And whatsoever ye do, do [it] heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Col 3:23
I am going to do a little ranting from my soapbox. It is one of my pet peeves, and I have had to deal with this issue in a recent situation, and it really galls me. Giving mediocre service to God. People in recent years seem to be quite content to do a task at work, on the job, in a sloppy, half-baked manner. Sometimes because it is a tedious task, and then daring to present the results to their boss, even though they were capable of doing it better, more thoroughly, much neater, if only they had put a little more time and effort into the project. Just hurry up and get it done and throw it into the boss’s In basket. Even if they had some extra time to work on it before the deadline. And especially if the boss is a tyrant. The employee figures their boss is so bad, he deserves to get a sloppy mess thrown on his desk.
But most galling of all is to see people who claim to be God’s children, followers of the Living Word of Yeshua, involved in a public activity that is supposed to be an act of ministry, in some cases even an act of worship, to the Heavenly Father, in a group setting, in assisting others to prepare their spirits to be in a worshipful mode towards the Most High God. Yet they do not give their best effort, and they are acutely aware that it is not their best effort, for they have done better on other occasions. But they are content to give a very poor effort and go through empty motions. Just because they said they would be there, knowing they have not given proper heartfelt practice and effort after a long absence of practice ahead of time to their presence there, where their position is to act as corporate worship leaders, to assist the congregation into the presence of God through corporate worship. And they dare to come and stumble through, rather than cancel their presence until they could come together and give time and effort to practice and give a quality performance, which is not really to show themselves off, but to lead in worship with their very bodies and souls as a living sacrifice to God. Yet really the majority of the group is not embarrassed, for they have come to live in the comfort zone of mediocrity, not requiring much effort, before they rush on with the rest of their extremely busy lives out there in the world. In this case it was a Messianic dance, or “body worship” group that I was a part of (until recently) and sometimes performed with, dancing some very ancient steps that probably even Jewish people in King David’s time were doing in holy convocations.
Sometimes I have been in employment situations where after awhile I began to literally hate and dread coming to work. The quality of my work began to show it, in that I was not doing the excellent quality of work I was doing before, and I became sloppy and careless, and it showed. My attitude sucked. I am a person who generally takes personal pride in my work and insures that it is of the highest quality and appearance possible. I am embarrassed when it is not, and I usually know if it is less than quality work. When my work starts to become affected like that, and I have tried everything I know to make the situation better, and still my work quality goes downhill, and my attitude gets worse and worse, then I begin to figure that it is time I start looking for a different job and leave there.
And whatsoever ye do, do [it] heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Col 3:23
The word “heartily” used here in the Greek is “ek psyche”, which means out of the very breath of life, or, the soul, to do something with all of one’s being. That is no little effort. It means to do something with all one’s body, mind and soul. One’s very heart, if you will, where some consider it to be the seat of emotions. With all one’s might. In other words, God wants our very best, no matter what we do, or where we are! Do it unto Him, the Creator of the Universe, as a servant performs a service for his master. We are called to be servants of the Most High God in this world. In this case we should consider it as done for the Heavenly Father, even if we are in an earthly position of submission to another for our duties to perform. If we are doing less than our best at something, or we know it is something that our Heavenly Father would not approve of, we should seriously consider moving on somewhere else, or doing something different, or quitting that situation entirely if we cannot improve it or change it, if humanly possible. Would we feel content to dump a pile of smelly garbage at the feet of the Most High God when we had jewels of great value to place there??? We should not. We should feel embarrassed. No, I am not saying that our works can earn us our way into Heaven, because they cannot, lest any man should boast, the Scriptures say. God gives each of us special gifts and abilities meant to be used in His service for the building up of the body of Christ and to point the blind to His Holy Light, Jesus. We are not to use those gifts and abilities carelessly, or neglect them. We are here on a mission, and we should do only our best to fulfill that mission, and settle for nothing less. The King of Kings expects nothing less of us, whether we be an humble sanitation worker or cabbie driver or ruler of the land. We should desire to hear the King of Kings say to us at the end of our mortal life, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Spousal Abuse and Clergy Response
October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. It is also Breast Cancer Awareness month, of which you hear more about than domestic violence in the media. I want to share my personal experience in the hopes that it will help someone else and wake up the clergy in the churches.
I was 19 and very naïve when I first met my husband, “M”, 49. I was working as a cashier in a local Salvation Army thrift store, and he was a truck driver with the same organization. He would go pick up donations and make deliveries to the various thrift stores on his route. I had moved to Colorado from the Bible Belt in Florida about a year before that. I was born and raised in a very conservative, morally upright Christian family, very sheltered. I had two younger brothers and two younger sisters. At the age of eight I accepted Christ as my Savior and dedicated my life to following His teachings as I understood them at the time, and the way my church taught me. The family attended a Southern Baptist church regularly and actively participated in church activities. I had dated a little starting at 16, but had had my first boyfriend in band in middle school, though my parents made me break up with him because they said I was too young at 13 to have a boyfriend. It was a pretty platonic relationship actually, and we never went anywhere except on band trips and activities. Very few guys were interested in me because I was pretty homely, shy and conservative. I was so skinny. My parents were poor and could not afford to dress me fashionably either. I wore a lot of hand me downs from my aunt and gifts from other people. My family changed churches the last year in Florida, and the new pastor, a real country preacher/farmer, had a son the same age as me who I went out on a few group dates with. One day, while we were waiting in a car for his younger sister to come out and go with us to meet her boyfriend, this boy suddenly grabs me and smacks a big smouchy wet kiss on my lips. My first kiss, and it was disgusting. I tolerated him, but I did not really care for him. I just wanted to get out of the house away from my parents and go do something. My parents did not take us out much to do anything or see anything except church. We went on our date to the movies and dinner that night, but I did not go out with him after that.
