Dot Matrix

" Waysider I agree that not all people were smart. But many were. I had many people tell me something wasn't right, or they wanted to get an education rather than go WOW or whatever and they were considered "trip outs." Some of the corps who did not come back, not due to finances, but they "fell in love" on the field and wanted to get married. They saw a more productive life than life in TWI and they were told he who vows a vow... Or whatever, many had valid reasons for not letting an "organization" control them. Several friends of mine left after they were introduced to the its okay to sleep with leadership. OR you were called to bless a man of God sexually... crap. They were smart. Really, it was unreasonable for me to stay once vpw tried to get me. But not knowing all the stuff, like provided through Paw's Greasespot, I fought for the "good" to come back. Being completely tricked into thinking there was GOOD in there that could be revived. Some, of course, were not. Thus the purple cow... If you-know-who were here he'd have us fighting over define "many". All relative to your journey with TWI, I guess. I do not want to get too specific for there will always be a detail that doesn't apply to the journey "you" took. But the groundwork for independent deliverance is my goal here. I am still in the repair shop myself.

May I add, without all TWI made them feel at one time, they loose their identity and feel like nothing. There is the lie. TWI/sociopaths steal your identity they do not provide it. It is like the 55-year-old guy who keeps talking about the "game" they played where they did the winning MOVE in high school. That was the best it ever got for them. Their identity was so defined by their victory in sports they cannot or will not look at their own current life and strive towards current victory. When they feel crappy they revisit the feel good moment 36 years ago and they feel better. We need to get on with our lives, those who have not, we can take the feel good moment of PFAL and credit BG Leonard, and build on it. We were never suppose to stop there defending that "moment" in time as the reason they live. IT is such a trick. And those tricked were probably just kids looking for Jesus like us -- but they cannot get out of it because the reality --- that the reality was a woven lie -- is just too much. It is as if the 55-year-old guy gets word someone taped his "moment" and when looking at it again -- the other team actually won because he did something wrong. He will fight to death defending his "game" and the day he won it for his team. It takes some big meek people to look at it and say, "I was wrong." At that moment all/much of what we stood on falls apart and we need to build a "new floor" to stand on. It takes a little work. It is easier for some to self-deceive than to do the work. It is a shame and they might be among the largest and saddest loss we gave to TWI. --- What they could have been.... What we could have been... So, let us say this is what I will be now!! (And recover, we can ask for God to restore that which the locust have eaten)

And the practical application is simple and yet a BIG struggle once you have given your power away. Healing: Know where to place a "period" at the end of a sentence. The developing co-dependent will say, "He makes me feel good about myself" Learn to say, "He makes me feel good." The responsibility of feeling GOOD "about yourself" lies within YOU and your own power/own walk with God. When you begin to be uncomfortable and are having bells and whistles -- do not talk yourself out of them. They are tools placed there by God to keep us out of the soup. A small example: On the WOW field I had 3 girls in my "family". One night one of the girls drove to a meeting and when she went to PARK the car, she was uncomfortable with the spot she chose. The other girls said, "Oh leave the car here, come on, who cares?" I said, "IF YOU are not comfortable parking here then don't. If anything happens THEY are not going to be responsible. YOU will be." Do not let their words turn off your HEALTHY switches. She moved the car and the next morning the car that DID park there was hit. Now, you cannot go the other way where you allow healthy signals to become obsessive/compulsive either. I am speaking of a healthy walk of freedom. We cannot control everything, we can control ourselves and how we handle things thrown at us. If someone wants to take away your POWER. GET OUT!! When the gregarious, confident man begins to leak the monster inside -- run. You cannot FIX him, there is a monster, you are not crazy. Many of those people who "tripped out" of TWI probably saw the monster. They were the smart ones to leave. We, who stayed to FIX it, although courageous, only hurt ourselves. You cannot fix a sociopath or a counterfeit society and stay "genuine". You begin to compromise. You allow "self" to be stolen and replaced by blind obedience. You can have a sense of “self” powered by God. You cannot have a sense of “self” powered by a cancer cell of a human being or an organization --- they will feed on “self” until nothing is left. Know how to take a person and place them in one chair and their behavior in another. Know when someone GOES OFF on you - most times it is about them. You KNOW if you did something wrong. If you did not DO something wrong do not let their words ride into your soul. YA know, "You worthless piece of crap, you will never amount to anything. YOU BLEW IT!" Those messages are about THEM not about you -- unless you burned their house down or something and still the words need to be adjusted and you need help-- not be told you will NEVER amount to anything. I think you see where I am going... That is why the unconditional love of God is so amazing. Only read the next sentence, then close your eyes and answer before continuing: BE HONEST Describe how you feel about God RIGHT now... THEN, read on... I, at first said, he is never there when I really need him, when I call to hear him he can be silent, I do not understand him and I feel he is hot and cold at times. She said you described your "earthly" father. Many of you just did as well. We need to separate the two fathers. And even though my earthly father did his BEST it is not the standard of love the heavenly father has for us. Our earthly fathers have cracks in them, hurts, wounds, and bad choices -- they are men. OUR GOD does not have those cracks - it is safe to love him -- the REAL him not the manufactured counterfeit HIM TWI presented -- with the give you something with the left hand and smack the crap out of you for taking it with the right hand -- kind of crap. That message breeds insanity, not safety. Here is an exercise: Put TWI in one chair and God in the other and tell me about each. tell me the differences. We, cult kids, need to separate them.

