Category: Relationships

When the World Hates You

My ex-colleague who is an eastern pagan idol worshiper stole my washer and dryer today with her family members.  She literally came into my large domicile and unhooked them and took them.  She did not need them and I had laid claim to them because I did need them.  My other colleague, a lukewarm Christian, watched her do it, and also told her I had thought about keeping the refrigerator because I thought I might need that too (when I move out of here).  So the pagan worshiper left a nasty note on the refrigerator saying that it was mandated that it stay in this building, because she said so.  She really had no more right to those items than I had, and I actually could make a legal claim for them, but I will not, because Jesus says if someone takes your cloak, give them your tunic also.

I am a poor single mother, and she and all her family came in and literally took my washer and dryer.  She put it ‘in storage’ (per my other colleague’s report).  But she likely gave it to her children to have.  Now I have no way to wash clothes and will have to go to a laundromat to wash my and my sons’ clothes.  She has taken other things from me as well, and she is escalating in her boldness in doing so.  She really does not want me to have anything, while she and my other colleague get whatever they want (they have been carting out a lot of furniture for themselves).

I console myself and rejoice because I am constantly having to deal with this behavior from my wicked ex-colleagues and I pray that I continue to be humble in my behavior back toward them.  I want my actions to be like Jesus’ actions would be.  I talk to God and I talk myself through the hard times.  And I rejoice because I know if she hates me that much for no apparent reason, it means that the devil in her smells the righteousness in me.

For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,  not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.

 Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.  ~1 John 3:11-14

In these types of stressful situations with my wicked colleague, I also think a lot of this verse because she acts hatefully toward me as often as she can:

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.  ~John 15:18-21

There are a LOT of haters in the world.  There are more people who hate than who love, so being the victim of true hateful actions is a common happenstance for most of us.  It is difficult to constantly be on the side of being the hated, but it is still better than being on the side of the hateful.

Thank You for this good word, God.  I love You.  I know you see my anguish and persecution.  I consider suffering in the name of Jesus a blessing.

Co-dependence

I finally understand what Co-dependence is.

I understand because I have been living it.  But I did not know that was what it was, because, like many other people, co-dependence has been more common for me in my primary childhood relationships than healthy relating was.  This means that my barometer for ‘normal’ was miscalibrated from my beginning to the point that co-dependence feels more normal for me than healthy relating.  My triggers were set too high for unhealthy relationships and the way they manifest.

Co-depedence is…

Living contrary to what is healthy interdependence because you do not believe deep down that you can live without ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is.  It might be a person, an idea, a thing, a feeling, an action.  A person can therefore be dependent upon many different entities in this life.  These entities become an idol when they are allowed so much power over us that without them, we feel we cannot exist, when we become dependent upon them.

So co-dependence in its essence is idolatry.  Because we should only be dependent upon God.

Now there are some things we depend upon which represent normal dependence.  Like the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we need to sustain us, and the love we receive from our neighbor and kin.  God provides us all with all these things, sometimes directly from Him and sometimes from Him through others, and He gives them equally to those who believe in Him and those who do not.

But co-dependence occurs when healthy dependence becomes defiled.  Usually this happens during our tenure as children because we have learned in a dysfunctional family that we cannot depend on the normal things of life listed above.  Perhaps our parents loved us with a conditional love, whereby we only felt loved if we did a certain act, or lived a certain way.  We unconsciously learned that we could not depend on our needs always being met, and we learned that if our needs were not met, we would suffer somehow.  The suffering of childhood is more devastating because children are innocent, and because we did not have the capacity to understand why we were suffering.  If we go hungry as adults, it is generally a good thing unless it becomes chronic because God calls us to fast occasionally, and our bodies are not growing anymore, but merely needing enough sustenance to maintain us.  But children that go hungry are going to quickly become malnourished because they are growing.  If we go without love as adults, it forces us to turn to God for support and love, whereas children that have no love fail to thrive, and develop lifelong wounds and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Childhood is a place and time when we need plenty to grow into healthy adults.  Getting a spare amount of something healthy, too much of something unhealthy-or even none-is going to have a deleterious effect upon a young human being.  As adults we can live without things more easily.  We can fast and we can go without as much as we want to or feel led to and that helps us to cling to God, our heavenly Father, and it keeps us from becoming greedy.  But children have different needs than adults.  Most of us as parents understand this.

