He is Not a Cookie-cutter God

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a ministry known as People and Songs and have followed many of the musicians on Facebook and Instagram. Recently Crystal Yates who is one of the women in the group shared her testimony and a song she had written. I loved it. With her permission I will share her story in my words, but this is the link if you want to take a moment to stop and listen to her story in her own voice. Crystal Yates- Leave Me Alone To Die - YouTube 

In her testimony she shared when she was five she often spent time with her granny who lived a couple of doors down from a little store. Her granny watched her as she walked to the store and picked out a treat and walked home. One day she went to the store for a jump rope and there were not any ropes. A stranger approached her and asked her what she was looking for and then offered to take her to another store to get one. She went with him. He snuck her out the backdoor of the store and headed to the woods with her. As they approached the woods, the man was beginning to disrobe and she sensed evil like she never had sensed it before. She became fearful and and remembered something her granny had taught her, "If you are ever in trouble or scared, say the name of Jesus." That little five year old girl began to cry out, "Jesus, help me!" The man immediately stopped and angrily said, "Do you want to go home?" She said, "Yes!" He immediately walked her to a clearing where she could see her house and she ran home.

I love Crystal's story. It shows her granny's faithfulness to teach her to call on Jesus and His power when she needed help. I love that the little girl spiritually discerned the evil presence guiding the man's actions. I love that she had the fortitude to cry out loud to Jesus and that he honored her plea. As I was listening to her testimony and the song she wrote I read through the comments people left on YouTube. Several women told her how much they appreciated the song and asked her to write one for those who weren't rescued. As a survivor I loved it that other survivors saw the beauty and the power of Jesus portrayed in this part of her story and as a result were drawn to it, even though their own stories were filled with trauma that wasn't stopped.  

I direct a ministry that serves adult women who were victimized as children. As they begin to share their stories, we come across similar situations in group. Some women cried out to Jesus and were rescued in similar ways. Some cried out to Jesus and were still victimized. And some either didn't know Jesus at the time or felt too afraid, too dirty, or too ashamed to cry out. We try to begin our groups by asking participants to draw a picture of where Jesus was when they were being abused. Those pictures give us insight into how the group members interpreted the action or seemingly inaction of God towards them during their trauma. Some of the pictures show Jesus as a defender, some show Him watching with tears streaming down His face, some show Him as a distant being without arms, without eyes, or without a mouth. Some have drawn Him with His back turned towards them and said they did it because they believed God could not look on evil or that they were too dirty to be close to Him.  

As stories are shared and women begin to talk more freely about their thoughts and feelings, they begin to uncover how they interpreted the events that took place in their life. Many of them assume that the evil they sensed and experienced was within them and that it caused the abuse to happen. They didn't realize the evil was attached to their perpetrators. As they do their work they begin to hand back the responsibility for the evil to those who harmed them and begin to more accurately interpret what has happened to them. Some of them assumed when they either asked Jesus to protect them or to stop their abusers that His lack of intervention proved they were guilty or were less loved by God than those who experienced God as Crystal and some of our ladies did. 

When we first started the ministry, I was still doing my own work and found myself struggling to trust how God works in our lives. I questioned why He seemed to answer some prayers and not others. In that wrestling I reached a place that I told Jesus I was choosing to believe He was who the Scriptures said He was and I would no longer let my experiences, my feelings, my misinterpretations about my trauma define who I thought I was and who I thought He was. I began to accept that I am deeply loved and treasured by God and that what happened to me in no way proved I was less loved. I began to fully trust that Jesus was good and I became willing to accept His sovereignty over my life meant there was not anything that wasn't filtered through His love-scarred hands. 

I saw a shift in my thinking, experienced my shame melt away, and I saw myself trusting God more with my life. I no longer believed I was an invisible second class member of God's family. The questions I voiced also changed. They were no longer protests disguised as questions, but were heart-felt questions driven by faith and a deep desire to know Jesus and His heart. Sometimes He answered questions though Scriptures, sometimes through spiritual insight during prayer times, and sometimes He answered them through people He provided to help me and to encourage me. Sometimes He answered questions right away and sometimes He waited to show me Truth and I learned to be comfortable with His timeline of answering. 