I am ripvanwinkle who awoke from a LOOOOOOONG nap. (((Waysider)))

I hope this helps. I am in the "repair" shop myself. Learning how to dance to my own music and not perform for someone else to "keep the peace" This is what I am learning with my counselor Co-dependency is a treatable illness of lost selfhood. You are not born with it. It is learned behavior from things like being married to an alcoholic, bipolar, sociopath, etc. you learn the “egg shell” walk to avoid explosions, you learn to do certain things to get them to "love" you... etc. Or like being in a cult: If you “submit” you are a “favorite son” if you question you are “the devil”. If you tithe you are “walking with God” if you are not “You are shunned and cold shouldered or yelled at” You hunger for their approval so you stop questioning…you just act in obedient servitude. They supply the drug “approval” and you supply the “worship” they need to function and crave. And when you are starving for them, they enjoy your hunger and the power to supply the “drug” or withhold it. There are different stages of co-dependency: The early stage, where we experiment, such as if we act a certain way TWI leadership or Sociopath responds with love. We are tasting the drug. We want that "good" stuff we saw, it made "me feel good about myself". The middle stage we begin to not always get the response we want so we TRY to please our “source” even more. We now go up and down with their infrequent responses of kindness. We experience hurt and disappointment. Where did the "good feeling" go? What did "I do" to make them stop "loving" me? How can I modify MY behavior to get my "drug" (their approval - love)? We are addicted. Advanced stage with the accumulation of pain and not understanding why we can’t re-experience the “good feelings,” the "source" supplied in the beginning, we can become neurotic in trying to get them to approve of us again. Other addictions spin off and it becomes a full on illness Last stage known as “terminal”(but I still believe behavior modification will save you) we cannot get the “feeling back” we will not listen to our friends and family who suggest this “source” is unhealthy. Our mental health declines and well as physical health can decline. Even here at Greasespot when person after person tells certain posters they need to wake up, it is like an intervention. We have seen many people delivered. We have seen a few where the “intervention” just does not work because they just do not get the “extent” of their addiction. They have not “hit bottom” or cannot see the fact that they are bottom dwellers as they are so engrained in protecting the “source” that their “lives” have shrunk and not expanded. In their small sphere of life the “source” has been protected, the drug is still available and the fact that their life has become small is lost on them and they do not see they were robbed of all they could and can be. My concern is Newlife that you have “danced” for this woman and listened to her to the end that you performed things you would have never done simply because she told you to do it. In some way you wanted to please her and the ministry she represented. My point is, the learned behavior of co-dependency, even though a learned illness, is pervasive. I am going to use the word “you” in a general sense. For instance, you get involved with a cult, you wind up married to an alcoholic, you divorce and wind up in yet another situation requiring you to “dance”. Please make sure you are free, healthy and "up for it" Newlife then do what you want to do. May God bless and keep you.