Sometimes people become parents without the proper knowledge or intuition to understand what a child needs to be healthy, and they cannot overcome their own lack to provide these things.  Their children then go without what they need and maybe have too much of what they do not need.  Their children therefore can become co-dependent upon wrong things and behaviors because they have never known what it feels like to be in a healthy family long enough for it to become a habit of knowing that their proper needs will be met.  Indeed, they will likely not even know what proper needs are.

It isn’t just alcoholism that produces co-dependence but that is usually what we think of in today’s society because Alcoholics Anonymous has identified certain unhealthy adjunct behaviors in those family members of alcoholics and they have drawn attention to it.  But co-dependence can exist in any person(s) who have known chronic amounts of lack in childhood, whether that lack comes from addicted parents, selfish parents, evil parents, pedophilic parents, satanic parents, stingy parents, neglectful parents, or sick parents.  Co-dependence is a disease  that stems from lack.

When we lack something vital as children, we cling to what we can to survive.  Starving children dig up and eat roots (and dirt along with it) when they are starving.  They might eat other people’s leftovers (that are rotten or infested with bacteria or viruses).  Going hungry drives them to eat whatever they can find even if it is sub-optimal, because something is usually better than nothing.  This defiles them.  The same example goes for love.  If a child lacks unconditional love in childhood, the child will seek love out in any form, or accept it in any form, because love is necessary for growth, and well-known animal studies have proven this.  Studies have also shown that being abused is favored by children over being neglected because having something is usually optimal to having nothing.

Unconditional love is necessary for the healthy development of children.  Unconditional love means that a parent loves their child over time independent of their actions or behaviors.  It means that if a child acts out or does something the parents deem wrong, the child will still have its needs of food, clothing, shelter, safety, and love met.  And this occurs over time.  Sometimes a parent will punish a child and the child may go without dinner as a punishment and that will not result in co-dependence.  It must be chronic lack which happens often enough for the child to develop a belief that if they do not adhere to some condition or state of being, they will go without their fundamental needs being met.  This is an unconscious process.  And this is the root of co-dependence.

Co-dependence means we settle for living on the wrong track because we either do not know that a right track exists, or because we get get drawn over onto the wrong track, repetitively.  Something or someone on the wrong track magnetizes us and keeps us there.  In our deep-seated belief system that was laid down mostly in childhood we really believe that without that thing on the wrong track, we will suffer.  And maybe we believe deep down we will even die.  We believe this because as children without our needs being met we likely could have died, and to a child’s undeveloped brain, suffering equates to feelings of death.  Our primitive emotions which are the essence of our feelings, do not understand the difference.  Therefore we function on automatic pilot, letting our false beliefs dictate lifelong practices and actions that might very well be unhealthy.

