Stepping fully into faith?
A friend told me the other day I have to take time to process and deal what happened to me this year. I'm not really sure how one processes spiritual abuse. I've talked, I've cried, I've prayed and I've waited. It doesn't hurt so much now, I feel a sense of relief that I don't hold so much of a grudge against my abusers. I know that my sheer stubbornness will not allow them to hold that over me, I feel pity for them and compassion, knowing that this is not where they started from and not where they wanted to be. I wonder if they even are in a place to address that they may have lost their way. I have committed to pray for them each day and each day it gets easier to do so.
But, if I'm completely honest with myself I'm not sure I've processed it. I went back to the old church the two weeks ago and then the rest of the day I sobbed my heart out. That is surely not a sign that it's been processed!
Then, the other day in church God spoke to me. I know he's always speaking but I heard him for the first time in months! I didn't realise the trauma had stopped me from hearing. He told me that it was not how I was thought of in the old church or how my abuser was thought of but how Jesus was thought of.
Guilt came crashing down. I knew my whistleblowing was necessary. I needed to bring the abuse into the light, and that, in turn, revealed the extent of things. However I was able to understand where my guilt was coming from. I had previously had guilt for what I did, and the consequences it had for my abusers, their actions were wrong but the consequences of speaking out make me feel guilty for their futures and their family, though I would do it again.
This new guilt is coming from what the impact on the kingdom is. People they were close to will no longer set foot in church. People have lost faith in Christians, and worse, in Jesus, due to what happened. When I voiced this with a friend she told me to trust them to God. Wise words. However the sense of guilt is still there. The sense of not understanding how this could be the plan. The plan for me to be upended, to be placed somewhere my children are unhappy. To have the next steps I was about to take paused. To have people leaving church with a vow never to come back. The hurt. Right now it makes no sense. Right now it feels the opposite of God's work.
So what next? Quit? Give up? The more doors I push the more I feel trapped in the here and now.
This is where I am supposed to be…though I don't know why…
What should I be doing? Should I be carrying on even though processing the trauma has yet to fully happen, every time I think I'm there tears come or I think I see him and start to shake. I will have to process it at the speed I can and am able to. To me it all comes down to trust, each and every time. I could follow my own path or I could trust God. My worldly side thinks that I should plan, do something, anything. But where would that get me? God has been direct enough to shut down any attempts to do that.
All thoughts for the future involve me worried about the children, finances and practicalities of following the path of church leadership God has set before me. So, I feel that there is only one option open to me now.
That of obedience.
One step at a time, into what seems like darkness, knowing that God has a plan for the future even if he won't share it with me! That's faith at its fullest. I'm not sure I have faith at that level, if I'm honest, not yet. But I am starting to think I will when I get to where he's taking me!
And maybe, after all, that's the point! That its the journey, the daily walk with God, rather than the destination that I'm agreeing to. If I agree to the journey I need to keep my impatience in check long enough to trust Him with the destination.