(((newlife))) Thanks for your story Twinky to add: In a co-dependent relationship with a sociopath, the sociopath becomes the drug – say heroine. At first, it is a feel good thing that takes away your pain and makes you feel great. You do not look at it like a life ruining addiction. But soon after tasting that “good feeling” you HAVE to have it. All logic aside – you have to have it, you have to protect your “source”. Their words are the drug. And we, "the broken” need our fix. Their words fix(ed) us – then, like any drug, it rips us apart – but it is hard to let go. Some are able to go cold turkey and get away. Others are on methodone, they need the "words" of a therapist or real minister to help them find their way from the addiction. While others, the saddest of the sad, never break free and they die in their addiction. Sociopaths THEMSELVES become your addiction. The pusher pushes, "I have the answer." The "Christian" sociopath slips us to the left and right of God, becoming the answer and becoming a drug. The addict, breaks the addiction, gets help to break the addiction, or stays addicted. Who among us doesn’t want to live a good life, make a difference, walk with God and have the answers to a questioning hungry “nation.” Who didn’t want their life to count for something? OR to be special or do special things? Or more harmony in the home? Much of this is innate and the “counterfeits tap into our needs” and they shift us in our thinking to being the supplier of those needs waltzing us away from Christ centeredness into blind loyalty. The answer is not TWI, PFAL, or fighting here. It is God. It is Jesus and LOVE. Sociopaths know they are a drug and it gives them power -- we become addicted to the "feel good message" or "winning them/it back" when we do not get "it", we overlook abuse and truth.. We need the drug. They KNOW they are the drug we do not always know we are the addicts.

“The hook is the sometimes good stuff (at least, it sounds good, to the unitiated, until they have time to consider it) stuff. It's bait. Set out to entrap the loyal, as Dot says. Once the bait is taken, then the victim is slowly, oh so slowly, reeled in. As VPW said in PFAL, even the Devil knows the Word. There's just enough "word" to deceive.” Yep! No self respecting fish goes after an empty hook.

AMEN! However, as much nauseam as WD has created for me through the years, He did have a right to ask where Dotty stated it. My first inclination was to go hunt down a book and read it, as I do not recall seeing it either. But it is the way he asks. Could you have just said, “Anyone know where it is I would like to read it.” Those who continue to defend VPW; This is not an attack on you but an explanation as to why each time you enter a thread almost nobody is happy to see you, you add nothing to the conversation, you cause destruction and mayhem and people have gone from liking you to reviling you. Even on the other extreme of normal you seem to travel miles past it. However, it is a great example of being “sold out” to a “cause”, which has PROVEN flawed. You have become living examples of why people SHOULD reexamine all they learned in TWI, you give fuel to the engine of why people should LEAVE them. YOU have become some of the BEST examples of the harm they have caused, and sadly you do not even know it. To all posters so I do not make this about one/two poster(s): TWI made most of us, or tapped into what was there, Co-dependence. The WORD stinks but the meaning is what allows the sociopath to continue to have "followers" long after they should have reasonably walked away. Many walk. Some “wake-up” and walk. But when a person will hold onto vapid nothingness-- it gets into following “right or wrong” and those of you who do that actually PROVE cult mentality. The cult provided a “truth” a “home” and "answers". We had bonding and love. We became people with the answers in a crazy mixed up world. It felt great!!! Who would not want that? The first time we are diced and sliced we can think it a fluke. The time we turn a blind eye to sexual promiscuity and rape we need to ask what we are thinking. And if person after person says it happened and tells you -- and we REFUSE to believe it, it becomes a form of mental illness. You are dependent on TWI to keep that wonderful (feeling) identity they crafted for you in order to “be someone” Your identity becomes wrapped up in who they think you are, and who they said you are, and who they say you will be. Their co-dependence is derived from being able to target these “loyal” fans and steal their power… their lives… like a cancer cell robs a healthy cell of it life then making the healthy cell sick. Most healthy people WALK away from repeated mistreatment. Some heroes have courage and try to fix it giving it their best shot, but they soon recognize that which they are trying to fix is “real” or it is not “real”. In TWI, it is a tare among the wheat. I never understood that thinking it was an obvious "weed". But a tare looks just like a wheat and they grow among us and the only way to know if they are a wheat or a tare is when you open the tare – it is empty. TWI was opened and it was empty. TWI “mimicked” the ministries of other good men in order to hide among us unnoticed and trying to look like a Christian organization. That is sociopathic tendencies. It is deceiving spirits, it is the counterfeit, it is the opposite of good it is evil. We were “set-up” and it is hard to look at, believe and/or admit. To come here time and time again and have the clouds moved from your eyes and yet “you” choose to follow the clouds is an “illness.” Any reasonable person would eventually SEE not choose to follow the clouds in a preferred blindness. I was in the same cult as the rest of you. I suffer similar cracks in my make-up. I have tendencies to fight for the underdog, to not give up, to be brave and loyal… But with that type of core you need to always evaluate WHERE you place and with WHOM you put your loyalty or you do wind up in a clinically named illness of “co-dependency”. Sociopaths are addicting when they lay it on, it feels GREAT. And when they rip out your soul you have further to fall because the high was so up there. Instinctively, you try to hold on by making “the good” happen again. But what if the good was never really there? What if it was “created” as the snare of snares? To catch the most loyal of people in its net. And the most fiercely loyal stay tangled in its net – screaming defense of its very capturers as they dangle above ground with no safe footing but in a tortured state of trying to “recreate” the "feel good time" of the past --- and that also was a created illusion. Then, the victim becomes ill themselves. To me VPW was a brilliant sociopath collecting the sweetest people he could-- to devour them. The sweeter we were the more tasty the treat. He was a tare who collected wheat to keep them from being all they could be. He was a wolf lying among us garbed in sheep’s attire. Defenders, with you fierce tenacity, why aren’t you out teaching to the tens of thousands in China, or fixing the heartland of its drug problems, with your relentless energy and loyalty to “Christ” your ministry could have been great. And you do not see that to be here fighting to preserve VPW in some way, is as good as it got for you? You are in the net. You were called to more. Let a God who loves you show you what that is, take your eyes off the saving of a lost cause and look at how many hollow faces are in need of Christ… take your energy and go do what you were meant to do… I do not imagine this is it… You are better than this, God is bigger than this…. Edited for commas and a typo