Co-dependence is very hard to break out of.  This is the reason battered women continue to return to their abusive mate.  This is the reason dysfunctional families cling to each other regardless of how much they hurt each other.  This is probably the reason why children who have been abused continue to abuse as adults.  It is a never-ending loop of dysfunction that blinds you from seeing any other way of existing.  And you unconsciously believe the lie that without this thing, you will suffer and maybe even die.

~~~

Of course there is a cure.  And that cure is to become born again in Jesus Christ.  When we are born again we become like a baby and are given a new life, created fresh by God in His image and replacing our unhealthy human family with God and His family.  Our barometer for healthy relationships becomes perfectly recalibrated in Him.

The indwelling of Jesus Christ is the cure-all for any ailment.  The only requirement is to give ourselves fully over to Him.  Halfway will not do it.  Praying once a week will not do it.  It requires willful intentional submission to Him and only Him in our lives.  Deep-seated false or even evil beliefs are very hard to get rid of, but it is possible with God.  God is a jealous God and allows no room for idols between us and Him, because He knows how much as humans we can fall victim to idols.  And this is the very place satan prefers to hide out in our lives and try to rule over us.

We can be truly blind to co-dependence and its rule over us, but God makes those scales fall away from our eyes and we can see anew.  We can see truth.  We want to not only get on the right track, but He helps us to find our way, and to stay on the right track.  Even if it goes against those scared childhood feelings that drive us in a certain habitual and dysfunctional direction, seeking that eternal unconditional love we never knew.  The irony is that we will never find the right track if we follow our self or our own messed up barometer.

We will only find that missing unconditional love in Him~

The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.  ~ Jeremiah 31:3

May this train run on God’s tracks forevermore.

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Clergy Sexual Abuse

Excerpts taken out of this article: http://www.crusadeagainstclergyabuse.com/htm/AShortHistory.htm

1952:              Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Paraclete Order and associated treatment facilities for priests located in New Mexico, Missouri and California, wrote to Bishop Robert Dwyer of Reno, NV, about priests afflicted with sexual disorders that cause them to abuse young boys.  This letter indicates that Fr. Fitzgerald had already treated a “handful” of men charged with such abuse.  He shared his recommendation that such men be laicized since they would never be free of the temptation to act out.  This letter is remarkable in that it clearly assesses both the disorder and the risks.  He warns against the very solutions that many bishops resorted to in the ensuing years: “Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal.”  Fr. Fitzgerald’s efforts at helping troubled priests were unique and quickly became known to all US bishops.  It is safe to assume that his opinions about sexually abusing priests were known to most if not all bishops. Concerning priests who sexually abused minors he said “We find it quite common, almost universal with the handful of men we have seen in the past five years who have been under similar charges – we find it quite universal that they seem to be lacking in appreciation of the serious situation.  As a class they expect to bound back like tennis balls on the court of priestly activity.  I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual and when a man has so far fallen away from the purpose of the priesthood the very best that should be offered him is his Mass in the seclusion of a monastery. 

Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare. 

Many bishops believe men are never free from the approximate danger once they have begun.  Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal.” (See Fitzgerald Letter, dated Sept. 12, 1952,)

1957:              Fr. Fitzgerald wrote to Bishop Matthew Brady of Manchester NH on September 26, 1957: ‘From our long experience with characters of this type, and without passing judgment on the individual, most of these men would be clinically classified as schizophrenic.  Their repentance and amendment are superficial and, if not formally at least subconsciously, is motivated by desire to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity.  A new diocese means only green pastures.”  [In short, antisocial, without conscience (song of mary addition)]

1957:              Again, Fr. Fitzgerald writes to Archbishop Edwin Byrne (Santa Fe) that he thought it unwise to “offer hospitality to men who have seduced or attempted to seduce little boys or girls.”  He went on to utter an eerie prophecy of the future:
If I were a bishop, I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary laicization.  Experience has taught us these men are too dangerous to the children of the parish and the neighborhood for us to be justified in receiving them here….They should ipso facto be reduced to lay men when they act thus.

1961:              The Sacred Congregation for Religious issued an official document entitled, “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and sacred orders,” 2 Feb. 1961.  The document states that one of the common causes of “defection’ or departure from the priesthood is “…sexual tendencies of a pathological nature…” which refers to homosexual tendencies.  Later in the document reasons for dismissal are listed.  The following statement is found:

 “Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.”

1966:              A workshop for psychologists engaged in the assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life is held at the School of Nursing of the Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York.  One of the participants stated : Perhaps the most troublesome and most frequent appearing sociopathic features or disturbances in assessment work concern the high incidence of effeminacy, heterosexual retardation, psychosexual immaturity, deviations or potential deviations of the homosexual type….A recent study of 107 male candidates, for example, shows that 8% of these were sexually deviant, whereas 70% were described as psychosexually immature, exhibiting traits of heterosexual retardation, confusion concerning sexual role, fear of sexuality, effeminacy, and potential homosexual dispositions.”

1971:              Dr. Conrad Baars and Dr. Anna Terruwe presented a scholarly paper to the 1971 Synod of Bishops at the Vatican and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  Citing 40 years of combined psychiatric practice treating about 1500 priests, they concluded that 20-25% of U.S. priests had serious psychiatric difficulties and 60-70% suffered from emotional immaturity. They concluded that the psychosexual immaturity manifested itself in heterosexual and homosexual activity.

1972:              Dr. Eugene Kennedy published a psychological study of U.S. priests commissioned by the Bishops’ Conference.  His findings concurred with those of Baars and Terruwe and concluded that American priests were
7% psychologically and emotionally developed
18% psychologically and emotionally developing
66% underdeveloped
8% maldeveloped.

Kennedy and Heckler stated that the underdeveloped and maldeveloped priests (74%) had not resolved psychosexual problems and issues usually worked through in adolescence.“Sexuality is, in other words, non-integrated into the lives of underdeveloped priests and many of them function as a pre-adolescent or adolescent level of psychosexual growth.”

