Healing’s Messy Middle: Taking Time

Many of us have internalized the message that we should simply not allow difficult things to affect us. That we ought to move forward as quickly as possible and never look back. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” “Don’t let it get you down!” “Forgive and forget!” The thing is, none of that is helpful. Or healthy. Maybe not even possible. It serves only to increase feelings of overwhelm and guilt in people who are already wounded and in need of help.

When the wounds came from church or a ministry organization that was supposed to be safe and trustworthy, re-entering another spiritual community can feel impossible, even for those who have strong convictions about doing so. We want community, but it doesn’t feel safe. We see the value in it, but can’t quite take the next step. We’ve been hurt in a way that’s hard to explain, even to ourselves, so we don’t know how others could possibly understand. We need time and space to breathe, reflect, pray, sit with, understand, process, and begin to heal before we can even consider moving forward. Often it takes far longer than we expected and requires a level of patience with ourselves that we’re unaccustomed to allowing. It feels like we’re wasting time. But time spent with our ears and hearts open at the feet of God is never wasted.

My husband and I have always been highly involved, committed members in the churches we’ve attended. We deeply value active participation in a spiritual community and have seen the benefits of it in our lives and faith. 

Even so, years of spiritual abuse in the Christian organization we worked for, and then more years of serving under a spiritually abusive pastor and his wife took a heavy toll. It left us feeling broken and depleted. While in the midst of those situations, we hadn’t understood that what was happening was abusive. We only knew it was wrong and Christians ought not act that way. Despite our best efforts to understand and call out what was wrong, nothing had changed. After we left we were told to just move on, to get over it, and to focus on the positive. No attempts were made to address the hurt left behind or provide care for those who had been wounded.

We had poured so much of ourselves into trying to make those abusive situations better that we simply didn’t have any more to give. We were burnt out in a deeper way than we ever had been before. I remember thinking of Frodo at the end of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings when he realized he simply could not stay in the Shire despite all he had done to save it and how much he loved it. The Shire itself had been saved and he was glad, but his hurt was too deep to stay and thrive there. So he made the choice to leave what was known and take a different path. We eventually chose to do the same. To leave the church we had loved and step into a time of healing.

Except we realized pretty quickly that we didn’t have a clue what to do to heal from this.

It was our intention to find another church immediately, but we weren’t anywhere near ready to take on the task of searching out and engaging with another congregation.

We knew we had to take some time to process what had happened, but we didn’t really know how to do that. We needed a guide on that path. But who? We no longer had a spiritual community.

We feared that if we were to talk about it with others they’d dismiss it as us making a big deal out of nothing or shame us for being hurt. Unfortunately, we had both experienced that years before when we chose to share bits of our stories with a few trusted people. As a result, we were very hesitant to reach out for help in our current situation even if we knew who to reach out to, which we didn’t.

An additional hurdle was that we still didn’t have the vocabulary to explain our experiences or the understanding as to why they had affected us so strongly. It wasn’t until a few months later that we first heard the term “spiritual abuse” and realized it described what we had endured.

That was what God used to really begin his healing work in us.

God brought the knowledge and understanding we needed at a time when we were ready and could bear it. Only after we had been away from our abusive leaders and our church for enough time that we were no longer living in survival mode. He even brought it in a format that didn’t require us to put ourselves in danger of more harm from others. We found video interviews, podcasts, articles, books, and blogs all speaking to different aspects of spiritual abuse. It was a surreal time in which we felt like someone took off the blinders we didn't know we had been wearing. We could finally understand what had happened in our church and our organization and why it hurt us so deeply! That knowledge was both painful and freeing. Admitting to yourself that someone was able to control, dominate, use, or do harm to you, and that you didn’t see it…and not just once… is quite a vulnerable thing. And not one that can be rushed.

