********** religious triggers **********
On my blog entry entitled My Own Faith Journey after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment:
I’m curious how you got past the feeling that [God] deserted you in your childhood when you really needed Him. ~ Ivory
It took me a long time to move past feeling abandoned by God. I used to ask what the h@#$ good is it being God if He cannot even prevent one child from being abused. However, I came to realize that I was viewing my situation under faulty assumptions.
I blame organized religion for part of the problem. Churches often are guilty of saying things like, “God will keep you safe.” However, that simply is not biblical. Many of the apostles were martyred, and even Jesus himself was crucified. So, telling little kids that they will be safe if they believe in God is just plain wrong.
You will not find anywhere in the Bible that promises that God will keep you from being hurt if you believe in Him or trust Him. I think that church folks made this up to give them a false sense of security. That way, as long as they do X, Y, and Z, then they believe that they are safe as they go about their daily lives. The truth is that, if they have managed to live their lives without being traumatized, they are simply lucky.
Once I accepted the fact that God never promised to keep children safe, I recognized that I was blaming God for failing to do something that He never promised to do in the first place. It is not God’s job to keep my kid safe – that is my job as an adult who loves him. If all adults loved all kids, then no child would be abused. However, there are many people in the world who do not love kids, not even their own children, and that is the reason for child abuse. There is plenty of blame to go around, but God is not where I place the blame.
I do not believe that God deserted me. In fact, I believe He was ever-present, giving me the gift of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and the hope that the future would be better so that I could survive the abuse. God promises to heal broken hearts, not to prevent them from breaking. God also charges His people to protect children. Those who did not heed his instructions will suffer one day. I blame the adults in my life who did not protect me for the abuse, not God.
Back to the question of how I reached this place – It was through a lot of Bible study, prayer (including lots of “prayers” that were really just me yelling at God), and meditation. It also involved letting go of what churches had told me about who God is and exploring who God is myself. God cannot be contained in a church or even in a book like the Bible. The Bible points us to who God is, but it cannot contain Him. To really get to know God, you have to reach out and invite Him in. Like Job, I wanted God to “defend” Himself, and, like Job, I found that I was asking the wrong questions.
Does this help?
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Yes, it helps. I’ve heard that before (in a way), but it came from someone in an organized religion. I didn’t realize that they believe in x, y, and z also. I have never liked organized religion, it is too confining and ritualistic (something I have a huge problem with).
I shake my fist at God several times a week. I don’t always speak in a manner most would say was reverent and I hate it when people tell me I need to “trust” Him. And, yes, you are totally right when you say that as a child I was told He would keep me safe – I bought into the whole thing as a child. I believed as a child could believe and I thought He let me down. That is something that will be hard to let go of.
Thank you much for giving me your outtake on this – I am very grateful!
Hi, Ivory.
I am glad that this helped. :0)
In my opinion, if you are “shaking your fist” at God several times a week, you actually have a closer relationship with God than many self-professed “Christians.” I think God would rather that you yell and scream at Him than just go about your life because you are spending time with Him, even if you are yelling the entire time.
There is a time to be angry, and then there is a time to let go of that anger. Many church people try to guilt you into believing that you have no right to express your anger or, even worse, are “sinning” when you feel angry. None of that is biblical. It has been my experience that I need to pour all of that heavy emotion out first. It is only after doing this that I have room inside of myself to fill back up with God’s love and grace. It is a process with no shortcut.
Take care,
– Faith
Good blog and good comments!
Faith,
Thank you for this perspective, you’ve articulated a lot of my own feelings and experiences. I absolutely love the reply to Ivory about spending time with God even if it is in anger toward Him. I hadn’t thought about that, I will no longer feel guilty for that. I believe God will help me process and let go of those strong feelings when the time is right.
Something my therapist said a while back is that you can’t forgive until you know what it is that you are forgiving, I think anger is the same way, we have to process it and understand it before we can let go of it. Too often, “church” people want survivors to “get over it” and forgive, they have no idea what they are saying!
Thanks again,
barbi
This is so helpful, Faith. Thanks.
“Those who did not heed his instructions will suffer one day.”
I believe this to be true in that they are suffering and will suffer by being what they are. That they are missing goodness. I am not so sure that they will be punished further.
I sure see no evidence that it always happens in this life.
I know that what I wanted when I was a child was for them to stop. I did not want anyone to get hurt including me. There was when was very small no concept of retribution or punishment. That was learned.
***triggers*** (i think—not entirely sure what everyone means by that, but thought I’d be safe and write it)
I don’t think I realized how angry this issue makes me until now. For the last 10 years I would call myself an atheist because I can’t believe in a god who is all powerful and all knowing that would not intervene while children get hurt. That’s just so hard for my head to wrap around. I will have to think about what you said about us asking the wrong questions and having incorrect assumptions. You said that god never promised to save children from harm, but shouldn’t it be expected from an all powerful being? I don’t know if I’m expecting anyone to answer that or if I’m just venting. I can remember a night when I was at one of my all time lowest and I had already been praying as heartfelt as I knew how to take my pain away. I was so very miserable and depressed that I knew I had reached the breaking point. I remember begging for god to show himself to me and to help me with this burden. I gave him an ultimatum (I know who am I to give god an ultimatum) that if he didn’t show himself to me then I was done. I waited ….he never came. I downed 150 pills and drank some alchohol. Fortunately/Unfortunately? I survived. Unless something unforseen happens I will no longer trust/believe in a god. However, I do believe in spirituality and believe it’s very important to a balanced life. I know this is long winded, it’s an old post anyway so who knows who’s going to see it, but what about what the bible says about the shepherd and the 99 sheep. I can’t remember exactly how the parable goes but the gist was that the shepherd left the 99 and went back to save the 1. Isn’t that essentially gods promise to save us? I don’t know….this is absolute frustration that I would really like to stuff back in.
Hi, Journey.
You raise some good questions that I will blog about.
The trigger warning is a courtesy to let people know that something that you have written could cause them to have a flashback. Many people experienced abuse that dealt with religion (such as being raped by a person dressed as a religious figure). When people who are triggered by religion see the warning, they can choose not to read further if they are not in a good place.
Take care,
– Faith
[…] my blog entry entitled Getting Past Feeling like God Deserted You after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment: For the last 10 years I would call myself an atheist […]