~~~

I would say these findings are likely true of pedophiles in general.  Pedophile is being defined as adults preferring to sex with children of any age.  It just so happens that the allure of the Catholic priesthood with its power, prestige, accommodations, and unlimited stock of vulnerable children attract those men with proclivities to pedophilia and who are likely immature themselves, either with an underdeveloped (psycho-socially stunted) or maldeveloped (antisocial) ego.

While this article and these studies pertained to Catholic priests, it seems reasonable the data can also apply to protestant clergyman and chaplains as well, though perhaps at a decreased rate than the Catholic priesthood for the reasons mentioned above.  Protestant priesthood still carries with it power, prestige, and a surplus of vulnerable children, though its accommodations are usually meager in comparison to their Catholic counterparts.  The level of blind trust and the pervasiveness of long-standing historical church abuses and abrogation of duty regarding those abuses may be higher in the Catholic dioceses versus those of protestant church communities, but many protestants are starting to speak out about the abuse problem in their own churches and ministries as well.

Stunning to note is the staggering incidence of the sexual immorality of priests, one of God’s holiest offices.  Jesus said if a member of your body causes you to sin, then you should cut it off.  But what if that member is a priest, corporally?  The law in the Bible calls the presumptuous sins of priests the most heinous sins that can be committed among men, and those sins carry greater punishments and need more atonement than other sins.  Jesus also said that if someone causes a child who believes in Him to sin, it would be better for that person to be thrown into the sea.  This leaves a punishment for sex offenders of children life in prison, since suicide is a sin itself.  Unless that person is one of the very ‘few who can effect a real conversion’ away from perpetuating the abuse.

If three quarters of priests are psychosexually immature and deviant, which several studies have shown, then society should expect that the most likely exposure of our children to sexual immorality will ironically be through the church, or those who elevate themselves in the church to positions of power, proving that the devil does indeed masquerade as an angel of light.

 

~selah

What if Adam had Chosen a Gay Lifestyle?

What would have happened if Adam had rejected Eve whom God had made just for him, and told God he preferred others?

The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs[d] and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

“At last!” the man exclaimed.

“This one is bone from my bone,
    and flesh from my flesh!
She will be called ‘woman,’
    because she was taken from ‘man.’”

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. ~Genesis 2:15-25

What would Eve have done?

What would God have done?

HYOWM AYWB~The Day of Job

As feelings of desolation, gloom, and hopelessness pervade my being I am reminded by the Helping Spirit that Job suffered just like me.  No other account in the Bible relates the human condition of losing everything when it seemingly makes no sense like the Book of Job.  Hence there I find my only solace.

I can completely relate to his story and I am so thankful it is in the Bible, and that I am acquainted with it.  As I lift my head above the churning waves of despair, I get a glimpse of the hope that is my God looking down upon me with affection and love, eager to assuage my pain.

I believe God is using me as He did Job:  to be an example of righteousness to the devil.

It’s not that I am perfect.  I have struggled with difficult things.  Since becoming a Christian I have sinned less and less, but pulling out of a sinful way of thinking has been a long process of two steps forward, one step back.  I have especially fought a battle with sexual immorality.  It isn’t that I am that bad by worldly standards, but that it has taken me longer to perfect the side of myself that seeks romance and relationship.  I think this is typical of most women.

Yet I do get better as time goes by, praise God.  And I believe He has chosen to make an example of me despite these fall backs.

I first lost my marriage when my husband left me.  I then began losing my family as I had known it; my kids gravitated to their father’s house and he remarried, giving them a new family.  I have grieved the loss of their presence as a mother would grieve a literal death of her child.  I fought in utter desperation to try to keep them close to me, all to no avail.  As time went by my hope for having another committed relationship slowly eroded away until I have all but given up on hoping for one anymore, and this is after much effort was exerted on my part to meet someone who completed me.  My business then failed into which I had invested my time, money, heart, and future.  As I go forth trying to carve out a career niche that suits me, I meet mostly dead ends.  I have interviewed for jobs to only be turned down, even when I seemed to be the best candidate or even overly qualified.  God gives me work, but it does not utilize all my talents leaving me feeling like my potential is untapped, and leaving me always unfulfilled.  My financial situation is rather dour and I am in debt.  I have noticed of late that I am having chest pain after moderate aerobic exercise which I never had before.  My friends are left baffled by my circumstances, but instead of understanding this as a Job moment and giving me good counsel, they begin launching into a litany of advice and vain words which only increases my frustration and pain.

