In Reply to: you're in my prayers posted by Acheick on March 01, 2006 at 22:03:59:
Zither:
You're in my prayers, as well; sweetie. My heart was really touched by your story.
A book I read that really helped me was Phillip Yancy's "Disppoinment With God". Another was "The Case For Faith", by Lee Strobel--both helped, when I was ready to consider what they said--I was REALLY PISSED for a while, and denyong the well-paced anger, at both myself and others, was the first hurdle. It was a HUGE thing to take responsibility for, while trying to deal with mere "theological issues" as God-givrn free will, Jesus' promise that we WOULD have a lot of trouble in this world, the reality of the devil, and PURELY EVIL people, and so on.
What put me over the edge for a while, post-TF, wasn't, at first, anger at God. That did pop up in a very powerful way, later on--I had to quit denying it, go ahead and GET angry, then deal with it and resolve it, as well as mourn the loss of my earliest r'ship with God, BEFORE Berg stole it!.
My biggest stumbler was dealing with the meanness and selfishness of other people calling themselves Christian (other "hippier-than-thou JPs, my inlaws, etc); what hurt the worst was betrayal by people I should have known were not trustworthy, and putting myself and my wife and kids in a vulnerable place because of that misplaced trust--long story. I lost my first wife, and any r'ship with my kids over it.
Part of that was my own immaturity, and the fact that, like substance abuse, the replacement of your decision-making faculties, as well as accurate social perception, goes into what is called "arrested development" when you join a cult, or start heavy substance abuse, which can have pretty much the same effect as ONLY having lived in the cult, at least for a while. It's very frightening and disorienting.
Hang in there; Kiddo. Keep coming here if it helps; but you can do it; with the REAL God's help. Berg's invention was NOT a god worth serving; at all--all that related programmed guilt, and sense of being inept is TOTAL BS!
You go for it!
Oh, yeah--I read several versions of the Bible--it helps to not associate with the bad theology I learned in the cult.
You can write me at my email address, as well. Acheick and I have corresponded and are good friends, and I am sure she'd correspond privately with you as well, if you were comfortable with it.
Sincerely,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)