The only other guys I was interested in were much older than me, like about 10 years. They were more mature acting, I thought, than the ones my own age. But I was never their girlfriend. They all liked and dated “S”, the pastor’s daughter who was a year or two younger than me, so she was around 15 then. She would go out and meet these older men, and sometimes I would go with her, letting my parents think I was just going somewhere with her, and get a chance to talk to them. I later found out she was also having sex with them. She was very wild, the opposite of me, very obedient to my parents most of the time, staying out of trouble. I liked to be around her though, because she was so different than me, and adventurous.
When I first met “M” in the thrift store and was introduced, he immediately started flirting with me, and singing to me. But at the time I was not interested in him, but his trucker helper, “K”, around 23. “K” was staying at the Salvation Army rehab center, which were mostly alcoholics. “K” didn’t seem to really be much of a drinker, though, and was very gentlemanly in his behavior towards me. He was more of a drifter, not staying in one spot for very long. He wanted to go to church with me, though, and so my mother would go pick him up and take him to church with us, still a Southern Baptist church. (I did not have a driver’s license, and do not to this day. I don’t like to drive.) Also, residents of the center and Salvation Army employees could not date. From being in Colorado Springs, I was transferred to a more remote store further away in a nearby neighboring town of Security. The other one was situated in the Salvation Army local headquarters. “K” left and moved on out of state somewhere a few months later. I was heart broke, but “M” was glad. He had asked to be transferred to a different route that included the new store where I was working at. He started flirting with me even more outrageously, and trying to grab my hand. He and my female manager were friends, so she did not mind it at all, even with the age difference. She encouraged the relationship. “M” at first invited us, including my manager, to go play pool somewhere after work occasionally, then he and I started going out alone. I would take the city bus on the weekend and go meet him somewhere. I was fascinated by him. I loved the attention, and he was so much more mature than any guys I had met, even at church, and so experienced with women. It didn’t matter to me that he was even older than my own father.
It turned into a romantic relationship. He eventually began kissing and touching me, but I wouldn’t let him have sex with me like he wanted. I was still a virgin and he knew it. I started staying out late with him, and he would give me a ride home, past my curfew my parents had set for me, even though by this time I was 23. My parents did like me going out with him because of his age. He was not a Christian, and had different morals than me, but I was so fascinated by that wild side, like nothing I had ever encountered before. Dangerous. I began to fall in love with him, and was hurt when he told me he was having sex with a female friend of his who was not so morally conservative, who did not love him, but would give him sex when he wanted it because I would not give it to him. He claimed to love me. I made him feel so young, and he said I was different than any other woman he had known. And he had known plenty of them, all way younger than he, had been married and divorced previously seven times, but had not married the woman, also named Linda, who had born him a daughter, but he believed she was not his because he had gotten injured while in the Army as a young man and was told he was sterile. This other Linda was no virgin when he met her, and he said she was cheating on him when she became pregnant. They were living together at the time, and she had an infant son when he met her from another boyfriend. He broke up with her and took the two children when he came home from deer hunting one day and found the children, around two and four years of age, alone, crying, and hiding under a bed. She had left them alone to go drinking at a bar. He waited for her to come home, they got into a fight, and he beat her up for leaving the children alone and he thought to meet another man also. He would go camping out in the woods for several weeks when he went deer hunting, sometimes with male friends, sometimes alone. He beat her up and left with the kids.
He also would get into fights in bars, only occasionally getting drunk, though he did drink some. I never did drink alcohol and don’t now, though I tasted it a few times. Even at a bar I would have soda with him. Violence was a way of life for him, though I did not realize how much until much later. The signs that he was an abuser were there, but I did not recognize them at the time. I never thought he would hit me because I would never leave the children home alone unless they were old enough to be left alone unsupervised. I just thought it was an isolated incident with his ex-girlfriend.
However, I jump slightly ahead. One night before we went dancing I gave in and had sex with him, though I knew it was wrong. I wanted all of him, not just his heart, and I was jealous of that friend of his he was having convenient sex with. Shortly after that I became pregnant. After a couple of months of missed menstrual cycles and nausea and tiredness, “M” began to suspect I was pregnant when I told him my symptoms, and took me to his doctor to get tested. I was pregnant, and terrified of what to do now. “M” had said he loved me, but had decided not to marry me even after he had sex with me, was going to break up with me and wanted me to start dating men closer to my own age. He changed his mind after I became pregnant with his child. He had been told by Army doctors that he could not have children. This time he knew the child was his because I was a virgin before I became intimate with him, and I was not seeing anyone else. I was afraid of being left alone, an unwed mother. In my church, my family, the whole culture I was raised in, it was a horrible disgrace and shame to bear a child and not be married. “M” did mention an abortion as a possibility briefly, but I told him I was against abortions, and would not do it, and why. He wanted the child, but was hesitant about marrying me. Still thought I should marry someone younger, but because it was his child that he thought he would never have, he decided to marry me. I was afraid to tell my parents, but eventually I did. I knew they would be so upset with me, their firstborn, ever before obedient, honor student in high school they had such high hopes for. I told my mother first, and she made me tell my father alone. My father was a very angry, abusive man, and we kids were scared of him. We always asked for things or permission to go places through our mother, who then would ask him. Never directly. My father did not hit me, but he broke down and cried. I was crying. He then said that “M” and his two children from a previous relationship would never be allowed to come visit at the house. Only our baby and I could come visit them. The baby could come because he was a part of me, my flesh and blood.
