May19

O Wretched Man That I Am!

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Every once in awhile I do or say something that reminds me of just how sinful I truly am.

On May 5th (the second Sunday after Easter), Nick Vujicic, founder of Life Without Limbs, a ministry based in Australia, preached at my church. He’s very well known, so all three services were quite well attended, with the main sanctuary being packed, and the overflow seating as well.

I was able to get a seat in the main sanctuary, but only just barely. I have a compulsive need to sit on the aisle, because I feel closed in if there are people sitting on both sides of me, and the only aisle seat available was down in front next to the wall. Unfortunately, even though the seat was on the aisle, because it was next to the wall and by the stage ~ basically in the right front corner of the room ~ my ability to see the stage, and therefore Nick Vujicic, was extremely limited.

There was one open seat next to me that improved my visibility, so I sat there, and prayed that no one would take the aisle seat.

Actually, what I thought was, “I hope whoever sits there isn’t fat like me.”

Then I listened to what I’d just said to myself, and felt a wave of disgust wash over me. This couldn’t be pleasing to God! What was I to do?

I quickly decided that the most important thing I needed to do was repent, and ask for God’s forgiveness, so that’s what I did.

But God’s forgiveness notwithstanding, I was still left with the disquieting question of why I’d allowed myself to think like that in the first place.

That’s when the Holy Spirit reminded me of Romans, Chapter Seven,

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ~ Romans 7:15, 19, and 24, ESV.

When the Scriptures were originally written down they weren’t separated into chapters and verses, so Romans 7 and Romans 8 were transcribed as one long discourse.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that, because, while Romans 7:15 through the end of the chapter bemoan our sinfulness, Romans 8 gratefully and joyfully acknowledges Christ’s victory over that sin through His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. Chapter 8 also specifically says that nothing, including our sin, can separate us from the love of Jesus,

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Romans 8:38-39, ESV.

I’m so grateful and thankful for God’s love for me! Now I need to get my thought-life in line with God’s Word, and specifically the fruit of the Spirit listed in the Book of Galatians,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ~ Galatians 5:22-23, ESV.

So all is not lost. God’s Word is at work in my life, and while I did experience an unpleasant confrontation with my humanity and sinfulness, I also became aware once again of just how much God loves me regardless of my sin.

Thanks be to God for His unfathomable and unspeakable gift!

May7

New Mercies Every Morning

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One of my favorite passages of scripture is from the Book of Lamentations (a short little five chapter book in the Old Testament right after the Book of Jeremiah),

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ~ Lamentations 3:21-23, NIV.

I love knowing that God has new mercies and fresh compassion for me every single day. It’s wonderful to know that His faithfulness towards me is such that I never have to worry that I might wake up one morning and find out that God is having a bad day. God isn’t capricious like my father was. I could never tell from one minute to the next how my father would be feeling, and therefore how he would treat me.

My father was diametrically opposite from, and opposed to, everything about God. The most dependable thing about my father was that you couldn’t depend on him for anything.

But God is everything my father wasn’t, and He never changes. It says this in a number of different ways throughout the Bible, and I am so very grateful and thankful to God for His constancy and faithfulness. The Book of Hebrews says,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. ~ Hebrews 13:8, ESV.

It says in the Book of Numbers,

God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? ~ Numbers 23:19, NLT.

And one of my all-time favorites,

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. ~ James 1:17, KJV.

Last, but certainly not least,

35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36, As it is written: “For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Romans 8:35-39, NIV.

The Old Testament verse referenced in Verse 36 comes from the Book of Psalms,

Yet for Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. ~ Psalm 44:22, NIV.

It’s extremely comforting to me to know that it’s impossible to separate me from Christ’s love, that God won’t let anything, ANYTHING, come between me and Him, and He’s proven that to me too many times to count. The most obvious confirmation, of course, is the cross, but just the fact that He’s been with me and kept me alive all my life ~ even when I didn’t know Him ~ is all the evidence I need, even if I didn’t have the cross. But I thank God for the cross!

 

May5

Author and Finisher

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I love the phrase, “…the author and finisher of our faith…” in Hebrews 12:2. It’s talking about Jesus, of course. I like the way the NIV puts it,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ~ Hebrews 12:1-2, NIV.

