And this........

From Purpose Fairy

And she wrote a book...

If you have read more than four posts on this site you have figured out that I adore blogger Elizabeth Esther.
EE's posts stage with brilliant clarity the struggle of life outside after abuse inside a cult.
She is real time and transparent with her heart break and humor.
All that said: Best news ever! She wrote a book.
I am pre-ordering now...

I am here and there...

I have been a scarce blogger since October- Life has a way of taking over one's time.

Mostly in that time I have been reading and healing.

And working to pay for gas.

And paying for gas to work. [SMILE!!!]

I do have some ideas for some posts...mostly just more "stuff" I want to say about healing.

I am going to share some of my favorite reads:

On the serious side:
The Secret Life of Grief by Hillary McFarland
Once again Hillary's writing shines on the haunting beauty of grief

Clean by Eric Pazdziora
Eric describes the glorious fact that we are indeed washed

This is where the healing begins by Tenth Avenue NorthI feel like dancing after listening to this song :)

dear unloved by Serena Woods

Serena describes perfectly the feeling of being an outcast

in light of all the furor Rob Bell has stirred up:

Jesus and _______

Lewis discusses with candor the Christianity's need to proclaim the burning side of grace

AND just for giggles:

If you need a belly laugh visit this site.

And no. They are not serious.

Guest Post By Provender: Spiritual Abuse is Invisible Trauma

photo by JoscelynAllen in flickr

Recently, I added a quote by Ron Henzel to my Spiritual Abuse quote of the month on Provender, and it’s a good one. It speaks to the heart of the issue of spiritual abuse:

The manipulation involved in Spiritual Abuse is especially cruel because it takes advantage of a person's deepest needs and highest ideals.

After you’ve gone through a period of spiritual abuse, you are at first only interested in survival, and then recovery. It takes some time to look back and take stock of what happened. Even after you’ve done that, you don’t always appreciate the huge toll spiritual abuse takes on your psyche. You know you’re hurting. You know the hurt is magnified by memories of unjust incidents and painful words.

Still, I’m not sure how many victims realize that spiritual abuse reaches right into the depths of the spirit and hurts the most vulnerable parts of our being. We trusted. Our trust was seized and used against us. We loved. Our love was grabbed and twisted into servitude. We hoped. Our hope was dangled in front of us with promise after promise, not always spoken. Those promises were yanked farther away. We yearned to be nearer to God. Instead, we were led along a walkway to a human idol and told we were nearing God, as the burdens grew heavier and more unbearable.

I’ve been on sites where victims of spiritual abuse cry in pain. They don’t know if they will ever again trust. They no longer know for sure if God is real. They long for intimacy with Him but can’t find it. I’ve been on other pages where victims are cynical and even hostile toward believers and churches. The pain and bitterness ate through their souls and left an empty hole. Some start anti-Christian web sites and spew hate-filled words like weapons at the church.

None of this surprises me any more. What they endured was a searing hot poker at their most sensitive spiritual skin. Some do heal. They may have to deal with disfigurement and scar tissue, but they manage to get back to a place where they can open up to God again. For some, that takes years and years. Some seem to waver, going back and forth, believing and not believing. Hardly daring to believe.

Others go from one abusive situation into another. Some have been drawn to more than one other abusive situation after a first one. How any of those victims survive, I will never know.

The point I’m trying to make is for those freshly out of a spiritually abusive experience. If you haven’t been able to recover right away, don’t be bewildered about it. Don’t wonder why you can’t pray, or keep rehashing unpleasant experiences, or wake up fearful, or constantly worry about people in your old group. You’ve just been through something extremely high on the stress continuum. Spiritual abuse is like losing a spouse or being in a fire or discovering the betrayal of adultery. It’s like a fatal car accident, a child’s life-threatening injury, a diagnosis of cancer.

People don’t talk about spiritual abuse. There are some good books on the subject but they don’t hit the bestseller list. There are good sites out there on the topic, but often you have to dig for them. There are groups that help in recovery, but churches rarely talk about them.

Because spiritual abuse is something you aren’t exposed to much before it happens to you, it may seem like it’s not something big, that you should be better by now, that you are silly for being paranoid or frightened or angry or obsessed about what happened. But you’re not. You’ve been through something that scarred the most vulnerable part of you. It’s going to take some time.

So what can you do? Read about spiritual abuse to see how common it is. Talk about what happened to you and don’t let the Don’t Talk Rule silence you. It’s not sin to talk about it. In fact, it promotes healing to do that. Find others who have been through it and talk to them. If you don’t think you can pray, try praying again later, when the wounds are less raw. And remember to take care of yourself because you’ve been through a lot, even though no one around you can see it.

Click here to read Provender's guest post "Twisting Scripture".

Further Reading:
Weaning Myself From Religious Addiction

Tuesday Quote

The saying "time heals all things" is just not true. If you have an infected finger, the last thing you want to do is give it more time..Our hearts, minds, and souls are exactly like that. When someone has hurt us-or we've allowed someone to hurt us-we need to drain the wound before we're going to get any relief. If we'll open it up and clean it out and put in a little medicine, it will get better. Just like cleaning out a wound, it hurts for a little while... [but] it's worth it.
The statement, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," is true at so many levels. We do not need to walk around with toxins inside of us, either physically or emotionally.

Dr. Henry Cloud
The Secret Things of God