I think of a few memories of dealing with major LOSS events in my life.
First, I go back to 1986 to clarify (once again) that my exit from TWI was not a matter of Mark and Avoid on their part.
Next I go back to childhood to recall when a pet dog, Barney the beagle, died. I was maybe 8 to 10 years old. I was devastated. To avoid recurrence of that pain, I never wanted to have another dog. But we did get another dog eventually.
In my late 30s, my brother, 15 months younger than I was, died suddenly as a result of undisclosed heart disease at age 36. I cried every time I thought of him, for at least the next year.
Then there was the divorce, which was bad enough, but when my daughter was 13, she and I became estranged and I had no contact with her for the next seven years. I cried a lot over that pain.
However, I have long continued to seek understanding and wisdom. I am no longer estranged from my daughter, who is now in her 30s. She has also given me (and three other grandparents) two lovely grandchildren and now has another on the way.
Emotionally and socially, I can and do reflect back on those experiences with thankfulness. They (the experiences) are all bittersweet. I am only now who I am for having gone through them.
Maybe one day (or many days) I too will write a memoir, including my time in TWI.
Very thoughtful posts, Rocky! And I would be very interested in reading a memoir by you.
Thanks T-bone... and Watered Garden and Penworks.
Perhaps one of my most important experiences of loss was the years I spent not reading anything but the ramblings and rants by Wierwille.
Most recently, however, I have to thank Susan Cain and Dacher Keltner, though I find their books kind of hard to read... because I immediately want to write here and on my blog about reflections on my experiences in twi and with politics in Arizona as a result of what I read in the books of those two authors.
2 My son,if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— 3 indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of theLord and find the knowledge of God.
When does one call out for insight? When might we cry aloud for understanding?
Would those instances be when we feel like we're on top of the world and everything's going our way?
Jesus declared that in the world we would have stress, pressure, hardship. If, as we were taught in TWI, those problems, those excruciating pains of loss are our fault because of our "lack of believing," then where in the process is God?
So, we've discussed, on some GSC topics/thread, the human need for belonging. And for how the draw for TWI was and is the human social need for belonging. The price for admission was (decades ago) taking Wierwille's class(es), faithfully attending TWIG, abundantly (and "cheerfully" sharing well more than 10 percent of your income), and eventually complying with increasingly heavy burdens of obedience to rulers (otherwise called leaders of various levels of the Way Tree, a dubious and counter-biblical doctrine/dogma).
It never REALLY was about whether or not what Victor taught was god-breathed or the most accurate interpretation of the will of God. If it had been, a LOT of people who willingly left that "household of faith" would have died prematurely (than actually did).
However, leaving/departing/exiting the group to which many of us identified with as the one providing us a sense of belonging--whether voluntarily or because of ostracization--most of the time brings some degree of emotional pain.
From one of the books I am now reading:
Loss serves up a rich and bittersweet stew of love and wisdom about what matters. Right inside the pain is the opportunity to see all of our present moments in a way that helps us live life more purposefully and more fully. But we can't learn the lessons that loss contains while fighting or running from it.
On 7/16/2022 at 5:13 PM, Rocky said:
I think of a few memories of dealing with major LOSS events in my life.
First, I go back to 1986 to clarify (once again) that my exit from TWI was not a matter of Mark and Avoid on their part.
Next I go back to childhood to recall when a pet dog, Barney the beagle, died. I was maybe 8 to 10 years old. I was devastated. To avoid recurrence of that pain, I never wanted to have another dog. But we did get another dog eventually.
In my late 30s, my brother, 15 months younger than I was, died suddenly as a result of undisclosed heart disease at age 36. I cried every time I thought of him, for at least the next year.
Then there was the divorce, which was bad enough, but when my daughter was 13, she and I became estranged and I had no contact with her for the next seven years. I cried a lot over that pain.
However, I have long continued to seek understanding and wisdom. I am no longer estranged from my daughter, who is now in her 30s. She has also given me (and three other grandparents) two lovely grandchildren and now has another on the way.
Emotionally and socially, I can and do reflect back on those experiences with thankfulness. They (the experiences) are all bittersweet. I am only now who I am for having gone through them.
Maybe one day (or many days) I too will write a memoir, including my time in TWI.
Rocky, this thread touched me profoundly. Thank you for your courage and grace.