A few months later, before the baby was born, I got married in a cold civil ceremony before a justice of the peace. Not the beautiful romantic wedding and white dress in a church that I had always dreamed of. Only one of my sisters and a lady friend from church attended on my behalf. My best girlfriend, supposedly a devout Christian, refused to attend because of the circumstances. We did not remain friends after that. My husband’s best friend and his girlfriend also came.
Sometime before I got married, my pastor found out I was pregnant. I forget if I told him or my mother did. By that time my father had stopped attending church altogether because of a dispute involving my youngest brother with a pastor at another church where we first went when we moved to Colorado. Even after I became pregnant I attended church regularly, but I dropped out of choir and I stopped teaching the pre-school Sunday School class I was teaching. I resigned immediately when I found out I was pregnant without giving a reason to the Sunday School Director, but it was because I was so ashamed of what I had done, and felt I was no longer the good example to the children that I should have been as one of their teachers. I think “M” would come to church occasionally with me, but not often. I had previously introduced him to the pastor. After I became pregnant, and when I would meet the pastor or choir director in the hallway, they would greet me, but not as friendly as before, kinda cold, with a frozen smile on their lips. It was a very uncomfortable meeting time. I was uncomfortable and ashamed, wishing I had never done what I did, and their attitude made me feel worse. I had trouble looking them in the eye. Some of the choir ladies, including the pastor’s secretary and another secretary in the office I had done volunteer work with, gave me a baby shower to help me out. My husband was a poor truck driver working for a rock and gravel company that he had just started working with after he was let go from the Salvation Army for stealing stuff from the donation bins several months before I became pregnant. My job had ended at the Salvation Army, too, sometime before this, because it was a federal job training program job, and when my year of training was up, they would have had to pay all my wages, instead of being responsible for half, and they said they could not afford to do that. All in all, I had known my husband for 2 years before I married him.
“M” moved his family to a trailer even further from the city of Colorado Springs, to Fountain. The city bus did not go out there then. A Greyhound bus did, several times a day, but I could not afford it. So I became even further isolated from family and what few friends I had. My husband worked during the day. His two children were in school except for the summer. They were teenagers by then, so they spent a lot of time at friends houses except when it was time for their dad to come home from work. I was home with our infant son. Occasionally, my mother would come out to visit, or take me into the city, but not often. My husband would take me and our son and drop us off at church. My step daughter started going with me a lot of times, and was eventually baptized after she allegedly accepted Christ, her own choice. No pressure from me. But she was still a rebellious, disrespectful girl.
After about a year of marriage, my father relented and allowed my husband and his two children to visit as well. They accepted them as their own flesh and blood grandchildren. We spent part of the holidays there, and all of my new family were given presents as well at Christmas.
However, it was not a happy marriage. I experienced verbal and in the last year of my 3 1/2 year marriage, physical abuse. About two years into our marriage, the whole family was ordered into court ordered counseling because he had physically abused his daughter with a belt buckle for stealing. I did not know how bad he hurt her. I was not in her room where it happened. I was afraid of him by that time. Punishment with a belt was normal in my own childhood. I don't approve of it. Afterwards he took me and our baby son and dropped me off at church. After he left, his daughter ran away and called her mother, who lived in town and she called the police. They took her and her older half brother away in group homes for several months, but left our baby in the home amazingly. The daughter lived in several group homes and kept running away, occasionally being allowed to visit for a day or two after several months of being kept away. The family was in court-ordered therapy for a year with a secular therapist, but it was a joke. My husband refused to even acknowledge to the day he died years later that anything was wrong in the home, and he refused to say anything during counseling sessions. During that year in counseling, he started being abusive to me, physically, and even more verbally. I stayed home sick one day and called the counselor while he was on his way to the session and told her about it, but nothing happened. After he started slapping me to the ground, I sneaked out the next morning while he was asleep and left with our almost 3 year old son to my parents. That last night before I left, a voice told me "Get out now. Otherwise, in a week you will be dead". I later have come to think of that voice as God's. The law in Colorado Springs, Colorado was such that in that time a husband would only be arrested if he hurt the wife so much that she had to be hospitalized for her injuries. Otherwise nothing was done to the husband, so the law was no help then. I knew from a girlfriend who, along with her children, was slammed against the walls by her new husband, and got bruised, but not hospitalized. I still divorced my husband for abuse, though the official reason was "irreconcilable differences" by the judge and my do nothing lawyer. I got full sole custody of my son. The step daughter became emancipated and the stepson stayed with his father. The step children and I never got along. They totally disrespected me with their father's approval. As to what my pastor thought of all this, he thought I should have only been separated from him, but not sought divorce, even though therapy had not worked and he was not going to change. Also, in the law, the police would arrest a divorced spouse for some other charge, not domestic violence at that time, probably some kind of assault charge, but not if one was just separated. And you had to show the police your divorce papers.