It’s like my faith ~ my story ~ is a book, and Jesus is its author. He’s the One who began my story, and He’s the One who will finish it, as it says in Philippians,

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. ~ Philippians 1:6, NLT.

I love the Bible. It always tells the truth. The verses I quoted above tell the truth about God’s activity in my life. And the cardinal truth can be found in this verse in Hebrews,

Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” ~ Hebrews 13:5, NLT.

Throughout my life ~ through all the abuse, all the times my mother tried to kill me, all the horrendous and terrible things my father did to me, all my suicide attempts, even during the period where I was enraged at God ~ through all of it, God was there, keeping me alive, shielding me from the worst of the abuse, and even protecting me from myself.

He’s never failed me, He’s never forsaken me, He’s never abandoned me, plus He’s given me beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, as it says in Isaiah,

To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. ~ Isaiah 61:3, NKJV.

God has given me so much beauty in my life! He’s been so incredibly good to me, and He continues to be so on a daily, minute-by-minute basis. The cross is the best, most beautiful gift He could ever give me. It’s the best demonstration of true love anyone could ever give to another person, as it says in the Gospel of John,

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ~ John 15:13, NLT.

Apr29

An Ugly Mind Made Beautiful.

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When the movie, A Beautiful Mind came out I had a hard time watching it because I could relate to some of John Nash’s experiences, in particular the insulin shock therapy he was treated with while he was in the hospital.

The reason I can relate to the insulin shock therapy he endured is because when I was a child and being abused in the cult in the 50’s and 60’s, the cult abusers had to have a way to make their victims forget what they’d done to them, and insulin shock, sometimes called subcoma insulin shock, was the method they used. There were doctors and nurses present who were cult members, and they monitored the victims, who were usually children, to make sure nothing bad happened to them while they were unconscious, and also to administer the insulin in the first place. The correct dosage had to be calculated based on the victim’s height and weight, and doctors and nurses were the only ones who knew how to do that.

Seeing that movie is what triggered that memory, and I haven’t been able to watch it since, which is unusual for me. Usually I love seeing movies many times over.

The movie also reminded me that when I was little I used to crave sugar all the time. Regularly for breakfast I would have cereal with multiple heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar on it, and my mother never stopped me from doing it ~ something that only makes sense if I had a lot of extra insulin in my blood that needed to be metabolized. And now, while I’m not diabetic, thank God, I am insulin resistant. Another way of thinking of that is that because of the insulin shock to which I was subjected, my tissues aren’t as responsive to insulin as they would otherwise be.

It doesn’t usually affect me. Every once in awhile, if I don’t eat anything at all over a long period, I begin to get a little hypoglycemic, but that’s about it. Plus my doctor has prescribed a very good medication that helps to moderate things quite well.

I thank God that Jesus is my Healer, and my Redeemer! I pray that Jesus has healed me of insulin resistence! I forgive everyone who caused it, and I hope I’ll see them in Heaven so I can tell them I forgive them.

It was a form of torture. It makes me feel sad knowing that I was tortured. Even though I’ve described other cult rituals that could be said to be torture, this is the first time that I’ve actually said the words, “I was tortured.” This is the first time I’ve acknowledged it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Maybe it’s because I’m accepting reality.

It also makes me feel sad knowing that people are cruel to each other so often. It makes no sense to me that people treat each other like that, because it seems like it would be easier to be kind. Being mean and cruel makes things so much more difficult, because then, in the process, a lot of times you break a law and have to go to court, and then to jail. If people would just be kind they could avoid all that, and they might learn about the mysteries of God into the bargain.

It sounds like a good deal to me. Maybe not to other people, but certainly to me.

 

Apr19

Quirky Questions to Make You Think

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I recently took a class through the RZIM Academy called What Does It Mean To Be Human? It was without doubt the best class I’ve ever taken anywhere, with the possible exception of Why Suffering, which was another class offered by the Academy.

Every class I’ve ever taken through the Academy has been exceedingly well done, but this last class was by far the best. I always learn a lot when I take these classes, but this time I learned a lot, and they made me think, probably more than in any other class.

One of the assignments we had to do was to come up with ten questions on what it means to be human. The variety of questions that people came up with was really cool.

I decided I’m going to post my questions here, and then try and come up with answers for each one.

