The Love Hate Experience With God

This is an article about honesty . . . and honestly, I have a love/hate relationship with God. I've been on the up and down roller coaster of belief and doubt, righteousness and debauchery, faithfulness and apostasy. I know that's disturbing to a lot of people, but God gets that completely . . . gets me completely. Gets you completely too.

Let me be the first to admit that I don't have many answers, especially when it comes to God. Honestly, the ministry of Committed to Freedom began because of my own spiritual search for answers to questions that really have no good answers. The dilemma for anyone who has experienced trauma or suffering is to have co-existing contradictions. God is love. Suffering is real. God has the capacity to create. Trauma has the capacity to destroy. The idea of God being powerful and one who intervenes in the circumstances of our lives held up in contrast to unanswered prayer, vulnerable people being abused and exploited, or diseases that progress, ravage, and destroy. Like I said: love/hate.

It may feel completely terrifying to even acknowledge this love/hate relationship with God. It may feel as if you're in mortal danger of losing your soul, of losing your place in God's kingdom, or of falling into deception. But, like every other aspect of life, to pretend these concerns are not important to you, that these questions do not gnaw away at the edges of your soul - is to lie. The fact is, if these contradictions are rattling around in your heart and mind - they're there! God already knows that - it's not like you're going to take God by surprise when you finally explode into a spiritual meltdown because you haven't been honest about your struggles.

I recognize that people from a variety of doctrines and belief systems read this. It is with a great deal of caution and sense of responsibility that I write about such topics as abuse, and certainly about God's role in abuse recovery. I'm sure that up until the day i die, I will still have many more questions than answers, but I want to share a few of my thoughts about the spiritual journey - the quest that you and I are on to help you grapple with these difficult issues. Here is what I know:

1. God is patient, God is love, and God is aware. Keep in mind what Jesus, himself, screamed on the cross when faced with overwhelming betrayal and suffering. In essence he said, "Hey! Where are you? I'm suffering and I can't find you!" Your issues don't take God by surprise. They may take you and everyone else by surprise. They might make everyone around you very uncomfortable, even alarmed - but take a breath. God knows the difference between a seeker and a cynic.

2. God encourages your honesty. You may have to hold back with your pastor, your family, your friends, and maybe even with yourself - but not with God. God's not up in heaven, peering over a cloud with a giant mallet playing "Whack-a-mole" every time you raise troubling issues or questions. Jesus invited people to "Come to him" for any reason, any time (Matthew 11:27-30). Again, your gut-wrenching spiritual howls won't rattle God one bit. They may freak everybody else out (including you!), but God knows the struggle. God knows the path. God knows the truth. God knows the reasons.

3. God is neither a puppet master nor a magician. You aren't under God's control, nor is anyone else. God doesn't pull your strings. Instead, he beckons you to dwell in peace, connect in quiet awe, and wait for illumination. By the way - this is a two way thing. God wants to dwell in peace with you, too. God wants to connect in quiet awe of you, too. God wants to wait with you. The other part of this is that God does not function at the behest of "abra-ka-dabra" prayer. I don't completely understand this. It is a cosmic mystery that unfolds as life goes on, but God's function is not as our personal magician or Santa Claus. This may be the major sticking point that you may have with God. Your expectations are often missing the point of God's role and function in your life. I still haven't formulate all of my ideas on this one - it's still a matter of great meditation and study for me, but the longer I live, the more I realize that my ideas about God are limited, flawed, strained, and obstructed.

So, yes - I love God and yes – I’m very, very upset with God. Yes, I have faith and yes, I doubt. Yes, I follow a moral and ethical code that complies with those of the Bible and yes, I teeter on the brink of unrighteousness. I am a glorious contradiction - just like you!

What makes you so glorious - you must understand - is the fact that you ARE on this roller coaster, you ARE in a tug-of-war with God, and you ARE a seeker and not a cynic. So uncross those arms, take a breath, ask hard questions, and seek, seek, seek. According to Christ, it is only the seekers who find. Only those who make some noise that find their way in. Only those who demand answers that get them. Of course that's my paraphrase with an edge. Jesus put it this way: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8).

I don't know how. I don't know why. I don't know when. I DO know there is an insatiable drive within me TO know. Perhaps there is in you too. So ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK. Then pay attention to what unfolds . . . and be patient, grasshopper!




From Sallie:

Can you imagine the terror of being abused? Of course, many of you can.