My mother was verbally abused by my father, but stayed with him because she could not support herself and us kids enough financially on her own. We kids were abused by our father as well, I know now. During that time my mother sought counseling and help from an associate pastor at her current church, where I last was, a professionally trained Christian counselor, but not trained to recognize signs of abuse. He never helped my mother. My mother got freedom and relief after my father died 3 years ago, though he did get better the last 15 years he was alive. My mother has never sought counseling elsewhere and only understands a little what the lingering effects of abuse are on herself, much less a child.
I first became aware of what domestic violence while married, when I was home alone with my baby one day and watched a movie with Farah Fawcett, “The Burning Bed.” It was about a married woman who was beat and hit a lot by her husband. When she tried to leave him, he brought her back and beat her up again. She tried several times. One day, so sore she could barely move, bruised all over, including her face, she could not take the abuse anymore. She and her husband were in bed. He was sleeping. She got up and found some gasoline in a can. She brought it in and poured it over the bed and him. He woke up about that time and she threw a lit match onto the bed, lighting it on fire. She screamed at him that he was never going to hurt her again, or something like that. He screamed at her and tried to get away off the bed, but he was already on fire and burnt to death. She just watched him and did not call a fire truck or the police. A neighbor called a firetruck though. She was arrested by the police, and told them of her abuse. I don’t remember what happened to her after that, but at the very end of the movie, it told of how shortly after that domestic violence shelters were started and were available to women who were abused like her. It talked about what domestic violence was. That’s when I learned I had a way out, and that what was happening to me was wrong also, and it had a name. Even if the police would not protect me, there were shelters available that I could flee to, and the police were not even supposed to know where they were. I could call someone and they would pick me up or meet me somewhere, and take me to a secret location.
I know others have been abused way far worse than I was, but I know what it is to live in fear and walk on eggshells all the time around an abuser, never being able to please them. I was able to leave my situation before I got so badly abused I had to be hospitalized or permanently injured physically. Many are not so lucky. Though most of the victims are women, there are some men, too, who are abused by their spouses, even physically. I know of one man who brutally beaten by his wife so bad he saw his own blood spattered on a wall of his home, then she raped him. I learned later how abuse affected me emotionally, mentally and more recently, spiritually.
I personally know the legalistic attitude of Southern Baptist clergy who seem to believe that the only reason for divorce is infidelity. But I believe God does not want a woman to endanger her life and stay with an abuser when the abuser shows no signs of remorse or won't even try to get help to change himself. If he wants to change, and makes a sincere effort, fine, then give the marriage a chance.
However, a verse was pointed out to me by a Christ follower, who has studied Jewish beliefs, customs and culture, that even the Jewish rabbinical commentaries in biblical times recognized abuse as a legitimate reason for divorce. This is the verse they were basing that on: Malachi 2:16
For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for [one] covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
Putting away = divorce
garment = wife
I left the Southern Baptist church several years later, and joined another denomination. Since then, I have come to see the corruptness of the church system, how far away they are from the true love and compassion of God, and have since left all churches. I no longer belong to any church. I still believe in Yeshua HaMachiach and his teachings, study the Bible, and still strive to be ever more like Him.
If you are scared and you need to talk, call the
NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE at:
1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY)
I was 19 and very naïve when I first met my husband, “M”, 49. I was working as a cashier in a local Salvation Army thrift store, and he was a truck driver with the same organization. He would go pick up donations and make deliveries to the various thrift stores on his route. I had moved to Colorado from the Bible Belt in Florida about a year before that. I was born and raised in a very conservative, morally upright Christian family, very sheltered. I had two younger brothers and two younger sisters. At the age of eight I accepted Christ as my Savior and dedicated my life to following His teachings as I understood them at the time, and the way my church taught me. The family attended a Southern Baptist church regularly and actively participated in church activities. I had dated a little starting at 16, but had had my first boyfriend in band in middle school, though my parents made me break up with him because they said I was too young at 13 to have a boyfriend. It was a pretty platonic relationship actually, and we never went anywhere except on band trips and activities. Very few guys were interested in me because I was pretty homely, shy and conservative. I was so skinny. My parents were poor and could not afford to dress me fashionably either. I wore a lot of hand me downs from my aunt and gifts from other people. My family changed churches the last year in Florida, and the new pastor, a real country preacher/farmer, had a son the same age as me who I went out on a few group dates with. One day, while we were waiting in a car for his younger sister to come out and go with us to meet her boyfriend, this boy suddenly grabs me and smacks a big smouchy wet kiss on my lips. My first kiss, and it was disgusting. I tolerated him, but I did not really care for him. I just wanted to get out of the house away from my parents and go do something. My parents did not take us out much to do anything or see anything except church. We went on our date to the movies and dinner that night, but I did not go out with him after that.
The only other guys I was interested in were much older than me, like about 10 years. They were more mature acting, I thought, than the ones my own age. But I was never their girlfriend. They all liked and dated “S”, the pastor’s daughter who was a year or two younger than me, so she was around 15 then. She would go out and meet these older men, and sometimes I would go with her, letting my parents think I was just going somewhere with her, and get a chance to talk to them. I later found out she was also having sex with them. She was very wild, the opposite of me, very obedient to my parents most of the time, staying out of trouble. I liked to be around her though, because she was so different than me, and adventurous.
