First, here is one of my favorite passages in scripture. :)
2 Corinthians 11 and 12
2 Corinthians 11 and 12
Paul and the False Apostles
“I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
5 I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.”[a] 6 I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. 7
…..such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
Paul Boasts About His Sufferings
16 I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then tolerate me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. 17 In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. 18 Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. 19 You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! 20 In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face. 21 To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!
Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness……
2 Cor. 12:9-10 He (God) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
The main message of my testimony or life story, and I think of all of ours, is that I am still alive. I have not been killed and I have not been driven to kill myself. I have had thoughts of the later, never seriously attempted, but given the way life seems to have kicked me around I have wanted to end things for myself a few times. It all seems like nothing compared to all Paul went through, but it has still been a lot to handle.
In all honesty, who wouldn’t rather be dead than living here on this earth at times? Who wouldn’t rather be in heaven with God forever having fun and being eternally joyful than having to suffer through this life? But we are all still alive for a reason, for a purpose. God wants to use us. We just have to figure out how. J
Here’s my background:
I grew up in a Christian home, ironically, but when I was 6 my dad molested me. In actuality he tried to rape me. I will spare you the details of the event, but he admitted to my mom later when he was in jail that if he hadn't been stopped it would have led up to incest eventually. He admitted that from the time I was a baby he was conditioning me in a sense to like him in that way, very strange I know. The kicker is that even after he admitted all this to my mom, she still reunited their marriage for a time, but eventually divorced him, praise God.
I had a friend who worked in mental health for 10 years. He told me how rare it is that some one's own father would do something like that to them. Usually a molest comes from someone outside the family or a more removed family member. But my own dad molested me, which I have only shared when giving my story in public once before. It seemed too shameful to actually say that.
But the shame is not mine; it is my dad's. And I no longer consider him my father really, since he essentially gave up his right to be my father in doing that.
And I know now that it was not my fault. I couldn't have done anything to prevent what happened. I was just a kid. I had to live there. It took me about 3 years in counseling over the course of 16 years to realize that; that I was the victim. That I did not want what happened to me. That I was sinned against but I was and am still innocent. It’s amazing how those who molest others can try to convince them that they wanted what happened to them or they brought it on themselves, and how they can convince others that the fault was not theirs. That is probably why most victims of abuse don’t want to talk about their sexual abuse, because they are confused about if they were really the victim or not.
The ironic thing about it all is that my mom and brother were convinced he was better now. They didn't get why I didn’t want to talk to him. But just a few months ago he was accused of molesting another little girl; quite sad but true. I made a video to testify against him in court since he somehow got what he did to me wiped off his record. That made me think of the verse “Vindication is mine’ says the Lord.” I forgave my dad a long time ago and have not tried to take revenge in any way, but God will punish those who hurt us eventually. People reap what they sow, and may justice be done in the case of my dad.
After my dad, my brother also molested me twice, which has, needless to say, made things awkward for us ever since. When my dad confronted him after my brother simply said to him, “What? You did it too.”
There was also some incident with a neighbor once.
So all this taught me that very few people could be trusted. That I needed to stay away from people, to isolate as much as I could. That I needed to control situations in the future so that they did not control me.
Despite my childhood and the hypocrisy of my dad I still grew up having a close relationship with God for the most part. I was raised in church, praise God, and always loved singing worship songs and going to Sunday school.
I started to head down the wrong path in junior high, but luckily my mom moved me out to California to be by her incredible and godly mom who steered me onto the right path.
In junior high I shoplifted, drank a bit, tried pot, smoked and had my first boyfriend at 12. I know it was all a way to forget about how broken and messed up our family was. My parents had divorced when I was 9, of course due to my dad molesting me, but that really did damage to me and my brother for a time. My mom's depression almost made her seem non-existent so my brother and I were left to run free and make lots of dumb decisions on our own. :)
But in high school when I was 14 I fully committed my life to God, told him I would go and do whatever he wanted me to. I went on a few missions trips, to India, Taiwan and Mexico which were pretty cool. I still messed up from time to time with relationships but for the most part stayed on the right path.
I went on to a private Christian college, Biola in L.A. but I never felt like I fit in with the kids there because of my past. Most of them had come from pretty healthy families and I always felt like I didn't belong there. But I finished and got a degree.
I was working in a group home awhile back and told the girls there that even though they came from broken homes or hard childhoods they could still achieve their dreams. My dream was always to get that degree, and God enabled me to.
As an adult, and as a result of my abuses, I have struggled with anger and control issues. I have read in recovery books that when our childhood is out of control we then want to try and control everything when we are adults. Or when we feel helpless as a child we decide we never want to feel that way again so we put up defenses in the form of control or anger or simply isolate from the world etc.
I suppose I also have developed an addiction to worry or I have obsessive negative thoughts. I know that is why many people drink and do drugs, because they don't want to think about certain things. I often times have things pass through my mind that I wish I didn't. My thoughts seem to torture me sometimes. Whenever I'm alone the crazed worried thoughts come in, usually relating to the person I am in a relationship with, that that person will leave or cheat or stop loving me or something like that. I know it's Satan and I should have power over these thoughts through Jesus, but sometimes it seems impossible.
I never was addicted to drugs or alcohol, praise be to God for that. I saw what it did in the lives of those closest to me so I stayed away for the most part.
My mom has had clinical depression my whole life, due to what my dad did obviously, so she has been on and off almost every anti-depressant drug on the market. I saw how horribly that affected her and learned my lesson from her to stay away from drugs, legal or illegal. I also saw my brother throw his life away due to smoking pot. He started when he was 16 and still hasn't stopped at 32. He actually recently got kicked out of the army for failing a drug test, which will have pretty bad ramifications for him I think.
My anger and need for control resulted in many heated arguments with my late husband. It didn't help that he was somewhat of an alcoholic so that complicated things more.
I say late because he died about a year ago. He was on a few prescription drugs, methadone being one of them. He asked his doctor to get him on Methadone to help him wean off of the Klonopin he was on. The last night I was with him, we had an argument, which I will forever regret, and he went out drinking for the first time in a year. He had given up drinking for a year for me. The result was that he inadvertently killed himself, because drinking anything, or consuming any second substance when on methadone can kill someone.
But my quite crazy story does have a happy ending. God sent me an amazing Christian man that I am now married to and we have a kid on the way. Praise God. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. :) So don’t lose heart in your own life if it seems like everything is going wrong. God will work it out for the good. Just give it time. J
My mom has turned out to be a wonderful Christian woman and a great mentor in my life now. She has really come a long way on her own road to recovery. For years she was leading a co-dependency group at a Celebrate Recovery at her church, which I think helped her a lot to care more about herself. About 9 years ago she remarried a great Christian guy and they are very happy together now. Seeing them gave me hope that marriage can work and that things can work out for the good even if they start bad.
So I'm trusting that God will work my life out for the good. I know in many ways He already is.
He certainly has brought my life full circle in bringing Ben into my life. Joyce Meyer always says that God will give us double blessing for our former trouble, and He certainly has in my life.
Some verses that really give me hope are;
“And my God will work all things together for the good of those who love Him.”
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
“We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.”
“Behold you are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.”
And that Jesus said, “I am going to prepare a place for you so that where I am there you also may be.” Amen?
I hope God has used my story to help some of you.
God bless :)
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