otherwise be more than who we really are then the relationship is lacking real depth, isn't it? If we do not feel truly safe and significant to God, then His love has not been perfected in us. Perfect love casts out all fear. When we experience and live daily in the confidence of this love however, it transforms how we view ourselves, and how we respond to others, to life, to His' promptings on our hearts.

It also opens us up to receive the healing that comes by knowing Him in our deepest and most vulnerable places. 1 John says "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This honest bearing of our brokenness and inability to carry out His purposes is exactly this kind of confession. When we finally see who we really are, and we stop running to other vain ambitions (even those we pursue in His name), then He is able to show the deepest work of His' love and healing in our lives. He begins to make us whole.

Why does He do this? So we can get back out there and finally "get it right?" Finally fulfill His purpose, His mission, His grand plan for the cosmos? What you think this "grand plan" really is will affect the answer I think. I think the reason we fall short as disciples and as the Body of Christ is not that we fail to grasp the mission and purposes of God, but that we fail to grasp worship in it's true and proper context. God's plan was to have a people that would enjoy the same relationship with Him that He enjoys within Himself.

Why do we think the love of God is a prelude to something else, something greater? We have heard it said that sin is it's own punishment. This may be true, but the flip side of this is that love is it's own reward. God Himself will be our reward for knowing and following Him. There is nothing beyond this. God's purpose is Himself. His' plan for the cosmos and for all humanity is Himself. He is the I AM. The one who is self-fulfilled and fulfilling of all things in Himself. That we would know and be known by Him, in the same manner of which I have been writing, is the sole purpose of knowing and doing anything at all.

This is exactly what we see revealed in the closing sections of scripture - at the end of time we finally see what God has intended all along for us humans. That we, both together and individually, would know and be known by Him. As a bride with her husband, so shall we be revealed together with Christ at the end of the age. Once broken, now finally made whole. Once shameful and blemished, now spotless and glorious, together with Him. This brokenness each of us hides, layer upon layer, means that there is a healing that He alone brings, washing us over and over and over again with His love. Experiencing and returning His love is the means and the purpose of all things.

You see, all this suffering is only a prelude to glory, but it has already been revealed and opened up to us. God has bared Himself completely in Jesus Christ. He has already made Himself vulnerable, risking it all, and waits to see how we will respond to His overtures of love.

So, looking at this new year I can see the process that He has been working in me. Answering my deepest prayers, He has been slowly stripping away the dirty old rags I have used to cover myself up with, letting Him reveal more and more of my brokenness. I don't think He is by any means done, but I see that healing is coming. And I see that risking everything on love is the only sure gamble a person can make.

One For The Leavers - From Abmo

Abmo at Windblown Hope has been blogging one year today. I started to leave him a comment on how instrumental he has been in our lives and it got so long that I decided to post it here. This will give new readers an idea of why he is on my reader list.

Dear Abmo,

On December 12th of last year I left a comment and asked you to TELL ME HOW TO LIVE THIS LIFE!! I was frustrated, running out of hope and didn't know where to turn. I wanted to know what was next. You emailed me back these 7 questions and said the following:

"It is unfortunate that I cannot "show" you how we live or what we do. On the other side it is fortunate that I cannot "show" you. This is a struggle that is meant for you alone. Like Jacob (Gen 32:24) it is a wrestle with God in the dark. BUT I can give you hints in the form of questions that you can mull over in this time...:-)

1)Who is Jesus FOR YOU? What do you know of His character? What did He struggle with? Is He as fickle as us? Does He change? What is His love like? What can you do in order to make Him love you more?

2)If you were the only person on this planet, what would your relationship with Jesus look like? What would you "do" for Him? Could you do anything for Him? What does your relationship with Him look like?

3)Who are you? Have you made peace with yourself? Are you a loved person?.....by Jesus. Are you a liked person?.....by Jesus. What does surrender look like? I like the word "brokenness". Can you tell me why?

4)Time. Is God in a hurry? Is every moment holy? Is there a thing such as a time away from God? Do you have to meet people once a week to develop a special bond with them?