So here goes…

  1. What is it about being human that makes man unique from all other creatures on earth?
  2. What is it about being human that gives man the capacity for spirituality?
  3. What is it about being human that gives man the desire to know and understand truth?
  4. What is it about being human that gives man the craving for beauty, and the ability to pursue perfection in the arts?
  5. What is it about being human that gives man the desire to know his origins, to know where he came from, deeper than just the details about sex?
  6. What is it about being human that gives man the hunger for morality, and the consequent ability to establish governments, and make rules and laws?
  7. What is it about being human that gives man the curiosity to pursue knowledge in the sciences and other fields of inquiry?
  8. What is it about being human that gives man the capacity to love sacrificially, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, to hate absolutely?
  9. What is it about being human that gives man the yearning to find meaning in his life?
  10. What is it about being human that makes people crave to know their destiny? In other words, what happens to us when we die?

So those were my ten questions. I don’t know how good they are, but I like them. The purpose of the assignment was to come up with questions that would make people think about what it means to be human, and to make them think more deeply about the things of the Spirit, and of God.

I want to start by answering the first question in this post, and then answer the questions one or two at a time in successive posts.

So, here I go with Question #1:

What is it about being human that makes man unique from all other creatures on earth?

I think the answer to that question lies more than anything in the idea, corroborated in Scripture, that human beings are created in the image of God. It says in the Book of Genesis,

And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ~ Genesis 1:26-27, ESV.

There are a lot of thoughts that run through my mind when I contemplate the idea that God, Master of the Universe, Creator of All Things, would create me in His image. That boggles my mind. As amazing and marvelous and wonderful and mysterious as God is, He created me in His image, and after His likeness.

Then I find myself wondering, what does it mean to be created in the image of someone? Is it about being created like that person, and if it is, like that person in what way? Since this is in reference to God, it can’t have anything to do with physical appearance, because God is Spirit.

Then Kim sent me some helpful ideas. God created us to reflect Him, kind of like a mirror, and He is, at the simplest level, Light, Life, and Love, so we were created to reflect God’s Light, God’s Life, and God’s Love, because those are God’s defining characteristics.

Something else Kim reminded me of: if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Jesus Himself said that,

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father! So why are you asking Me to show Him to you?” ~ John 14:8-9, NLT.

First, God is light, as it says in 1 John,

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. ~ 1 John 1:5, NASB.

Then, God is love, also in 1 John,

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ~ 1 John 4:8, NASB.

And also in 1 John,

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16, NKJV.

The idea that God is life is a little more difficult, because there isn’t a scripture that says plainly, God is life, as there are for the other two concepts. But inferences and deductions can be made, and conclusions can be drawn, so I’ll try and do exactly that.

Peter calls Jesus Christ the Author of Life in the Book of Acts. In order for someone to be the author of life, that person has to have life in himself, and Jesus Christ certainly had that, and still does in inexhaustible supply,

You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! ~ Acts 3:15, NLT, NIV, ESV, and RSV.

And “Author of Life” is translated variously, “Prince of Life”, in the KJV, NKJV, NASB, ASV, YLT, WEB, and HNV; “Source of Life” in the CSB; and “Originator of Life” in the NET and the DBY.

All of which means that God is Life because He is the source and originator of life. Plus Jesus said about Himself,

My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are One. ~ John 10:29-30, ESV.

In addition, Jesus says to Martha, the sister of Lazarus who He raised from the dead, in John, Chapter 11,

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies… ~ John 11:25, NASB.

So Jesus says He is the resurrection and the life (resurrection and life used as nouns). He’s saying that He has life, and that He is life.

I don’t know how close I’ve come to answering the question, but at least I’ve made a stab at it. I’m sure there’s more I could say, and I may come back and add more later on.

Apr18

Revenge Is God’s Job, Not Man’s.

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I think I know why vigilante justice is wrong. It occurred to me that vigilante justice is man’s attempt to get revenge when God said specifically that vengeance was His responsibility. It says in the Book of Romans,

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ~ Romans 12:19, ESV.

And Paul is quoting Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy when he says that (Deuteronomy 32:35).

That says to me that revenge is God’s job, not ours. I often wonder if the reason people practice vigilante justice is because they either don’t believe God exists, so they feel they have to get justice themselves, or they don’t trust that He’ll get the justice they want, or need, or think they deserve for that crime. Either way they’re wresting control of when justice is served out of God’s hands, and into their own hands.

