Only Grace

[Elisabeth]

A song came to my mind this evening:
"There's only grace, there's only love, there's only mercy, and believe me, it's enough! Your sins are gone without a trace, there's nothing left now, there's only grace!"

It's hard for us to believe that grace and love are for us, too, but they are! :D No matter where you are in your recovery, even if you can't yet really believe that grace and love are for you, realize they are. If you are thinking at some level maybe your abusers were right (and I have realized that I had thought so at some level for years and years), they were wrong, and God does love you. :D

[ex-shep]

It is hard to imagine sometimes. I am sure I mentioned this recently, but I do remember saying that just because there are bad groups out there does not negate God's grace. Easier said than done sometimes, but true nevertheless.

[Anna Marta]

It's hard for us to believe that grace and love are for us, too, but they are! :D No matter where you are in your recovery, even if you can't yet really believe that grace and love are for you, realize they are. If you are thinking at some level maybe your abusers were right (and I have realized that I had thought so at some level for years and years), they were wrong, and God does love you. :D

Your words are wise. One of the big battles with recovering from abuse is getting over/past beliefs that maybe the abuser was right. They were/are WRONG!

My GREATEST hurdle in life was coming to the point where I could say and believe - "Just because someone says something doesn't make it true."

Anna Marta

[Elisabeth]

Your words are wise. One of the big battles with recovering from abuse is getting over/past beliefs that maybe the abuser was right. They were/are WRONG!

My GREATEST hurdle in life was coming to the point where I could say and believe - "Just because someone says something doesn't make it true."

Anna Marta

I think the very dynamics of abuse makes it even harder to get over the beliefs that maybe the abuser was right. Most, if not all, spiritual abuse involves some sort of mind control, and many times when a person is spiritually abused, it is at a vulnerable point in their lives when they are more suseptable to it. (Found that out through counseling and reading.) Anyway, the abuser takes more control over our lives than he has a right to, and then it's hard to get totally over the fact a person with so much control over our life was so very, very wrong.

[ex-shep]

Your words are wise. One of the big battles with recovering from abuse is getting over/past beliefs that maybe the abuser was right. They were/are WRONG!

My GREATEST hurdle in life was coming to the point where I could say and believe - "Just because someone says something doesn't make it true."

Anna Marta

Or the mantra "I am not my group. I am not their shame. That was then. This is now." A therapist referenced the concept of functionally autonomous behavoir. There are behavoirs from the past which used to serve a purpose, but no longer serve a meaningful purpose. The Dr. actually referenced it to shame based behavoir. In AA, they refer to it as "stinkin' thinking"-- not a bad analogy.

[Elisabeth]

A little more about mind control. I remember, after I got out of the churches where I was abused, telling my husband that the church I was going to at the present time that it (the church I started going to after I got out of the abusive churches) was the only church I had been to where I felt that I could be myself. If you feel like you can't be yourself in a church, I think there's a good chance that you are under some sort of mind control. God wants us to be ourselves, for that's the only way He can work with us! :D

[Anna Marta]

If you feel like you can't be yourself in a church, I think there's a good chance that you are under some sort of mind control. God wants us to be ourselves, for that's the only way He can work with us! :D

I can relate to this! In the states I was a member of a mainline denomination for many years and never had a problem with being myself. After becoming a part of the Norwegian Pentecostal stuff, I began to have doubts about whether I was a good enough Christian. It was the first touch of any kind of Word/Faith or Holiness movement nonsense, (which they insist they do not espouse, ha!). Our normal life style and behavior when I compared to theirs if we allowed ourselves to be open, would have sent us straight to the local deliverance minister! :eek:

I am just now getting around to reading a book everyone else has probably already read; it is called "Toxic Faith." I got it for 36 cents on Amazon used books. I am learning a great deal about things I had only surmised earlier.

Hugs
Anna Marta

[Elisabeth]

I am just now getting around to reading a book everyone else has probably already read; it is called "Toxic Faith." I got it for 36 cents on Amazon used books. I am learning a great deal about things I had only surmised earlier.