5)What does your everyday life look like? Mundane/ordinary? Is God present in the mundane/ordinariness of your life? He came to set the captives free. Free from what?

6)What is the church? (What you know of church has to die completely).

7)Our struggle is usually between right and wrong. Is there a third option?

A lot of questions. Some answers take a long time to be born. When it is time. Give yourself time. I will be praying for the scary part.

As I look over these questions today, I realize that only through the Father addressing each of these questions in His own time allows me to be who and where I am today. Thank you for not giving my husband and me a plan to follow or even your journey to emulate. Instead you gave the most important questions I have had posed to me - ever - in my life. They were the questions that seemed to be on the heart of the Father to answer in our lives. They were insightful and prophetic. I kept the email and check back to it almost monthly to see what Father has been teaching me about them.

I am grateful to have been able to read along on the window that you (and your wife) have provided. I have benefited so much from your encouragement. I remain grateful.

Barb

Lazy Days of Summer - Processing the Journey

Jeff asked yesterday where everyone was. Our little part of the blogsphere is a bit quiet these lazy summer days.


I know for me that the summer months full of kids home from school, the life guarding duties at our pool, sandwiches to make and times just to sit out in the yard and talk has dulled the desire to sit inside with my laptop and think. Add to that, my business has really picked up, company in and out from various places, a weekend in Maryland at the beach for Marshall’s business and an hour walk at night to get some exercise and I feel kinda busy.


But mostly…..I think I am about done processing my journey out of my old church. I’ve tried to stop thinking about all of it before. I realized that I could not just focus on the past. I knew I should walk away and into the next things. I even tried at times. But you know what? Nothing worked till it just did not matter anymore to me. And suddenly, that is where I find myself.


Maybe it is because I have a short memory. Maybe it will all come flooding back at another time. Maybe I will get all passionate about the things I went through and what others did to me. Maybe...but I don’t think so.


I started blogging about all of this a year ago. As the year turned I returned to my old posts and read them. I can remember the pain I felt then. I remember Church Lady and feeling like she was disappearing. I remember when the word prayer would make me want to puke. I remember being so hurt at not being invited to the pastor’s daughter’s wedding. Friends for 20 years. (I downed a whole bottle of wine that night. Vowed never to do that again.)


I’m still glad for those posts. I receive the most hits on my post, The Person Formerly Known as Your Leader (my repentance at what I had done as a leader.) I still loved that I wrote that and it is still healing to me today. Mostly I love the posts because they remind me of the Grace and Love that the Father has poured out on me during that time.


But the pain is fading. I simply don’t have it anymore. The voices of doubt are just not there anymore, the depression is not my constant friend, and it has been months since I have had a dream about them. And therefore I can turn away from it and think about other things.


I guess what I am saying is this. If you are in the middle of the hurt, betrayal and pain - don’t be too hard on yourself. Yes, you know you should not be focused on these things. Yes, you know you should forgive. Yes, you know you should walk away. But you know what? That can’t happen until you just don’t care anymore. And when that happens, you will be able to do all those things. So give yourself some space to heal. Trust me, the healing will come with time.


So my posts may be fewer. I’m still going to write about what I am learning about Grace. I’ll still share the journey with you all if you care to read. It just may not be as intense as last year.


And that is ok with me.

The Journey Together

OK, I’m ready to write again. I wasn’t sure I was going to be. Let me explain.

See….. after the last post on God not keeping a list Marshall (Husband) got really concerned for me. He was worried that I was going off into a bit of a ditch and not seeing the whole picture of God. (I’m not going to give his reasons for what he was thinking because that is not really the point of this post. Maybe we will explore that in another post or two as I try and deal with some of his questions about Grace and who God is.)

I listened kindly to his concerns. He was not harsh with me, just concerned that the ditch I was headed toward would become a path away from the truth of the Father – a path he could not walk with me. I totally saw some of the things that I was missing and understood his heart.