I have lost my marriage, my family, my career has stagnated, and now I am losing my health.

Through it all, I have tried to do what modern Christian pastors, counselors, and friends tell you to do:  I have shared my plight with my Christian friends.  The problem is that my failures make no rational sense when you try to explain them, which they inevitably try to do.  My husband did not have to get a new wife two weeks after he left me; my children should not have gravitated to him because I was a doting stay-at-home-homeschooling mom; my business was a shining example of perfection in this region of the United States as I am a highly qualified practitioner with a good reputation in my community; and I have always had exemplary health, am relatively athletic, have low blood pressure, and low cholesterol!  Yet all but one of my few Christian friends have difficulty validating me and my experiences at the least, and at the worst, cause trauma to me with their words which sound harsh to my wounded and sensitive ears.

Like Job’s friends, my primary Christian female friend implies that either I am somehow not being thankful enough for what I have (I am very thankful and thank God without ceasing); that I am focusing too much on the negative side of things because the reality really is not that bad–that I just am going through a hard time and having trouble seeing objectively; that it is not time yet for God to bless me because I am somehow not ready or matured in my faith enough to warrant that yet; or that His purpose is being fulfilled through me in all these failures but I just cannot see it–as if others go through this all the time (and I know they do not).  These false ideas come at me as I try to do as I am told and seek comfort among my Christian sisters.  However, just like Job’s brethren, my sisters do me more harm than good.

The fact is that our Christian culture has adopted an understanding of God’s will as something like this:  If you are obedient, you will be blessed and those blessings will look like success in our world.  Christian fruit has been taken to mean having plenty, being successful in business, and having a close relationship with your children.  You may suffer a little while, but not too long….unless you are being disobedient.  There is no room for extended catastrophic events or Job-like moments in our modern understanding of the Lord.  I would guess this is because we don’t have much cultural memory as Americans of times being very hard, and our understanding of God has been molded along with the advancing affluence of our country.

But sometimes God still makes examples of people like He did Job, and I am here to testify of that.  It is the only explanation that makes rational sense for the things I have endured and continue to endure.  God still wants to show the devil that some put Him first.  Even a new Christian who has only known Him 4 years!

I am tested often but I am not usually consciously aware it is a test at the time, but sometimes I become aware of it during the test or just afterward.  I do not usually try to answer in a way to merely please God, though that would be okay, I believe, but I answer in what I know or feel to be right in the situation.  I know many Christian sisters who would pass these tests too, and I have to ask, as Job did, “Why me, LORD?”  Maybe more of us have Job moments than we can know.  But what I do know, is that I am blessed to be debased in the world.  The lower I become in the world, the higher I become unto God.

I hope I am pleasing God as much as Job did.  Thankfully I can see where Job made his mistake doubting God, and hopefully with Jesus’ strength, I can keep my faith as I keep my love for Him and my neighbor.  I pray the devil can see that there really are some Christians who fear God and shun evil faithfully through pain, loss, and as all worldly blessings fall away.  Thank God for the Bible.  I can find validation and solace here I can literally find no where else:

Oh that my grief were fully weighed, and my calamity laid with it in the balances!  For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea–

What strength do I have, that I should hope?  And what is my end, that I should prolong my life?  Is my help not within me?  And is success driven from me?

To him who is afflicted, kindness should be shown by his friend, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.  My brothers have dealt deceitfully like a brook, like the streams of the brooks that pass away, which are dark because of the ice, and into which the snow vanishes.  When it is warm, they cease to flow; when it is hot, they vanish from their place.  The paths of their way turn aside, they go nowhere and perish.  The caravans of Tema look, the travelers of Sheba hope for them.  They are disappointed because they were confident; they come there and are confused.  

But what does your arguing prove?  Do you intend to reprove my words, and the speeches of a desperate one, which are as wind?  Yes, you overwhelm the fatherless, and you undermine your friend.  Now therefore, be pleased to look at me; for I would never lie to your face.  Turn now, let there be no injustice; yes, turn again, my righteousness still stands.

So I have been allotted months of futility, and wearisome nights have been appointed to me.  When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be ended?’  For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn.  My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.  Oh, remember that my life is a breath!  My eye will never again see good.  The eye of him who sees me will see me no more; while your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be.  As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave does not come up.  He shall never return to his house, nor shall his place know him anymore.

