The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
~J.R.R. Tolkien~
I copied this verse as a "thank you" for the dear friend who woke me up to the fact I was in a cult.
'Escaping' the cult is just the step out of the door. A great journey yet lies ahead. Some of it is discovering the outright lies that were told (in a church setting), how nice those "worldly" people are, and the fact that your eyelids do not fall off if apply mascara to them...hee!
"The Cult Next Door" has been a way for me to take that journey. I have made amazing friends such as Hillary McFarland, Shari Howerton, Lewis Wells, Provender, Meg and Burnie, and Eric Pazdziora. I discovered refreshing blogs such as Elizabeth Esther and Jumpers to Jeans. Most of all, I got the toxic out by writing about it. It helped to write that spiritual abuse made me feel like a Frankenstein. Spiritual abuse was like being hazed, having terrible invisible wounds.
I finally feel like I have written almost everything I have needed to say. Technically not much has changed in my circumstances...the cult pastor is still out and about in Dade City. I would be very shocked if she has changed any of her reprehensible ways. She most likely figured out a way to gloss them over a little bit better, make them a bit less obvious. But I'm sure she's still taking poor deceived folks hard-earned money and telling them that if they dare leave the church (and especially her) behind they will burn in hell. She's probably still praying that the folks who speak the truth of her deeds will die...that's just the nature of her insanity.
Like the wicked witch she just can't help terrorizing the west my pretties.
It would be nice if she get really and truly SAVED!!! If it can happen to the Saul-before-he-was-Apostle-Paul it can definitely happen to her.
The thing is, it won't eat at me if it doesn't happen. I still hurt for a dear friend trapped in the middle of it all.
But I can't save her- I finally "got" that. God can though...I won't stop praying for her.
So...the point of this post: I guess it's time for "TCND" to start winding down. I will leave the pages up and post ever so often. It's just time for me to move on down the path.
The last post for a while will be on October 31, 2010. Fitting to me 'cuz to me spiritual abuse dresses up to hide its true ugliness.
In the interim I have several last posts and would love to hear from readers with their stories!
I wish I could have a HUGE party with all you amazing survivors...as time and space limits an actual one...any suggestions on some interactive "stuff" on the blog? E-mail your ideas to me: toxicsheepnomore@yahoo.com
So for all of us still following the road some quotes:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
It is good to feel lost... because it proves you have a navigational sense of where "Home" is. You know that a place that feels like being found exists. And maybe your current location isn't that place but, Hallelujah, that unsettled, uneasy feeling of lost-ness just brought you closer to it. ~Erika Harris, lifeblazing.com
image by beth_harrison in photobucket
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