When someone has a vested interest in seeing a particular person convicted for a crime, regardless of that person’s actual guilt or innocence, if the person is acquitted then the one with the personal stake in his conviction can be a prime candidate for vigilante justice because he didn’t get his desired outcome.

God knows the whole story. He can see the whole picture, whereas we only know what we can see and hear and feel. We will never know another person’s motivation for what they did, and we won’t usually know if that person is lying, unless they break down and confess that they lied.

What if the person we’re pursuing is actually innocent of the crime we’re accusing him/her of? Even though we think we know who committed the crime, we don’t know everything, and we might be wrong. There’s no such thing as a perfect murder where God is concerned because God knows everything, EVERYTHING, and even if the real killer is never apprehended here on earth, God still knows who did it. That person will still have to face God’s justice and judgment in the end, regardless of what happens here on earth.

I know it’s hard to trust God about something so personal and painful as when someone dear to you has been attacked and/or murdered. I’ve been a victim of serious crime myself, and I know how difficult it is to trust God when you’ve been deeply wounded.

You might be saying, “How can I trust God when He allowed me to be so savagely hurt?” But I’ve come to know that it was God who protected me from the worst of the abuse. If God hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have survived. I would be dead, because those who were abusing me would have killed me, or I would have succeeded in one of my suicide attempts. And you might respond, “But if God is as powerful and as good as everyone says He is, then why was I abused at all? Why didn’t He stop the abuse from happening altogether?”

Unfortunately, there are some questions for which there just isn’t a satisfactory answer this side of Heaven, and this is one of them. The problem of evil is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, and it’s also one of the main reasons people give for doubting God’s existence. The argument usually goes, if God is omnipotent then He could have stopped the evil from happening, and since He didn’t then He must not be omnipotent. And by the same token, if He’s completely good, then He wouldn’t have allowed the evil to happen in the first place, and since the evil did happen, then He must not be completely good.

My response to those arguments is that the people proposing them aren’t considering all the factors. There is the all-important detail of man’s free will. God created every single human being with a free will, and He cannot violate that will in any way at any time, otherwise it wouldn’t be free. God desires humans who will freely choose to fellowship with Him, and He can only get people who will make that choice by creating them with a completely free will. And that means a free will to reject Him just as much as to choose Him.

I can say that God is absolutely faithful, and He solved the problem of evil once for all at the cross. Colossians 2 says,

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the cross. ~ Colossians 2:14-15, NLT.

In addition, it says in the Book of Revelation,

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. ~ Revelation 1:18, KJV.

Jesus triumphed over Satan at the cross, and took the keys of hell and death away from him at that time, and as a consequence, death has lost its sting, as it says so well in 1 Corinthians,

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:55-57, ESV.

Even though Christ dealt with Satan at the cross, making a show of him openly as it says in Colossians, we won’t see the complete outworking of that victory until Christ returns at His Second Coming.

I think I’ll stop now. I’ve covered a lot of ground here, and meandered around a bit. I probably could’ve made this into two posts, especially because it got kind of long, plus I ended up on a different topic than I started out on, but I’m not sure I want to. Maybe I can tie it all together.

When someone is seeking their own justice, which is basically what vigilante justice is, they’re committing murder because they don’t trust the criminal justice system. Trying to exact your own justice is the wrong way to go about it. Killing another human being is always wrong no matter what, except if it’s in self defense.

God must be the judge, not man, and He works through the criminal justice system, as flawed as it is because it’s run by human beings. We need to trust that the truth will come out in God’s timing. You can’t hide anything from God. It says in the Book of Numbers,

But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the LORD, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. ~ Numbers 32:23, NLT.

So that’s all, folks!

Apr13

Stunned and Gobsmacked, or, God Must Be Right and I Must Be Wrong.

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Maybe I’m doing better with God than I think I am. I’ve always thought it impossible for me to please God regardless of what I do, say, or think. I realize I’m probably seeing God through the lens of Harry. I wish I could just take the Harry-glasses off and break them into a million pieces and be done with them for good so I can see God as He truly is, but such is not to be, it seems, at least not yet.

