DiligentLily
01-31-2007, 09:43 AM
Friends, I have been offline for a month or so, spending a lot of time blogging about spiritual abuse on my personal blog. It has been very healing for me.
Recently a friend from my abusive church started visiting my site and commenting about some of the things there. He is very conflicted because he loves DH and me, but he also loves our abusers and is very much caught up in that unhealthy system, even though he is now pastoring another church in another denomination. Anyway, sparks flew between this old friend and me, because he was trying to justify their abuse. We are talking by phone and e-mail now, and it has been very informative for DH and me to hear from old friend the crazy things the abusive group are thinking and saying about us.
I have learned this week more than ever that they are sick and destructive and that all the social devastation they have wreaked on the community is entirely their own doing. They have been blaming all the broken relationships on DH and me, because we sinned. But I have learned to understand this week, more than I ever did, that Mr. and Mrs. Abuser have been working for 13 years to drive wedges between our friends and us, drive wedges between DH's ex and us, drive wedges between our children and theirs. They have encouraged everybody under their influence to shun us, they led a boycott against DH to try to get him fired from his job (I knew that one already), and most clearly I see that they are making it very difficult for our friend, above, to be friends with us and them at the same time. They demand complete submission. They want all their friends to be at enmity with us.
And to see this clearly like I do this week, to see the bright shining line that divides the people who have forgiven us and the people who shun us and that that line is the same as the line between those Mr. and Mrs. Abuser influence and those they don't influence, is one of the most freeing healing moments I've had in this whole 13-year-long ordeal!
I have missed you all very much.
Recently a friend from my abusive church started visiting my site and commenting about some of the things there. He is very conflicted because he loves DH and me, but he also loves our abusers and is very much caught up in that unhealthy system, even though he is now pastoring another church in another denomination. Anyway, sparks flew between this old friend and me, because he was trying to justify their abuse. We are talking by phone and e-mail now, and it has been very informative for DH and me to hear from old friend the crazy things the abusive group are thinking and saying about us.
I have learned this week more than ever that they are sick and destructive and that all the social devastation they have wreaked on the community is entirely their own doing. They have been blaming all the broken relationships on DH and me, because we sinned. But I have learned to understand this week, more than I ever did, that Mr. and Mrs. Abuser have been working for 13 years to drive wedges between our friends and us, drive wedges between DH's ex and us, drive wedges between our children and theirs. They have encouraged everybody under their influence to shun us, they led a boycott against DH to try to get him fired from his job (I knew that one already), and most clearly I see that they are making it very difficult for our friend, above, to be friends with us and them at the same time. They demand complete submission. They want all their friends to be at enmity with us.
And to see this clearly like I do this week, to see the bright shining line that divides the people who have forgiven us and the people who shun us and that that line is the same as the line between those Mr. and Mrs. Abuser influence and those they don't influence, is one of the most freeing healing moments I've had in this whole 13-year-long ordeal!
I have missed you all very much.