She was 40 when she died. I wanted to help her and tried everything I knew to help her. I prayed fervently, had many praying…. Could camp out on all the things I said and did to try and help. I cared and loved and gave of myself the best I knew to do.
Still she died.
It broke our hearts and almost destroyed her mom and all of us as a family. We are not over her or what happened, but our family seems to ignore this fact as life has gone on. Our family is like TOO MANY out there in the world and in the church…
Her death was a combination of years of complications: Her story is a tragic one. A culmination of many wounds. Years of giving her best but feeling like mere survival was all life offered. No matter what we did to try to help it was not enough. She died and we all felt the weight and sting of failure to truly love her back to life. To truly let her know the treasure she was. We failed.
She had shared with me privately that she had most of the same elements of my early story in her early life. She shared that many (multitudes) do have these elements but FEW TALK ABOUT THEM. What elements?
1. Sexual abuse and then telling about it but not being heard or believed or understood. And no real help given to help one survive, let alone thrive! Feeling alone and defiled.
2. Sexual fears, confusion, experimentation, core identity issues of not feeling loved and the only time you feel loved is when you’re having sex, even if you know it’s not really love. The feeling is compelling and almost addictive. It seems a need and a monster all together.
3, Shame and humiliation and self hatred that goes with the mix of the above two elements.
4. Hiding, pretending, running, worthlessness, trauma, depression, desiring an escape, PAIN, MORE CONFUSION, no way to stop the trauma and despair, the utter hopelessness and angst, the agony of defeat in this soul disaster.
5. Attempts at happiness, finding ways to ease the pain. ADDICTION of one sort or another.
6. People giving up on you. People seeing only the addiction or depression or lack of thriving and no longer seeing you or the treasure you so want to be and were created to be.
7. The burden of life weighs heavy. Wanting to end the life you have and start over but the hopeless despair of it all paralyzes and keeps the prison, partly self-created, in lock down.
8. Trying everything, nothing works. Finding Jesus but even in trying to seek Him the addiction is not fully broken off.
Her life tragically really ended. In a sense, it was “a welcome of death by not changing the path.” Dying way too young and way too sad and tragically…leaving everyone who knew and loved her in a crisis and in great pain and grief.
She traveled with me and fellowshipped with me during the writing of the original Elephant Gospel book (2017) like no other had. I dearly loved her and cared deeply for her and wanted her recovery and a happy life for her. I grieve her.
I want it to be different for others like her. But how to help to make that so? Let’s talk about it.
People like her or like me are not generally accepted by the typical church. We don’t fit in and we know we are “not good enough” in their eyes. We know we never will be if people really knew us and our stories. Our experience proves to us that they may proclaim the True Gospel but FEW live it in acceptance and love and BELONGING WITH US. Few live 1 John 1 with authenticity and belonging.
People that have had a same sex experience after sexual abuse are more common than most will admit. Because they are seen as even far worse than most any others in the mind of the typical church-goer, they are judged and treated contemptuously. We are a threat and a blight, a leper that they would soon like to either eliminate or treat as invisible. We are not seen as victims but as predators. We typically do not belong and are not wanted.
In some places we are either hated and bashed or accepted as leaders and the Scriptures do not apply to us or are changed for us. It is a confusion and an issue that is A HUGE ELEPHANT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM.
It is awkward because so few stand completely transformed, living proof of the power of the GOSPEL, of the HOLY SPIRIT’s work in the lives of true born again believers. So to bring those into the church that struggle with homosexuality in one form or another is to invite a potential disaster and not to really help bring them to A TRUE EXPERIENCE OF JESUS, AS IN ACTS. Little true recovery is common. Many have been wounded and exasperated by those in the church. Some give up hope and leave, never to return.
ARE WE LIVING THE GOSPEL? HOW DO WE CHANGE?
The reality of how common same sex experimentation is has mostly been denied and not dealt with in the typical church setting. Sexual abuse and its ramifications are often IGNORED. (Statistics report two times more likely to have an abortion in a woman has been abused.) So many of these women are forced into abortion. This too is not typically talked about in most churches. Here, where the church is supposed to give the answer to sin through the forgiveness of CHRIST BY HIS FINISHED WORK …yet sin is rampant, masks remain in place and the church lives like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
How can one bring one with “my history” into a church when one has experienced the woundings, judgments, lack of love and acceptance so common in churches? The church may not be a help but a hinderance, when it’s not living true to the Gospel. Sometimes people can be a judging center where they think they are better than someone like me, like “US”.
Do you ever want, dream, so desire things to be different, better, more hopeful and helpful than present reality or by anything you have ever experienced? Do you long for answers to or more help for life’s ills and addictions, hurts, pain and severe traumas?
I DO! I dream and desire BETTER…. I desire and pray for the TRUE GOSPEL TO BE LIVED OUT AND TO HAVE DISCIPLES LIVE LIKE IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. Where and how to promote this is the thing I ask The LORD.
How do we really live the GOSPEL and make a difference for those with the same type of issues as me that are still in the throws of addiction or need for recovery? It is Awkward…Awkwardness. Does any one else know this feeling of the quality of being awkward or embarrassed due to the uncertainty of life and/or collisions of issues, self-consciousness, being discomforted, feeling uneasy, tense, edgy, nervous, clumsy, inept, not really belonging?
One place to go: I go to JESUS with a few friends. I GO TO JESUS and ask for those that love JESUS and love me to stand with me… I GO IN PRAYER AND FOR HELP…but WILL I HEAR ANY DIFFERENCE, LEADING, HELP? Will the outcome be any different?
GOD PLEASE SAVE the ones like HER, like me, please save those like “us”…. Please help me know what YOU want me to do!!!!! Thank you for the ENCOUNTERS with YOU! YOU ARE THE WAY, Help us live CHRIST…show us how…live through us with POWER…IN JESUS’ NAME, AMEN.
BTW: My life seems awkward. Maybe yours seems awkward too?
Awkward is strange word and seems a strange spelling. It is “a worse than strange feeling” and can be a strange predicament in life. Yet, awkwardness can be anchored to hope, passion and desire and bring forth true need and hope of the real Gospel. In this awkwardness God can advance His Gospel in powerful ways!
