Radical Love

I have been reading Philip Yancey's book, What Good Is God? For several years prior to my beginning this blog, as well as the first year or so of writing it, I questioned God's existence. Reading anything faith based caused such enormous anxiety that I avoided it in order to survive each day. Then my sister-in-law mentioned, in passing, her love of Philip Yancey's writings. I bought her a book she asked for and simultaneously purchased The Jesus I Never Knew for myself. Later I bought What is So Amazing About Grace.

These two books were the only faith based writings I could read without experiencing panic. Yancey asks the hard questions honestly and without wincing. In reading his books I found company. I was not alone in my questions.

During this season, my faith was literally reduced to the cross. I discarded much, questioned all, but when faced with the gift of Himself for me I knew I still believed. The cross was too radical to be fiction.

An agnostic I worked with once mentioned the ridiculousness of a God who would sacrifice himself. In response, and to my own shock, I responded: "That is exactly why I believe. No one would EVER make up something so ridiculously illogical." In all the other religions, god's are demanding not giving. This one element, grace, became the only sure truth for me.

During this season I sought the answer to why? "Why did this happen to ME? Why, TWICE in my life, did a pastor sexually exploit me?" From this question came terrible conflict. I saw only two possible answers - either something was wrong with me or something was wrong with God. Either I deserved the abuse or God did not love me. I vascillated between my anger at myself and my anger at God. Shame was the ultimate result.

Through the struggle, I found a third option - free will. God granted the human race free will. God is love. Love means relationship. Relationship can only occur in the presence of free will. I got to choose. Bob got to choose. Minton got to choose. The church got to choose. Sin resulted in pain. Pain I have lived with for 40 years.

However, not only have I experienced the pain but Jesus has felt every ounce of it - at least this is my belief. He feels my pain. What sacrifice.... Jesus gave up the distance between the throne and the world's pain. He knows within his consciousness our pain. This leads to a different "Why?" with the only logical answer being relationship. God so desires relationship with us that He is willing to give us choice and accept our sin and pain.

Without free will there is no love. Without the freedom to choose, my husband's love for me is empty. If I do not have the freedom to leave, then my love for him is robotic. Only in free will can we love each other.

In the end, the question as to "Why did this happen to me?" is no different from why did 9/11 occur or why did the holocaust happen? The answer is in relationship. God so longs to relate with me, his creation, that He cried as abuse occured but by letting go, something all parents must do, He gave me Himself.

In that gift of Himself there is no place for blame. Abuse did not happen because He did not love me enough. Abuse did not happen because I deserved it. Abuse happened because God and Jesus love me so much they would not take free will from me or the rest of their creation. In that reality, I suffered but I did not suffer alone.

How to Refuse the Victim Role

In my last post I asked myself a hard question. How do I make sure I leave the victim mentality behind. I have had some good responses and hard questions asked of me. In considering the questions, it occured to me that a post I had written a month ago might have the answer. The My Stuff/ Their Stuff concept seems to play a major role in my letting go of being a victim.

As long as Bob's actions were about me then I remained a victim. To whatever degree any of that lies hidden inside of me, I still remain a victim. When I see Bob's abuse as a statement about him and not me, then I am not a victim and in a sense never was. I am only a victim if I allow his actions to define me.

At first, the abuse was my fault. I was an abuse magnet. Then slowly I came to see he was a predator but I still hated the needy part of myself that allowed the abuse. After dealing with the self hatred, it took some time for me to fully face the degree of abuse and predation he purpetrated on me. Why? Because I believed it was about me. For example: Though I remembered for years that Bob had set me up to keep his friend Charlie company and had felt he wanted me to entertain him sexually, it was not until a few months ago that I realized the fact that he was actually pimping me off on Charlie. Though it was right in front of my face, I couldn't see it. Why? Because, at one time it would have defined me as a whore.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped letting others define me so easily and when I discovered myself back in a "Bob's abuse" season, the experience defined him as a sexual addict and a sadistic and cruel one. His behavior did not define me and I could see it clearly and in a new light.

In the present - his choice of meeting with me or not - is not about me. I have been surprisingly fine with waiting to recontact him. I didn't expect to reach a point of being fine and focussing most of my time on other day to day issues. I was ready for more turmoil than this has caused. I have found strength that I was not aware existed inside of me.

Bob's decision will be about him, his courage or lack of it, his ability to look at truth or his lack of ability, his degree of repentance and recovery, etc. He has tried to make it about me - first as to whether I was still extremely angry, then to whether my therapist is supportive of my doing this and feels I can handle it, and finally to whether my therapist was a quack and pushing me into doing this as the only way to find healing. None are true and he has been told that 4 times now. Three times by me and once through Tom's conversation with his son-in-law, Michael. I expect to hear it again if he decides to not meet with me. I intend to tell him that his decision has to be about him and his need - that I am quite healthy enough to decide my own.

We can all work things out in the therapist's office, but sooner or later we have to work it out in our everyday lives. I am doing that in a deliberate, chosen way with Bob. His stuff is his. His actions and choices are about him. They aren't about me.

I believe this is refusing to be the victim. :-) And, it feels good.

Pastoral Exploitation and Letting it Go

Letting go is not going to be easy. For years the abuse dealt with me. In my dealing with it, I gained some semblance of control. I also gained a sense of being special - sort of a sick sense but when one seeks to feel special, it can be amazing how it doesn't really matter why you feel special. As a survivor, I have been a "special" client and often heard that "Not many go this deep or have this courage." As I disentangled my identity from being a victim and changed it to being a survivor, the abuse was nevertheless central to my identity.