I also began to ask Him where He was in the different traumatic events I experienced and He filled my mind with pictures of the events with Him there--each one different and unique to the situation. Now, when I think of those traumatic events, I think of Him there with me and those memories no longer bring the fear, the shame, or the terror with them. They bring peace and joy and a sense of being deeply loved through some really tough stuff.   

One of the most important things I learned from the traumas I experienced was how deeply Jesus loves. As I worked with a counselor, I also studied Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. The more I studied His arrest, His trials, and His crucifixion the more I connected to His story and the more I believed He truly understood mine. Satan wants us to continue to believe we were so bad we caused our trauma, that we are still unlovable, and that God doesn't care about our suffering. However, Isaiah 52 and 53 reveal we have a traumatized Savior. He understands our pain, because He went through similar pain for us. He not only took on the sin of all men, but also God's wrath against it. He was stripped of His clothes and had people cast lots for them as He hung naked and exposed. He understands the pain of being physically wounded through violence and the emotional pain of having others blame Him for things for which He wasn't responsible. He understand heart-wrenching grief and sorrow of rejection. He understands what it is like to have those closest to Him turn their backs on Him when He was facing His worst pain and His greatest fears. He understands what it feels like to be misunderstood. He understands the feelings associated with being oppressed and suffering the pain and consequences of another's sin. He understands the feelings we have had when we say we feel forsaken by God who could have protected us, but chose not to, for on the cross He cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Growing a Passionate Heart, by Wendy J. Mahill and Nancy Keller, LMFT, Available on Amazon.com) 

During the beginning of my trauma work, I stayed busy so I couldn't feel the emotions and the presence of God in that area of my life. Then a freak accident caused me to be housebound with a severely broken ankle for most of a year. As I was on the way to the hospital, I sensed God saying the accident was for good and felt His love and peace wash over me. I spent time praying over my life story and reading out loud things I had written for my counselor. My tears began to flow freely and the love and peace of God overflowed and out of that overflow the Passionate Heart Ministry was born. I also learned when God, in His sovereignty, allows deep pain He invites us into a deeper knowledge of the fellowship of His suffering where we can begin to grasp that His love runs deeper than the pain residing in our hearts. I am so thankful for what the healing journey has taught me about God and HIs love. Trauma no longer controls me, my thoughts, my emotions, or my life. It is merely a tiny portion of the redemption story God has written for me to life. I have grown more comfortable and more excited to see all the different ways God works in the life of those He has called. He is not a cookie-cutter God. 

In closing, Natalie Grant sang a song that impacted my healing journey. I hope you will take a listen here: Natalie Grant - Clean (Performance Video) - YouTube 

If you have suffered sexual trauma I hope that you will lean into Jesus and keep getting help until you find peace, hope, and joy returning for it is by His stripes that we are healed. Please check our page www.passionateheartministry.com and our Facebook page Friends of Passionate Heart Ministry | Facebook. We have resources and videos about our ministry at both places.   

Abuse and the Church

When church leaders abuse power, they do great harm to people God has placed in their care. That is why God gave the church a list of specific qualifications for church leadership. Paul gave Timothy two lists, one was the qualifications of elders and one the qualifications of deacons. For the sake of space I combined the lists. Leaders are to:

• be above reproach
• be the husband of one wife
• be sober minded
• be self-controlled
• be respectable
• be dignified
• be hospitable
• be able to teach
• not be a drunkard who is addicted to wine
• be gentle--not violent
• not be quarrelsome
• not be a lover of money
• be a good manger of his household and his family,
• not be new covert
• not be double-tongued
• be tested and proved blameless over time
• have a good reputation with those outside the church. 

Because Timothy was young, Paul also gave him additional advice on being a godly leader. He told Timothy to train himself for godliness as he taught the Word of God. He also told him to set an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity so no one  could despise his being a young pastor. In additions, he was to develop the gifts the Holy Spirit had given him. Paul said, "Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself! Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers."