But maybe I’m not doing as badly as I think I am. The Bible says,

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. ~ Hebrews 11:6, NKJV.

Throughout my Christian life my greatest strivings and highest longings have always been to know God and to please Him, but doing that very thing is what has always caused me the greatest anguish, because I’ve felt the most hopeless about being able to do so. But the interesting thing was that in all my struggles and strivings I never stopped believing in God. I always believed that He existed, I always believed that His Word was true, even if I couldn’t believe it was true for me, though I desperately wanted to believe that it was.

If I’ve always believed, and never doubted, that God is, as it says in Hebrews 11:6; in other words, that He exists, seems to me that requires faith. Maybe even a lot of it, given the kinds of experiences I’ve lived through.

The Bible gives the definition of faith as,

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. ~ Hebrews 11:1, NLT.

So maybe I do have faith, possibly even a lot of it. I’ve been seeking God diligently my whole Christian life, regardless of any memories that were niggling in the background, or that were surfacing, or whatever. It feels scary for me to say that as a statement of fact, even arrogant. There’s a big part of me that wants to qualify it so my faith looks in some way less, but I don’t think I’ll do that, as uncomfortable as not doing so makes me feel.

But maybe God sees me differently than I do. I mean, the Bible says,

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. ~ Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV.

So maybe the way God sees me is completely different than the way I see myself, and more importantly, the way Harry portrayed me. The Bible says God created me in His image and after His likeness (see Genesis 1:26). I really like the way that sounds, because God doesn’t create anything ugly or defective or junky. He only makes beautiful things, and I finally figured out that God thinks I’m beautiful.

When I realized that I was utterly stunned and gobsmacked. God sees me as beautiful? Wow!! And God doesn’t make mistakes, so He must be right.

I think I’ll believe Him. He’s smarter than I am.

Which brings me back to whether I have faith or not. I must, if I’m choosing to believe what God thinks about me rather than what I feel about myself.

How cool is that!

 

Apr6

Secret’s Delight

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I’ve been wanting to write something, anything, for several days, but the words have eluded me, nasty things. They’ve been just beyond my grasp.

As if words were living things…

Which they’re not, but they feel alive when I can’t find them to get them down on paper. They’re certainly alive in my mind at least.

It’s frustrating when I can’t write, because it feels like the words are trapped inside with no way out. Kind of like me throughout my childhood. In fact, when I was multiple I had an alter whose name was Secret who kept me from writing. It was her job to keep things secret and hidden from me, and I almost always found it extremely difficult to write because of her activity inside. She kept the words hidden behind blank thoughts and clouded minds; in other words, general confusion ~ something I experienced a lot of back then.

Thankfully, since God integrated me in 2003, the confusion is almost completely gone, and lately, I’ve been able to write almost prolifically ~ at least prolifically for me, if the number of entries here is any indication. I haven’t been able to write poetry, which is disappointing, but hopefully that will come with time.

I love writing poetry. It makes me feel free. There’s something about being able to write like that, even though it’s highly structured (I like writing poetry that rhymes), that makes me feel brilliant and uninhibited.

Maybe that sounds a little arrogant because I said that something makes me feel brilliant. Let me explain. Poetry is something that’s fairly new for me. Most of my life I couldn’t make sense of poetry, much less write it. It was a complete mystery to me. Then in September of 1989 I went on a retreat with other abuse victims, and while I was there I met a couple of women who were survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse.

As they were talking about their experiences, what they were saying resonated with me, and I began to wonder if SRA was a part of my background. The thought of it terrified and horrified me. What I’d already remembered was appalling and shocking. To think that the adults in my life, who I was supposed to be able to trust, were guilty of such heinous crimes was beyond my comprehension, much less that they could be guilty of the kinds of crimes that were perpetrated on children by people in satanic cults.

So I came home from that retreat and wrote my first poem. It was called, prosaically enough, My First Pome. It wasn’t very good, but it was a start, and given that I’d never written anything remotely like that before, I think it was incredible. Here it is:

My First Pome

 I want to write poetical,

                             but how do I start?

The words are tangled up

and trapped in my heart.

If I open the door

they’ll come tumbling out,

Jumbled up letters

through an itty-bit spout.