What is man, that You should magnify him, that You should set Your heart on him, that You should attend to him every morning, and test him every moment?  How long?  Will You not look away from me, and let me alone till I swallow my saliva?  Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself?  Why then do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?  For now I will lie down in the dust, and You will seek me diligently, but I will no longer be.

Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it.  What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.  You are all worthless physicians.  Oh, that you would be silent, and it would be your wisdom!  Your platitudes are proverbs of ashes….

Be silent with me, and let me speak, then let come on me what may!  Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hands?  Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.  

Commitment to Man

But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.  ~John 2:24-25

This is exactly how I feel increasingly of late.  Yet if I say it out loud, people would call me a ‘jaded’ or ’embittered’ woman.  I see how men consistently are, and I am reticent to commit myself to any of them because most men I meet and know are of the world, even if they profess to be Christians.  Men unanimously exude the traits of selfishness and lust, and often thanklessness, way too often for me to want to be involved with them.  Combine that with their natural proclivity to be prideful (a typical male characteristic), and, well, you have a recipe for being ensnared in your life.

I am beginning to come on board with Paul’s line of thinking that if you are single, it is best to stay single in order to fulfill God’s will as much as possible.  It is nigh on impossible to find a male worthy of a Godly woman, and I propose that it is getting harder as time goes by and more and more people fall away from the church.

It gives me comfort to know Jesus felt the same way about men.  I feel validated.  The world may call me jaded, but I will accept that because I would rather be jaded with Jesus, than foolish with men.

 

 

And They Shall Become One Flesh.

Man and his Wife

And the Lord GOD called, “It is not good that the man is separated from his feminine equal, and a helper to be a mate.”

And the Lord GOD formed from the ground every living thing of the land, and every living bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would proclaim their name to be.

And the man proclaimed all which were breathing and alive with their name; he proclaimed names to all cattle and to all the birds of the heavens, and to every living thing of the land.

But to Adam there was not found a helper to be a mate.

And the Lord GOD caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept, and Yahweh took one rib from his ribs and closed the flesh beneath.

And the Lord GOD made from the rib which had been taken from Adam a woman, and brought her to the man and called the man, “This at last is a body from my body, and flesh from my flesh.  For this I proclaim ‘Woman’ because from man she has been taken.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And they were both nude, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

Adam and eve 1 (2).jpg

I have explored the subject of monogamy from nearly every angle imaginable.  Experiencing the parameters of relationship was an intense interest of mine while I was still married.  I even seriously considered going back to school to study anthropology as it applies to human intimacy such was my obsession with this subject.

I succeeded at monogamy for about 22 years, so I know a bit about it; the high points and the low.  The bliss and the brokenness.  I dabbled in polyamory for many years, mostly in my mind, but occasionally in my flesh as well.  I found this dynamic to be my preferred one.  More love was euphoric, why settle for just one love?

I have contemplated, philosophized, debated, meditated, and imagined the realm of relationships possible in life and lived most of them out, from ascetic to swinger.  I have blogged-and deleted-posts of emphatic feeling one way or the other depending on my perspective at any given time.  I swing this way and I swing that way (pun intended).  And I acknowledge that it is a very complex issue, this one of human intimacy and sexual loving.  Perhaps the most difficult one we face in our tenure here on earth.

I know from intense research that the Bible does not make polygyny a sin, which means one man can marry more than one woman, and which much of the world still practices today.  It makes sense also practically for a man to take care of more than one woman, and for women to be co-wives; women and men both are suited to this, and children can benefit as well in certain situations.  That it is not expressly forbidden in the Torah is profound, and meaningful.

Beyond the law however, when we look to the stories of the Bible, it is clear that in every case of polygyny, even in the most blessed sons of God, like Abraham, families and their future seed suffered negative consequences from being married to more than one wife.  Often in the Bible the children of different mothers aggrieve each other, war with each other, and murder each other out of maleficence born from their familial birthright or lack thereof.  This is a grave teaching from God through His prophets for us with eyes to see and ears to hear.  Indeed the first example of polygyny was in Lamech, seven generations from Adam, the man who was noteworthy for vengeance and bloodthirstiness.  And no matter how noble and honorable the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob (Israel) were, their practice of polygyny caused serious problems in their people which even extends into our modern world!