I also held a sobbing Mrs. W's hand as she sobbed and sobbed when I told her I KNEW what her husband was doing and it was WRONG.

Absolutely If you cannot "do" it then get divorced rather than sneak around in adultery. There are many reasons for divorce and "getting older" should not be one of them. For better or worse. However, when the safe alternatives, therapy, talking, praying, trying do not work for that couple then I think divorce is better than adultery. Divorce says "It did not work out." Adultery is a sneaky, lying, trust-breaking, soul crunching horror show to all concerned. VP used to tell people how his wife's vagina was not funtioning or something... stupid. He should have divorced her and given her a chance to find love rather than destroy the world around him with his small penis and his big lies. "I am so sick of people excusing their immoral behavior, rather than having the character and fortitude to do the hard job of helping that person that you have promised to love handle the load that you yourself have placed on their shoulders." What if the good person trying so hard is the one who finally wants out? I think they should be able to get out of a horrible situation and still be able to love God and talk about the Bible. The adulterer - should not be able to do so. It is a different "crime" so-to-speak. Divorce openly says I failed. Adultery is insidious and takes down more lives than divorce - IMO

Courtship may be longer. Many many things need to be considered before marriage. And if you still get married and are so miserable, not just tired of your wife because her breasts are no longer breasts and her hind end became part of her legs in age, then divorce. I know a Baptist preacher who had a gun in his mouth over a BAD marriage. Is suicide better than divorce? What made divorce the inexcusable sin? This preacher was married for 22 years and his wife died of cancer. He still had three kids at home and THIS woman whose husband died 2 years prior got it in her head "preacher man" was for her. She did everything to "get him". And He knew her and the deceased husband for years. Anyway, she was kind & enjoyed what he enjoyed... On a one to one social level she mimicked his "wife" who had died. Grief stricken, desperate for his family, he thought God restored that which the locust had eaten. After marriage, she, like the sociopath discussed in the other thread, revealed her true self. And this man's whole life was ministry. He did not want to loose his ministry. He would rather die. And became so desperate, that even with kids; he thought his own death was better than life with this demon. God intervened and he took the gun out of his mouth and divorced. Does God like divorce - no. But I don't think he likes lottery tickets, cursing, over-eating and many other things either. Divorce should be a well thought through decision but I do not think it should be removed as an option just because a man teaches the Bible. That leads to lonely broken people and the devil with an open door to their human desires... Adultery. Now, if someone is just a pig that wants to cheat and blame his wife - I get that. I think we as a church need to look "at divorce" and we may, as a church, see less "adultery". It should not be an answer "first" looked at in a "sick" marriage but certainly not removed as an option. But adultery? That to me is much much worse.