I wrote that on October 1, 1989, and I’ve been able to write poetry ever since. Also, interestingly, I’ve been able to understand others’ poetry as well, something that just thrills me. Back in 2010 I was able to take a writing class at UC Irvine where we had to write a paper on T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets. We each had to pick one of the four quartets, and write a paper on the role of time in that quartet. And I was able to complete the assignment! In fact, I discovered things in the poem that the professor hadn’t seen! How cool is that? God is so good! I had so much fun writing that paper!

So that’s my poetry-writing history. I haven’t been able to write any poetry for awhile, but I don’t expect the gift God gave me has gone away for good. I don’t know what’s blocking it, but if it’s like the rest of my writing, I’m hoping it’ll come back once the block has been removed. I’m hoping God will show me what’s blocking it and help me get it back.

Mar31

God Is Completely Other. Harry Is Just Evil.

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The last time I saw McT we talked about the difficulty I have with taking showers. And just to clarify, taking a bath is just as hard for me as taking a shower is.

The very first abuse memory I had was of Harry trying to force me into having oral sex with him when we were in the shower when I was about two years old, and I had it during a therapy session with McT. Harry forced me to have oral sex, so I got confused and lost control of my bowels and pooped on the shower floor, which enraged him. As a result he picked up the feces and threw it at me, and then forced me to eat it.

First off, I forgive him.

Needless to say, the shower is an emotionally charged place for me, and it’s nigh unto impossible for me to take one without major advance preparations.

There are a number of things I’m afraid of. For one thing, I’m terrified I’ll have new and more horrific memories of things Harry did to me in the shower while I’m taking a shower. It’s happened before. That seemed to be a favorite place of his. I don’t know what his deal was, but he just loved to get to me while I was in the bathroom, and especially while I was in the shower. And that first memory was one that he initiated.

The other memories I’ve had mostly centered around him bringing other men in to have sex with me while Harry watched, sometimes in the shower, and sometimes not. I’ve had memories of them paying him; it was always a very small amount of money, because Harry didn’t want me to get the idea that I was actually worth anything. He allowed me to see the amount of money, and told me how much it was, so I would know just how little I was worth, and just how bad the sex was that they were getting from me.

Seriously? I didn’t ask for this, damnit!! You’re the one who forced it on me!! If you didn’t like what you were getting, then you should have gone some place where your presence was desired!!

And always, Harry watched. He got his jollies watching. And always, I forgive him.

Sometimes I get tired of forgiving him. It doesn’t seem to do any good. But I have to remember that I’m not forgiving him for him. I’m doing it for me, because that’s what God commands. And I desire above all else to please God. God isn’t Harry. God isn’t my father. God is my Father, and completely OTHER. God is absolutely different from Harry, completely OTHER.

I have to remember that. God is completely OTHER.

Mar29

Justice and Mercy Both Win at the Cross

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God showed me something this morning. I was driving to a doctor’s appointment and listening to a song on the radio. The song reminded me of a Scripture verse I’ve been thinking about recently, James 2:12-13,

So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. ~ James 2:12-13, NKJV.

What I realized was, at the cross God got the justice He required for humanity’s sin because Jesus bore the punishment for our sins by dying for us. But God isn’t only a just God, He’s also a merciful God; two of His attributes are justice and mercy, not just justice. And at the cross God required justice, but He also desired mercy for His dealings with mankind. So He got justice by allowing Jesus to bear the punishment we deserved, and then gave us His mercy and grace as a free gift instead.

How cool is that?!

Instead of the justice and punishment we deserved, we got the mercy and grace we didn’t earn ~ and sonship! We became sons and daughters of God because we were adopted into the family of God!

All we have to do is receive His free gift of salvation by faith. We don’t have to be good enough, or clean enough, or anything enough. All we have to do is confess with our mouth and believe in our hearts according to Romans 10:9-10,

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. ~ Romans 10:9-10, NLT.

It doesn’t seem like a fair exchange, does it? Maybe that’s because it’s not, but who am I to argue when I get by far the best end of the deal! I mean, all God gets is little ole, imperfect me. And I get Jesus Christ as a big brother, and saved, and redeemed, and the whole Kingdom of God, and Heaven, and a relationship with God, and EVERYTHING!!

Such a deal!! It absolutely boggles my mind, and fills me to overflowing with such gratitude that I can hardly think straight!

Thank you, Jesus!!