In addition, Paul also advised young Timothy on how to relate to those God placed in his flock. He told him to not speak harshly to older men. He was to encourage them as he would his own father. He was also to encourage the older women as he would his mother. He was to treat young men with the respect he would show his a brother. He was also to treat the younger women as sisters and Paul added the words "in all purity." Important words they are! 

 

From Paul's instructions,  we see he understood the potential leaders have for failure. He put several things in place that he had hoped would safeguard them. First, Paul set the standard for becoming a church leader high. His plan wasn't to give mediocre believers leadership positions and then hope they would somehow live it out. No, they were to be chosen because they were already living the standard out loud! Second, Paul gave instructions they were to follow to insure they stayed on track. The verbs he used in this list are proactive words that were to be done continuously--"train," "develop," "practice," "immerse," "watch yourself," and "persist." Third, he wanted Timothy to have a great regard for the people in his care. He was not to use them or abuse them in any way, but to care for them as he would his own family. Those are tall orders for any of us to keep, but they are even more important for leaders, because every Sunday when they stand in the pulpit or the classroom and declare the Word of God, their lifestyle impacts how people receive the Word, which in turn has an eternal impact on people and their souls. 

Recently, the Catholic church has been in in the news for thousands of cases of childhood sexual abuse that took place over many years in Pennsylvania. Instead of dealing with the sin, the Catholic church silenced victims, hid horrific sin, and left sinful men to continue to abuse more children. The church quit being the church when it quit caring for the flock! Because of the support group ministry I lead, I can honestly say that it isn't just the Catholic church in which abuse takes place. It happens in every single denomination. Church can even be a good place for predators to hide, because who would believe gifted pastors, youth workers, Sunday School teachers, or worship leader would do harm to others? Abusers don't look like abusers. They look like good people. They groom others to believe they are good and then they betray them.  

Maybe, just maybe, all churches need to make sure their qualifications for leadership truly aligns to the Word of God. Maybe they need to make sure every pastor, church volunteer, and worship leader passes background tests and are living out loud the same list of verbs Paul gave Timothy. And maybe every one of us in the church needs to examine our own hearts and make sure we are treating one another with respect that family is due, in all purity. Our men need to teach our young men what it means to live purely and to treat young women with all purity! 

And when a church and/or its leader fails, we need to be honest and report it to the church and to legal authorities when necessary so abuse is stopped in its tracks! We need to believe the victims who report and provide care over the long hall to help restore their faith in Christ. 

Think what it is like to a child or an adult who was not believed, who was silenced, or who was dismissed by leadership when they reported something that took every ounce of courage they could muster. 

Think how hard it is for the survivors who were forced to continue attending church with their perpetrators because it wasn't reported to legal authorities and let's give them ample time to work through that kind of betrayal as well as the betrayal of their perpetrator.  

Think what it is like for survivors who decide to go back to church, only to be greeted at the door by their perpetrator. Think what it is like for the one who watches as his or her perpetrator prays with other children at the front of the church. Think what it is like for the one who is being lead in worship by a former abuser. Think what it is like for the one who is being taught the Word of God by someone who abused them in the counseling office. Let's carry out Biblical discipline so that perpetrators are not leaders in the church. 

At one point we discussed an abuse support group what it would take to learn to trust a church after one has been abused by someone who claimed to be a Christian. I expected the women to say they wanted leaders to be perfect to insure their safety. But no one of them said that. They said they would feel safe if a leader who falls fully owns it and then confesses it without casting blame or giving excuses. They said that they would trust a church who dealt swiftly with the sin of its leaders and reports to the police when a crime is committed as in the case of childhood sexual abuse or rape. The consensus was that Christ didn't hide sin in the religious system of His day, He fully exposed and dealt swiftly  with it. And to be like Christ, don't we have to do the same? 