Polygamy is not a sin, and even though more love seems like a good idea, and man in his flesh might be hardwired for this.  From the very beginning, a couple of key points are unmistakably monogamous.  God takes one rib from Adam and closed the flesh beneath.  One rib equals one woman.  Closing the flesh implies it is done.  Then the man and woman become one flesh.  If they become one flesh, they essentially become joined physically and psychically to the point cleaving apart would cause much destruction and pain.

This is God’s ideal state for man and woman.  A bit further into the creation story God also makes man in His image, male and female He makes them.  But I also know that God can manifest Himself in a myriad of forms and ways, and He has unlimited names for Himself.  In this way, man could make himself fit more than one woman, easily as well, as he is made in the image of God.

The Apostle Paul is clear on this subject regarding bishops in the early church:

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; 3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; 4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); 6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.  ~1 Timothy 3:2-6

Overall, it requires the Holy Spirit moving in man for each man to know the path God has in mind for him.  Monogamy is not for everyone, and neither is polygamy.  It is almost certain that while not a sin, polygamy will cause familial pain and strife.  Finally, pastors and church leaders are called to be monogamous, at the very least.

~selah

God Gave me this Scripture as I Awoke this Morning: ‘Genesis 23:2’

And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.  ~Genesis 23:2

It is interesting that He gave me this scripture as I have also been studying mourning of late.  I suppose I am mourning for my Sarah, as Abraham is.

In this dawn He also made me know that, as was spoken to in the Job birthday post, He makes His chosen ones to suffer greatly here on earth.  In fact, it is as if those who suffer most are marked by Him as His.

I have heard priests remark that we might never understand why bad people get good things here on earth, but in light of these scriptures we can see that suffering here is a necessary process to enter His final kingdom.  It might be part of that refining by fire that we are taught throughout scripture.  Or separating the wheat from the chaff.  To be burned with fire hurts more than anything on earth.  To separate wheat from chaff, it is basically rhythmically beaten against something hard, so that the wheat heads fall into a pile for storage, and the chaff blows away on the wind~

I am convinced by these verses that those of us who suffer, as Jesus speaks to in the Beatitudes, are the very ones who can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Another reason I have been drawn to alcoholics, the oppressed, and those scarred by life.  They are fellow brethren whom I recognize in spirit.

I love you with all my heart, soul, and might, My LORD.

~s

How to Mourn with Someone, and Job Rues His Birthday~

After God grants the devil permission, Job loses his sons, his servants, his livestock, and he becomes covered in painful boils from his heel to his head.  Now when Job’s three friends hear of all this adversity that happens to him, each one leaves from his place, for they had made an appointment to come together and mourn with him, and to comfort him.  And when they raise their eyes from afar, they did not recognize him, so they lifted their voices and wept; and each tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven.

So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great. 

Saint Paul speaks to this when he says:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  ~Romans 12:15

Not many things are worse than grieving and having others cause more harm than good with their words and intentions. The interesting thing is that God made consoling people the right way as simple as being present but doing nothing, not even speaking.  No one knows what someone might be feeling during their grief, but to support them appropriately lest we hurt them more is mandated in scripture.  It is validating to be acknowledged in grief.  So often we want to brush it off or move on, both as the one grieving and the friend of those in grief.  However, God calls us to sit still and be quiet in our grief.

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.  And Job spoke, and said:

“May the day perish on which I was born,

And the night in which it was said,

‘A male child is conceived.’

May that day be darkness;

May God above not seek it,

Nor the light shine upon it,

May darkness and the shadow of death claim it;

May a cloud settle on it;

May the blackness of the day terrify it.

As for that night, may darkness seize it;

MAY IT NOT BE INCLUDED AMONG THE DAYS OF THE YEAR,

MAY IT NOT COME INTO THE NUMBER OF THE MONTHS.

Oh, may that night be barren!

May no joyful shout come into it!

May those curse it who curse the day,

Those who are ready to arouse Leviathan.

May the stars of its morning be dark;

May it look for light, but have none,

And not see the dawning of the day;

Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,

Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

Why did I not die at birth?

Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

Why did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

For now I would have lain still and been quiet,

I WOULD HAVE BEEN ASLEEP;

THEN I WOULD HAVE BEEN AT REST

WITH KINGS AND COUNSELORS OF THE EARTH,

WHO BUILT RUINS FOR THEMSELVES,

Or with princes who had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,

Like infants who never saw light?