I, too, have experienced parental alienation, which is not only a cruelty against the parent, it is child abuse. Literally. Actually. Child abuse.
Your words, and those of Cain and Hayes, triggered me into deep contemplation and solitude. And from this, arose, among many things, a remembrance of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
"Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.
We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if we could only arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
On 7/16/2022 at 5:13 PM, Rocky said:
Maybe one day (or many days) I too will write a memoir, including my time in TWI.
On Rilke's desk was a little piece of paper or card with a solitary inscription: "Today."
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
Beautiful
3 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:
On Rilke's desk was a little piece of paper or card with a solitary inscription: "Today."
The only day you will ever write your memoir.
Well, the only day on which I will write. Which I do most days.
I, too, have experienced parental alienation, which is not only a cruelty against the parent, it is child abuse. Literally. Actually. Child abuse.
I've been well aware of that truth for many years. In this situation, the years and forgiveness and most especially the renewed relationship with my kiddo (which dates from when my daughter was pregnant with her first born) and HER grace and forgiveness have dampened the pain.
Truth be told, both my ex-wife and I brought SOOOOOOOOO much emotional baggage to our marriage. Both of us are much more mellow now than we were 25+ years ago. And we are friends now.
If you haven't yet gotten to a similar place, I will long and yearn for it for and with you.
From Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America (2009) page 44, the last paragraph of the chapter in which Ehrenreich details her breast cancer diagnosis. Her next chapter is about years of magical thinking. Both chapters reveal much insight against which the culture/subculture of The Way can be measured and is most definitely found wanting.
Quote
What it gave me, if you want to call this a "gift," was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before--one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and only blame ourselves for our fate.
Wierwille's cult morphed from American culture into a very sadistic organism in which misfortune, to which everyone is ultimately subject, is blamed for their/our fate by reimagining the myth of blame as a violation of the cult's standards. IOW, you didn't effing believe enough to overcome.
That leaves people who do not rightfully own said blame, taking it upon themselves anyway.
From Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America (2009) page 44, the last paragraph of the chapter in which Ehrenreich details her breast cancer diagnosis. Her next chapter is about years of magical thinking. Both chapters reveal much insight against which the culture/subculture of The Way can be measured and is most definitely found wanting.
Wierwille's cult morphed from American culture into a very sadistic organism in which misfortune, to which everyone is ultimately subject, is blamed for their/our fate by reimagining the myth of blame as a violation of the cult's standards. IOW, you didn't effing believe enough to overcome.
That leaves people who do not rightfully own said blame, taking it upon themselves anyway.
I first encountered Ehrenreich in Harper's many years ago. She's an excellent essayist.
Great post, Rocky! "It's all your fault, because of your faulty believing." This is a form of gaslighting. The abuse is so nuanced and subtle. One must have eyes, one must be aware - sharply, vigorously aware.
My local fellowship leader, father in tha werd, uncle-in-law did not lead a very active life. He sat around and read books, watched TV, visited his neighbors uninvited and unannounced to witness and hold forth. There was very little action in his life. The window of opportunity for a happening of any kind, positive or negative, was tiny. His exposure to life, to the world, was slight, because he rarely left his house.
If anything (late mail) ever happened to him that was perceived as less than perfect (normal, real), it could only be the adversary's doing. It could never be because that's just the way things are or because he was mistaken or $hit just happens.
But if anything in my full, active, work/family life happened, it was because I was out of fellowship - because I didn't know how (H-O-W) to beleeeve. Anything good that happened, like a job promotion, was because of HIS believing for me.
I first encountered Ehrenreich in Harper's many years ago. She's an excellent essayist.
Great post, Rocky! "It's all your fault, because of your faulty believing." This is a form of gaslighting. The abuse is so nuanced and subtle. One must have eyes, one must be aware - sharply, vigorously aware.
My local fellowship leader, father in tha werd, uncle-in-law did not lead a very active life. He sat around and read books, watched TV, visited his neighbors uninvited and unannounced to witness and hold forth. There was very little action in his life. The window of opportunity for a happening of any kind, positive or negative, was tiny. His exposure to life, to the world, was slight, because he rarely left his house.
If anything (late mail) ever happened to him that was perceived as less than perfect (normal, real), it could only be the adversary's doing. It could never be because that's just the way things are or because he was mistaken or $hit just happens.