I walked away, though, with the wind completely blown out of my sails. I was ready to quit. So many times I just completely go with an idea without addressing the obvious questions that it should bring up. I’m not brilliant at all. I deal with what is right in front of me. I tend to hear something and just jump in with both feet and my mind on auto pilot. Marsh is not that way and so I scare him a bit (a lot) from time to time. So for the past few days I have just cleaned my house, caught up paper work in the business and let the blogging rest a bit. Again, he has been concerned for me. He did not want his actions to result in silencing me.

And the final truth is this: He doesn’t want to end my journey or discovery – just walk it with me.

What is important here in this post is the question of how you walk this journey of faith together as a husband and wife. When we left our “church” and I started questioning everything that I believed, I researched a lot online. It was there that I found stories of many men and women who were not “on the same page” as each other in this journey. One wanted the institution, one didn’t. One was so hurt and mad at God that they had virtually no relationship with Him and the other still wanted to walk with Him. I read of an author who turned away from her husband’s God to follow after other gods. Lately, I read the heartbreak of Michael (I Monk) and his wife and his angst of her decision to walk after God into another religion entirely – one he felt he could not follow.

I don’t want to be one of those couples. I want our lives to be filled with harmony in all the areas of our lives. I’m not judging the journeys of those I mentioned in the last paragraph I just don’t want to live the rest of my married life on separate pages spiritually. I want to walk together with Marshall. I want that walk in every area of our lives - in our finances, in our decisions we make about our kids, in our sexual lives and in our lives with Father.

Now that does not mean that I have to be a clone of what he believes. It only means that as we decide something say in the area of finances, we can do the same in what we are choosing to believe about God or our walk with Him. We can come to the table with the question. See all what we can both see in the factors that need to influence our decision. Sometimes come to an agreement. Sometimes agree to disagree. But the decision to include each other in this process and then walk as one is crucial. It does not mean we will come to the same decisions about God and what He is like or what the Scriptures say about a subject. It does mean that we have not left each other behind and are still walking together.

Has this been an issue with those who read here? Some of you have alluded to it. Would love to hear what your husbands or wives are thinking about what you write. How do you communicate with each other about what you are posting/thinking about?

Glenn's Revolutionaries Synchroblog - My Response

Glen from Re-dreaming the Dream asked those of us who are “expressing our Christian faith in ways other than through a conventional church” and, (in my particular situation) “have been wounded through serving and separating from “church as we have known it” to answer the following questions:

What do they/you need?
What did/do you need as you as went/are going through this transitional phase?
How can a ministry or service help them/you?

My answers to these questions are below:
(Note: I condensed Glen’s first two questions and answered both of them as one.)

Question 1: What did we need upon deciding to leave, leaving and the time shortly after as we went thorough this transitional phase?

We needed to hear from people who had similar stories to tell and people to whom we could tell our story.

We needed a community of believers that wanted nothing from us.

We needed anonymity and safety.

We needed the ability to heal without being judged. We needed the freedom to be angry, caustic and ill tempered. We needed the space to be able to rethink many major tenants of our faith without judgment.

We needed the message of grace. We needed to hear this message in different forms so that it had the chance to change the paradigms that we had built our whole religious life around.

We needed to not feel any financial obligations or pressures.

We needed to have more people listening to what we had to say and fewer people telling us what we needed to believe.

Question 2: How could a ministry or service help us or have helped us during this time?

I think my biggest need at this time was for a Resource Center to put at my finger tips the aids to help in recovery. Here are a few ideas of what this resource would look like:

This resource could provide the space for a place to tell and hear other’s stories

A space to link topically to resources on the web and in books that could speak to your particular situation.

A resource for legal help for those whose finances or legal rights were severely damaged (as in common property with the church left behind and such).

Resources for the various facets of the messages of grace that are available on video, audio, web and books.

Resources for a forum to answer various questions.

Resources for those who wanted real ‘physical’ contact with others in their area.

Resources for physical places of counseling and healing.

(In my case I would not have been open to any personal contact because I was so unsure of my own ability to evaluate another person to be able to tell if they would hurt or help me. Maybe others are different.)

