First, here is one of my favorite passages in scripture. :)
2 Corinthians 11
and 12
Paul and the False Apostles
“I hope you will put up with me in a little
foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2 I am jealous for you
with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I
might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid
that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow
be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For
if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached,
or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a
different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
5 I do not think I am in the least inferior to those
“super-apostles.”[a] 6 I
may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made
this perfectly clear to you in every way. 7
…..such people are false apostles,
deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And
no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It
is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of
righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
Paul
Boasts About His Sufferings
16 I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then
tolerate me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. 17 In
this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool.
18 Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too
will boast. 19 You gladly put up with fools since you are so
wise! 20 In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you
or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the
face. 21 To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!
Whatever anyone else dares to boast
about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. 22 Are
they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s
descendants? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out
of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in
prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death
again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty
lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I
was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a
day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I
have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my
fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the
country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I
have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger
and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides
everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who
is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly
burn?
30 If
I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness……
2 Cor. 12:9-10 He (God) said to me, “My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that
Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For
when I am weak, then I am strong."
The main message of
my testimony or life story, and I think of all of ours, is that I am still
alive. I have not been killed and I have
not been driven to kill myself. I have
had thoughts of the later, never seriously attempted, but given the way life
seems to have kicked me around I have wanted to end things for myself a few
times. It all seems like nothing
compared to all Paul went through, but it has still been a lot to handle.
In all honesty, who
wouldn’t rather be dead than living here on this earth at times? Who wouldn’t rather be in heaven with God
forever having fun and being eternally joyful than having to suffer through
this life? But we are all still alive
for a reason, for a purpose. God wants
to use us. We just have to figure out
how. J
Here’s my
background:
I grew up in a
Christian home, ironically, but when I was 6 my dad molested me. In actuality he tried to rape me. I will spare you the details of the event,
but he admitted to my mom later when he was in jail that if he hadn't been
stopped it would have led up to incest eventually. He admitted that from the time I was a baby
he was conditioning me in a sense to like him in that way, very strange I
know. The kicker is that even after he
admitted all this to my mom, she still reunited their marriage for a time, but
eventually divorced him, praise God.
I had a friend who
worked in mental health for 10 years. He
told me how rare it is that some one's own father would do something like that to
them. Usually a molest comes from
someone outside the family or a more removed family member. But my own dad molested me, which I have only
shared when giving my story in public once before. It seemed too shameful to actually say that.
But the shame is
not mine; it is my dad's. And I no
longer consider him my father really, since he essentially gave up his right to
be my father in doing that.
And I know now that
it was not my fault. I couldn't have
done anything to prevent what happened.
I was just a kid. I had to live
there. It took me about 3 years in
counseling over the course of 16 years to realize that; that I was the
victim. That I did not want what
happened to me. That I was sinned
against but I was and am still innocent.
It’s amazing how those who molest others can try to convince them that
they wanted what happened to them or they brought it on themselves, and how
they can convince others that the fault was not theirs. That is probably why most victims of abuse don’t
want to talk about their sexual abuse, because they are confused about if they
were really the victim or not.
The ironic thing
about it all is that my mom and brother were convinced he was better now. They didn't get why I didn’t want to talk to
him. But just a few months ago he was
accused of molesting another little girl; quite sad but true. I made a video to testify against him in
court since he somehow got what he did to me wiped off his record. That made me think of the verse “Vindication
is mine’ says the Lord.” I forgave my
dad a long time ago and have not tried to take revenge in any way, but God will
punish those who hurt us eventually.
People reap what they sow, and may justice be done in the case of my
dad.
After my dad, my
brother also molested me twice, which has, needless to say, made things awkward
for us ever since. When my dad
confronted him after my brother simply said to him, “What? You did it too.”
There was also some
incident with a neighbor once.
So all this taught
me that very few people could be trusted.
That I needed to stay away from people, to isolate as much as I
could. That I needed to control
situations in the future so that they did not control me.
Despite my
childhood and the hypocrisy of my dad I still grew up having a close
relationship with God for the most part.
I was raised in church, praise God, and always loved singing worship
songs and going to Sunday school.
I started to head
down the wrong path in junior high, but luckily my mom moved me out to
California to be by her incredible and godly mom who steered me onto the right
path.