But if anything in my full, active, work/family life happened, it was because I was out of fellowship - because I didn't know how (H-O-W) to beleeeve. Anything good that happened, like a job promotion, was because of HIS believing for me.
I can't tell you have thankful I am... for you and Bolshevik and T-Bone and WordWolf and, well plenty of others who contribute their life experience and insight here on GSC. And for people who have been living their lives outside of fundamentalist religious cults, who think and ponder life and/or who do scientific research into lots of things around us and regarding human lives and culture.
We obviously can't quantify how much we know or did know about much of anything at other points in our lives, but the rapid growth in knowledge available to know has been truly awe-inspiring.
I doubt Victor had the imagination to envision what the 35 years after he passed would be like.
For Susan [Susan David], this is a big problem. Not only because it’s just plain better to see life clearly, in all its bittersweetness. But also because if we don’t allow ourselves difficult emotions, like sorrow and longing, then these feelings will undermine us at every turn.
“Research on emotional suppression shows that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger,” Susan told the audience in her popular TED Talk. “Psychologists call this amplification. Like that delicious chocolate cake in the refrigerator—the more you try to ignore it…the greater its hold on you. You might think you’re in control of unwanted emotions when you ignore them, but in fact they control you. Internal pain always comes out. Always. And who pays the price? We do. Our children, our colleagues, our communities.”
In her TED talk, Susan David states: The conventional view of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative, is rigid. What does it take for us to thrive in an increasingly complex and fraught world? Rigidity in the face of complexity is TOXIC. We need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving.
In that talk, she also says that Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility.
She provides insight on HOW WE WERE actually brainwashed. We (willingly) allowed ourselves to indoctrinated (PFLAP and its successor classes) and willingly, as we continued to subject ourselves to fellowships and "undershepherding." In such processes we allowed a whitewashed mindset to be inculcated into our minds/brains as a way to live according to the private and severely limited interpretation and view of a culture and a religion.
This lovely poem, I pray, I hope, will take at least a little bit of the sting out of someone who has endured the brutality of Mark and Avoid by anyone in TWI.
I would encourage anyone leaving TWI for any reason (whether M/A or leaving on your own) to understand that you are dealing with a huge loss in your life. Loss of friends, loss of family for some, loss of community, etc. Then there is the feeling that God doesn't exist outside of TWI and there is nothing better outside of TWI...and nothing could be further from the truth. Familiarize yourself with the 5 stages of grief...because you will be living through them.
- denial
- anger
- bargaining
- depression
- acceptance
Acceptance is your goal. I stayed on a spin cycle of the first four points without ever getting to acceptance until I did 16 weeks of counseling, even then it took a lot of time. Not everyone needs to do that but it helps. I encourage people to seek help because I didn't know I needed any help after leaving TWI and I needed a lot of help. Don't ignore the fact that you are departing an abusive cult who uses psychological ploys to keep followers under their thumb.
I would encourage anyone leaving TWI for any reason (whether M/A or leaving on your own) to understand that you are dealing with a huge loss in your life. Loss of friends, loss of family for some, loss of community, etc. Then there is the feeling that God doesn't exist outside of TWI and there is nothing better outside of TWI...and nothing could be further from the truth.
Loss of friends, loss of family for some, loss of community, etc. Then there is the feeling that God doesn't exist outside of TWI and there is nothing better outside of TWI...and nothing could be further from the truth.
Is just how I felt.
It's particularly hard when for years, people have been encouraged to distance themselves from friends and earthly family who don't respond to "the word" as promoted by TWI. So when you've been M&A'd, there's nowhere to go (you think). All those bridges need to be rebuilt, too, and sometimes that's very difficult.
Never fear: TWI has cast you out. GOD HAS NOT CAST YOU OUT NOR ABANDONED YOU and still loves you and will bring to you those who can help you recover from the abuse. You may not be able to help yourself, so God will put people in your path who can offer a kind word here, an action there, a place to be, a balm for your soul. You might not recognise it at the time, but it'll be something you'll hang on to.
As OldSkool has said, counselling can help. Some people have found divorce recovery/workshops helpful. Or talking about it with a wise, trusted, loving friend might help.
Luke 15 (also in Matt 18)
15 Now the tax collectorsand sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable:4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
You were not just a lost sheep - you were a stolensheep. Not only you (as a lost/stolen sheep) will be sought for and recovered, and brought home with rejoicing - the thieves will be dealt with too, in due time. Plenty of condemnation all over the Bible about not stealing and how thieves are to be dealt with.
