Awkward to ADVANCING THE GOSPEL
My life seems awkward.
It is a strange word and a worse than strange feeling and predicament of life.
Why the feeling? What is the cause? Where does this awkwardness originate?
A good thing is that this awkwardness is anchored to hope, passion and desire.
To answer why “awkward", let me give some history.
“She” was 40 when she died. I wanted to help her and tried everything I knew to help her. I prayed fervently, had many praying.... Could camp out on all the things I said and did to try and help but why dwell on what did not work?? I cared and loved and gave of myself the best I knew to do.
Still she died.
It broke our hearts and almost destroyed her mom and all of us as a family.
We are not over her or what happened but our family seems to ignore this fact as life has gone on. Our family is like TOO MANY out there in the world and in the church...
Her death was a combination of years of complications: Her story is a tragic one. A culmination of many wounds.
Years of giving her best but feeling like survival was all life offered.
No matter what we did to try and help it was not enough. She died and we all felt the weight and sting of failure to truly love her back to life. To truly let her know the treasure she is/was. We failed.
She had shared with me privately that she had most of the same elements of my story in hers. She shared that many (multitudes) do have these elements but FEW TALK ABOUT THEM.
What elements?
1. Sexual abuse and then telling about it but not being heard or believed or understood. And no real help given to help one survive or let alone thrive!
2. Sexual fears, confusion, experimentation, core identity issues of not feeling loved and only time feel loved is when having sex even if know it’s not really love. The feeling is compelling and almost, if not, addictive. It seems a need and a monster all together.
3, Shame and humiliation and self hatred that goes with the mix of the above two elements.
4. Hiding, pretending, running, worthlessness, trauma, depression, desiring an escape, PAIN, MORE CONFUSION, no way to stop the trauma and despair, the utter hopelessness and agnst, the agony of defeat in this soul disaster.
5. Attempts at happiness, finding ways to ease the pain. ADDICTION(S) of one sort or another.
6. People giving up on you. People seeing only the addiction or depression or lack of thriving and no longer seeing you or the treasure you so want to be.
7 The burden of life weighs heavy. Wanting to end the life you have and start over but the hopeless despair of it all paralyzes and keeps the prison, partly self-created, in lock down.
8. Trying everything, nothing works. Finding Jesus but even He has not broken the addiction off.
Here is where my story of similarity ends, but hers tragically really ends:
9. Welcoming death by not changing the path on…
10. Dying way too young and way to sad and tragically…leaving everyone knowing and loving in a crisis and in great pain and grief.
She traveled with me and fellowshipped with me during the writing of The Elephant Gospel like no other had. I dearly loved her and cared deeply for her and wanted her recovery and a happy life for her. Every day, I grieve her.
I want it to be different for others like her.
BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO HELP to make that so.
People like us are not generally accepted by the typical church. We don’t fit in and we know we are not good enough. We know we never will be if people really knew us and our stories. Our experience proves to us that they may proclaim the True Gospel but FEW live it in acceptance and love and BELONGING WITH US. Few live 1 John 1 authenticity and belonging.
People that have had a same sex experience after sexual abuse are more common than most will admit. Because they are seen as even far worse than most any others in the mind of the typical church goer they are judged and treated contemptuously. We are a threat and a blight, a Leper that they would soon like to either eliminate or treat invisible. We are not seen as victims but as predators. We do not belong and are not wanted.
In some places we are either hated and bashed or accepted as leaders and the Scriptures do not apply to or are changed for us. It is a confusion and an issue that is A HUGE ELEPHANT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM.
It is awkward because so few stand completely transformed, living proof of the power of the GOSPEL, of the HOLY SPIRIT’s work in the lives of true born again believers. So to bring those into the church that struggle with homosexuality in one form or another is to invite a disaster and not to really help bring them to A TRUE EXPERIENCE OF JESUS AS IN ACTS. Little true recovery is common. Many have been wounded and exasperated by those in the church. Some give up hope and leave never to return.
ARE WE LIVING THE GOSPEL? HOW DO WE CHANGE?
The reality of how common same sex experimentation is has mostly been denied and not dealt with in the typical church setting. Sexual abuse and its ramifications are often IGNORED. So many of these same victims are forced into abortion. This too is not typically talked about in most churches. Here where the church is supposed to give the answer to sin through the forgiveness of CHRIST BY HIS FINISHED WORK …yet sin is rampant, masks remain in place and the church lives like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
How can one bring one with “my-like history” into a church when one has experienced the woundings, judgments, lack of love and acceptance so common in most all churches I have attended (except the small one I now attend)? From experience one knows that the church is often not a help but usually a hinderance, sometimes a judging center of people that think they are better than someone like me, like “US” ? GOD HELP US ALL!!!
Do you ever want, dream, so desire things to be different, better, more hopeful and helpful than present reality or by anything you have ever experienced? Do you long for answers to or more help for life’s ills and addictions, hurts, pain and severe traumas?
I DO dream and desire BETTER…. I desire and pray for the TRUE GOSPEL TO BE LIVED OUT AND TO HAVE DISCIPLES LIVE LIKE IN THE BOOK OF ACTS. Where and how to promote this is the thing I ask The LORD.
How do we really live the GOSPEL OUT AND make a difference for those that follow with my same type issues that are still in the throws of addiction or need for recovery?
AWKWARD…Awkwardness, does any one else know this feeling of the quality of being awkward or embarrassed due to the uncertainty of life or/and collisions of issues, self-consciousness, being discomforted, feeling uneasy, tense, edgy, nervous, clumsy, inept, not really belonging?
One place to go: I go to JESUS with a few friends. I GO TO JESUS and ask for those that love JESUS and love me to stand with me... I GO IN PRAYER AND FOR HELP…but WILL I HEAR ANY DIFFERENCE, LEADING, HELP? Will the outcome be any different?
GOD PLEASE SAVE the ones like HER, please save those like "us".... Please help me know what YOU want me to do!!!!! Thank you for the ENCOUNTER WEEKEND THIS WEEKEND...Make a WAY, YOU ARE THE WAY, Help us live CHRIST…show us how…live through us with POWER…IN JESUS NAME, AMEN