God is warning us about the people who "look like us" He calls us sheep. Jesus was the lamb. Then, he says beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. People hiding among us who look and act like us but ARE NOT. The tare looks just like the wheat but has "no heart" they are empty and zap the life of the wheat as they grow side by side. The FALSE prophet is still getting "revelation" (albeit from the "other" source) and performs miracles and casts out devils. But line it up next to the REAL prophets - Looks very much LIKE the real.... Yet Jesus sends them away saying he did not know them. And it seems right up the end they try and deceive --- they try to bluff their way into heaven by declaring they have done all these things in his name.... The other stuff (regular ol' unbelievers) is easy to spot, this group not at all. I think God is warning us about what we call the sociopath. He (the sociopath) does pretend to be what others are - to fit in and cause harm.

Yes, many local churches and many people woven among us to kill us off and take our power. Thanks Bride

Johnj The pastors are whipped into staying "married" by those who take scripture and make it into something I do not think it was meant to be - mean with lack of understanding. If you find yourself married to a person who is nothing like what she presented herself to be, after therapy, after prayer, after much trying to "fix" things, then divorce. Take a break, repair your hearts, then come back. Adultery was mentioned in the big 10 and divorce was not, gotta mean something... To me divorce is more "honest" than adultery. Divorce says "This is not working we made a mistake" most people can forgive a mistake. Adultery says, I do not care if I am a liar to my wife, church members, and use someone else to meet my need for love... It screams of secrets, lies, and deception... A divorce, no matter how bad it tastes, is more honest and upfront. I guess I am a little off my own topic - but I think we need to look at this-

My question, going in over a year ago, is what is a counterfeit and help me avoid them (paraphrased) I have been talking to a bunch of people who have been ripped to shreds in "relationships" I thought I could help them with their broken hearts... I think God had me talk to all those people, yes to help them, but to help me. It was the same story with different people repeated to me. Why? Because there are tares among the wheat. The teaching our "pastor" gave on this was the first I ever heard a tare looks just like a wheat. I thought it was an obvious weed - but a tare looks just like wheat until you open the pod and the pod is empty. Is an atheist a tare? (Not meant to offend them here but as a Bible believer it is IN the book so it makes its way into what I am writing. This is not to turn into a defense of the atheist position) Is a regular old unbeliever a tare? I do not believe so because they do NOT look exactly like wheat. They usually tell us they do not believe in God and have no qualms about it. It is pretty obvious that a man holding a knife a screaming does not mean you well. Or a man/woman who says, "I am not interested" that they just are not interested... But the smiling face of someone who tells you they love Jesus. And as you knock yourself out doing all you can for our lord, they tell you it is not enough, or mark and avoid you etc. They leave you crumpled on the floor wondering about yourself... Or about this loving God who does not FEEL so loving after encountering THAT believer... They look like us but something is just not right. Not visible at first meeting, perhaps. So, I had to survey the landscape of my own failures. And I am very easily impressed by the charismatic, gregarious, "says all the right things" kind of person. I become addicted to how they make me feel – Much more to type but you get the picture and this is a corporate question not a personal one. The sociopath. Science calls them sociopaths. It is my contention that God calls these people, the charming “Christian” sociopath, a tare, false prophet and wolf in sheep’s’ clothing. I know not to fellowship with darkness. I know to give an alter call and wipe the dust off my feet when someone continues to drag out their reasons for not believing, I know not to get linked to a pagan, but I get tricked with the rest. I believe the rest are sociopaths PRETENDING to be what we want to "get us", so who they are is not readily seen, then change into their real identity once they "have you" to destroy you. (In a minor application the woman who pretends to like sports, tons of sex, and does not mind loud burps at the table - then once married actually hates it all and complains. Now, amplify that behavior to crushing a person who just wanted to love God.) In my quest I found this to be informative. It is not the beginning and end all. It is not an authority and it does not have all the answers. I found it helpful. And slightly altered it can also show men the evil WOMEN who are sociopaths http://www.takebackyourheart.com/ So, this is a time I am learning and layers of understanding are being applied as layers of blindness depart for me. But the CORPORATE discussion on this thread is I believe there is a vast difference from the tare, false prophet and wolf in sheep's clothing compared to the unbeliever, the atheist, the pagan and the people who just do not believe the way a Christian does. I think there is a distinction. Different groups we are advised to look at for- And to me this has been the big one- the people who pretend to be us. Maybe start an international ministry from a farm, using another person's legitimate research as bait to hide the hook. So, the bait IS real and tastes great because it is real food. Just TWI never was the "cook" of that food. Bait and switch in TWI In marriages In friend relationships The sociopath or people using sociopathic behavior, I think we are warned of them with the verbiage of wolf in sheep's clothing, tare, and false prophet. I think the warning is different from not to marry a pagan and the like. Pagans, atheist, etc, tell you where they stand, this is different. I just always read past the difference like, "yeah, yeah, avoid people who do not believe..." That is NOT what it is saying at all. I hope I worded this correctly. What do you think?

