Well…it has been a year and a half since I wrote my last entry regarding finishing my book and what a bizarre and mostly horrible time it has been. On several occasions I have tried to write and didn’t feel any leading in those endeavors. I got my first inkling to write last week so here I am. You know, I thought I had a really good beat on what the Lord had in mind for me by the time I finished writing and boy, was I wrong!
I have always striven to be transparent in speaking with you and today will be no different even though it is difficult to tell you what my life has been like for the last 1½ years. I was walking so intimately with the Lord while I was writing as I shared with you at the time. He got me through the grueling and deeply painful process of reliving every traumatic and painful experience of my life in just 3½ months. But then, less than 2 weeks later after finishing my book, I was drinking, smoking pot and fornicating with a married man! What a shock it was to my heart to find myself in the midst of so much sin after the deeply spiritual experience I had been living daily for the last 3½ months!
I have since figured out that I was traumatized all over again by the reliving of my life and it spiraled me out of control and that is where I have been ever since. Well, up until 4 months ago, when I started to finally feel a little bit more like myself…my true self, I believe, that really loves the Lord and believes in walking with Him daily and striving to glorify Him with every aspect of my life.
I have felt so much confusion over knowing in my heart that the Lord did lead me to and empower through the whole experience, to write my book and yet knowing that He doesn’t want me to be alienated from Him and to be immersed in sin. So I have continued to wonder, “What the heck is going on?!” Surely, He wouldn’t lead me to do something that would cause me to become so unhinged, right? Well, a dear missionary sister had a startling response to that question that makes a certain kind of sense. She said she didn’t agree with that thinking. She said that she has watched the Lord working in my life during the entire 7 years she has known me and that the Lord knows the things that need to come out of me before I can be in the place to serve in the ministry He has called me to. So was it about a purging? Another lesson of never allowing oneself to think they have arrived spiritually? Not that I thought I did…. I just thought that the Lord had worked a larger healing in me than He apparently had. Another dear sister suggested that like so many other of my life experiences, there would be others that would experience forms of the same things that would be relieved to hear about my struggles. My reply is that I wish I didn’t have to have so many failures so that I could be an encouragement to others!!!
I am pleased to report that the affair and the pot smoking were ended within 6 months of them starting. However, I have continued to struggle with drinking and fornication. I am getting back to church but still experiencing struggles with prayer. I have serious trust issues with the Lord due to my background, both as an abuse survivor and as a former cult member. But I love the Lord, I mean, passionately…and I want to give Him everything…holding nothing back. And regardless of my past and my present, He has never allowed that passion to diminish. I would like to think it is because He is going to allow that passion at least some partial fulfillment.
I have a heart that hungers to minister to women that have survived childhood abuse and sexual abuse in particular. But I feel so unworthy to be in any sort of ministry until I get my life in order, at the very least, not practicing sin. I loathe hypocrisy and want nothing to do with it. So, I share my ugliness with you and ask for your prayers that I continue to draw closer to the Lord so that I can feel a freedom to share His undeniable love….no, His passion for intimacy of heart with you. That is so hard for us to believe when we have been given the message while developing as human beings, that we are worthless, objects for someone else’s perverse, sick desires. But those messages are lies, straight from the very heart of our enemy, the Devil, I believe, with the real purpose being to alienate us from the source of the true love we crave, the love of our Heavenly Father.
That has always seemed to me to be the most demonic thing about all abuse and sexual abuse in particular….it directly damages our relationship with and trust in God.
I know as sure as I am writing to you, that no matter how long I live, I will have struggles in my belief of His love for me, in my worthiness to be loved by Him and difficulty in accepting my Lord’s precious, perfect, grace.
I have an awareness I write, that my heart feels an awakening of spirit and a rightness to share with you despite my very real humiliation in doing so. I pray that somehow He uses these words to encourage you, being fully aware that if you get anything of value out of my sharing, it is the power of God and my own ability.
I have a love for you and for your beautiful hearts and painful struggles that I cannot fully express here. Please know that despite my total lack of communication, you have never completely left my heart and I feel that the Lord is going to give me the ability to stay in the place that will enable me to remain connected with you once more. May you rest in the knowledge that NO MATTER how awful and confusing things may seem, He is always working His plan in us…and He NEVER abandons us. That is His promise in His Word that we can cling to as our anchor when being tossed about in this tough and brutal thing called life.