Throughout the year I think this sums up what I would have found useful in a ministry designed to meet the needs that I saw we had. Good materials and sites abound for people like us. It would have been nice though, to have them accessible in one location that was periodically updated for as new material, websites, blogs and people became available.

5 Year Plans - Flushed

My CLB was famous for planning for the future. We were yearly instructed to write out our plan for the year, the next 5 years and maybe even the next 10 years. We would bring it down to the front, put it in a basket and ask God to bless it. This was extremely hard for me. I felt ashamed that I could not do this but really, I had to face the fact that my life was not mine to plan. For one, I was a wife of one, a mom of 7, and a daughter of 2 elderly parents who live just 10 steps outside my house. My life mostly revolves around other’s lives of which I have very little control. I’m a support person. I do have my own will and can plan some things that I want to do, but if someone gets sick or has a great need, I am the one to whom they turn. I don’t resent this, it just makes it hard to plan for 5 years in the future - or tomorrow with any certainty.

Then when you bring in the whole CLB thing it got even harder. They wanted you to be brilliant and plan for the future but they also wanted your future to be planned around making their future turn out like they wanted. This was not a democratic society I lived in. They planned the future for the ‘church’ and then the ‘church’ made it happen. If you were not on board for this then you were labeled “in rebellion or not one of us.”

So how in the heck was I to make out a five year plan? I hated it each year. I think I did it one year and then looked at it at the end of the year and swore I would never do it again. It just mocked me. It was a wish list, not a one year plan.

In our leaving the whole CLB, even the plans that I did have are totally gone. I am like a person out to sea with no ability to steer and it is a very cloudy night. I have NO idea what course to chart or direction to head. I felt that this was somehow not OK. We were supposed to know what we were to do, right? At least at some point we would have a clue…..right?

So when Watchman wrote this up the other day, I thought it was spot on and it gave me hope for not having a plan in sight. He says, in summing his post up:
Keep learning who you are and let that uniqueness define and shape you and what you do. Don’t be so concerned about the details of the future as you are with the details of your identity. Knowing this helped me make the decision to leave the Church As We Know It and start creating my role in the Church of the Future. I think it will serve you well, also.

And then another blogger that I have truly enjoyed following the past month or two (and can’t wait till she opens comments again after lent) wrote this about planning for the future:

So, a couple years ago, I decided to set aside the spreadsheets and the goals lists. I decided to stop praying this:
Give us this day a detailed plan of how You're going to provide bread for us every day
for the next 20 years with specifics as to what quantities You will provide and at what intervals we can expect to receive them so that I might work that into my goals milestones.
And to start praying this:
Give us this day our daily bread.

And:

Perhaps it's my nonreligious background, but I continue to be amazed that my life has not fallen into scattered chaos without my planning it out to the last detail. What I secretly worried would happen is that this whole "following God's will" thing would lead to me jumping from one idea to the next, leaving a bunch of unfinished projects in my wake after I drifted off to do the next thing that I decided was "God's will." But that hasn't happened. Looking back at the past couple of years, there's more clarity in my life than ever before. It's like watching a play unfold: I see storylines cropping up, I'm starting to see a clear direction and purpose in where I have been led so far...I just don't know where it's going from here, or how it's going to end. As I've said before, it's more exciting than anything I could have ever planned.

As I said, it is sometimes better to let someone else speak because they sometimes can say it far better than we would have.

The Power of Words

"We were told words had power and speaking them aloud gave them a foothold into your life and would keep you in bondage." my daughter writing about the Power of Words.

My daughter has just begun blogging. I have been encouraging her to do this for some time now. It has helped me so much to get my thoughts and feelings down on paper where I can see them. In addition, your reading and commenting have made me feel like I am not as crazy as I might have thought.

I have told her that I want her to keep it personal and not give me (or anyone who actually knows her) the website. I think it is really important for her to be able to say anything that she wants to say without wondering what I or others around her will think or say. But, I added, “If you want me to read a particular post, just email me a copy of what you posted.”