When I first met “M” in the thrift store and was introduced, he immediately started flirting with me, and singing to me. But at the time I was not interested in him, but his trucker helper, “K”, around 23. “K” was staying at the Salvation Army rehab center, which were mostly alcoholics. “K” didn’t seem to really be much of a drinker, though, and was very gentlemanly in his behavior towards me. He was more of a drifter, not staying in one spot for very long. He wanted to go to church with me, though, and so my mother would go pick him up and take him to church with us, still a Southern Baptist church. (I did not have a driver’s license, and do not to this day. I don’t like to drive.) Also, residents of the center and Salvation Army employees could not date. From being in Colorado Springs, I was transferred to a more remote store further away in a nearby neighboring town of Security. The other one was situated in the Salvation Army local headquarters. “K” left and moved on out of state somewhere a few months later. I was heart broke, but “M” was glad. He had asked to be transferred to a different route that included the new store where I was working at. He started flirting with me even more outrageously, and trying to grab my hand. He and my female manager were friends, so she did not mind it at all, even with the age difference. She encouraged the relationship. “M” at first invited us, including my manager, to go play pool somewhere after work occasionally, then he and I started going out alone. I would take the city bus on the weekend and go meet him somewhere. I was fascinated by him. I loved the attention, and he was so much more mature than any guys I had met, even at church, and so experienced with women. It didn’t matter to me that he was even older than my own father.
It turned into a romantic relationship. He eventually began kissing and touching me, but I wouldn’t let him have sex with me like he wanted. I was still a virgin and he knew it. I started staying out late with him, and he would give me a ride home, past my curfew my parents had set for me, even though by this time I was 23. My parents did like me going out with him because of his age. He was not a Christian, and had different morals than me, but I was so fascinated by that wild side, like nothing I had ever encountered before. Dangerous. I began to fall in love with him, and was hurt when he told me he was having sex with a female friend of his who was not so morally conservative, who did not love him, but would give him sex when he wanted it because I would not give it to him. He claimed to love me. I made him feel so young, and he said I was different than any other woman he had known. And he had known plenty of them, all way younger than he, had been married and divorced previously seven times, but had not married the woman, also named Linda, who had born him a daughter, but he believed she was not his because he had gotten injured while in the Army as a young man and was told he was sterile. This other Linda was no virgin when he met her, and he said she was cheating on him when she became pregnant. They were living together at the time, and she had an infant son when he met her from another boyfriend. He broke up with her and took the two children when he came home from deer hunting one day and found the children, around two and four years of age, alone, crying, and hiding under a bed. She had left them alone to go drinking at a bar. He waited for her to come home, they got into a fight, and he beat her up for leaving the children alone and he thought to meet another man also. He would go camping out in the woods for several weeks when he went deer hunting, sometimes with male friends, sometimes alone. He beat her up and left with the kids.
He also would get into fights in bars, only occasionally getting drunk, though he did drink some. I never did drink alcohol and don’t now, though I tasted it a few times. Even at a bar I would have soda with him. Violence was a way of life for him, though I did not realize how much until much later. The signs that he was an abuser were there, but I did not recognize them at the time. I never thought he would hit me because I would never leave the children home alone unless they were old enough to be left alone unsupervised. I just thought it was an isolated incident with his ex-girlfriend.
However, I jump slightly ahead. One night before we went dancing I gave in and had sex with him, though I knew it was wrong. I wanted all of him, not just his heart, and I was jealous of that friend of his he was having convenient sex with. Shortly after that I became pregnant. After a couple of months of missed menstrual cycles and nausea and tiredness, “M” began to suspect I was pregnant when I told him my symptoms, and took me to his doctor to get tested. I was pregnant, and terrified of what to do now. “M” had said he loved me, but had decided not to marry me even after he had sex with me, was going to break up with me and wanted me to start dating men closer to my own age. He changed his mind after I became pregnant with his child. He had been told by Army doctors that he could not have children. This time he knew the child was his because I was a virgin before I became intimate with him, and I was not seeing anyone else. I was afraid of being left alone, an unwed mother. In my church, my family, the whole culture I was raised in, it was a horrible disgrace and shame to bear a child and not be married. “M” did mention an abortion as a possibility briefly, but I told him I was against abortions, and would not do it, and why. He wanted the child, but was hesitant about marrying me. Still thought I should marry someone younger, but because it was his child that he thought he would never have, he decided to marry me. I was afraid to tell my parents, but eventually I did. I knew they would be so upset with me, their firstborn, ever before obedient, honor student in high school they had such high hopes for. I told my mother first, and she made me tell my father alone. My father was a very angry, abusive man, and we kids were scared of him. We always asked for things or permission to go places through our mother, who then would ask him. Never directly. My father did not hit me, but he broke down and cried. I was crying. He then said that “M” and his two children from a previous relationship would never be allowed to come visit at the house. Only our baby and I could come visit them. The baby could come because he was a part of me, my flesh and blood.
A few months later, before the baby was born, I got married in a cold civil ceremony before a justice of the peace. Not the beautiful romantic wedding and white dress in a church that I had always dreamed of. Only one of my sisters and a lady friend from church attended on my behalf. My best girlfriend, supposedly a devout Christian, refused to attend because of the circumstances. We did not remain friends after that. My husband’s best friend and his girlfriend also came.