There the wicked cease from troubling,

And there the weary of strength are at rest.

There the prisoners are at ease together;

They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.

Why is light given to him who is in misery,

And life to the bitter of soul,

Who long for death, but it does not come,

And search for it more than hidden treasures;

Who rejoice exceedingly,

And are glad when they can find the grave?

WHY IS LIGHT GIVEN TO A MAN WHOSE WAY IS HIDDEN,

AND WHOM GOD HAS HEDGED IN?

For my sighing comes before I eat,

And my groanings pour out like water.

For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,

And what I dreaded has happened to me.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest, for trouble comes.”

It is as if our life is a rite of passage that we must endure in order to search for ‘hidden treasures’ which is the knowledge of God.  Life, as miserable as it can be, is a blessing we must partake in to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Otherwise, we would be sleeping in the same place the pharaohs, wicked, wealthy, and weary [weak] go.  Where there is no servitude because there is no master.  In other words, if we had never been born, or if we had lived and died in the world, we would be asleep in darkness.  In order to achieve life and light, we must die to the world:  “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  ~Matthew 10:39

Instead we have been given life.  We have been given light in God’s Son, Jesus.  And even though our way is hidden from us, we have been safely ‘hedged in’ by God.  We sigh, we groan, we suffer with our greatest fears realized…This is how it is for God’s chosen ones.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.  ~1 Peter 5:10

As He also did for Job.

~Selah

Death and the Afterlife, Part II: A Depiction of Hell

God wants me to share with you all what Hell is like.  As I spoke of in this post, Death and the Afterlife, Part I: My Dream, Hell is rooted in Sheol, the pit of the earth.  Literally and figuratively it involves being buried deep in the bowels of the ground and being imprisoned without any chance for escape except by one means, the grace of God.

Adam, the word for man, and the original son of man, means ‘ruddy’ in the Hebrew language.  Adamah is the Hebrew word for ground.  It is feminine because it opens itself up for Adam to work it and keep it, which is the curse of man from the time of his original sin in the Garden of Eden.

God gives us every chance in our lifetime to regard Him, even if we have not heard of Him or heard His Word, because we can regard the world about us and marvel at its Maker (~Romans 1:19-21).  To make it even more obvious and clear for us, He sent our Lord Jesus the Messiah to redeem our souls if we but believe in Him.

Hell is the place those go, who in their hardened hearts, do not believe in God.  God consigns them to the ground from which earthly Adam came, which is also the path Cain chose, Abel’s wicked brother, the earthly son of Adam.  Abel chose the spiritual path and was killed for it by his brother.  The ground swallowed Abel’s holy blood by his brother’s hand.  It is all fitting then that God places the wicked into the same ground for them to suffer their deeds.  Their wicked hearts in denying their Maker will not have the final say.

I was obsessed with the movie Motel Hell when I was a girl and must have watched it no less than a dozen times (or so it seemed).  I was 12 or 13 and beyond when I watched it and while it scared the living daylights out of me, I also found it irresistible for some reason I did not know.  There were a few movies like that from my childhood, the ones I could watch over and over and never tire of:  Blue Lagoon, Tootsie, Friday the 13th, and Motel Hell.  Now I know these movies all have a common theme for me which is pertinent to my main mission I serve for God.  I just was not aware of it at 12.

This movie is inspired for its accurate depiction of hell.  I tried to research the writers and could find only that they were born in NYC, into a film production family.  There was also an uncredited writer as well.  The writers or director either were conscious of what hell is, or intuited it from God.  Nonetheless, this is something like the hell in my visions and dreams,the hell which God is revealing to me to share with you.  The people are buried in the ground.  They are victims because a terrible fate has befallen them.  They are alive but unable to communicate.  They cannot move at all and are in a perpetual state of solitary confinement.  Solitary confinement has been described as one of the worse tortures a man can endure, and is utilized as a last punishment for those who act out and hurt others. It causes mental illness because it is so contrary to human life.  Try enduring it until the Judgment Day!

If you find this humorous, that was the writers’ intent.  However, I am sure hell itself will not be funny at all.  Hell is the holding ground for those who have denied their Maker.  It is the embodiment of God’s final grace for those to turn their wicked hearts back to Him so that on the Final Day, they might find their names in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

You do not have to go to hell.  You can turn and repent and believe in Jesus, do good works, and love God.  Then you can escape this punishment.

~Selah