Bait and Switch

How many of you are familiar with the dishonest “bait and switch” sales technique?

This is a technique where a business lures customers to their store because of an extremely low price or offer that is incredible, only the customer finds that once they enter the store, the price is no longer in effect, or the item is not quite what was advertised. Once in the store, however, they are bombarded by high pressure sales tactics, being offered lesser quality items at higher prices.  

This tactic seems to work pretty well as a shady sales technique, and it also works in religion. 

My Independent Fundamental Baptist church continually lured people into it’s doors by preaching a gospel of salvation by “grace through faith, not of works lest any man should boast”. It was stressed time and time again that it was “not of ourselves”, but that God gave us the gift of salvation freely if we just believe. But did they actually teach this in practice? 

Just like the sales technique that sounds too good to be true, people were lured by this promise, only to find themselves later ensnared by the many terms, conditions and extra pricing that they had not been informed of beforehand.

The cunning preacher offers many deceptive and high pressure sales techniques to be sure they were still sold. 

Here are a few of the terms and conditions that the Independent Baptist Church failed to express clearly up front regarding salvation: 

1. If you don’t pray and read your Bible every day, earnestly, you probably never were saved in the first place. (Not of works?)

2. If you can’t remember the exact date and time that you received Jesus in your heart, it probably wasn’t a true conversion. (But I thought we just had to believe and it was a gift, not of ourselves?) 

3. If you have sin in your life, you probably never were saved. Time to rededicate your life to Jesus. (Not of works?)

4. If you haven’t been Baptized in an independent fundamental, maybe even premillennial Baptist church, it doesn’t count. And if you don’t desire to be baptised again, that’s probably a sign you never were saved in the first place. (Not of works?) 

5. If you aren’t actively saving souls by going door to door soul winning, or evangelizing in the street corners, or inviting others to church, you probably never were actually saved. (Works?)

6. If you aren’t tithing, it’s time to check your heart and see if you actually have had a true change of heart and been saved at all. Time to answer the altar call and ask Jesus’s into your heart for the 5,683rd time. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the terms and conditions that I remember hearing, and trying to reconcile with the passages about “grace through faith”. 

In truth, I was being conned; conned into paying a high price for something that was meant to be free all along. 

What was the price that I paid?  Here are two things that I paid dearly: 

1. My peace. The Bible says the one who fears is not made perfect in love, because fear has torment, but perfect love casts out fear.  I had no peace of mind because every moment I had to wonder if I had messed up and it was a sign I had never really belonged to Christ in the first place, and actually was destined to burn in hell for all eternity. The absolute despair that came from this mindset was overwhelming. It made me see God as a tyrant who arbitrarily chose to only allow those who were good enough to be His child. This mindset was continually instilled in my mind at every altar call, at every church service. 

2. My joy. I was robbed of the joy of knowing that I belonged to Christ. Instead, I felt continual sadness, being worried about dying, and thinking about all of the souls that I believed I was responsible for sending to hell because I had failed yet again each day to attain a certain level of perfection I could never reach. 

Have you been in a church that uses this bait and switch technique? Can you relate to my experience? 

Please share your story and let us know how it affected you. What price do you feel you had to pay for the deception? 

Quiverfull of legalism

“Quiverfull” was by far one of the hardest concepts for me to overcome, when it comes to recognizing and recovering from legalism in my own life.

Let me give you a little background. When I was still a child, I always loved babies and deeply desired to have my own someday. I remember coming up with all the names for the kids I would have one day (at the age of 12).

I got married in 1998, and immediately wanted to have a child. It took six months to conceive, but finally I was able to tell my husband one day that he was going to be a father. One and a half years later, we had our second baby. After this, we began using birth control pills, saying we were going to space out our kids. Four years after the second, we had a third. I had not considered seriously having seven children again after we got married because of the financial problems we had had initially.

After our third child was born, there was a documentary show that came on television. It really got my attention. It was called  “14 Children and Pregnant Again”, starring the Duggar family, who at the time were not well known. I remember thinking to myself, “Why would anyone want to have that many children? Wouldn’t it be so difficult? How could they possibly make it work?”

I watched with fascination, noticing that the family seemed to work together like a well oiled machine. The children were all so well behaved and seemed to love God, and seemed so happy!  I was desperately seeking a mother figure at this time (my mother was not someone I could go to for wisdom or advice) so I saw the way this mother seemed to love her children, calling them “blessings” and lovingly teaching and instructing them. She was so gentle with them – unlike in my childhood experience, which had been extremely different – and I wanted this to be someone I could follow and learn from. I wanted to know the secret of how to raise children so successfully and so happily. I wanted to have the joy they seemed to have.