Sometime before I got married, my pastor found out I was pregnant. I forget if I told him or my mother did. By that time my father had stopped attending church altogether because of a dispute involving my youngest brother with a pastor at another church where we first went when we moved to Colorado. Even after I became pregnant I attended church regularly, but I dropped out of choir and I stopped teaching the pre-school Sunday School class I was teaching. I resigned immediately when I found out I was pregnant without giving a reason to the Sunday School Director, but it was because I was so ashamed of what I had done, and felt I was no longer the good example to the children that I should have been as one of their teachers. I think “M” would come to church occasionally with me, but not often. I had previously introduced him to the pastor. After I became pregnant, and when I would meet the pastor or choir director in the hallway, they would greet me, but not as friendly as before, kinda cold, with a frozen smile on their lips. It was a very uncomfortable meeting time. I was uncomfortable and ashamed, wishing I had never done what I did, and their attitude made me feel worse. I had trouble looking them in the eye. Some of the choir ladies, including the pastor’s secretary and another secretary in the office I had done volunteer work with, gave me a baby shower to help me out. My husband was a poor truck driver working for a rock and gravel company that he had just started working with after he was let go from the Salvation Army for stealing stuff from the donation bins several months before I became pregnant. My job had ended at the Salvation Army, too, sometime before this, because it was a federal job training program job, and when my year of training was up, they would have had to pay all my wages, instead of being responsible for half, and they said they could not afford to do that. All in all, I had known my husband for 2 years before I married him.
“M” moved his family to a trailer even further from the city of Colorado Springs, to Fountain. The city bus did not go out there then. A Greyhound bus did, several times a day, but I could not afford it. So I became even further isolated from family and what few friends I had. My husband worked during the day. His two children were in school except for the summer. They were teenagers by then, so they spent a lot of time at friends houses except when it was time for their dad to come home from work. I was home with our infant son. Occasionally, my mother would come out to visit, or take me into the city, but not often. My husband would take me and our son and drop us off at church. My step daughter started going with me a lot of times, and was eventually baptized after she allegedly accepted Christ, her own choice. No pressure from me. But she was still a rebellious, disrespectful girl.
After about a year of marriage, my father relented and allowed my husband and his two children to visit as well. They accepted them as their own flesh and blood grandchildren. We spent part of the holidays there, and all of my new family were given presents as well at Christmas.
However, it was not a happy marriage. I experienced verbal and in the last year of my 3 1/2 year marriage, physical abuse. About two years into our marriage, the whole family was ordered into court ordered counseling because he had physically abused his daughter with a belt buckle for stealing. I did not know how bad he hurt her. I was not in her room where it happened. I was afraid of him by that time. Punishment with a belt was normal in my own childhood. I don't approve of it. Afterwards he took me and our baby son and dropped me off at church. After he left, his daughter ran away and called her mother, who lived in town and she called the police. They took her and her older half brother away in group homes for several months, but left our baby in the home amazingly. The daughter lived in several group homes and kept running away, occasionally being allowed to visit for a day or two after several months of being kept away. The family was in court-ordered therapy for a year with a secular therapist, but it was a joke. My husband refused to even acknowledge to the day he died years later that anything was wrong in the home, and he refused to say anything during counseling sessions. During that year in counseling, he started being abusive to me, physically, and even more verbally. I stayed home sick one day and called the counselor while he was on his way to the session and told her about it, but nothing happened. After he started slapping me to the ground, I sneaked out the next morning while he was asleep and left with our almost 3 year old son to my parents. That last night before I left, a voice told me "Get out now. Otherwise, in a week you will be dead". I later have come to think of that voice as God's. The law in Colorado Springs, Colorado was such that in that time a husband would only be arrested if he hurt the wife so much that she had to be hospitalized for her injuries. Otherwise nothing was done to the husband, so the law was no help then. I knew from a girlfriend who, along with her children, was slammed against the walls by her new husband, and got bruised, but not hospitalized. I still divorced my husband for abuse, though the official reason was "irreconcilable differences" by the judge and my do nothing lawyer. I got full sole custody of my son. The step daughter became emancipated and the stepson stayed with his father. The step children and I never got along. They totally disrespected me with their father's approval. As to what my pastor thought of all this, he thought I should have only been separated from him, but not sought divorce, even though therapy had not worked and he was not going to change. Also, in the law, the police would arrest a divorced spouse for some other charge, not domestic violence at that time, probably some kind of assault charge, but not if one was just separated. And you had to show the police your divorce papers.
My mother was verbally abused by my father, but stayed with him because she could not support herself and us kids enough financially on her own. We kids were abused by our father as well, I know now. During that time my mother sought counseling and help from an associate pastor at her current church, where I last was, a professionally trained Christian counselor, but not trained to recognize signs of abuse. He never helped my mother. My mother got freedom and relief after my father died 3 years ago, though he did get better the last 15 years he was alive. My mother has never sought counseling elsewhere and only understands a little what the lingering effects of abuse are on herself, much less a child.
