Hold Up...

Hold up...whoa nelly...stop....

STOP asking....STOP telling...STOP informing...STOP 'educating'....

STOP stepping in with self-righteous assurance of the right and wrong way of all things pertaining to forgiveness.

What an incredibly personal journey; fraught with pitfalls, with stumbling blocks destined to send you to your knees, with swampy ground replete with alligators and vipers.

Only to have some well-meaning person of faith, after hearing the bare minimum, barely skimming the surface of torture and mayhem, speak on forgiveness.

The first words out of a mouth that has never seen, nor been down to the depths of hell...

The focus falls to forgiveness....

Oh my friends...it is time to keep the lips sealed on such a tender and personal-to-you subject, and one spoken of before here on these pages.

During a 20 year marriage these words were spoken often...oh so often...no matter the damages done, the trauma given, the betrayals of such magnitude mind stuttered and heart skipped a beat...

Dear friends...focus first on the perpetrator....leave forgiveness to God and the victim. It is a personal journey and in direct contrast to what is truly needed. Validation...accountability...and justice...

Here is a wild thought...borne from experience....

The church adds to the trauma of thousands, tens of thousands...

Imagine the confusion in seeing a congregation continue on in relationship with your abuser.

Imagine the distress in being told you must forgive and move on; as you see another blight in a prison filled with torture and mind games...In being told that responsibility lies on your beaten and bruised shoulders to be the bigger person...

Imagine the heartache, imagine the brokenness; wounds still seeping blood, bones knitting back together....

Imagine as you lay in a puddle of your own blood and instead of reaching down in love, in grace and compassion, to lift you up and out...instead a finger appears, pointing down at you and speaking 'TRUTH' of forgiveness and consequently, conversely releasing guilt and shame from the one, the star of the rocky-horror-show, who truly deserves to feel every bit of the shame.

Imagine the damage done...and close those lips professing to love, to uphold.

Imagine what you cannot see or know or understand...and lift your boot from the neck of one who only requires understanding and kindness to find THEIR OWN WAY to forgiveness, if at all.

Forgiveness is NOT your place to speak of.

As christians we have taken giant steps into personal territory, thinking we have the right to place that requirement on others.

Look to your own heart...

Look to your own lack of forgiveness...

How...tell me dear friends...how do you forgive something you know with a hundred percent certainly will happen again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?

How do you forgive abuse that has been imprinted upon your psyche, your spirit?

I'll tell you...

In.

Your.

Own.

Time.

And in your own way....

I think back on passages within the Bible....old testament and new....they speak of justice, of God's judgement, and of living in forgiveness...many verses dedicated to forgiveness, this is true...of laying down a burden...

But the most profound is this...we forgive so we may be forgiven...

Stay with me...we forgive sins on a level with our own...what then with sins committed against our person, or against our children; so big, so overwhelming, so traumatic we cannot begin to find the route to forgiveness?

What if these things perpetrated upon our person or those we hold most dear, are so far out of our league of knowledge and conscience, we cannot begin to forgive?

What if these atrocities are so high, so deep, so circumferentially massive, there is no forgiveness?

What if these are things only God can forgive?

Even He stands in judgement...and speaks on evil ones standing before Him and being cast into the sea?

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Matthew 18:6

It is far past time to think outside the box when it comes to predators...to those who move among the people, the congregation, freely...loved every sunday, believing that this will bring change...instead they are housed, fed (ego), buoyed, lifted up, glad handed, and aided in every evil decision made.

The great enablers....

My faith moves mountains...my love for God wavers not...

But oh dear treasures, the church (yes, not ALL churches) have fallen into something much worse than apathy.

Much much worse...

Preach forgiveness from the pulpit and send those women (and few men) home with their abusers to live out another week in fear and trembling, getting up each day not sure what it will bring.

Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the one place you thought to feel safe, to find help, has not only abandoned you...no that would be easier. Instead they feed you to the wolves, to the hyenas with forethought, with knowledge of what you go through each day, each week.

It is far past time to show God's justice to those who knowingly harm others...

It is far past time to stop housing, feeding, loving abusers.

It is counterproductive...

It is counterintuitive...

It is wrong...

Dear lost ones, treasures all...if you are living within an abusive relationship and have heard these very things; have witnessed, experienced enabling within your church body, it is an extension of the abusive relationship you are already in.

If you are being pulled in to the pastors office, or womens group...whoever is speaking to you of forgiveness WITHIN an abusive relationship, WITHOUT a plan to bring you out...they are enabling...they are joining hands with your abuser.

Get out...for your own sanity, get out.

Years...years of floundering in confusion as this was spoken over me, by persons and pastors within a congregation.

Imagine the cognitive dissonance as you sit surrounded by song, witnessing love and grace for all but yourself.

Imagine the confusion as you sit before a pastor with said abuser and listen to fault and responsibility falling to you.

Over and over again...

Imagine the despair as you sit and witness your abuser laughing with said pastor, not one word spoken on the horror at home or what will be done to change it.

I pray you hear my heart this morning dear friends...it is full of frustration, of anger at this line of thinking STILL living and breathing in sanctuaries built for God and His love for each one. Of the wrongs still committed in the name of God every Sunday...

This is not God's way...never His intention for you to be harmed, tormented, abused while you forgive...what garbage, what absolute drivel.

May your heart be strong...

May your mind be quickened in your own defence...

May you find God as your bulwark, your shield...

Stand tall dear hearts...walk proud...