I began visiting the Duggar family website, and found links to a site, quiverfull.com, and recommendations for a few books. The quiverfull site made a compelling case (in my mind) for the idea that God wants people to have as many children as he will be willing to give them. I printed out at least 20 pages of the arguments from the site and studied them, along with the books I read, and was fully convinced that I had committed a terrible sin by trying to prevent any more children. Why would I deny gifts that God was trying to give me? Why would I try to thwart his sovereign will?

 

I felt so shameful and sick for throwing away all the blessings I could have had in the previous years. I couldn’t believe that I knew the Bible so well and somehow missed that this was so vitally important.

So I presented all of the information I read to my husband and asked for his guidance. With tears in my eyes, I asked him if he believed we had been sinning by using birth control. And I presented all of the arguments, and asked for his thoughts. He really didn’t know how to defend it, because he was struggling at the time with his faith, so he basically just went along with it. He never told me his thoughts or feelings on it, just said, “Okay, we can do that.”  I assumed we were on the same page, and so we stopped using any birth control methods.

After this, we actually had two miscarriages. These were devastating to me, and I couldn’t understand why God would have allowed it to happen right after I had made a decision to give all control to him, to allow him to give me more children. Then I reasoned that He was trying to help me see that it really is about His timing and His decisions, and I reasoned that they were still blessings and that one day I would see them in heaven and would understand the reasons why it happened.  I thought that maybe God was testing me to help me have more faith, I thought – to prove that I really did trust in Him.

Three years went by after this, with no conception. I bought packs of 75 pregnancy tests and would go through all of them within a few months. That’s how obsessed I became with becoming pregnant.  I finally was at a point in my life by then that I believed maybe God only wanted me to have 3 children, and relaxed about it and stopped taking pregnancy tests. Then, very shortly after coming to this belief, I had a positive pregnancy test. I was ecstatic!

Baby number 4 was followed by baby number 5, 16 months later. Then baby number 6 came in another 2 years. Baby number 7 came another year and a half later.  At this point, I began feeling the effects of the stress of having to figure out how to make ends meet with 7 children, and keep 4 children under the age of 5. Even with helpers, it was becoming so difficult that sometimes I couldn’t handle it and I would sink into a deep depression, or I would just start crying for (what seemed like) no reason. I felt so alone, without support, and didn’t know what to do. I watched the Duggar family show and looked for advice in their columns and website, but there was no advice that truly helped me. All of the advice they gave me made me feel worse about myself.

For example, Michelle has one article on her website about how she used to stay up all night doing the laundry and how difficult this was, but one day God helped her by sending an “angel” relative to come and help her do the laundry, and that has been the case for years. But I didn’t have an angel relative who was helping me. So how did this advice help me? I needed to know how to balance cleaning the house, homeschooling, making sure the kids all are clothed, fed, have their teeth brushed, and all of the things that need to be done, and still somehow feel like I have time and energy to just relax and enjoy them.

Michelle seemed to be able to do it all. I wanted to know how she disciplined her children. The advice she gave seemed so generalized but she never gave specific examples of how she would train children, except in small things like teaching them to say please and thank you by bribing them with pennies and skittles.  My kids did much worse things than just leave out please and thank you. I needed real help, but I assumed that the problem was with ME. That there was something wrong with me and the Duggars just didn’t have the problems I had because they were better than me.

For years, I would spend time online debating with people who opposed the Duggar family. I had an answer for all of their accusations. Some would accuse them of being on welfare, and I would prove them wrong.They would accuse them of not being able to spend time with each child, and I would counter that with the articles that talk about how Michelle and Jim Bob reserve a certain amount of time per child alone each week. I believed wholeheartedly that the Duggar family was beyond reproach (not that they were perfect, but close as they could be), and was extremely defensive of them if anyone dared to say anything negative about them. I wanted to be like them.

One day, I saw an article talking about Josh Duggar having been touching his sisters inappropriately. I remember reading it to my husband and commenting that the media always tries to do this, to distort and tell lies about people who are truly trying to do good in this world. But the next day, the news was worse. Josh admitted the allegations, and had put up a statement about how he had gone down a dark path, but that God had used this experience to bring him closer to God.  I was conflicted. I felt that it was wrong, but he had admitted it was wrong, and had expressed sorrow over it and said that he had overcome it, so I felt that maybe the media was bringing up something from the past just to try to discredit the Duggars work. I thought that technically he was still a child, so maybe it was more like he was just curious and did something without realizing the implications, but wasn’t sure how to understand that.  I still defended him as a person, while saying his actions had definitely been wrong.

But then, the Ashley Madison scandal happened. Hackers had gotten into the site and were publishing names of people who had been to the site seeking affairs while married. Josh’s name was in the list. At first, I thought it had to be a lie. Somehow, they were making it up. They couldn’t prove it, could they? I did a lot of research but couldn’t come up with anything until Josh Duggar himself agreed the allegations were true. He had been having affairs throughout his marriage.