Sorry posted twice mod pls take this one out. Thanks

Now going to the clinical and away from the spiritual for a moment http://www.takebackyourheart.com/ Kiki Anniston Reveals: “The "Secret Reason" Why Women Are Attracted To Jerks, Players and Just Plain Dangerously Wrong Guys.”

Hello I go by Dot Matrix and I am a co-dependant…. Well, the family corps Doctor graciously helped me through oodles of stuff. I also have a Christian counselor I have been seeing for over a year now. I see her every other week. I like it because we pray and go to the Bible for answers. So, I am speaking with her and she tells me I am a co-dependant. Now, I must tell you I do not like that buzz word, partly because I do not understand it. Not in application anyway. So, I say how so? Well when one of these “types” of people get involved in my life a pattern begins to take place and it is relived over and over again. At first something seems so right. This is “it”. I found the answer! This person is my dream guy!!! This “church” (TWI) is the church and I have finally found it!!! On and on it goes… At first, is the honeymoon period. All is well. The person/church is too good to be true!!! They are all my dreams and all I ever wanted!!!! Then, after I let my guard down and become a fan/member/sell-out the nature of the relationship changes. Signs of abuse begin to surface. I dismiss them because after all, we all make mistakes and I already saw all the wonderful stuff. Soon the abuse and weirdness is too much to deny. But I stick around trying to “fix” it or to “get back” all the neat “feelings” that baited me to begin with. So – Okay I did that in my male-female relationships. So how does that make me dependant? When I try to leave, they will dose me with a dose of “wonderful” to give me a glimmer that we can get “it” back. And I begin to go “up” with their good treatment of me and go “down” with their bad treatment of me. I am wonderful because they think I am wonderful and I am crap when they think I am crap. My idenity becomes what they FEEL about me. They target people like me and like the bad kid who pulls off the wings of the fly to torture it, I become that insect and they become the bad kid. But the SWEET things were so intoxicating that I dismiss the bad and continue to delude myself with thinking the original banquet of delightful deliciousness will reappear and STAY that way. IT will make a few brief reappearances just when I feel like leaving… but the banquet was an illusion. The feast was an oasis that a thirsty person sees in the distance as the sand and heat rob them of their sanity. And they chase after the water only to find more heat and more sand… So, I say how are they DEPENDANT on me? Ya know? CO –dependant? They get their power by robbing you of your “life” of your power. Of watching your hands shake at their mistreatment of you, or watching you crumble into goo as they withdrawal the “good” words providing the “good feelings” and instead “reprove” you by picking you apart and cruelly watching you writhe in a pitiful hunger. They make you “addicts” of them. Always seeking the “good” in them which was manufactured to make you an addict – so they could give and withdrawal the drug at THEIR will --- they get their power from making us into sock puppets…. Dependent on the hand that wears us as the sock. Yes, I have been THAT person in my relationships. IT is a STRONGHOLD of the devil. We need to get our “fix” from Jesus. We need to let him steer our ship and when the world wants to feed us to the lions – we are not to look in the mouth of the lion but at the one who shuts their mouths. We need to look up to our God for our source of who we are and not subject ourselves as addicts to the ups and downs people provide for us as they bait themselves as an addiction – trying to get us to take the first snort of their “feel good” answers so we spend a life time chasing them in the blistering heat to the desert. Hoping we will “feel” that way again. I guess I am these things. I was a co-dependent. It led me to controlling men and to a controlling cult. I wanted to fix my marriage, the cult, the ministers' and my relationship. When in reality there was "nothing" to fix. The good stuff is what a person "pretends to be" to get us. Or the devil puts on the hook as a tastey lure to hook us. I wanted those magic moments, however brief, I chased them like they were the reality and I was going to get it. What I got was deceived. And lived in an illusion of chasing after rainbows. The only thing worth SEEKING after is God! Then, filter all else through him. Same principal with a little twist with TWI The thing with TWI that worked so well was it WAS other people's successful ministries TWI put on the hook as bait. No wonder it tasted so good. It was real. But the fake part was it was never REALLY part of TWI "the hook" to evil. (IMO) Like if I bought a wonderful dinner and fed you - telling you I cooked it. So, you began to date "the cook". The food was great - but I was never really the cook.

