In the middle of that dark-valley time, I often found myself alone with God, crying aloud and writing passionately in my journal. During that time too, I came to identify with David, the shepherd-poet-warrior-king, in ways I had not before. For David was also ostracized by people he trusted. And he cried out in distress - and in faith.
No longer wounded, outcast, lonely, afraid - your new name shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming one, Faithfulness, Friend of God, One who seeks My face.
Why, in midlife, did I suddenly find my boundaries battered and my adulthood denied? The answer hinged on the skewed view of womanhood in my church culture.
Our Lord is building his church. He told us what is key. “Love one another,” he said. When that is happening, all that embodies Christ’s love flows both ways.
Frustrated, exhausted, I realized: I would never count as an adult in my church system. Free at last, I’m embracing the adulthood God works in his own
What do you do when the Lord answers what you had not asked? This is where it began, my journey with God into his view of women and the church.
My first attempt to expose the abusers and abusive systems that hide in plain sight.
What if the ways the Southern Baptist Convention has handled clergy sexual abuse in its midst reflect the ways a narcissistic abuser handles getting caught out?
Cliques are by nature, exclusive. Wherever they occur in the church landscape, they fragment the church. They prevent the people of God from becoming one.
When the "threat alarm" goes off in an abusive church system, the response is orchestrated and brutal. But it's church: Appearances must be kept up. People loyal to the system confuse while pretending to clarify, cover-up while pretending to address, attack while seeming to answer, put-down while pretending to help.