My ideas of the Duggar family were shattered. I had imagined they had the perfect way to raise children, and that they were following God and that the worst problems they ever had were so minuscule. I wanted to follow their example and be able to trust that by doing it “Gods way”, I could raise happy and healthy children. But now I had to reconsider my deeply held beliefs. I went into depression over this and much anxiety. If they weren’t teaching the truth, where do I turn? I decided that the Duggar family couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of their son. After all, he was a grown adult and made his own decisions. But at the same time, I kept thinking about it and contemplating, and was very conflicted.

To be continued…

 

Life after leaving cult mindset

I found this article today and it precisely describes the deep depression, disillusionment and skepticism that I have felt the past few months as I am struggling with letting go of so many beliefs and having to start from scratch. I hope this article will be validating and comforting to others who are going through this kind of grief. I will be back to writing again once I find a way to overcome these feelings. 

The Emotional Pain of Leaving a Cult

Freedom

The Invitation

It has amazed me continually as I’ve delved into researching the IFB church that it is built on a foundation of frauds who deny the very core doctrines of the faith.

Did you know that the altar call, or invitation, that is so popular today in so many churches, was an idea developed by a heretic in the 1800’s?

You might be surprised to hear this. If you’ve heard of Charles Finney and think of him as a hero of the faith (as I used to), you might also be surprised to learn that he rejected core Christian doctrine, such as justification by faith alone, and substitutionary atonement. He also denied that we are born with a sin nature.

The reason that Finney developed the altar call was to pressure people to make a decision for Christ on the spot, making that decision of themselves and reforming themselves in that moment.

The IFB church prides itself on being like the early church, but no such practice can be found in the new testament….or in history of the church before the 1800’s, period.

The idea that a spiritually dead person can will himself into being regenerated is like saying that a corpse can will itself to come to life. It doesn’t happen that way. It CANNOT.

No one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him. He must be born again, not of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1:13

The altar call might have been effective in getting new people to become members of a church, but it never was effective at converting the soul. It pressures one to make a decision, to attempt to reform their behavior, and to depend on themselves for salvation that can only be brought about by the Holy Spirit.

Turn the other cheek?

The phrase, “turn the other cheek” was one I grew up hearing almost continually during my childhood. I was taught that when someone attacks, abuses, belittles, or mocks me, I should not defend myself against their attacks. Defending myself would be resisting evil, and we are to “turn the other cheek” and allow people to hurt us. We should not only allow it, but allow it JOYFULLY; accepting such abuse as a sign that we are being rewarded for this in Heaven.

The reasoning for this was given as follows: First, Jesus is our example. He is the perfect Son of God and as such, we should be willing to follow his example and listen to his teachings.

Second, Jesus taught us that we are not to resist evil:

38“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,h let him have your cloak as well. 41And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. Matthew 5:38-48

So according to this, it appeared Jesus is saying that if someone slaps you, you should not only let them slap you, but should offer up the other cheek for them to slap!

If they force you to do something, you should not only do what they forced you to do, but also should go above and beyond.

We were told that when we did this, we were “heaping coals of fire on their head” and that we would be rewarded (Proverbs 25:22).

After all, Jesus was “reviled, and reviled not again” (1 Peter 2:23). He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and He didn’t open his mouth in protest, right? One should be willing to stand there and accept abuse in all forms, never defending themselves against it.

Even in Isaiah 50:6, we could see that Jesus did not defend himself against cruel attacks:

I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” Isaiah 50:6

So what are we to do with this information? On the surface, it seems that the IFB has a Biblical basis for saying we should not defend ourselves when we are being treated poorly.

This has led to some of my friends submitting to terrible emotional or physical domestic abuse, sometimes even sexual abuse, while feeling powerless to defend themselves (and/or their children) or protest without fearing God’s wrath.

This is a DEEPLY flawed theology and I feel so upset when I think about the devastating consequences of viewing God as an enabler of systematic abuse.

The Independent Baptist church, as well as most other false religions, do a masterful job with deception. They take one verse out of it’s intended context and change it’s meaning just ever so slightly.

Since they are abusers, they have reason to want to make the Bible allow abuse.

Sometimes they don’t even have to change it- they just have to ISOLATE it from the context, and after learning their theology before reading the text, it gives the appearance that their teaching is Biblically based and sound.

So what is really meant by the proof texts used to support this idea?

Let’s go through the verses one at a time. Matthew 5:38-48:

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’

39But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

42Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

An “eye for an eye” is referencing the Mosaic law which was given to enforce just penalty for crimes.

If there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. Exodus 21:23–25.

These verses are set in the context of civil law, as we can see in the previous verse:

When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. Exodus 21:22

From this we can conclude that this is not speaking of a personal settling of matters, but is about a lawful process of settling of matters. The punishment should fit the crime, and not be excessive, or too lenient.

When Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’, he was referring to this passage about civil retribution. We should not be seeking REVENGE on our aggressors. We should not be seeking to “make them pay”.