It was profound to see that God heard the cries of our hearts and responded even after we had stopped asking for him to make things better. He had prompted faithful people many miles away to make videos, write books and blogs, and start ministries that shined a light on our specific brand of brokenness. Then he put them in front of us at precisely the time we were able to receive them.

Another of God’s graces was time to reflect in a healthy way on our own beliefs and missteps. We recognized that we had held a very rigid and arrogant view of church membership which caused us to stay far longer than was wise. That belief added significantly to our feelings of failure, guilt, and shame at leaving. We had also felt compelled to stay and be part of the change we wanted to see, even though our efforts were clearly ineffective. We believed ourselves correct to defend and “give grace” to our abusive leaders and when they acted inappropriately, even though the Bible calls leaders to a higher standard of behavior, not a lower one. While we do still believe it is right to take commitments seriously, and that there is value in affecting change and giving grace, we also see that by unhealthy overcommitment to those principles we were actually conditioning ourselves to accept abusive treatment.

We did a ton of talking about where we had been and where we wanted to go. We discussed what was important to us in a faith community and where we stood on various doctrinal points. We dug deep into the heart work we needed to do toward those who had harmed us, and considered appropriate boundaries we needed to institute for the future. We also talked through where we had messed up and needed to adjust or ask forgiveness.We engaged with God and other believers where we could. We had dinners with believing friends. We studied the Bible and read books with each other. 

Looking forward, we did a huge amount of research on potential churches in the area. We dove into belief statements, by-laws, leadership structures, programs, ministries, sermons, and reviews. We even watched online services from the churches we hoped to someday visit. Each of those tasks was a heavy lift, and none of them were quick or straightforward. But the time and labor involved was so very fruitful.

Even with so much research and heart work done, even though we longed for the support of a trusted spiritual community it took far longer than we expected to be ready to take the next step of actually going to a church. Thinking about going back into the type of environment that had hurt us, knowing it was going to take a lot of time, effort, energy, not to mention trust and vulnerability to build the kinds of relationships we wanted was a task that continued to feel impossibly big. Like we’d never be ready.

Remaining out of church for a long period was never our intention, but we were starting to see that it was necessary and had a purpose. We still wanted to get back there, but realized it was going to take a lot of time. Time to allow the knots in our stomach to unclench. Time for the squeeze in our chests to loosen. Time away from people whose moods we had attuned to and monitored for our safety. Time to allow our own emotions to come out of hiding and be acknowledged. Time to work up the courage to talk to God about it all and tell him how angry we were that it happened,  that he had allowed it, and how from a theological perspective that could be the case. Time to be still and allow him to respond. Time to pour out our words on paper and to each other again, and again, and again. Time to allow the deep hurts to rise to the surface and be dealt with. Time to begin to believe that none of it was our fault, or our responsibility to fix. Time to recognize our losses, and grieve them. Time to build trust with a few people and share pieces of our stories. Time to process the compassion in their response. Time to learn to wear the words “spiritual abuse survivor.” Time to really begin to heal. We had finally learned to not push ourselves faster than God’s pace walking beside us. 

Eventually we did get there. Hands shaking. Cold sweat. Deep breaths. Prayers in the parking lot. It took a lot, and it was HARD. But it was also good. It was a step we felt God leading us to, and difficult as it was, we found we were ready to follow him there. And though the process of re-engagement was fraught with its own series of uncomfortable twists and turns, God was there in those as well.

As we walked this portion of our journey we learned more and more that God had never expected us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps or “get over it.” He didn’t intend us to heal ourselves or be on a fast track to re-engagement to prove our commitment. He wasn’t disappointed in us for acting like the wounded people we were. What he desired was for us to sit with him and allow him to do a healing work in us. Our work was to be still long enough for the wounds he bound up to knit together. He taught us that he truly is the Good Shepherd from Psalm 23 making us lie down in green pastures, leading us beside quiet waters, restoring our souls. He had been with us while we walked through the dark places and was now giving us rest and comfort. He was in no rush, neither should we rush ourselves.