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ON2 LF
you describe difficulty and fatigue after having a baby in your first post, and you describe that it was deemed 'unnecessary' to seek out help for these problems. Have you sought out professional help for these issues in spite of the opinions of those around you? I hope you will, if you haven't.

By the time I was away from them, I thought it had gone on way too long to be post-partum depression. I finally went to my doctor to have my estrogen levels checked, because I stumbled across an article that listed a lot of my symptoms, and I knew I had estrogen imbalance years before I had my daughter. My levels weren't right, so I went on estrogen pills. Felt a LOT better, still spiritually messed up, but it really helped some of the other things.

As for spiritual help, I am kind of stuck there. Maybe I was wrong, but when I came to Christ, I thought the "body" was supposed to edify, encourage, and help each other grow spiritually. It really makes me question the Christian faith because I don't understand the lack of concern from the "brothers" and "sisters".

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sadkimmy
As for spiritual help, I am kind of stuck there. Maybe I was wrong, but when I came to Christ, I thought the "body" was supposed to edify, encourage, and help each other grow spiritually. It really makes me question the Christian faith because I don't understand the lack of concern from the "brothers" and "sisters".

I used to think the same way and I believe it is reasonable to have these expectations. Nonetheless, I have found that the 'body' can sometimes be one painful and lonely place to look for or find encouragement. What I have come to realize, through my often fruitless search for support, is that the 'body' doesn't always come through, but every now and then one person within that body will. This does not always happen but when it does, it is something unusual, this is not how it should be, but it is.

The greater lesson for me has been to not place my faith in people, people will disappoint sooner or later. When I stopped placing faith in people and started placing my faith in God, I stopped blaming God for the shortcomings of the people I used to believe in.

I learned that placing the outcome or survival of my faith onto other people creates too many problems, one of which is leaving yourself open to people who use Christianity to gain control over others and you know the damage people like that can do.
Non-Christians often judge Christians to be hypocritical and brainwashed, and to a great extent they are absolutely correct. On the 'hypocritical' issue, I believe there is always room for more hypocrites because no one will ever reach perfection in this life in anything they have chosen to believe in, and to the 'brainwashed' issue I simply ask myself one question; is my faith in God something that is a genuine belief and desire within me or is it a fundamentally fear based thing that I learned to believe in through coercion, because I was told if I didn't I will die and go to hell forever? Used to be, I had no faith, just 100% brainwashed fear, and this all happened because I placed too much faith in people. I still believe in people but not the way I believe in God. Today, I have a faith that sums up to: I can't imagine what my life would or could be like without God. I don't fear, I just believe and I am almost certain that I would still fear if my faith rested on the whims and quirky nature of the 'body'. Maybe I'm like my own private little cult for thinking the way I do, but I know this, I would not pretend to be like the God I believe in to manipulate, exploit or control another human being. Nor would I use God to hurt, abuse, or threaten anyone into submission. When people start doing that, they either want to convince themselves that what they say they believe in is the truth, or they simply see an opportunity to get rich and be powerful without ever doing an honest days work.


I can't ignore certain experiences in my life, so I believe. I am not an uneducated person, I respect the sciences and I have studied some logic but my own experience has also taught me.
I hope you find a place in your faith walk that gives you the reassurance you are searching for sadkimmy.

I don't believe I'm really blaming people or even blaming God. I don't feel bitter or like I'm holding anything against anyone. It's more a kind of sadness and feeling of disillusionment. And I just wonder if God is really there at all.
I totally understand that I need to depend fully on God, and not other people, that people always fall short.
I don't understand how it is referred to in the Bible as the "body" but doesn't seem that way in real life. It just makes me wonder if it is really real or all just a very nice idea that doesn't work.
Maybe I'm just with the wrong group of people (again). I've found very few people (and they are mostly online) that seem to want to talk. Thanks for listening & sharing, it helps to not feel so isolated.

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sadkimmy
I don't believe I'm really blaming people or even blaming God. I don't feel bitter or like I'm holding anything against anyone. It's more a kind of sadness and feeling of disillusionment. And I just wonder if God is really there at all.
I totally understand that I need to depend fully on God, and not other people, that people always fall short.
I don't understand how it is referred to in the Bible as the "body" but doesn't seem that way in real life. It just makes me wonder if it is really real or all just a very nice idea that doesn't work.
Maybe I'm just with the wrong group of people (again). I've found very few people (and they are mostly online) that seem to want to talk. Thanks for listening & sharing, it helps to not feel so isolated.