This does NOT mean we cannot speak up and defend ourselves if we are being attacked or wronged!

Having boundaries, and not allowing people the right to hurt us is not the same thing as repaying one with evil.

If Jesus had meant that we literally cannot speak up a all if someone has “slapped us” when it says:

But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Then He would be a hypocrite when he spoke out after being slapped himself:

19The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. 20Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. 21Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.”

22When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”

23Jesus answered him, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?” 24Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Jesus spoke up for himself and did not simply stand there turning the other cheek when he was slapped. He did not say, “It’s ok that you slapped me.”  He protested.

If the verse about turning the other cheek meant we could not speak up, Jesus would not have told this high priest that he was in the wrong for striking him.

What does it mean that Jesus was reviled, and reviled not again?  It means simply that He didn’t repay evil for evil. That’s what it means. He didn’t pay them back or try to punish them.

He spoke up for himself without avenging himself. He left vengeance up to God the Father.

So what does it mean to feed your enemy and give them drink, to heap coals of fire on their head? Does this mean we tolerate abuse and take it, rewarding our abuser with our good behavior and friendship?

I believe it is clear that we are to have established boundaries from those who have harm in mind for us.

In the example of David, in 1 Samuel 24, we can see that he is running from Saul. He is hiding from him. He was not “turning the other cheek” in the way the IFB church explains it.

David had established boundaries and was keeping himself away from Saul, who sought to kill him. This is despite the fact that David had the capability of killing Saul!

He could have EASILY exacted vengeance on him, but instead removed himself from the situation.

He even wrote psalms expressing his feelings about the evil Saul was doing to him.

One day, David had a chance to get very close to Saul. He could have killed him, and he could have allowed his men to kill him. However, he instructed his men not to touch Saul, and instead of getting revenge, he cut a piece of Saul’s robe.

Once Saul was a safe distance away, David called out to him and let him know that he had an opportunity to kill him and had not. In doing this, David had “fed his enemies” or “done good to those who persecuted him”.

But he drew a line and did not allow himself to be willingly abused in the process!

I hope that this will be encouraging to anyone who has grown up the way I did, believing that to love your enemy, you have to accept and allow abuse, and even rejoice at the abuse. This is a twisting of scripture and I hate that some of my friends are in abusive marriages and other devastating relationships as a result of this perversion of the scripture.

I highly recommend the book, “Boundaries” by Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend for help in establishing healthy boundaries in your life.

Removing the blinders

  

Years after I left the IFB church, I had falsely believed that my beliefs were now my own and that I was free. 

However, there were many shackles that still had to be removed from my spirit before I would be free. It took years for me to even realize I was in bondage to anything anymore. 

Most of these shackles were only removed as recently as this year, when I suddenly had an epiphany and realized that I had been raised, not just in a few bad churches, but in a cult system. I had been brainwashed and lied to, deliberately, by the people I trusted the most. 

This epiphany didn’t stop with the IFB church. Once I began truly looking at what the church taught, and began researching and discovering the layers of deception, abuse, scandals, coverups, etc…I started thinking about my past, and my present, I began realizing I could no longer give my mother the benefit of a doubt of “meaning well” anymore. I recognized at this time that her actions had been calculated, and she knew what she was doing was wrong.  Articles that I found on spiritual abuse and its effects really helped validate this realization.

Throughout the years, despite so many abuses I had endured and been witness to, my mother had a way of changing her personality to suit the circumstances, appearing to be a kind angel anytime I began questioning myself about her… and it brought about much confusion for me. 

I had rationalized that she must mean well, since she was “acting nice”.  Every few years I would research and she seemed to fit the description of “sociopath” perfectly. But I felt that the term sounded so harsh and couldn’t possibly be a reality- even though the evidence was before me. 

Since my entire life had been filled with continual invalidation of my own thoughts and feelings, I was not free to trust my intuition. Anytime I questioned what she was doing, I instantly doubted myself an found a way to blame myself for her behavior.

But with the sudden awareness of the IFB church, I was able to clearly see that all of her “kindness” was an act. And that she was trying – and nearly succeeding- to drive a wedge between my children and me, and she was also trying to cause division between my husband and me as well. 

Everything she did was an attempt to divide family, isolate family members from each other, and subtly abuse and control family. 

A friend sent me a link to daughtersofnarcissticmothers.com and it finally provided an accurate and detailed explanation for everything I had been wondering about. It felt like these people knew my mother intimately and personally. Every detail is so spot on, and I recognized that there is actually a PATTERN that her behavior followed. 

From then on, I read every article I could find regarding covert narcissism, so that I could be adequately prepared not to fall for anymore of her traps. 

I was able to finally see that all of my (early years) marriage problems had had something to do with either my mother or the IFB… or both. 