What is a Proper Response to Sin

I seldom watch reality TV, but this last week I had the opportunity to watch a marathon of 19 Kids and Counting. I had heard a lot about the show, so I watched it out of curiosity. The season involved a wedding, the birth of a grandbaby, and several other family milestones. I was fascinated by the wedding and the birth of the grandbaby. However, I felt unsettled by the parents doing marriage counseling for their daughter and her fiancée, but I ignored the feeling.Two days later, I saw breaking news stories about Josh and his admission to molesting five young girls. My heart sank.

I  spent a couple of days reading different articles and comments being posted. There was no middle ground on how people felt about the Dugger family. People were brutally hateful as they commented. Some defended Josh and his parent's with passion, lashing out at those who didn't. Some blasted Josh for his perpetrations, his parents for covering them up, the police for not arresting him, and the Dugger fans for remaining loyal. Some were angry that it's a hot topic, claiming all teenagers mess up or there are just bigger fish to fry. Some have used this as a place to complain about the number of children they have, the brand of Christianity they promote, and the fact that Josh's failure proves all believers are hypocrites. Some have even thrown in the racial card just for good measure.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I believe this is an important topic to discuss, but I doubt that the comments being left resolve this sinful sickness residing in the human race--a sickness found in the homes of believers and nonbelievers alike. It's a sickness that robs the most vulnerable of their innocence, their sense of their personhood, and their sense of being cherished, loved, and protected. It is a sickness that literally changes the human brain and how the body keeps itself safe. It even changes the core beliefs that define what we think and feel about God, people, and ourselves, all of which impact our actions, our reactions, the relationships that we survivors will or will not develop.

As a survivor you might have expected me to be enraged. But as I saw the story unfold, I was filled with sorrow and compassion for a family broken by sexual sin and shame. All of us need to realize our reactions to this story and others like it, say a more about our own hearts and what is going on in them than the people we are reading about. There should be righteous anger, sorrow, and compassion. However, if there are a strong emotions, we should be curious about why that is and figure it out instead of lashing out at others. 

For me the compassion and sorrow I first felt was for five little girls who woke up being touched inappropriately by someone who they would have expected to be a protector. They were no longer safe in their own beds, home, family, or bodies. My heart hurt for the one who took a big risk by telling and how well the girls deal with this, will in part be determined by how they were treated when they told. When they told, were they silenced? Were they believed? Were they blamed? Were they cared for? Were they comforted? Were they shamed? Were there boundaries put in place so they could feel safe at home, in their beds, and in their own bodies? Was there a safe place to land when they felt fearful, dirty, and ashamed because of what was done to them? Have they been allowed to continue talking about it or was the kind of forgiveness imposed supposed to forever silence the topic in the home?

The victims will deal with the pain of this betrayal on and off for the rest of their lives. I am concerned that because their parents were involved in the Gothard homeschool movement that they may have used Gothard's literature to handle the sexual abuse. His literature in itself is spiritually abusive. Sexual abuse impacts every part of our being because trauma alters the brain. He suggests victim figure out which part was damaged. Little children can't do this and won't have the capacity for years to uncover how abuse has impacted them. They are also asked questions like which part was damaged by the perpetrator and which part was damaged by their own guilt and their own bitterness? How would a child know the answers to those questions? Even more important Gothard had several people come forward, accusing him of inappropriate behavior. He may not have been the best resource to use to deal with this topic.

Even more sickening are the answers given to the question that most victims ask, "Why did God let this happen to me?" Gothard's answers are aimed at the victims--immodest dress, indecent exposure, being out from the protection of one's parents, and associating with evil people. In addition, victims are told that they sinned if they didn't tell. The impact that abuse has on the victims can make it impossible for them to speak (speechless terror). The fact that he did it while they slept and that they at times woke up to the abuse could have left the victims unsure of the reality of what they experienced, especially in a family system so strong on moral values. In addition, many victims feel dirty and shameful, and it is very hard to tell your parents something shameful has happened because of the fear of rejection. To try to feel safer, children assume the belief that they did something to cause the abuser to hurt them and that if they figure out what caused it they can prevent it. This distorted belief plays into their silence. The rest of the methods Gothard proposes I won't go into here, but they are too simplistic to be helpful. People need to understand the work of recovering from abuse happens in stages and isn't put to rest with a rushed agreement to forgive.    