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Rocky
I think of a few memories of dealing with major LOSS events in my life.
First, I go back to 1986 to clarify (once again) that my exit from TWI was not a matter of Mark and Avoid on their part.
Next I go back to childhood to recall when a pet dog, Barney the beagle, died. I was maybe 8 to 10 years old. I was devastated. To avoid recurrence of that pain, I never wanted to have another dog. But we did get another dog eventually.
In my late 30s, my brother, 15 months younger than I was, died suddenly as a result of undisclosed heart disease at age 36. I cried every time I thought of him, for at least the next year.
Then there was the divorce, which was bad enough, but when my daughter was 13, she and I became estranged and I had no contact with her for the next seven years. I cried a lot over that pain.
However, I have long continued to seek understanding and wisdom. I am no longer estranged from my daughter, who is now in her 30s. She has also given me (and three other grandparents) two lovely grandchildren and now has another on the way.
Emotionally and socially, I can and do reflect back on those experiences with thankfulness. They (the experiences) are all bittersweet. I am only now who I am for having gone through them.
Maybe one day (or many days) I too will write a memoir, including my time in TWI.
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Watered Garden
I think what you wrote is just beautiful.
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penworks
Me, too, Rocky!
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T-Bone
Very thoughtful posts, Rocky! And I would be very interested in reading a memoir by you.
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Rocky
Thanks T-bone... and Watered Garden and Penworks.
Perhaps one of my most important experiences of loss was the years I spent not reading anything but the ramblings and rants by Wierwille.
Most recently, however, I have to thank Susan Cain and Dacher Keltner, though I find their books kind of hard to read... because I immediately want to write here and on my blog about reflections on my experiences in twi and with politics in Arizona as a result of what I read in the books of those two authors.
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Rocky
Moral Benefits of Wisdom
2 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
3 indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
When does one call out for insight? When might we cry aloud for understanding?
Would those instances be when we feel like we're on top of the world and everything's going our way?
Jesus declared that in the world we would have stress, pressure, hardship. If, as we were taught in TWI, those problems, those excruciating pains of loss are our fault because of our "lack of believing," then where in the process is God?
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Nathan_Jr
Rocky, this thread touched me profoundly. Thank you for your courage and grace.
I, too, have experienced parental alienation, which is not only a cruelty against the parent, it is child abuse. Literally. Actually. Child abuse.
Your words, and those of Cain and Hayes, triggered me into deep contemplation and solitude. And from this, arose, among many things, a remembrance of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
"Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. The only sadnesses that are dangerous and unhealthy are the ones that we carry around in public in order to drown them out with the noise; like diseases that are treated superficially and foolishly, they just withdraw and after a short interval break out again all the more terribly; and gather inside us and are life, are life that is unlived, rejected, lost, life that we can die of. If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches, and even a little beyond the outworks of our presentiment, perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing.
We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if we could only arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
On Rilke's desk was a little piece of paper or card with a solitary inscription: "Today."
The only day you will ever write your memoir.
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Rocky
Beautiful
Well, the only day on which I will write. Which I do most days.
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Rocky
I've been well aware of that truth for many years. In this situation, the years and forgiveness and most especially the renewed relationship with my kiddo (which dates from when my daughter was pregnant with her first born) and HER grace and forgiveness have dampened the pain.
Truth be told, both my ex-wife and I brought SOOOOOOOOO much emotional baggage to our marriage. Both of us are much more mellow now than we were 25+ years ago. And we are friends now.
If you haven't yet gotten to a similar place, I will long and yearn for it for and with you.
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Rocky
From Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America (2009) page 44, the last paragraph of the chapter in which Ehrenreich details her breast cancer diagnosis. Her next chapter is about years of magical thinking. Both chapters reveal much insight against which the culture/subculture of The Way can be measured and is most definitely found wanting.
Wierwille's cult morphed from American culture into a very sadistic organism in which misfortune, to which everyone is ultimately subject, is blamed for their/our fate by reimagining the myth of blame as a violation of the cult's standards. IOW, you didn't effing believe enough to overcome.
That leaves people who do not rightfully own said blame, taking it upon themselves anyway.
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Nathan_Jr
I first encountered Ehrenreich in Harper's many years ago. She's an excellent essayist.