I bought that book several months ago. It triggered me too much, so I set it down after only reading a little bit. Maybe I can start reading it again now. :D

[Ladybug]

Hi Anna,

I haven't heard of the book, Toxic faith." Have to see if the librry has a copy. Can you give more detail about the book as you read through it?

[ex-shep]

Hi Anna,

I haven't heard of the book, Toxic faith." Have to see if the librry has a copy. Can you give more detail about the book as you read through it?

Excellent read. Highly reccomend. The books by Ken Blue are good reads too.

[hornblower]

Since Ive been going back to church lately and being shunned again...........yes I believe I am being treated like that and I still keep going anyway...........one day some words were stuck in my head that I had read from the materials in BSF (a very straight, too straight for me bible study, rules everywhere).............finally I blew up from the pressure of it all................I ran to my bedroom and cried out to God for the umpteenth time Im sure and gave up entirely!
I said to Him............."OK! If You dont want me like I am I give up! I cant make it anyway Im surely a sinner thats for sure just look at me will YOU just look down here at ME! I suck God cant you see that and You made me! Not that YOU made me like I am but in any case I am what I am I cannot change myself and I quit, completely quit! If YOU dont want me well then Ok dont but I still want You anyway I like You I love you even because I think YOU are like so cool and YOU know hey You are God so anyway if you want me Im still here and I am giving myself lock stock and barrel to You and only You so do whatever you want to do with me I give Up I cannot be good!"

Silence..............but peace, lots of it, flooded my heart when I realised I had just done the one thing required of me anyway.......I gave myself to Him. I belonged to Him anyway from the very beginning.........He made me, knew me, knew about me, knew how I would turn out and He still came and died for me, just like I am anyway.........such good and wholesome peace He gives.
God is so cool!

[Carmen]

I found Toxic Faith informative, but The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse helped me more emotionally and spiritually, in my opinion it displays/has/exudes more grace.

[Elisabeth]

Since Ive been going back to church lately and being shunned again...........yes I believe I am being treated like that and I still keep going anyway...........one day some words were stuck in my head that I had read from the materials in BSF (a very straight, too straight for me bible study, rules everywhere).............finally I blew up from the pressure of it all................I ran to my bedroom and cried out to God for the umpteenth time Im sure and gave up entirely!
I said to Him............."OK! If You dont want me like I am I give up! I cant make it anyway Im surely a sinner thats for sure just look at me will YOU just look down here at ME! I suck God cant you see that and You made me! Not that YOU made me like I am but in any case I am what I am I cannot change myself and I quit, completely quit! If YOU dont want me well then Ok dont but I still want You anyway I like You I love you even because I think YOU are like so cool and YOU know hey You are God so anyway if you want me Im still here and I am giving myself lock stock and barrel to You and only You so do whatever you want to do with me I give Up I cannot be good!"

Silence..............but peace, lots of it, flooded my heart when I realised I had just done the one thing required of me anyway.......I gave myself to Him. I belonged to Him anyway from the very beginning.........He made me, knew me, knew about me, knew how I would turn out and He still came and died for me, just like I am anyway.........such good and wholesome peace He gives.
God is so cool!

Yes, HB! He wants us to give ourselves to him, and all of us are unable to change ourselves. He is the one who changes us, from the inside out. :D

[ex-shep]

I found Toxic Faith informative, but The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse helped me more emotionally and spiritually, in my opinion it displays/has/exudes more grace.

I can agree with you on that one.

[Hope 98]

I'll say the same - The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse is THE book I'd recommend if you could only read one book.

Toxic Faith is also a good read, but the same material is in "More Jesus, Less Religion". If you have one, you don't need the other. They approach the subject from different angles, but equally informative. "More Jesus..." has a somewhat more positive frame of reference.

I grew up in a mainline denomination too and felt like church was a place we went once a week and tried to pretend to be good. I am still in the process of becoming who I really am, but feel as comfortable as I ever have "being myself" among the congregation I attend currently.

I think that sense of being able to "be yourself" is probably a good barometer of how safe you are in any setting. I want to try to keep that in mind...