My perception while growing up had been that it was necessary to be a doormat to a dictator husband (fortunately, my husband wasn’t the dictator type- but I actually tried to make him control me!). This was called “Godly submission”. 

I believed that I must defer to my husbands opinion on EVERYTHING because I was a woman with less valid opinions. Therefore, like someone with zero personality, I simply checked my brain in at the door and agreed with everything he said, ALL the time. If I didn’t agree with something he said, I felt I must be wrong and changed my opinion to match his. 

I remember telling a friend once that my husband and I never fought, and that is why we had such a happy marriage. Her answer confused me. She said, “That’s not healthy.”

I remember thinking, “How could it not be healthy to not have fights? Why would I have to fight to be healthy?” It wasn’t until years later that I actually understood why this is. 

If my feelings were ever hurt by my husband, I would tell myself that being bitter was wrong, and I had to just “forgive”. And a lot of times I invalidated my own hurt feelings, by saying (what I had heard all of my life) “Its silly to be upset about this. You’re overreacting. There’s no reason to worry about that. Don’t be so emotional for no reason.” 
What I found I was actually doing, however, was not being actually forgiving. I was stuffing those emotions deep inside myself and not dealing with them. And feelings don’t just go away! Eventually they would come exploding out when I couldn’t contain it any longer. 

When this happened, not only did it confuse my husband, who felt like there were mixed messages coming his way all the time. I was “happy” until I started crying and being hysterical- but it also bewildered me, because I couldn’t understand why I had been so INTENSELY upset over “nothing”.

Every time I had such an “explosion”, the next day I would beg forgiveness and say I had no idea why I had gotten so emotional. I blamed it on hormones for the longest time. 

I started realizing over time that I had to be able to identify problems and acknowledge them – IMMEDIATELY- before they could get better, our marriage almost failed. 

Ever since getting out of the IFB mindset, and realizing that 1. I have valid feelings and thoughts 2. I can express those thoughts without being wrong to do so, and 3. That I can appreciate my differences from my husband and not be afraid of them… Our marriage has improved so much that I don’t even recognize the way it was before! 

Not only has marriage improved greatly, but also my relationship with my children as well. 

Our IFB church had preached grace, but never taught me what it really was. The idea of unconditional love was absolutely foreign to me. I demanded so much from my children because I thought I had to. 

The IFB church talks a lot about punishing your child for every infraction. I read books like “To Train a Child”, which I now know is an absolutely horrible book. 

Even delayed obedience (not obeying immediately) was to be punished. I absolutely hated it. I hated having to be in charge and having to punish and correct the children constantly for every sin I could find them doing. 

I was taught to always be looking for even just signs of disrespect (eye rolls, etc) and punish for those too. 

The problem with this is that it breeds resentment in the child, and the parent as well! It teaches them they are not truly loved.

It models for them a God who is looking for them to sin and hoping to get a chance to punish them. 

When I told them of Christ’s love and grace, I imagine they must have been just as confused as I was about it! 

Over the years, and as I had more children, I learned more patience. 

7 children will teach you patience. 
I stopped seeing their sins as insults to myself (as if it was a statement that I was a failure as a parent), but instead, as opportunities to teach them in a positive way and opportunities to show them my love. 

I realized that if I was to portray God as someone who loved them unconditionally, how can I possibly do this if I’m constantly telling them how bad they are? Or how disappointed I am in their behavior? Why not encourage their good behavior more and focus on their sins less? How would I want to be parented?

I had to fix my relationship with God before I could possibly expect my children to even want to know Him. Over the years I started realizing the loving God in the Bible was not the God I had grown up with. As I began to feel more secure in my relationship with God, my relationship with my children improved so significantly. 

I have teenagers now who feel free to talk to me about everything, and that brings me more joy than I can even explain. It wasn’t going to be my reality before. If I had continued the IFB way, I most surely would have ended up with bitter and resentful children, and I could not have had a good relationship with them. 

I’m so thankful for all of the blinders that have been removed so far, and I know as time goes on, I will discover new blinders that are needing removal. 

Letter to my sister- part 2

You moved into our home in 2004, and we let you stay there. We both received quite the backlash from our mother during this time. She even told me that I should be thankful she didn’t have an abortion.

Over time, I began noticing that you didn’t really seem to appreciate being around us. You stayed back in your room all of the time, and you kept your door closed. You avoided talking or playing with my son and daughter who were toddlers. Now that I think about it, you were just reverting to the way we were growing up.  But it was hurtful, because I could see that you wanted nothing to do with me even though I was helping you.

I took you to college and work every day, and picked you up.  We eventually started feeling very angry with each other (although we never expressed it openly and healthily) and you moved out after 8 months (when I was 2 months pregnant with my 3rd child).

For years, we kept in contact. Our relationship seemed better without being in the same house. We would swap stories of what our mother was doing to us and encourage each other through it.