I was overwhelmed with compassion for the parents whose hearts had to be broken by what happened to their daughters and by the fact it was at the hands of one of their sons. I am concerned by the fact that in homeschool families there is a lot of isolation (I know this, because I homeschooled) which limits the number of adults to whom a child could safely report abuse. In addition, I personally don't think something as serious as sexual abuse can be handled solely by a family. It is too easy in a family system for people to hide behind denial, dysfunctional beliefs (including religious ones), and shame. The parents, and in my opinion, the church should not have been given the right to choose Josh's treatment. It needed to be a non biased person with training in this particular area  who could help the family find the right treatment for both Josh and his victims who might have needed help at the time or might in the future. Those girls need their premarital counseling to deal with that issue from a person who understands the impact abuse can have on a marriage, not the mother and father whose simplistic view of it being that it is a test of real love casting out fear. The church should have reported the abuse to authorities and should have confronted Dad Dugger for choosing not to send his son to a treatment center, but to a friend instead. There are good treatment centers and with good counsel they could have found good help that would not have compromised the Scriptures.   

I was also overwhelmed for Josh who confessed the abuse and a struggle with pornography. I can't imagine the pain, guilt, and shame he experienced as he did that in the family and religious system in which he was brought up. I wish he had felt safe enough to be real with someone about his ongoing struggle with pornography as most abusers use it and it may have played a role into his choice to abuse. He has said he didn't tell his parents about the pornography because he was afraid of rejection and because of pride. I can relate to that! How many times I've worn masks rather than admit my imperfections, my fears, my feelings, or my sin because of the fear of rejection. I wish his parent's had gotten him help the first time it came to light so he wouldn't have to deal with multiple failures and multiple victims and the shame that entails. The cover didn't help him.

Some of the reading I came across included a talk given by one of his family members. They cited that in addition to his struggle with pornography he believed he was made vulnerable because he was babysitting younger siblings, changing diapers, and having younger siblings who showed immodest behavior in the home after baths, and by a lack of sexual education. I struggle a bit with the part about a young child running naked or wrapped in a towel after a bath being considered immodest. So, a small part of me thinks he didn't fully own his responsibility, but another part of me says there are some things here that parents need to hear. Should a boy going through puberty whose hormones are surging be asked to babysit little ones, do diaper changes, or bathe younger siblings? What he says might be valuable in helping people put boundaries in place that insure safety of all the children in their home by preventing incest. Teaching children things like personal and emotional  boundaries, modesty, respect of personal space, and sexual purity without shaming is really hard work, but not impossible! Boys can be taught they are not victims to their hormones and both boys and girls can be taught no one has a right to touch their body inappropriately. Families need to have healthy discussions about the dangers of pornography and not assume "good families" won't be impacted by it. Pornography is not a harmless passtime and one exposure to it has a huge impact in the person seeing it. Before pornography was so easily accessed, it was proven that in the communities where it was freely sold the number of rapes, sexual assaults, and sexual abuse reported went up substantially. Pornography never just hurts the viewer. It impacts marriages, families, communities, and churches. 

I don't know how much of what is being written is accurate. But I know church leadership is never above the law and should report molestations. They should never ever assume men or women in the church can't be guilty. Many of the women in my groups were abused by church going dads or church leaders like pastors, youth pastors, elders and deacons, or Sunday school teachers, or camp counselors. In addition, the churches reputation is never more important than keeping the flock safe or seeing that sin is dealt with. Josh's church did advise them to get counseling for him and the victims, but that wasn't enough. Some of the articles say he received counseling, but his mother has said that he didn't. He was sent to work with someone they knew in another town and "kinda" got mentored. The courts and social services should have been the ones giving them options from which to choose.  

The state of Arkansas needs to adjust their laws to make sure perpetrators can be charged. Most victims don't report abuse until later in life and three year statue of limitations allows predators to keep on preying. It bothered me that the man who made the decision to not charge Josh is now in jail for child pornography use. Maybe everything was done according to law or maybe he just didn't believe what Josh did was criminal.