Praise God! Thank you Jesus!

Additional God stuff I went to the Father after my eyes were clear and I had to know the following things: 1. Did the minister ever care? 2. What did he think now? 3. Should I write him? (I figured God would tell me what to write and maybe I could “reach” him with reproof and correction or whatever God wanted me to say.) The next morning the last three dream images were 1. A man kissing a woman 2. A night time city cab ride with the driver in the front and two strangers in the back 3. And a picture of a bad check. The symbolism was GREAT!!! God was amazing!!! 1. He wanted “passion” 2. Now we are “strangers in the night”. 3. Do not write (bad checks) Do not write him! God is hysterically funny sometimes and very individual with his conversations with us. So, he wanted passion. Then, out of that came my being an experiment or easily malleable…. The rest … well you get it I love you God! More stuff but I will type later about God's goodness! The next after the minister what God revealed to me about my "open door". What I need to do to rise up.

The God Factor I wish I could go back and re-layer these cool things into the story where they belong. I wanted to share how GOD tried to TELL me and I did not listen to attempts to “save “ me from this situation. Back on March 30th of last year the minister and I had a long talk about healing. I told him how I read all I could find and searched out “healing”. He then “imparted” to me his gift and asked for double. He told me this was the first time he had ever done this. I must tell you that I felt something happen. It was odd. It was like cotton candy – you know, how it wraps around the cardboard stick and sits there lightly covering the stick? It was the SAME thing that happened, except I was the stick and something wrapped around me. One day, I was in the bathtub thinking how God was restoring that which the locust had eaten with this guy. And I heard the still small voice, “You think the last one was bad? This one will be worse and he will do it in my name.” I thought on this for sometime then dismissed it. I should have listened. Later, I was a wreck after he just disappeared for no apparent reason. After a parade of unusual things I do not want to list, I got sick. I had a woman minister to me who told me that the “guy” in my life was using me as some kind of an experiment. Giving me things then pulling them away to see what would happen. Then, I kind of broke. After the 20-year-storm, then the “rush” of this “dream guy” in my life, and his unexplained departure. In a dream/vision I had been in a car wreck. Jesus held my face in his hands and said, “Look at me you have been in a wreck, you are injured and you need to focus on me.” I tried to look for who caused the accident and it was the minister I saw him as they pulled him out of the other car. He was unscathed in a suit. Not dead but not functioning either. Like a non-feeling human. I was concerned about him. Jesus said again and again as my eyes went left and right, “Look at me. Look AT ME!” I gazed forward looking at Jesus and could see in the rearview mirror. In the mirror I could see miles and miles of destruction. Burning cars all over the highway with ambulances strewn all the way back on this highway. I knew then there were MANY others in his destructive pathway. I was not his one and only love nor his one and only victim. I was “fun” something to do out of curiosity. But as is my nature, when he called, we made-up. I still had hopes the “guy” that presented as wonderful was “still in there” and we could fix things and “get” IT back. I did not see that “IT” was manufactured as part of the experiment. The "game", if you will. So, we temporarily went “back”. Then, came more of the Delilah behavior FROM him. He would call me regularly and I would respond in e-mail as he was busy and I was not free to call. So, he would SAY something and I would think about it and send a note. Anyway, the whole time he told me he was "sensitive" to me. And I could FEEL him in this cotton candy constructed spiritual cone that hung on me. I could sense moods and subtle changes and it was just odd and had NOTHING to do with “healing”. I thought it was this shared annoiting he imparted to me. I was used to this ministers voice and had been TRAINED to respond to it by him. Subtly it happened and I could no longer hear the still small voice of God – which I almost never had a problem hearing. So, God reached me in dreams. There were 5 feral cats. 4 over to the left and one to the right. The one to the right was more tender, trusting and needy than the others. She was black and white. The people in the hospital fed them and took care of them. Then, one day a brown skinned man appeared and he began to say, “here kitty kitty…” The trusting black and white cat went to him as the recent other people had been so kind she thought he was like them. And he would call her near then do mean things, like kick her, then call her again offering much needed food. Then, one day he