For years, our mother was trying to keep you from marrying your husband, and you remember the reasons were completely fallacious – and a lot of it had to do with his race. She had begun a smear campaign against him and when it did not work, she refused to go to your wedding.

I remember how much this hurt you, and how mad I was over it!

I remember many other things she did to you, including once telling you that you were literally killing her and she would die of cancer, just like her mother, because of you. That was one of the only times that I had the courage to call my mother and yell at her.

I was so angry that she would treat you that way!  I told her that under no circumstances was what she did acceptable. She tried her best to defend it, but I did not accept it. (I wonder now why I couldn’t defend myself the way I did you?  I felt such rage when the abuse was directed toward you, but allowed it in my life for so long).

After you became married, you started becoming friends with our mom again. And I remained civil with her as well, thinking maybe she had changed. But upon her divorce in 2010, I realized that the lies she had told in the divorce proved that even if she ACTS nice, that doesn’t mean she IS nice.

So I started telling you about the details of this and explaining my feelings about it. But I felt blindsided when you told me that I should “just be happy for her. She’s happy now”, even though that was far from the truth anyway. You completely dismissed my feelings.

I realized that you had now aligned yourself again with our mother for some reason, and did not any longer understand what was going on. You thought my thoughts and feelings were invalid from then on. I was again considered the bad influence, and I could tell where your allegiance was. 

 I think it was because she was buying your affection (as she tried to do with me).

When I did open up to you, I noticed that my words were being twisted and gossiped about behind my back.  You were telling our mother things that I said in confidence to you, and totally betrayed me.

Then our mother continued pitting each one of us against each other. She would tell you things that I said to her in confidence, but she would twist my words to make it sound like I said something I did not in fact say. There was indeed truth mixed in with the lies she told. For example, I would tell her that my kids were acting good at the store and that I was happy about it. Then she would tell me  about you and that your children were horribly misbehaved, and how concerned she was for you- and you wondered how to help?

This would lead me to tell her some advice she might be able to give you, such as maybe reducing sugar in the diet would help?  Then she would go to you and tell you that I thought my kids were better than yours and that mine are more well behaved than yours. She would tell you that I thought your kids were eating too much sugar and that I thought I was a better parent. This would be like a knife in your heart, and it caused much resentment between us.   I know it hurt you! But there was nothing I could do about it because I didn’t even KNOW it was happening at the time. I kept believing surely our mother would not want us to be divided, but to get along. I don’t know why I kept believing this, even though she had always done the opposite.

She even called you many times when I was at restaurants with her and would make sure to let you know how good my children were in comparison to yours!  I never at the time realized what she was doing. I truly felt she was just trying to compliment my children and encourage me, but I realize now she was driving that wedge between us again and causing you bitterness towards me so that we would not speak to each other!  She was so good  at making her actions seem innocent.

Many times she would tell me things that you said to her in confidence as well. These things caused me to feel bitter toward you as well. So the cycle of bitterness continued.

Then, when you came for a visit (since you live so far away now) a year ago, it just happened to come at a time when I was almost 9 months pregnant and my husband had been working 90 hours per week (including weekends) and couldn’t deal with interior problems in the home. Nor could we afford to fix many of them since our paycheck had been reduced so much. At this time, our bathtub began leaking. We did not understand that it was the bathtub leaking for about 2 weeks.  Being 8 months pregnant, and not having the knowledge of how to repair such a problem, I asked our mother for help with it. There was mildew on the walls that had gotten wet.  When she came to help me fix it, you came along (and I remember naively thinking she was doing it out of the kindness of her heart). She tore out the walls and you saw the mildew ….as she was doing this, you took me privately and told me that you didn’t think I was taking care of my children and that you thought I shouldn’t have to “live this way”.  You have always felt that I am less than you because of my house not being as nice as yours. You believe that my children should all have their own separate rooms and wear designer clothing- which I can’t afford. You had been gossiping with my mother about my house -and apparently she had made you feel that this was not a one time event, and had decided that my children were not being taken care of based on nothing but pure gossip.

Even though my children are all very well fed, and it’s obvious they are so, you told me that my children weren’t eating enough nutrition and that my mom had to fill in to help me out (she buys them candy and cookies, pizza and hot dogs. Not my idea of helping them nutritionally!)  Since these accusations were out of the clear blue sky and I saw no reason for you to believe these things, I know that it was a secret smear campaign by our mother behind my back. She had successfully turned you so far against me that there was no turning back.

You took my daughter shopping that week, which I was happy to let you do…but unfortunately…later, I found out that you had been baiting her with questions to create a sense of discontentment and to turn her against me. For example, you asked my daughter, “Do you ever wish you had better things? Do you ever wish you had a nice rug in your room? I’m so sorry your mom doesn’t buy you nice things like perfume (my daughter doesn’t like perfume) or stylish clothes! I am going to buy those things for you. If you ever need ANYTHING, I want you to know that I’ll buy it for you!”