At times like the last few months, it has been more obvious, more in control, more upfront and in my face. It has to be for me to deal with it at this depth, but I am aware that a time approaches when I will need to lay something down and leave it behind.

How do I move on to a place in which it does not define me or confine me without leaving behind a ministry I believe God has called me to? This sounds like the tight rope once again.

I first made a choice in October to defeat the confines the abuse still had on my life. For 5 years I had avoided church and certainly would not have considered the same denomination in which the abuse occured as a possible church home. But now I am there and it is only with a great deal of determination that I made it through the 3 or 4 months that followed. Slowly the knowledge that I had to face Bob settled in and I began this process. I don't know yet whether I will have that opportunity face to face or if the phone will be the best I am given.

One way or the other, I will soon be full cycle. By the second week in June or perhaps sooner, I will have talked with Bob and finished the cycle I began 34 years ago. What will I do then? Who will I be? I can't completely leave it behind because I have become who I am through the pain. But who I am transcends all of that.

I get the feeling that this new road will be challenging in itself. People get stuck in a victim mentality. I wonder if it is going to be hard for me to not get stuck there? I can see the road up ahead. I wonder what lies around the bend?

Di

Did I Sin?

Well, did I?

I had an interesting conversation with my therapist this past week on this very subject. I told John that at one time I truly believed that for some reason I was an abuse magnet, that somehow something was terribly flawed about me. I mean, I actually attracted this twice in my life and neither time was I out to get what I got. I was not throwing myself at these pastors. Yet, they both offered me a sense of being special and in both cases I accepted the relationship.

Did I sin?

If you check out some of the sites I have linked to my blog, you will find references that say it was not me at all but the responsibility of the pastor - 100%. Because a pastor like a therapist holds so much power in the relationship, the victim really can't consent. A concentual relationship can only occur in a relationship of equal power.

Yet, I have had a hard time swallowing that and have wrestled lately with it once again. This wrestling is not one based on shame or self hatred but rather on simply facing truth.

In discussing this question of my sin with my pastor Tom, he first sited scripture and then offered possible insight:

"In response to your question a scripture came to mind. Luke 17:1-3 1Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

As I read this Jesus is saying both/and. Yes there is sin involved, BUT who does he reserve the harsh judgment for? The one who caused his 'little one' to sin. I think Jesus is saying to me, and maybe you, confess your part in all this, but recognize you were victimized, that another set you up to sin, placed the temptation before you and abused the role God had placed them in; be they Apostle, Elder, Deacon, Teacher, Youth Director, Supervisor, or Pastor. "

John's thoughts were different. He proposed that the full responsibility has to reside in the pastor or therapist (He being a therapist, he has dealt with this issue personally.). If a client or parishoner comes to one and needs to act out in order to find their own healthy boundaries or to find they have value outside of abuse, if the pastor does not hold the total responsibility, healing has no chance to flow. The client must be free to seek that healing even if it means testing boundaries.

My thoughts are finding this expression:

I made choices that hurt me and I think I bear some responsibility, particularly for the second decision I made. I was no longer a child. I thought very differently and knew I was hurting myself. Perhaps, my sin stops there. It is the pastor's responsibility to care for the sheep and the church as a whole. His sin goes far beyond the scope of hurting himself - though that too is very true. He deeply damages an individual who looks to him as God's representative. He misuses power and turns it to control. He turns his back on God's calling on his life and breaks covenant with God over his promise to serve as a shepherd to the sheep. If caught, he damages many. The pastor ultimately holds responsibility for himself, the individual, and the church as a whole. The victim holds responsibility for herself.

Could that be the answer? Regardless as to the fullness of truth there, Tom once said to me that it was in the hard questions and wrestlings that we find God. So, I wrestle.

Why didnt' I learn this in church? (Contains gruesome mental images.)

For decades shame had a powerful hold over my life. Still, if I find myself struggling I immediately look for the shame and usually I discover another pocket of the foul stuff eating away at me in some undealt with area. I hated the part of myself that allowed me to be abused. I didn’t realize how much I hated until one evening I sat at my desk visualizing a scenario my therapist had suggested. I was working on loving the infant within me and visualizing the adult me giving the infant the nurture she needed. This is my account:

I was sitting where I am sitting now, in a small bedroom in our small house with
a computer and desk. I was practicing. In my mind I picked up the infant that was starving for nurture, ready to hold her and give her what she needed. Only this time, I felt anger and revulsion. Grabbing her by her feet, I swung her flaccid body against the concrete wall of my mind. In that waking foggy moment, I mutilated her, watching her blood run down the wall, witnessing it splatter across the room, seeing her skin shred and stick, hearing the crack of her skull. Over and over I beat her until she was unrecognizable.

The infant, unable to offer any care of itself is the perfect picture of need. I hated my neediness. Yet, I was full of it. I hated it because this vast yearning for specialness and care had driven me to more and more dependency on people. It was the reason I had been such easy prey for abuse. Most of the time I could hide it, but inside I wanted affirmation and approval with such intensity that only one thing stopped me from selling my soul - selling my soul had only made me worse.

The more I hated this neediness of mine, the more neediness rose up in me, and the more needy I felt the more I hated it. I had become a basket of emotional chaos and pain.

The scripture doesn’t talk a lot about self love and that bothers me, and yet without it how can we love our neighbors as ourselves?

Why is it that a principle that seems so important is so missing in scripture? Or is it there and am I just not familiar with it? Why is it that I had to learn this in a secular therapist's office rather than in church? Why are so many churches afraid of this concept and consider it humanism?

I tried to heal within the walls of the church but I found my healing in the office of an agnostic therapist? Why? Why couldn't I learn this in church?