She did today and it blew me away. She was writing about the power that words have and how she has noticed that since she has begun actually voicing her emotions and hurts it has allowed her to gain some space and freedom in her head.

You see in our old church, we were told that words have power over you and your heart. You could, “speak things into being,” or “ruin your destiny” by what you spoke over your life. Some, in the church believed in never affirming a diagnosis of a doctor aloud or else, by your words, you would empower the affliction to become even stronger in your body. Even those that did not go that far still preached about how words could either ruin you and your walk with God or empower you to live the "Victorious Christian Life”. (Why can I not say that last line without hearing Sponge Bob Square Pants "hall monitor" voice in my head?)

Now, I know that there is some nugget of truth in the fact that the spoken word does have an effect in our lives. For instance, I believe that someone who is constantly telling themselves that they are a failure has little hope of being a success. Someone who constantly tells themselves that everyone hates them will end up having very few friends. But somehow, in the middle of those truths, some craziness crept in. We were told not to voice dissension or disagreement with the leaders or else it would poison our lives and lead to rebellion. We were discouraged to voice our doubts about why healing did not always work for fear that it would impact our faith for that healing.

Here is how daughter describes it;

Maybe that's why this tactic was used. To further keep the congregation silent, unsure and ashamed of themselves - a brainwashing of sorts so that no one ever spoke against the pastor (because that was giving a spirit of division power over your life). So we were all kept silent and ashamed of even the thoughts that were whirling around in our minds. We ignored them if we could, and if we ever got so frustrated that we did try to confront the leadership about something, we didn't have anything to say. We had never gotten our thoughts in line enough to make a solid argument. We just looked like emotional fools and their points on thoughts and words giving power to the enemy were only reinforced by our behavior. Wow, what an effective lie.The real power of words is that they hold truth. Not truth as in "this is what is good and right" but truth to what is actually going on. If you are feeling hate or rage or are frustrated, or doubtful, or angry, or regretful, it's ok to say so and not be ashamed or afraid of the fact. I think this will take me a while to learn though. So far every blog I've posted has been accompanied by guilt and fear of saying this stuff aloud. I didn't want to write for so long because I was ashamed or afraid that by doing so, it would only strengthen the doubts and fears and weaknesses that I did have. That I would be giving them power over my life and worst of all, I feared that I would be judged for being so messed up.

But the opposite has happened. With every post I feel more real. I feel more at peace. It is like I'm giving my flaws skin, and space to breathe, and they are healing for the first time in my life instead of compounding and burrowing themselves deeper into my body. I admit to them being messy and ugly when I first let them emerge (my mom can attest to that), but the healing that they undergo after that, leaves them unrecognizably ok.

For those of you who don’t know my daughter or me personally and want to follow along as she writes, please email me at the address at the top of my blog page with your email address and I will forward it on to her and she can give you her blog address. I especially encourage those of you who have had children hurt by the church to follow along or encourage your kids to read too. Beware; it might be very raw and not pretty. But it will be real and hopefully, the words written and spoken will result in healing.

Leaving and The Truman Show

8 months out of leaving our former church and I am still learning some things. I was talking to my daughter the past few days. It has been a hard few weeks for her. For one, she ran into a whole group of teens and youth that still attend our old church. The sight of them and their subsequent shunning of her was so hard to take. It brought up all the old hurts in a way that I was shocked at how much she was still angry and unhealed. As we talked I realized that my leaving and her leaving were two different things entirely.

My leaving was much like watching the movie, The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey. In fact I was fascinated to see how the plot of the movie detailed my life in our church Some highlights:
The director tried to appear benevolent but it was all for the money and his
prestige.
Those who dared go against the master plan of the director were quickly removed.
The whole plot depended on everyone playing their part.
Those who actually made the show happen had to pack away their conscience.
When Truman started to question his surroundings the usual tactic was used to
convince him that he was the crazy one.

And that was my church life. Like Truman, the first thing that I finally saw as unreal (for Truman it was the spotlight that landed in the street – for me the questioning of the use of titles) started me to question all the other things. It was because of my questions and the ensuing answers that did not match up to what Jesus taught, that I left.