I didn’t know you did this, but found out later when my daughter told me. It caused me immense pain to think that you would treat my daughter as if I were an abuser, and the abuser as if she were a close friend!

There are so many more things that have happened since then, but I eventually realized that you were not only pretending to be my friend and secretly were always gossiping about me, even though I truly cared about you…you also were a threat to myself and my children.

Therefore I had to stop replying to your emails to me and stop communicating with you by phone – against my desire.

But with all my heart, I wish you could see how we were both lied to all our lives. I wish you could see that none of our issues were because of our own differences, but we were both played by our mother who pitted us against each other, for her amusement.

Maybe one day you will see the light, but I don’t know if it’s possible. I’ll try not to lose all hope of this. Please know that when our mom does turn on you – which she will, of that I have no doubt – I in no way hold any anger toward you, and I hate what you’re going through, and care deeply.

You can come to me then, and I’ll be there for you.

I understand WHY you feel the way you do.

I understand WHY you’ve made the choices you’ve made.

I understand how desperately you need her affection and love, and that when you feel you have it, you don’t want to let it go.

I just wish you knew the truth.

Love,

your big sister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter to my sister – part 1

  

I will likely never be able to send this letter to my sister, due to circumstances that make it extremely difficult. However, I feel that I have to express the feelings that are in my heart somewhere. 

My little sister, 
I remember your earliest moments. 

I still remember the day our mother came back from the hospital, holding you.

 I even remember asking her, “Where is the hole they cut in your belly button to get the baby out?” 

 I was 5.

I remember holding you as a baby. 

I remember how beautiful you were. And as you progressed into toddlerhood, you had the most adorable curls I’ve ever seen, and such big, gorgeous eyes. 

I remember growing up, imagining that when we got older, we would live next door to each other and our kids would play together.

 I even had some of our kids names picked out (none of them made the cut, but I was planning ahead early)!

I remember the book I taught you how to read from.

 I still remember you memorizing the first few lines, “It is cold. See the snow. See the snow come down.”

Even though I knew you didn’t really read it, I still praised you for the effort and was so proud of you. 

I felt like you were my baby and I loved you.

I remember when we were both in trouble once, and got out of it because I snuggled next to you and pretended to be asleep. 

I think your cuteness was our saving grace.

As we got older, I noticed that we started to become more and more distant. 

We were given separate rooms, instead of the shared room we used to have, where we would stay up and talk to each other.

 I didn’t care that we were so far apart in age. I loved being around you. 

The doors were always closed when we were in them, and as a result we weren’t able to talk to each other as much.  

I remember that we actually developed a code system where we would wake up at night and knock to communicate to each other.  One knock meant hello, two knocks meant I love you, and so on.  

That is one of my favorite memories.  

I used to think that maybe it was just normal sibling rivalry when we started feeling such resentment toward each other. 

But later I realized that our mom was telling us bad things about each other, and we weren’t able to talk too each other to figure out what was true and what was not. 

We believed the lies she told- because they were half true. 

I remember that when we did talk, it seemed like most of the time we had fun. But I think those bad things we were told about each other made us fight and resent each other so much that eventually we only fought when we were around each other (which helped the isolation from each other to be reinforced even more). 

I remember staying in my bedroom for hours on end each day…drawing, reading books, doing beadwork, writing stories…. And being terribly lonely. 

And I shouldn’t have been lonely. I had you. 

But I did not have access to you. 

By the time it was too late for the feelings of distrust to be put aside, we were actually sharing a room (when we had to move into our grandpas house). 

I remember wanting to protect you and shield you from the pain we felt from the constant berating and belittling we endured. I would try to get moments to talk to you (sometimes in the middle of night), but you saw me as “bad” by then. 

You had been taught that I was a bad influence so much that I think you truly believed it. This caused me pain, but I never blamed you. I understood WHY. But it still hurt. 

After I got married, I felt a terrible guilt for having left you in such a terrible environment.

 I hoped that my mom would change and that you could not have to endure all that I did.

Our mom started coming to visit me, but only on days when you couldn’t be there. Except on special occasions, anyway. It was never a spoken rule, but I was never allowed to talk to you.

 Every time I asked if I could call you, our mom said no. There might have been a few exceptions but I know she did not want us talking and comparing notes. 

But one day you called me. And I rejoiced internally, because I thought, “Finally!” It was a chance to speak to you unhindered. 

However,  you began telling me what you were enduring, and I felt a defensive rage in my heart. “So my mom hasn’t changed”, I realized. “She is still the same person she was before.”

You wanted to get out, but didn’t know how. You begged me to let you move in. “I will help you cook and clean…. I’ll do anything!  Just help me.” 

You had recently turned 18, so I immediately offered to let you stay with us. Our home wasn’t much, but a poor home with love is better than a mansion filled with strife and hatred. I so wanted our lives to get better together. 