Now, can you imagine that same terror if you're mentally retarded or physically disabled?

I'm developing a new seminar for abuse survivors with these particular challenges. I'm also developing one for helping professionals that work with them.

Would you like to help fund this kind of research and development? If so, please click here: http://www.committedtofreedom.org/donate.html

I'm in the midst putting on the finishing touches for these seminars. We really need you to be a financial partner to help make this happen. We also need your continued support to develop many more types of seminars and resources!

Expectations

There's an expression you've probably heard before: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." This colloquialism must have been developed with abuse survivors in mind! Often times, we can be all-or-nothing kinds of people. That "either/or" thinking is sometimes responsible for doing terrible damage to your relationships, your work, and yourself!

Thinking or acting in "either/or" terms is a form of self-protection. Your life experiences taught you to expect betrayal. Expect broken trust. Expect a catastrophe. That's understandable. These expectations are not based on a fantasy, they're based on facts. You were betrayed. Trust was broken. Catastrophes pepper your personal history.

These facts, however, often become a template that you use to measure everything and everyone. A dilemma is created for you because you know how wretched it is to be exploited or hurt. These are lessons that you learned early in life and have possibly been reinforced as you aged. So you become like Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. You activate the force field around you and do everything possible to become impervious to these painful disappointments.

A hyper-vigilant tendency takes over. You're always on guard. Always on patrol. Always expecting things to fall apart, people to abandon you, or life to kick you down. Don't get me wrong. Life - on a good day - is challenging and overwhelming, but if the way you approach that reality is filtered through "either/or" thinking, you could set yourself up for a very difficult existence.

A friend forgets to call or write - you end the friendship. Your children don't quite live up to their potential - you only see their flaws. Your partner doesn't meet all your wants and needs - tenderness and joy leaves you. In fact, many abuse survivors have histories of many, many chaotic, dysfunctional relationships - leaving one person for another then another then another. Leaving one job for another, then another. Walking away from things or people that are important to you because that feels safer than remaining and navigating through the hard (and often uncomfortable) process of working and living together.

I want to clarify that I am not addressing abusive relationships or jobs or schools - you absolutely MUST put up a force field and reconfigure how you function if there's abuse going on. What I am pointing out, however, is that abuse survivors sometimes have a tendency to look at everything as all-or-nothing, either/or, yes/no, or black/white - when it's just not that way. The bathwater may need to be thrown out, the precious things contained in that water might be worth keeping and drying off.

It's Not Surrender

My abuser was an evangelical minister. God, prayer, heaven, and hell were all an integral part of the sexual exploitation perpetrated against me. That connection between abuse and God placed a very deep wedge between me and God for many years. In fact, I spent a substantial part of my youth wanting absolutely nothing to do with God, church, or Christianity. They were all one in the same - in my mind - with abuse and my abuser. As my mental, emotional, and spiritual state deteriorated, I soon recognized I needed something more - but to acknowledge that "something" was God was the equivalent to surrender in my mind. If I reached out to God, if I embraced Christianity - that meant my abuser and the system that my abuser belonged to . . . won! That's how it felt to me, at least.

Research done in 2006 revealed that those who had a strong history of religiosity (measured by consistent church attendance, involvement in church activities, and life-long affiliation with religious groups and practices) made up the highest percentage in a selected population of incarcerated sex offenders. In other words, strong religious ties often translate into a higher likelihood of sexual offenses and other forms of abuse against children. The other disturbing part of this study revealed that this same group also perpetrated against younger children than the other sex offenders who described themselves as atheists or recent converts.

What this means to many abuse survivors is that their abusers were also deeply involved in religious community and spiritual practices. This effectively obstructs your own spiritual pursuits and creates enormous barriers to finding peace through sacred practices - such as prayer, communion, church attendance, or Bible study. In fact, for many abuse survivors, these practices, icons, and symbols bring terror, anxiety, and repulsion because of their association with abuse.

Your spiritual journey beyond abuse must include growing beyond your abusers' defilement of faith, religious community and practices. Your resistance to God's gentle work in your life may have more to do with fear of alliance with your abuser than an actual struggle with faith. What you must understand is that even if you pray the same prayers, read the same Scriptures, attend the same church, believe the same doctrines as your abuser - that has nothing to do with your abuser.