I first became aware of what domestic violence while married, when I was home alone with my baby one day and watched a movie with Farah Fawcett, “The Burning Bed.” It was about a married woman who was beat and hit a lot by her husband. When she tried to leave him, he brought her back and beat her up again. She tried several times. One day, so sore she could barely move, bruised all over, including her face, she could not take the abuse anymore. She and her husband were in bed. He was sleeping. She got up and found some gasoline in a can. She brought it in and poured it over the bed and him. He woke up about that time and she threw a lit match onto the bed, lighting it on fire. She screamed at him that he was never going to hurt her again, or something like that. He screamed at her and tried to get away off the bed, but he was already on fire and burnt to death. She just watched him and did not call a fire truck or the police. A neighbor called a firetruck though. She was arrested by the police, and told them of her abuse. I don’t remember what happened to her after that, but at the very end of the movie, it told of how shortly after that domestic violence shelters were started and were available to women who were abused like her. It talked about what domestic violence was. That’s when I learned I had a way out, and that what was happening to me was wrong also, and it had a name. Even if the police would not protect me, there were shelters available that I could flee to, and the police were not even supposed to know where they were. I could call someone and they would pick me up or meet me somewhere, and take me to a secret location.
I know others have been abused way far worse than I was, but I know what it is to live in fear and walk on eggshells all the time around an abuser, never being able to please them. I was able to leave my situation before I got so badly abused I had to be hospitalized or permanently injured physically. Many are not so lucky. Though most of the victims are women, there are some men, too, who are abused by their spouses, even physically. I know of one man who brutally beaten by his wife so bad he saw his own blood spattered on a wall of his home, then she raped him. I learned later how abuse affected me emotionally, mentally and more recently, spiritually.
I personally know the legalistic attitude of Southern Baptist clergy who seem to believe that the only reason for divorce is infidelity. But I believe God does not want a woman to endanger her life and stay with an abuser when the abuser shows no signs of remorse or won't even try to get help to change himself. If he wants to change, and makes a sincere effort, fine, then give the marriage a chance.
However, a verse was pointed out to me by a Christ follower, who has studied Jewish beliefs, customs and culture, that even the Jewish rabbinical commentaries in biblical times recognized abuse as a legitimate reason for divorce. This is the verse they were basing that on: Malachi 2:16
For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for [one] covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
Putting away = divorce
garment = wife
I left the Southern Baptist church several years later, and joined another denomination. Since then, I have come to see the corruptness of the church system, how far away they are from the true love and compassion of God, and have since left all churches. I no longer belong to any church. I still believe in Yeshua HaMachiach and his teachings, study the Bible, and still strive to be ever more like Him.
If you are scared and you need to talk, call the
NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE at:
1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
What Does God Think of Racism?
I know the face of racism personally, and it is a very ugly thing. I, a fair-skinned person of European descent, was born and raised in a little Southern town in northwestern Florida. My parents did not like black people, my town did not, and, confusing to me, neither did my church. I heard God’s call to me as a child of eight, and I recognized my need for His son, Jesus’ redemption of my soul then. The gospel message was brought to me by a Southern Baptist pastor of the church my family was attending. Because of this early commitment of my life to God, He kept me from accepting the lie that was all around me, the lie that my race was superior to others, and that anyone who was not of my race deserved to be treated with less respect. It was only His grace in my life that prevented this attitude from growing in me. I did not find out what my church thought of black people until an event in high school.
From 10th grade through 12th grade (1974-1976), I was in the Girls’ Ensemble chorus. Our director was a loving, Christian black woman. She loved everyone, regardless of color of skin, and had zero tolerance for showing disrespect to others, including an offence against someone because of the color of their skin. We had black and white members in our group. Our high school was about 10 miles from where I lived. Our ensemble did not just perform at the school. We also did concerts at churches, district and state school competitions, and other secular venues. We had a wide repertoire of songs which included Christian as well as secular songs, including songs in Latin, Spanish and Japanese. My director was looking for some churches for us to give a concert in, and I excitedly suggested mine. There was another girl in the chorus with me, who also attended there, too. My choir director called up my pastor to discuss it with him. Well, I don’t remember hearing the response from my choir director first. I remember getting the answer from my parents. One evening my parents sat me down and told me that my choir was not going to be allowed to sing at our church, the church that I was a regular and active attendee of, the one where I had been baptized at 9. Angry and confused, I asked my parents why. They said that it was because there were black people in my choir. I was shocked. Wasn’t God love? I could not believe my teenage ears. That’s what the pastor preached about up there in his pulpit. Well, my parents explained that our church believed that people of different races should worship separately, not together, in their own churches. And that was the end of that. I told my choir director the next day that I had heard we were not going to be allowed to sing in my church. She just compressed her lips together in anger and eyes full of sorrow and just confirmed that it was true to the choir. I think she gave a speech then, as she had on other occasions, how everyone did not love everyone regardless of race, and how some people would not understand us. On other occasions she would speak to us of God’s love as well. She walked the walk.
Her name was Barbara Beck. We called her “Mama” Beck, for she was like another mother to us. We shared our personal problems with her, and she took the time to listen in her office and give us advice or other help if she could. She opened up her home to all her “children”, regardless of the color of our skins. She had us over for Christmas and other special occasions. When we visited Washington D.C. one year, we did a concert at the church where her father was the pastor of an African-Methodist-Episcopalian (AME) church. There her father and the entire congregation, all black, welcomed us. They were all so friendly. Now that was God’s love exhibited to us. The kind of welcome my own church failed to exhibit.
When my father moved the family west to Colorado Springs, Colorado, things were different in the churches. The Southern Baptist churches there were of mixed race in the congregation. People of all races were welcome to attend, and they did. I was glad of that.