I have always striven to be transparent in speaking with you and today will be no different even though it is difficult to tell you what my life has been like for the last 1½ years. I was walking so intimately with the Lord while I was writing as I shared with you at the time. He got me through the grueling and deeply painful process of reliving every traumatic and painful experience of my life in just 3½ months. But then, less than 2 weeks later after finishing my book, I was drinking, smoking pot and fornicating with a married man! What a shock it was to my heart to find myself in the midst of so much sin after the deeply spiritual experience I had been living daily for the last 3½ months!
I have since figured out that I was traumatized all over again by the reliving of my life and it spiraled me out of control and that is where I have been ever since. Well, up until 4 months ago, when I started to finally feel a little bit more like myself…my true self, I believe, that really loves the Lord and believes in walking with Him daily and striving to glorify Him with every aspect of my life.
I have felt so much confusion over knowing in my heart that the Lord did lead me to and empower through the whole experience, to write my book and yet knowing that He doesn’t want me to be alienated from Him and to be immersed in sin. So I have continued to wonder, “What the heck is going on?!” Surely, He wouldn’t lead me to do something that would cause me to become so unhinged, right? Well, a dear missionary sister had a startling response to that question that makes a certain kind of sense. She said she didn’t agree with that thinking. She said that she has watched the Lord working in my life during the entire 7 years she has known me and that the Lord knows the things that need to come out of me before I can be in the place to serve in the ministry He has called me to. So was it about a purging? Another lesson of never allowing oneself to think they have arrived spiritually? Not that I thought I did…. I just thought that the Lord had worked a larger healing in me than He apparently had. Another dear sister suggested that like so many other of my life experiences, there would be others that would experience forms of the same things that would be relieved to hear about my struggles. My reply is that I wish I didn’t have to have so many failures so that I could be an encouragement to others!!!
I am pleased to report that the affair and the pot smoking were ended within 6 months of them starting. However, I have continued to struggle with drinking and fornication. I am getting back to church but still experiencing struggles with prayer. I have serious trust issues with the Lord due to my background, both as an abuse survivor and as a former cult member. But I love the Lord, I mean, passionately…and I want to give Him everything…holding nothing back. And regardless of my past and my present, He has never allowed that passion to diminish. I would like to think it is because He is going to allow that passion at least some partial fulfillment.
I have a heart that hungers to minister to women that have survived childhood abuse and sexual abuse in particular. But I feel so unworthy to be in any sort of ministry until I get my life in order, at the very least, not practicing sin. I loathe hypocrisy and want nothing to do with it. So, I share my ugliness with you and ask for your prayers that I continue to draw closer to the Lord so that I can feel a freedom to share His undeniable love….no, His passion for intimacy of heart with you. That is so hard for us to believe when we have been given the message while developing as human beings, that we are worthless, objects for someone else’s perverse, sick desires. But those messages are lies, straight from the very heart of our enemy, the Devil, I believe, with the real purpose being to alienate us from the source of the true love we crave, the love of our Heavenly Father.
That has always seemed to me to be the most demonic thing about all abuse and sexual abuse in particular….it directly damages our relationship with and trust in God.
I know as sure as I am writing to you, that no matter how long I live, I will have struggles in my belief of His love for me, in my worthiness to be loved by Him and difficulty in accepting my Lord’s precious, perfect, grace.
I have an awareness I write, that my heart feels an awakening of spirit and a rightness to share with you despite my very real humiliation in doing so. I pray that somehow He uses these words to encourage you, being fully aware that if you get anything of value out of my sharing, it is the power of God and my own ability.
I have a love for you and for your beautiful hearts and painful struggles that I cannot fully express here. Please know that despite my total lack of communication, you have never completely left my heart and I feel that the Lord is going to give me the ability to stay in the place that will enable me to remain connected with you once more. May you rest in the knowledge that NO MATTER how awful and confusing things may seem, He is always working His plan in us…and He NEVER abandons us. That is His promise in His Word that we can cling to as our anchor when being tossed about in this tough and brutal thing called life.
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