threw something on her like acid that stuck to her coat and she could not get it off. The more she licked her coat the more ill she became. Then, finally the hospital people ran out, chasing away the brown skinned man, took the cat and washed her fur off for her and let her repair. The interesting thing was the DAY after I broke from him in our finale a WONDERFUL, walking, talking for God genuine guy contacted me saying, “Suddenly, you were on my heart…” HE prayed for me and saw a network created from this man’s mouth to my ear. Like the old fashion tin cans on a string. He told me a non-walking or fake, or a prophet who got off sent “familiar spirits” when they could no longer get revelation from God. I knew then that was part of the cotton candy thingy I felt on me. And even after broken it continued to come back for a period until another walking talking genuine and I went through scripture “It is written” and attacked the places he taught me things that were “just not right.” It was then it left. The next day was a Sunday and I planned to go to a new church recommended to me. But I had no “church” clothes to wear. I only had scrub pants and an ugly sweater. I sat in my car and cried to God about all that had happened. I thanked him for the “real” men who loved him and I was truly sickened at the very thought of the other guy. I begged God to work with me again so I can re hear and relearn HIS voice. I started my car and began to drive to the new place in my ugly clothes, with my tear-swollen eyes, and my broken soul. Then, I saw another (different) church on the way to the one I was heading to attend. And I was DRAWN to it. I knew I was really running late to make the other NEW church so I went in to the one I was DRAWN to instead, a little late and a lot worn out. The teacher then began to teach and he said, “I have not shared this teaching in about 20 years but feel compelled to share this story. When I was a younger minister I had a church in the hills and I taught a Wednesday night church service. The church was small and we all knew each other in the church. So, when the door opened and this stranger came in we were surprised. And he was late and in blue jeans with an old shirt, not worn to church back then. He sat down and joined the service and after wards I introduced myself and he told me how he came to be in our service.” He said, “Well, I train hawks. And I had my hawk out flying and I would call and she would come back to me each time. Then, on one flight she flew away and did not return. I drove around calling and calling and calling. I did not stop calling her name. Finally, she returned. I always go to church on Wednesdays but I knew I was too late to make my service and I saw the lights on in your church and was drawn to your church. I was embarrassed by what I had on but I went in anyway.” I thought, “I am just like the man in the story.” I went to the preacher afterward and told him I was just like the man in the story and I was pleased to be there in my ugly clothes and cry-swollen eyes. I thought on the teaching the preacher shared all day. How the master never stopped calling the hawk and for a little while she did not hear or respond to his voice. But he never stopped. God was like that man and I could also be the hawk in that story. The next day, I went to work and the other hospital my Doctors owned, the manager Cory called to tell me someone left a box of kittens or something (as was always happening) but when she opened the box it was a HAWK. THIS had never happened. The hospital then took the bird in to help it with its injured wing. I KNEW then what God was confirming for me. Through all that had happened he has NEVER stopped calling me. Not ever not once. I knew to NEVER turn off discernment, to never replace HIS voice with any other and that I was injured but in the repair shop. Where I was suppose to be. And I do pray for his deliverance cause he may have gotten off track, but when he returns humbly to the Lord, he can be a GREAT, loving, caring genuine God-guy (IF and when he straightens out).

Not really sure how it turned into a food fight - But Rummie thank you for posting this. What a gorgeous story about a wonderful woman. That is a lovely sharing post Rummie posted and I am richer for hearing it. The other version- Thanks for posting another version because I liked seeing the "period" looking kids - it took me back in time. Thanks so much for this story.. I am speechless... Now SHE was a true hero.

Have you ever joined a site that charged money?

Thanks for sharing

Just prayed with a friend... Ah, I just prayed for the pastor she is just a lonely old broad like myself. God help her find love. God help Raj find true love. Mend his heart and remind him of the loving Jesus who died on a cross with him in mind. Thank God for deliverance for all concerned. Bless his sons and "daughters". May they find a wonderful life in "Montana". Ahh, who knows why we go goofey. But I know Jesus delivers "goofey". Thank you Jesus, deliver us from "goofey".