I hear ya and in all honesty I can't offer you any advice. I'm familiar with where you're at and its hard and indescribably frustrating, and like a dark aimless/endless road. I won't pretend to know how to navigate these stretches of the journey, I'm not very good at this part. I only know that at the end of the day I can't deny what's in my heart, I've tried many times and can never follow through. I just can't have a good day or have something happen that makes me happy or rekindles my hope, without going right back to the God I believe in, to thank Him. I feel like you do alot, but I still can't let go of my faith..I was blessed enough in the past that when I begin to let go, the Graces I've been given in the past just seem to reach forward into where I am to remind me of what I've forgotten. Its such a tough and deeply personal place to be caught in. I hope you come through this time in your life at peace with the answers you come to accept sadkimmy.

So we get a Christmas card today from previous Bible study leader in which he includes Bible verses "for all true believers in Christ". Aauughh! It was handwritten, so it isn't like he sent out mass mailings to people. Implication seems to be "I don't know for sure who is REAAALLY saved and who isn't...". Argh argh argh... Then I get so angry I could spit, very spiritual of me, no? uuuuuuuggghh!

Still thinking about above posted card. Maybe it wasn't personal. It's in his wife's writing, and knowing this guy he probably dictated the message for her to write on the cards, so it is probably the same for everyone. I wonder if I should ask some of the others from the old group? :p
Either way, that's the way it is with this guy - you have to keep on striving so you don't fall away from the grace of God, is this good enough, is that good enough, ya ya ya.
Thanks to him for ruining my Christmas, grrrr.......
:(

Hi sadkimmy,
I came across your writings and can identify. I too have left a cult about 14 years back. To make a long story short it fucked my life up a great deal for a long time. Even after leaving I just wanted to gain some personal freedom from all the dictated things that had been enforced upon us for so long. My mom got us into this cult and it all originated by her meeting a woman in a bible study group. Well over the span of 30 years this woman blossomed into a full blooded cult leader entrapping a few families in her grip using a family business to do her workings within it. She still has my brothers duped. I was around 11 when she really started to put her clamps into my family. She started preaching her "new ways in the spirit".

I left the cult at the age of 28 and I am now 42. I spent 14 years trying to feel "normal". I felt more like an alien than anything. My only saving grace was to let go of all the garbage that was said to me and just have faith in my own instincts about life. There is a simplicity about life that is robbed from you when you follow in someone elses footsteps. Walk your own path and find out where it leads you.

I'm on my path to becoming a police officer. I have had more support than I ever would have imagined. Just a year ago I never would have imagined having the knowledge and determination to accomplish my goal. But when you find something that's truly of your own desire there is a wealth of sources and resources that arise to the occassion that helps you along. Within this process I am seeing a larger force at work that proves to me personally that God does exist along with all his Angels and our personal guides.

There is a quote I ran across just a few days back:

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead to where there is no path, and leave a trail.
Emerson

I realised I've been doing that my whole life and that's why even as a child this cult woman couldn't fool me.

There are two things to survival and success: Trust your first instinct and then don't doubt it. That's my own quote.

I feel God is there and it isn't always a bolt of lightning that gets your attention. It might be a whisper. You need to pat yourself on the back and know that you are already in the process of finding your own path. The difficulties will only make you a stronger person as time goes by. Wisdom is the only thing you will gain. How can you ask for anything better than that. Sometimes just plane old surviving a bad stretch of life is a blessing in disguise. The main thing is to trust your gut instinct. Have a better New Year!!

Freedom Fighter

Thanks so much for your message, Freedom Fighter. Sorry I just saw this today. I've been quite preoccupied as of late.
What you say makes a lot of sense. I came into the group believing it was right, but later on there were some things that didn't quite feel right. I thought there was maybe a problem with me for not "getting" certain things my study teacher and my husband would tell me. I knew myself - falling short in the "godliness" department, whereas my husband read the Bible and prayed so much more than I did. The Bible study leader hardly ever did anything"secular". I thought I was just being "worldly", they knew so much better than me, ya ya ya... So I squashed it. Now I (hopefully) know better...
I really appreciate your story & support. I'm sorry for your experiences, happy you are getting past them. :-)
Being here and hearing from others makes me surer of myself, hopefully wiser, more on guard to what is around,

THANKS, EVERYBODY!!! :) :) :)

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ON2 LF
I hope you come through this time in your life at peace with the answers you come to accept sadkimmy.

I am so sorry I never responded to this post, ON2. . . I don't know how i missed doing it... .
thank you so much for all your advice & encouragement. I have been doing a lot better lately, growing, i believe. hope you are doing well yourself...

Sadkimmy: I can sympathise/empathise and the only advice I could give is, take a walk in the countryside, or a park or a garden and inhale the placid silence in which God might be heard.

"Hell is other people" as J.P.Sartre said and people can mess up your mind with their endless doctrines and theories. Nobody actually KNOWS anything at all where God is concerned - people only theorize and exclude and damn those who disagree with them.

Ignore the strident certainties of the harmful ignorants. Look in your mirror, see how wonderfully made you were and are and bask in the love that is your's by right.