Great post, Rocky! "It's all your fault, because of your faulty believing." This is a form of gaslighting. The abuse is so nuanced and subtle. One must have eyes, one must be aware - sharply, vigorously aware.
My local fellowship leader, father in tha werd, uncle-in-law did not lead a very active life. He sat around and read books, watched TV, visited his neighbors uninvited and unannounced to witness and hold forth. There was very little action in his life. The window of opportunity for a happening of any kind, positive or negative, was tiny. His exposure to life, to the world, was slight, because he rarely left his house.
If anything (late mail) ever happened to him that was perceived as less than perfect (normal, real), it could only be the adversary's doing. It could never be because that's just the way things are or because he was mistaken or $hit just happens.
But if anything in my full, active, work/family life happened, it was because I was out of fellowship - because I didn't know how (H-O-W) to beleeeve. Anything good that happened, like a job promotion, was because of HIS believing for me.
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Rocky
I can't tell you have thankful I am... for you and Bolshevik and T-Bone and WordWolf and, well plenty of others who contribute their life experience and insight here on GSC. And for people who have been living their lives outside of fundamentalist religious cults, who think and ponder life and/or who do scientific research into lots of things around us and regarding human lives and culture.
We obviously can't quantify how much we know or did know about much of anything at other points in our lives, but the rapid growth in knowledge available to know has been truly awe-inspiring.
I doubt Victor had the imagination to envision what the 35 years after he passed would be like.
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Rocky
More from Bittersweet by Susan Cain:
In her TED talk, Susan David states: The conventional view of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative, is rigid. What does it take for us to thrive in an increasingly complex and fraught world? Rigidity in the face of complexity is TOXIC. We need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving.
In that talk, she also says that Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility.
She provides insight on HOW WE WERE actually brainwashed. We (willingly) allowed ourselves to indoctrinated (PFLAP and its successor classes) and willingly, as we continued to subject ourselves to fellowships and "undershepherding." In such processes we allowed a whitewashed mindset to be inculcated into our minds/brains as a way to live according to the private and severely limited interpretation and view of a culture and a religion.
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Rocky
This lovely poem, I pray, I hope, will take at least a little bit of the sting out of someone who has endured the brutality of Mark and Avoid by anyone in TWI.
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OldSkool
This is a great thread...thanks Rocky!
I would encourage anyone leaving TWI for any reason (whether M/A or leaving on your own) to understand that you are dealing with a huge loss in your life. Loss of friends, loss of family for some, loss of community, etc. Then there is the feeling that God doesn't exist outside of TWI and there is nothing better outside of TWI...and nothing could be further from the truth. Familiarize yourself with the 5 stages of grief...because you will be living through them.
- denial
- anger
- bargaining
- depression
- acceptance
Acceptance is your goal. I stayed on a spin cycle of the first four points without ever getting to acceptance until I did 16 weeks of counseling, even then it took a lot of time. Not everyone needs to do that but it helps. I encourage people to seek help because I didn't know I needed any help after leaving TWI and I needed a lot of help. Don't ignore the fact that you are departing an abusive cult who uses psychological ploys to keep followers under their thumb.
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Rocky
So very true. Thanks OldSkool.
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OldSkool
YW!!
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Twinky
Is just how I felt.
It's particularly hard when for years, people have been encouraged to distance themselves from friends and earthly family who don't respond to "the word" as promoted by TWI. So when you've been M&A'd, there's nowhere to go (you think). All those bridges need to be rebuilt, too, and sometimes that's very difficult.
Never fear: TWI has cast you out. GOD HAS NOT CAST YOU OUT NOR ABANDONED YOU and still loves you and will bring to you those who can help you recover from the abuse. You may not be able to help yourself, so God will put people in your path who can offer a kind word here, an action there, a place to be, a balm for your soul. You might not recognise it at the time, but it'll be something you'll hang on to.
As OldSkool has said, counselling can help. Some people have found divorce recovery/workshops helpful. Or talking about it with a wise, trusted, loving friend might help.
Luke 15 (also in Matt 18)
15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
You were not just a lost sheep - you were a stolen sheep. Not only you (as a lost/stolen sheep) will be sought for and recovered, and brought home with rejoicing - the thieves will be dealt with too, in due time. Plenty of condemnation all over the Bible about not stealing and how thieves are to be dealt with.
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