But for my daughter it was not that at all. For her, she left because of the hurt and pain that she was made to feel from the people there. In fact she actually left a year before the rest of us did.

But because of this, I don’t know how to really help her. For me, I am just able to realize that I and everyone else were deceived and therefore I have changed my mind. This gets easier and easier the further away from May that I get. This does not work with her though. She has been wounded. She still bleeds. To see someone or think of times in the past will throw her back into the hurt of the day it happened. It is as fresh as if it were happening again, all over. The unhealed-ness is heartbreaking to watch and I feel helpless. Of course I know all the lines I would have told her last year at this time…”you just need to forgive, just trust God to work it all out, try to pray more, just have faith.” Fortunately, I know how wrong those would be to use on her right now.

Best Friend says it just takes more time and someone to talk to. I believe that and am more than willing to wait but do any of you have any more advice for us? Is there anything I can do with her or for her? She trusts me. Our relationship is really good which is amazing since I in so many ways encouraged her to just take the abuse and not say anything because these people were our leaders.

The best line by Truman’s best friend (one of the cast): “Nothing you see on this show is fake…it is merely….”controlled”.” For me, I realized that it was controlling and walked out. For my daughter, she was one of the ones who was controlled and thus hurt.
What do you think?

Good Questions for the Journey

I have added another blog to my reader - Windblown Hope. (In fact in the next few days I'm going to expand my sidebar blog roll to list all (or almost all) that I keep up with.)

I appreciated reading someone who is farther out (6 years I think) on this journey away from the traditional church than I. I had left a comment on his post the other day (One for the Leavers) to ask him what lies in store for us. What does this path look like 6 or more years from now. In an email to me he wisely stated:

"It is unfortunate that I cannot "show" you how we live or what we do. On the other side it is fortunate that I cannot "show" you. This is a struggle that is meant for you alone. Like Jacob (Gen 32:24) it is a wrestle with God in the dark."

He goes on to say though that he can give me "hints" to begin to sort out the way. I may refer to these questions in other posts but the one that blew me away for the past week was his question #2:

If you were the only person on this planet, what would your relationship with Jesus look like? What would you "do" for Him? Could you do anything for Him? What does your relationship with Him look like?

I instantly thought about the only man who was the only person on the planet - Adam - and what his relationship with God would have looked like.

It would have involved spending time with God - as in their walks in the garden. Conversations, being with each other, talking about what Adam saw and was doing - all of these come to mind. Maybe in their talks, Adams loneliness was made evident and produced an Eve. Maybe my conversations with God will let him know what I need instead of the checklist I used to bring. I've been wondering how to "pray" now. Maybe this is what I am looking for.

What would I do? This one was exciting to answer in that it was so simple and yet profound. I would do what we talked about. Adam did not give God his 5 year plan. God did not ask for it. They just talked about whatever and Adam did the mundane of taking care of the garden - or just living in it. He did not need to build anything to impress God. Therefore, my doing needs to be born out of our being together - not the other way around.

And then, what does my relationship with God look like. I'm afraid in the past it was heavy on the 'doing' side and light on the 'being' side. Heavy on the action, light on the conversation. I was like those moms who are so busy doing for their kids that they never look at them in the eyes. And yes, I tend to be that kind of a mom too.

Anyway, how would you answer those questions, and do they stretch you at all?

Thanks Windblown Hope, I'll keep reading and thinking.

WWJDWTC - Update on Week 1 - Operating System Cannot Be Found

Week #1 of my effort to participate in the syncroblog of What Would Jesus Do With the Church was not, um…….stellar, in any sense of the word.

I had made the decision in my mind to stop just looking at the church and trying to discern what was wrong with it and go out and DO or BE the church instead. It sounded so noble. It sounded simple, easy.

Now I know why I did not want to leave the comfort of judging (discerning the problems) in the church. It is scary out there (here).

Yes, I had a few wonderful encounters where God said something very profound to me. I shared it with some of you who read this. But, in all honesty, that was the only thing that happened.