Your faith is YOURS. No one who abused you is the "winner" if the faith you find hope, strength, and comfort in looks and sounds like theirs. The spiritual quest you are on belongs to you and you alone! Even if you abusers smugly take credit for your faith-walk and have the audacity to continue maligning it with their persistent insistence that you are "returning to their fold" - you are not!

To pursue God, to follow Christ, to pray, meditate, sing, fellowship, worship, study, or genuflect in the same ways your abusers did (or do) is NOT - I repeat, NOT - surrender to them in any way, shape, or form! This is YOURS. You must embrace that idea with total confidence. Your path to walk. Your faith to believe. Your rituals to find comfort in. Your prayers to pray. Your songs to sing. Your faith community to belong to. Not theirs - YOURS.

It is not surrender. It is a declarative alliance with the God of comfort, hope, grace, mercy, and love. It is to latch on to the "I am" from the Hebrew Bible and the "I am" from the teachings of Jesus (Exodus 3:14; John 8:58) and join your voice with that identity. To hear yourself say, "I am" and know that has NOTHING to do with your abusers' perversion and EVERYTHING to do with your pure heart that is on a spiritual quest.

It's not surrender. It's conquest – and you are the conqueror.

Angst Fast

Let me begin this by saying that I have spent most of my life addicted to angst. Glorying in negativity. Reveling in what's wrong. One of my greatest struggles was to come to terms with the fact that I honestly wasn't sure I wanted to become healthier. My true rhythm was found in the familiarity of damage and dysfunction. Self-sabotage and depression. I'm not proud to admit this, but I suspect I'm not the only one.

This worldview is understandable. After all, it's easier to expect the worst and not be disappointed than to expect the best and have your hopes and dreams crushed. Abuse is an effective teacher in that sense. When you've experienced exploitation and mistreatment, you come to believe that all the world's a prison and everyone is suspect - even those you love. Like I said - abuse is an effective teacher.

But what would happen if you shifted that worldview? What would happen if you became a positive person instead of a negative one? Please understand - I'm writing this article mainly for myself! I'm asking MYSELF these questions. But it's intriguing to ponder. What would happen if you made a decision to go on an ANGST FAST? Now I'm not suggesting that you go into some kind of magic denial bubble and lose touch with reality. I AM suggesting, however, that you examine how optimistic or pessimistic you are. That you assess how toxic your words and thoughts are to you and others. That you recognize the energy you spend waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop.

I'd like to suggest an experiment for you and me. I'd like to suggest that we go on an ANGST FAST. That we deprive ourselves from negativity, cynicism, bitterness, and irritation for a set amount of time. Be reasonable with yourself. Don't start out by Angst Fasting for a day - start with an hour - or even fifteen minutes! If you've spent your whole life drowning in angst, dysfunction, and bitter depression - you can't go "cold turkey" (or at least most of us can't go cold turkey!). You need to slowly de-tox and celebrate the little successes - be it five minutes or five hours or five days.

For example, this morning I woke up to a full day's schedule, a shortage of funds and energy, and a pounding sinus headache. I found that my "self-talk" was very negative. "I can't do it all! I don't have enough money or energy! My head is killing me - of course!" The negativity was so loud that it started to spill over in how I treated other people. I was irritable and inpatient. It was the perfect cocktail for a disastrous day. So I experimented with this idea of Angst Fast and decided that for the next five minutes, I was going to look at the same picture in a celebratory way. So here's how that translated:"I have some big dreams and visions that are challenging! I can do some things better than others, but I do not have to do it all. I have a headache and need to pay attention to it - so I'll take some sinus headache medicine and lay down if I can. If I am unable to lie down, then I'll try to slow down." Just this tweaking from negative to positive changed how those five minutes worked for me and those around me. Actually, it empowered me.

So here's the challenge: Go on an ANGST FAST! When you find yourself slipping back into the self-wallowing angst you are so familiar with, then simply regroup, take a breath, and give it another try. Don't beat yourself up - just start again. The old Alcoholics Anonymous saying is very appropriate here: "One day at a time." Break it down however you need to - but make a decision to fast from negativity for a few moments. That will grow to a few hours, then days, weeks, months, and years. Who knows, you may Angst Fast for the rest of your life!


Upcoming Seminar:

October 3, 2009 - Beyond Abuse Seminar. Cornerstone Assembly of God. Oxford, CN (USA)

203-881-3232 www.cornerstonect.org