In junior high I
shoplifted, drank a bit, tried pot, smoked and had my first boyfriend at
12. I know it was all a way to forget
about how broken and messed up our family was.
My parents had divorced when I was 9, of course due to my dad molesting
me, but that really did damage to me and my brother for a time. My mom's depression almost made her seem
non-existent so my brother and I were left to run free and make lots of dumb
decisions on our own. :)
But in high school
when I was 14 I fully committed my life to God, told him I would go and do
whatever he wanted me to. I went on a
few missions trips, to India, Taiwan and Mexico which were pretty cool. I still messed up from time to time with
relationships but for the most part stayed on the right path.
I went on to a
private Christian college, Biola in L.A. but I never felt like I fit in with
the kids there because of my past. Most
of them had come from pretty healthy families and I always felt like I didn't
belong there. But I finished and got a
degree.
I was working in a
group home awhile back and told the girls there that even though they came from
broken homes or hard childhoods they could still achieve their dreams. My dream was always to get that degree, and
God enabled me to.
As an adult, and as
a result of my abuses, I have struggled with anger and control issues. I have read in recovery books that when our
childhood is out of control we then want to try and control everything when we
are adults. Or when we feel helpless as
a child we decide we never want to feel that way again so we put up defenses in
the form of control or anger or simply isolate from the world etc.
I suppose I also
have developed an addiction to worry or I have obsessive negative
thoughts. I know that is why many people
drink and do drugs, because they don't want to think about certain things. I often times have things pass through my
mind that I wish I didn't. My thoughts
seem to torture me sometimes. Whenever
I'm alone the crazed worried thoughts come in, usually relating to the person I
am in a relationship with, that that person will leave or cheat or stop loving
me or something like that. I know it's
Satan and I should have power over these thoughts through Jesus, but sometimes
it seems impossible.
I never was
addicted to drugs or alcohol, praise be to God for that. I saw what it did in the lives of those
closest to me so I stayed away for the most part.
My mom has had
clinical depression my whole life, due to what my dad did obviously, so she has
been on and off almost every anti-depressant drug on the market. I saw how horribly that affected her and
learned my lesson from her to stay away from drugs, legal or illegal. I also saw my brother throw his life away due
to smoking pot. He started when he was
16 and still hasn't stopped at 32. He actually
recently got kicked out of the army for failing a drug test, which will have
pretty bad ramifications for him I think.
My anger and need
for control resulted in many heated arguments with my late husband. It didn't help that he was somewhat of an
alcoholic so that complicated things more.
I say late because
he died about a year ago. He was on a
few prescription drugs, methadone being one of them. He asked his doctor to get him on Methadone
to help him wean off of the Klonopin he was on.
The last night I was with him, we had an argument, which I will forever
regret, and he went out drinking for the first time in a year. He had given up drinking for a year for
me. The result was that he inadvertently
killed himself, because drinking anything, or consuming any second substance
when on methadone can kill someone.
But my quite crazy
story does have a happy ending. God sent
me an amazing Christian man that I am now married to and we have a kid on the
way. Praise God. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. :) So don’t lose heart in your own life if it
seems like everything is going wrong.
God will work it out for the good.
Just give it time. J
My mom has turned
out to be a wonderful Christian woman and a great mentor in my life now. She has really come a long way on her own
road to recovery. For years she was
leading a co-dependency group at a Celebrate Recovery at her church, which I
think helped her a lot to care more about herself. About 9 years ago she remarried a great
Christian guy and they are very happy together now. Seeing them gave me hope that marriage can
work and that things can work out for the good even if they start bad.
So I'm trusting
that God will work my life out for the good.
I know in many ways He already is.
He certainly has
brought my life full circle in bringing Ben into my life. Joyce Meyer always says that God will give us
double blessing for our former trouble, and He certainly has in my life.
Some verses that
really give me hope are;
“And my God will
work all things together for the good of those who love Him.”
“I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me.”
“We are more than
conquerors in Christ Jesus.”
“Behold you are a
new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.”
And that Jesus
said, “I am going to prepare a place for you so that where I am there you also
may be.” Amen?
I hope God has used my story to help some of
you.
God bless :)
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