I wanted to save you from the treatment you were getting. 

To be continued. 

My mask

Artwork title: The Forgotten, by Deborah Cauchi

In my pre-teen years, I was taught to believe that expressing any negativity in any way was a way to show that I did not actually possess the Fruit of the Spirit (or evidence I was saved). Since the qualities included “joy” and “peace”, any sign of discouragement, depression, sadness, anxiety, was taken as a sign that I was under the devils influence. If I was under the influence of Satan, I was either “backslidden” or not truly saved. 

Therefore, anytime I was in public, I was reminded by my mother, or people in my church, that in order to be a “good witness” for Christ (and not give God a bad name in the process), had to put on my happy face.  And I did so.

Anyone who saw me in my teenaged years would have imagined that I was living a life of pure bliss. I was smiling literally ALL of the time. I always acted cheerful, even though inside, I was deeply depressed (in fact, nowadays, when I see a girl who smiles too much, I worry for her). I radiated what appeared to be pure joy, “the joy of the Lord”, so to speak.

However, I  remember sitting in my room by myself, day by day, and being just so incredibly depressed. I would lie there, reading books or drawing pictures, and thinking to myself, “What is the purpose of living, if you’re just going to die anyway?”, “Does anyone really care about me? Why do I actually exist at all?”, and sometimes my thoughts would gravitate to how scary death would be. I would imagine my funeral and wonder how many people would show up if I died.  I truly believe the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was because of the intense fear I had of going through the torment of the fires of Hell.

I remember one time, passing a note to my friend at church, which said, “If I died tomorrow, would you go to my funeral?”  At the time, it seemed perfectly normal to ask such a question.

I sang a lot of “specials” (songs) at the church regarding joy. Here’s an example:

“Happiness is to know the Savior,
Living a life, within His favor,
Having a change in my behavior,
Happiness is the Lord.
The Joy is mine,
Even when the teardrops start
I’ve found the secret
It’s Jesus in my heart!”

But what I couldn’t understand through the years was…why didn’t I feel this joy I sang of? I was living a lie,  but was not allowed to acknowledge this fact. It was forced to be a secret buried deep within myself, and I despised it.

My mother loved to read my diary, so I never felt quite like I was able to be honest in it. Yet, I felt a deep desire to write!  So sometimes I would begin a journal entry, and I would be honest about feeling bad…then I would consider whether the entry would be a “bad witness” for Christ. I worried that if I was to die that day and someone was to find it, they might think badly of God and therefore be denied the opportunity to be saved, so I would actually erase the entry and change it into something that looked “positive”.

For instance, I would think, “I feel so lonely. Why am I not happy? What is the purpose in life? There is no meaning in anything! The kids told me I was ugly today and it really hurt my feelings.”, but I would write, “Today was such a BEAUTIFUL day!  The sun was shining and I got to go to church and see my friend. Someone got saved today, and I’m so happy for them! I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow!”

If you read my journal back then, it might have seemed that things were good, but they were actually tragically bad. And this actually was a problem for years into my marriage also. I was unable to allow myself to believe anything was ever bad. This denial caused me to not be able to confront issues as they arrived and I went through much unnecessary hardship as a result.

The Bible NEVER condemns feeling sad, or anger, or any other God given emotions. Our emotions were given to us by God to help us to see and address problems in our lives. They are tools to help us, and they are not sin in and of themselves.   Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry, and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.”  It does not say not to be angry, but not to allow that anger to cause you to SIN.

David poured out many tears to God, and expressed deep sorrow multiple times, and yet he was considered “a man after God’s own heart”.  The Bible says that He knows our suffering intimately, and cares for us.  He has experienced the same types of pain we have, while existing in human form on earth, and He knows our suffering and carries our burdens on His own shoulders when we give them to Him.  Jesus – even though he was GOD HIMSELF and knew the final outcome of the situation- WEPT with Martha and Mary over Lazarus. He knows our emotions and does not hold them against us. He gave them for us, to help us heal. They are a GOOD thing.

If you have grown up with the idea that being true to who you are, and expressing emotions is a negative thing, or that God would be upset with you for expressing any sad, angry, or hurt feelings, please know that the God in scripture does not EVER express such an idea. Emotions are a gift from God. Being honest with who we are and what we feel is healthy. Being dishonest and wearing a mask is unhealthy and breeds resentment, and continues the cycles of depression. We must be honest with our emotions in order to find healing.

JOY does not necessarily mean that every moment you feel happy. True spiritual joy is in knowing that despite the trials we face here on earth, we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and that NOTHING can separate us from His love. We can pour out our hearts HONESTLY to Him, and do not have to hold back our anger, tears, pain, disillusionment, etc. He understands, is patient with us, and helps us to heal with the tools he has given us – our emotions.