Back to the question proposed by the title of my post...what is a proper response to sin. Sin in the church should always grieve us and should stir up some righteous anger--anger that motivates us to stop the sin and care for its victims.

Some comments I read indicated the Dugger's actions hurt God's reputation. But, not one of us is big enough, powerful enough, and bad enough to do that. God is still faithful! God is still loving. God is still righteous. God is still just. God is still merciful. God is still omniscient. God is still omnipotent. God is still God. He is still God even when we lie, when we gossip, when we peek at porn, when we assault others with words, when we are unfaithful to Him, unfaithful in marriage, love poorly, or  choose to abuse. Man's actions reflect man's heart, not God's.

Maybe in his struggle with pornography, Josh forgot who God is and who he is as a child of God. His fear of  rejection is something with which we can identify and it could have been alleviated if he remembered in the face of porn he was deeply loved by God who had a better plan for him to get his needs met, to deal with his loneliness, and his family conflict. His struggle with anger, lust, pride (his words, not mine), and arousal could have been nipped in the bud, had he believed he had safe people with whom he could be real. Sometimes the prevention of strongholds lies in the truth that Christianity is more about what we believe about God and ourselves and the amount of trust we place in God and in ourselves in our community than about our attempts at "good" works.

This whole stone casting thing we Christians and non Christians alike do bothers me. Why do we feel so threatened by others' opinions and thoughts when they differ from ours? As a believer, I am sure there are plenty of us sitting in church pews every Sunday wearing masks--masks that hide secret sins we have yet to confess, denial of pain we have caused others, broken relationships we fail to mend because pride gets in the way of our apology, and pain of abusive relationships we have yet to share. I am hoping now that both the Duggers and us will have the opportunity take off our "Good People" masks and become  healthier, more godly churches and families. I hope we will have the opportunities to share our real stories as we grow compassion for other victims, perpetrators, and families so broken by sin.

I hope all of us will find a godly balance of truth and grace that promotes growth, allows us to experience real love, and ultimately sets us free from the strongholds with which we are plagued. I hope as we get more real so others will see that God is still God and that God is still in the business of loving broken people like you and me and that God is still a God who is in the business of writing beautiful redeeming stories. I hope Josh doesn't disappear from the public eye. Too many of the victims we work with stay stuck because perpetrators don't own their actions and continue to look like monsters in their eyes. There are definitely predators who have no remorse, no capacity to empathize, and who will keep on abusing. Then there are those who have perpetrated and experienced remorse, regret, sorrow, and who have confessed their sins and are willing to bear the consequences of their actions and willing to do whatever it takes to change. These are people who are truly broken by their sin. They live daily with the truth of what they have done and have understood the God's grace wasn't cheap. It not only came as a result of the shed blood of Christ, it came through the facing of ugly sin that ran deep in their souls and the pain that they have caused others.

We would do well to remember true grace can't be extended in the darkness of cover up or in the presence of denial and/or blame shifting--it can only be experienced in the  presence of the truth of what we have done, real sorrow can be birthed by God who grieves over sin, heart repentance that drives us to change, and the willingness to fully face  our victims' pain.

The Duggers have lived very public lives and are being forced into the public eye by journalists to deal with this. I don't think that is in the best interest of the survivors. The law is supposed to protect victims of sexual assault because others cause secondary wounding by discounting their stories or blaming them. Maybe we as a nation need to realize we have no right to demand the girls live this out in our eyes and grow compassionate enough to allow the survivors the privacy they need to deal with this and the right to tell their stories when and if they choose to do so. To do anything less is to abuse them again. None of us have the right to do that.

In closing, I must say that if you are a victim and this story has triggered your pain and memories, there is help for this. Go to either www.passionateheartministry.com for resources and information or to the Association of Christian Counselors and look for a therapist on their referral list who works with abuse. There is really good help available. There is also good help available for those struggling with pornography and sexual addiction through www.bethesdaworkshops.org.