Hmm, but let’s see what God has to say about people of other races. Phillip proclaimed Jesus Christ to the eunuch of Queen Candace of Ethiopia in explaining the book of the prophet Isaiah that the eunuch was reading in Acts 8. He supernaturally moved Phillip from one place and dropped him out of nowhere to proclaim the news of the Messiah to this eunuch. But God gets real specific with Peter in Acts 10. Peter was sitting on the rooftop of Simon the tanner where he was staying in Joppa. The evening meal was being prepared below in the house. Peter was getting hungry while he was waiting, but he was praying anyway. Suddenly he fell into a trance, and had a vision of a sheet tied at each of its four corners, and filled with all manner of wild animals, birds, and creeping things, and it was let down right in front of hungry Peter. Suddenly, a voice which Peter recognized as God’s, said “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” Peter took one look at the contents of that sheet and was horrified. All the creatures in it were “common” or “unclean” according to Levitical dietary laws in the Old Testament given by God to the Jewish people. Peter was an obedient Jewish person who loved Jesus and recognized him as the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. Peter responded to God that he had never eaten anything that was “common or unclean”. God sent the sheet full of animals down a second time, and told Peter not to call anything which God had cleansed “common” or unclean. God took it up and sent it down a third time for Peter to eat from, then took the sheet back up into heaven for the final time.
While Peter was trying to figure out the meaning of this vision, he heard a knock at the door downstairs. The Holy Spirit told him that three men were had come seeking Peter, and that he was to go with them. Not knowing all the details, but being obedient to God, Peter went downstairs and told the men that he was the one they were looking for. A spokesman for the three men told Peter that they were come from Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, a “just man, one that feareth God and is of good report among all the nations of the Jews”. He was also a Gentile, and according to Jewish customs, Jews were not supposed to visit in a Gentile’s home. A Gentile was a non-Jewish person, and considered unclean to be around. God told Peter that an angel had spoken to Cornelius and had told him where to find Peter, have him come to him, and hear the words that he would speak. Cornelius was in Caesarea. Peter was in Joppa, about 30 miles south of Caesarea on the coast. Peter housed Cornelius’ men for the night at his host’s place, and left with the men the following morning. Some Christian brethren from Joppa accompanied Peter as well.
When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ home later that evening, he found a house full of people. Cornelius had invited all his relatives and friends to come hear the words that Peter would say to them. Cornelius met Peter at the entrance and knelt down before him, worshiping him. Peter told him to rise up and not do that because he was just man also as he was. When Peter saw all the people gathered, he understood the meaning of the vision that God had given to him. The first thing Peter spoke to them was how it was unlawful for a Jew to “keep company or come unto one of another nation,” but God had showed him that he should not “call any man common or unclean.” Peter then asked Cornelius why he had summoned him.
Cornelius explained how he had been praying and fasting to God and on the fourth day a man in bright clothing appeared and spoke to him. This person, probably an angel, told Cornelius that his prayers had been heard, and to send for Simon Peter. The angel told Cornelius where to find him, and that Peter would have a message from God for him. So Cornelius told Peter essentially “So here we are, now please give us the words that God has given you for us.”
Peter looked out at the crowd and said, “Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.” Then Peter proceeded to preach the good news of redemption through Jesus Christ, and how he was one of the witnesses of Jesus Christ’ miracles and resurrection from the dead after His crucifixion. The Holy Spirit descended on the Gentiles who believed that day, and afterwards Peter baptized them in water.
God is no respecter of persons. God loves everyone, regardless of what ethnic background they have, or the color of their skin. He wants all nationalities to come into His Holy Kingdom. Therefore, if God loves them and desires them to be with Him, we should love them as God does and treat all with respect, and not hold back the news of redemption from them.
Besides, it would be a very boring world if we all looked alike. I like to think of the different colors of skin in people like a rainbow. (Now please, I’m not talking about the politically correct rainbow here) The rainbow would not be so beautiful if it consisted of only one color. The various colors in it are part of what make it so beautiful. Someone who is different than you are is not automatically evil. So go out today and try to get to know someone or at least better understand someone who is different than you. Trust me; it will be a very personally enriching, mind-expanding experience for you.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Welcome to Linda's Blog
Hi,
Welcome to Linda's blog, "Butterfly in the Desert". I've just started it, so not much is here yet. I do have some articles started, fresh from my mind. This blog is not limited to just one subject. I love to write, but have not for quite a few years. The pains and trials of life kinda took my creativeness out of me, but the fresh breeze of the Holy Spirit has been blowing through me, along with some inspiration from some friends, who the Holy Spirit definitely sent into my life, and I have a lot I want to write about. So check back often. No schedule so you never know when I'll post, but I have a lot on my mind. You never know what you'll find here.
Just some housekeeping notes: I do have Comment Moderation on, so comments will be reviewed before being published. Please be respectful and courteous with your comments.
God bless.
Welcome to Linda's blog, "Butterfly in the Desert". I've just started it, so not much is here yet. I do have some articles started, fresh from my mind. This blog is not limited to just one subject. I love to write, but have not for quite a few years. The pains and trials of life kinda took my creativeness out of me, but the fresh breeze of the Holy Spirit has been blowing through me, along with some inspiration from some friends, who the Holy Spirit definitely sent into my life, and I have a lot I want to write about. So check back often. No schedule so you never know when I'll post, but I have a lot on my mind. You never know what you'll find here.
Just some housekeeping notes: I do have Comment Moderation on, so comments will be reviewed before being published. Please be respectful and courteous with your comments.
God bless.
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