Now if I were God, I would have read my blog (He does read this, right?) and been so pleased with this woman writing (me) that I (God) would have planned tons of stuff for her to walk into as soon as she left the comfort of her own self. I would have had that lady at the grocery store that she helped, turn to her and ask why she was so kind, giving her an opportunity to tell her about Papa’s love for her that day. I would have had many divine connections lined up for her that week just to express to her how proud I (Papa) was of her decision. People would have been saved, healed and delivered! Surely God would not have let me just deal with the un-direction of my life while only saying a few things about seeing and separating from Him. Doesn’t He know I want to DO SOMETHING!!! That is the whole point of this month.

So by Saturday I was pretty despondent. I had even gone to the book store to find something to read and left after about an hour with nothing but a new copy of The Message. All other books, books that have been reviewed and that I had wanted to buy and read did not even begin to interest me. Me. The one who loves to read. And on top of that I could not even make eye contact with anyone in the store. They were all busy in their own worlds and did not care that I wanted to be the Church in their presence.

So I sat on my front porch. I had my laptop with me but it was sitting on the side of the swing playing music. Not even Christian music. Just a musician by the name of Ingrid Michaelson that I’m love with. Her music that is. All of a sudden my laptop stopped. I knew it was charged and so I looked over at the screen. It simply said, “Operating system cannot be found.”

I laughed. Hard. My computer was prophetic. My operating system….that which I had based my whole life off of…was no longer to be found. See, in church, I had a job. I knew what I was to be doing. Pretty much they told me what they needed and I did it. If my husband agreed, I was busy. My operating system was intact. The church gave me direction and purpose. It was my operating system.

Now I need to implement a new operating system. I want Papa to be this. I want to do what he wants me to do and be what he wants me to be. I can’t make this work off my old system. (Circuit City says they can’t either. My hard drive crashed….they think. They can’t even keep it alive long enough to test it.) The system cannot be found. The old way is dying. Or dead.

WWJDWTC - Lesson #2 My Eyes - His Eyes

Note: I think, from the decision that I made a few days ago, that my posts are going to get much more simple, more personal and maybe more often. I know a lot of you who read are interested in looking at the bigger picture of the church. I also know that you need to expedite your time that you spend on the blog pages. Therefore if you need to delete me from you reading and you no longer comment on my pages, please feel free to do this. I write mostly for myself and the few who resonate with my personal journey. If the direction that I am taking still interests you, please come along. But if you find yourself no longer connecting, please feel free to excuse yourself.

******************************************

So as I was drinking my second cup of coffee this morning in a pause between the morning rush and the deciding what is for dinner and planning for the rest of my day, I looked outside my large picture window in the front room and paused. I breathed deep taking in the vibrant yellows and orange hues that are adorning a lovely old tree across the street. In that moment I paused and asked Papa what he was doing today and could I be a part. I distinctly heard in my spirit, “I’m enjoying the sight of that beautiful tree, Isn’t it stunning?”

Wait…..God is enjoying the sight of something I am looking at? In my enjoyment I can also sense His enjoyment? He is entering into my space in time here and interacting with me over a simple beautiful tree?

Now this may sound weird to you. But I let the thought run. Ok, if Papa could enjoy what I am looking at and if I could feel, somehow, his enjoyment, then could I also do the same when I looked at a person today? Could my enjoyment of them somehow mirror his enjoyment of them? Could I sense his delight? His excitement? His frustration? (Surely he gets frustrated too.) Could my compassion somehow tap into His compassion? Could I use my eyes today to see what He sees? Can my eyes become portals through which I can find out His heart toward people or situations? Is this what Jesus was doing when he said that he only did what he saw the Father doing? Maybe Jesus saw something, knew that the Father was seeing it also and then asked the Father what he was feeling about it (or just immediately sensed it) and what, if anything was to be done.

Maybe this is basic to you. Nothing, no thought, is new. But today, this thought blasted through my world and made me change my perspective. I like walking with Papa. Especially on a beautiful Fall day.

And, I can't wait to see my kids tonight.