Everything is beautiful in its time.

Everything is beautiful in its time. This is a concept that now brings me comfort after leaving an abusive spiritual environment. While many of the moments looking back are painful and filled with grief and regret, some were beautiful. It is hard to hold the two in tension with one another, yet it is important in my journey to recognize that the two can live together. Pain, beauty and God’s mercy and grace in the midst of it. 

It is easy at first to dismiss everything that occurred as vile, that everything was fake and ultimately that God wasn’t doing work in my 10 years in a high control religious organization. It was easy to believe that everyone at the organization was simply enabling abusive behavior. While many of the issues were indeed wicked–families being separated for one member leaving, the teachings on finances that took advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable, the pastors refusal to tell the truth regarding the abuse he perpetrated on others, the reliance on blind submission, among other things–God did not turn a blind eye.

It has been important in my journey to recognize that God was at work in my life and the lives of others there. I believe He still is working as more are being drawn out and being rescued from the abuse as time passes. God in His kindness had saved me in a church where a distorted view of Jesus was taught. It was in spite of the leaders–their teaching and abuse–that genuine friendships were made and a sincere desire for Jesus was cultivated; not because of them. It was here that I had a deep desire to please God and to know him more; the problem was that the focus was on my works and success rather than the work of Jesus. I was given a distorted view that required untangling, yet my desire was alive. 

Where the members are concerned, I know there are individuals who are willingly and knowingly covering up and enabling abuse; they are absolutely a part of the problem. Others continue to be trapped in a way similar to how I was, which became abundantly clear once I tried to leave. Our families were threatened by a harmful theology that teaches us that our covering from satan’s attacks came from our pastor, and us leaving would likely end in divorce or worse. 

Our livelihoods were threatened in a similar fashion, as we were taught that leaving would curse our finances because we were out from under the leader’s spiritual protection. Then, of course, there was the threat of losing our community, friends, and potentially family as our whole world was built around the organization. As involvement grew, so did the number of casualties in our relationships outside of the organization. Genuine relationships came from here, but as long as individuals were under the yoke of this teaching, these relationships remained conditioned, though not always false. I know this because when I left, other victims who had left before me reached out to show support and love. They had a genuine concern for my well-being and marriage all while the leader of the organization was trying to tear us apart.

I can be thankful for the birthday celebrations, the wedding gifts, the dinner double dates, the late nights together crying with former friends, I can grieve all of this without guilt knowing that it was beautiful in its time. There were aspects of this life that were real, any good that did come from it was robbed by an abusive leader and his harmful theology. Most importantly for me, I can be there when one of these individuals I loved finds themselves leaving, fearful thinking I’ll never accept them. I will. 

During my ten years there I found my wife, had my two precious sons, yearned for Christ, developed friendship (some are still in effect with former members, while others are now lost), and learned to appreciate the true Gospel as I navigated post-cult faith. All of this beautiful, all of this worth grieving, and all of this because of God’s love for me, in spite of a cult. 

I continue to find hope knowing that God is mindful of the sorrow and evil that transpires on this earth and in our lives. In the midst of suffering and rebuilding from traumatic experiences, I have peace knowing that Jesus is mindful and sympathetic. He experienced abuse beyond my comprehension at the hands of religious leaders who said they worshiped the very God they put to death in the person of Jesus Christ. He as my savior is who I find rest in as my world often feels like it could come crashing down at any moment. 

As the author of Ecclesiastes states, 

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. (3:9-13)

And this is a gift I am grateful for.