The Best of You: A Story of Spiritual Abuse | |
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Rue was magnificent — a unicorn of sorts. Over six feet tall, with dark hair cascading over strong shoulders, she was engaging, charismatic, and smart. A towering giant on the basketball court, she was also an emotional and spiritual orphan.
When Rue came to see me, she was newly married and experiencing signs of trauma, especially when she went to church. Her situation posed a problem not only because it hampered her spiritual life but also because her husband was a pastor. It was hard to explain to the congregation that his wife couldn’t attend church on Sundays because listening to someone read from Scripture or talk about God gave her a panic attack. Rue’s body was speaking loudly to her, despite her best efforts to silence it.
As I got to know Rue’s story, I discovered how prayer, the Bible, and even church attendance had been turned into weapons and used against her. The abuse culminated when Rue’s parents kicked her out of their house when she refused to apologize for texting with a boy from church. She was seventeen at the time, but the real problem had started long before that incident. The truth was, Rue had been working overtime to please her father for years.
As we unpacked her story, Rue explained that her father would have extreme outbursts of anger, followed by weeks of silence when he would close himself off from the family. He tended to blame his rollercoaster emotions on her. One night, when Rue was fourteen, she came home a few minutes late for dinner after a coach had kept her team late. In a fit of anger, Rue’s father screamed at Rue in front of her mother and siblings before storming out of the house. Rue felt awful, apologizing over and over, begging her father for forgiveness.
The next day, instead of apologizing for his behavior, Rue’s dad, along with the support of Rue’s mother, sat her down and explained why her actions were causing his angry outbursts. He asked her to memorize Scripture verses related to disobedient children. She needed to be careful never to break a rule in order to become an obedient daughter. He then prayed for her heart to change. According to him, any time he lashed out in anger, it was because Rue had dishonored God.
Over time the rules became increasingly rigid, and all her attempts to abide by them did nothing to stop her dad’s anger. Rue finally had enough. She refused to apologize for her father’s anger that fateful night of the texting. And her parents promptly kicked her out.
Rue clawed her way forward in life, relying on her talent, smarts, and charisma to help her to appear “normal” to other people, even though she felt decimated inside. She’d earned a scholarship to play sports in college and never told anyone why her parents didn’t show up to watch her play. She had even found her way into a relationship with a man who loved her. But despite her living away from home and separating physically from her parents’ toxicity, the residue of trauma still remained in her body, especially when she engaged in spiritual practices.
- Spiritual wounds can cut to the core of who you are.
They wound you in the most sacred, vulnerable place inside, causing you to question your inherent worth as a beloved child of God. They can also cause you to question God altogether. |
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As we’ve discussed, your parents or early caregivers provided your first glimpse of connectedness and safety when you were young. If they loved you well, you caught a glimpse of what God is like. If they abused, neglected, or harmed you, it created a spiritual wound, often damaging your perception of God.
Rue hadn’t left her faith. But when the people who were supposed to love and guide her turned on her — in the name of God — parts of her couldn’t distinguish between the real God and a false representation of God she was shown.
Why is this type of spiritual wound so awful? There are two primary reasons: - You are being shamed and hurt, which is hard enough.
- You are being shamed and hurt by someone who claims the authority of the most powerful Being in the universe.
It’s compounded trauma — trauma upon trauma. All trauma causes you to question your worth. But spiritual trauma adds the terrorizing layer that God might question your worth too. That is incredibly wrong. Consider the words of Jesus: If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in Me — to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. — Mark 9:42
Your experience might not be as overt as Rue’s. But there are countless ways that childhood wounds can affect the way you see God. For instance, if your parents talked about God’s love while never making time for you, a part of you may have picked up the idea that God is distant. Or if a parent’s love was based on performance, you will likely think God’s love is performance based too.1
Another complicating factor is that faith-based interactions may reignite the pain. Specific words and spiritual practices that seem normal to everyone else might bring up painful feelings within you. For example, if someone betrayed your trust while claiming to “pray” for you, their actions could make the practice of group prayer feel uncomfortable to you. Likewise, certain Bible verses may have been used to manipulate you, which might bring up painful feelings when you hear those passages, even when they are not being misused.
It can be incredibly hard to disentangle the spiritual messages you received from the reality of what is true about God. Rationally, you might know that God is good and cares for you. But parts of you don’t really trust God — and you certainly don’t trust yourself.
Toxic shame enters your mind, and you might start wondering, How could my parents or spiritual leaders be wrong? What if I’m the problem? What if I deserved what I got?
Your relationship with God — and with yourself — is completely disrupted. Please hear me say: it’s not your fault. -
Ana-Maria Rizzuto details the link between childhood experience and perceptions of God in The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).
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It took me years to come to a place of peace and love the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:24-26) after I attempted to address inappropriate and abusive behavior with some people close to me and they responded by rejecting me permanently as they quoted the Bible, “The Lord bless you and keep you…” If you’ve experienced spiritual abuse, you’re not alone and it’s not your fault! God is not that way. Take your trauma to Jesus. He is with you and will heal your heart and mind. ~ Laurie McClure, Faith.Full
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