Whatcha Got to Say?
LOL! No Girl, my mama's name is Glenda. 
Thanks for your advice and encouragement Tee. I know the pressure is going to be on and I'm really going to have to seek God.
After I wrote my post yesterday, I came over here and read your post about cults. Now I thought that was weird! I spent the next hour going through articles I found from the link you posted. I found some good ones on spiritual abuse. One that really sounds like me is at
http://www.slm.org/trtdigst/arti...cles/
abuse.html. Check it out.
(I had to split my comments in half, it was too long! )
I go to a church with a very small congregation, half of which is family. It's not the big, spiritual things that don't sit right with me, it's the little things that drive me crazy. The small subtle comments, looks between people,etc. There are more things that I could get into but I don't wanna write a book on here. I believe God shows up at this church, the Pastor preaches Jesus and discipleship, those things I can't deny. It's just the small stuff. And I've really beaten myself down,feeling like the rebellious one, the disobedient one, the paranoid one, etc. I could go on & on but I'll stop here til later.
"...the "family" of God being only here at this church..." - Did they actually come out and say that to you???
No they never said that. But they teach once you know where God has joined you, to what family (church) He wants you to be in, then why would you want to leave.
I felt strongly that I was supposed to be there. I felt like my Pastor was going to be the instrument for me to achieve my destiny and apart from him I could not do anything. Maybe it was just my own mind set.
I dont know Donni, all I know is my head is all mixed up right now and I am done with feeling like Im worthless because I can't feel how they want me to feel.I always felt like I didn't measure up. That I wasnt obedient enough or I hadn't made it to the "In Crowd" and what made things worse, I didnt want to be in the "In Crowd" I was fine on the sidelines but that wasn't good enough.
Im hurting.
I read your link and FREAKED OUT! Everything in that link was my church. EVERYTHING. We have spiritual authority and spiritual covering. They teach us that they are a gift from God to us to help guide us and as long as we submit to their authority, we will be fine.
When I first came I was told, "If one of the leaders asks you to do something you just do it, no questions asked." So I did, because I thought this was pleasing to God.
This is too wild Donni. I was even a little apprehensive about discussing this over the net because I didnt want to upset them if they ever came across this link, but these are the true feelings of my heart and I can't believe I ignored all the signs; like I didnt feel like things were quite right but I wanted the good life and I felt if I was obedient to them then I could have it. Am I crazy? Am I the only one who feels this way?
Freakyness. I'm shaking.
Don't be hurt and don't be down. Take those words you gave me today about defeating thoughts and apply them to yourself. We can both do this.
I really don't have anyone to talk about this with. My best friend goes to this church too but she's not really feeling me on this. I'm waiting for a better time to talk to her about it. So I felt like I was out there alone and must not be surrendered enough, obedient enough etc.
What you described about your Pastor, it's amazing me because I could've written those EXACT words! One of the first things my Pastor said to me was, "You're destiny is tied to my mouth." So in my mind, this was the place God wanted me. And for me to feel any other way, was wrong!
If you're crazy, that would make me crazy too! I wonder how many more "crazies" there are out there?
I just realized that its not necesarily them, we have a large part in our church experience. Our personalities are so similar in the fact that we take things so personally and we often see the negative before we can see the good.
If we relax a moment and consider that these ppl love us and want to guide us into a better life through Christ, we will see that they dont want to control us, but our hearts are so heavy with our misgivings that we take everything as an attack on us as people. Girl, we should talk. Ill email you.
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