When God allows trauma

 https://equippinggodlywomen.com/faith/how-to-respond-when-god-allows-trauma/

https://credohouse.org/blog/viewing-god-through-the-lens-of-trauma

https://nadialouisethomas.com/2020/01/18/where-was-god-in-the-middle-of-my-trauma/

https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2012/july-online-only/doesgodallowtragedy.html

https://psychotherapy.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2016.70.4.429

This is hard for me to think about, because I know someone who left her relationship with God because of trauma. 

Either you have a view of God that means He was standing right there and was able to help, but he did nothing. That He doesn’t care. 

Or you come to the conclusion that God wasn’t there because He’s not real, and that you believed in something for so long that isn’t real. And that’s a HUGE let down. 

But why?

Why is trauma allowed?

If God is real (which I am using as the promise for this post), why didn’t He step in? 

My first thought is that God is going to use you for His work in the future. 

Now.. I know what you’re thinking. That God is a sick sick being if He could stop bad things from happening, but He doesn’t because He wants to use you and your life story for His glory. 

Or that He knows what your future holds (because He does) and He knows that without experiencing a certain thing, your life isn’t going to be what it is supposed to be. 

That being said, I am so sorry if you’re reading this and you’ve been through it. 

This is not meant to be hurtful.. but helpful, and maybe leading to more conversations. 

Maybe opening up this topic to more awareness about how real this is, and how horrific the lives that live it or have lived it. 

The links above are some reading material that I found. 

I am including them as information and possibilities to answering parts of our questions and life experiences. 

We may never know why something happened to us. 

But remember, looking back.. even though there’s some pretty terrible crap that goes on, it can and has and WILL lead to something spectacular. You are not your trauma. You are you.. an amazing unique you.

“Being alone” is not being alone - Autism version

When you get alone time as a parent, generally it means getting a room to yourself for an hour. 

Scratch that.. even during that hour, you can still hear people in the background, you can still tell the non-adults are waiting for you to be done being “alone”. 

And even the other adult in the house can sometimes “bother you” just because you know (or you think.. anxiety playing in here) that they really wish you out there with them.. just sitting there being with them. 

Guess what.. there’s nothing wrong with that!

Now imagine you have sensory issues, you’re empathetic, you’re overwhelmed or on the edge, and you are taking this time away from everyone because you either need to recharge or because you really just need to be away from people. And because you’re a people pleaser, you want to make them happy, so at your own expense you go back out there with them, not really ready for it, but feeling guilty. 

NO!

Being alone in a room by yourself is NOT the same as actually being alone, with no people waiting, no chores to do, maybe just take a shower and read and.. whatever YOU want that HELPS you just.. be. 

Just hear your breathe, just put on a face mask, just scroll through your FB account, post something silly on INSTA, write in your diary, lay on the ground outside, no matter what the weather is, and not have someone look at you like you’re crazy, binge watch what’s been sitting in your Watch Later list on YouTube for a while. WITH WINE AND NAIL POLISH

This is helpful alone-ness. 

what is truth?

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201808/what-is-truth

Truth - the quality or state of being true.

That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality. 

A fact or belief that is accepted as true. 

SOOO. 

Truth is not fact. 

And reality is not truth. 

So when people say they have their own reality or their own truth.. they are, in fact, not making sense. 

Because Truth is universal.. fact is based on truth. 

You can’t have your own truth.. truth is indefinite. 

You can have your own reality, so to speak. But creating your own reality doesn’t mean that’s what going on in the world, that means you made your own little bubble so you don’t have to listen to or deal with or pay attention to what’s going on around you. 

And that’s okay! 

But it also make you naive’ and vulnerable to a lot of things. Things that you don’t even know effect you. Even if the big picture doesn’t have an effect on you, the trickle down will. 

Jesus said “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. He was speaking of himself, because he, as part of God the Trinity, was and is the truth. So if you know Jesus, you will find freedom. You will find spiritual freedom. 

Socrates said that Greek truth (aletheia) is a compression of the phrase ‘a wandering that is divine’. How do you find truth in wandering? 

I understand finding truth in the reverence of nature and life AS you wander, but wandering itself isn’t truth. It may, however, be the pursuit of truth. 

One way to find truth is to look at the opposite of truth.. lies. What do we find in lies, or that lies DO NOT possess, that leads to the truth? There is always a shred of truth in a lie, because it is based on some idea that lead to the desire to tell the opposite. 

Some people will look at a spectrum of truths. NOTICE THE ‘S’ at the end. This is not looking for truth.. this is looking for pieces of it in other forms that might eventually form a complete idea. Truths in race, sexuality, mental disorders, ideas, these are where people get issues for their own realities. But this does not lead to an ultimate truth. This leads to people creating their own bubbles of life where they are happy, but not living in truth. They are happy in an of themselves, but have allowed themselves to push aside anything that denies they are creating a life of lies. 

“The theory of truth”.. 

truth is not a theory. Truth is a statement. Truth is an absolute. Truth is indefinite. The hardest thing about truth and finding it is we have to put aside who we think we are ourselves and allow ourselves to listen and learn and apply. 

Truth is in the Bible.

That is the only place truth completely exists. 

The Tower of Babel

 

Genesis 11

Before this the world had one language.

They found a place to settle together in a group and settled down. 

But then they decided to make a tower that reaches to heaven, so other people would exalt them.

God saw what they were doing, and decided that since they were able to communicate in one language, it was too easy for them to make plans to be “the best”. 

Vs 7 “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

NOTE

God, the LORD, said “let us go down”

Proving that the trinity is separate and works together. 

The LORD (Father, Son and Spirit) changed their language and scattered them over the earth so they could not plan together to make themselves better than anybody else. 

It was called Babel - because there the LORD confused the language of the world. 

AND since this was after the flood, God had promised never to wipe out the citizens of earth with a flood.  

So he did the next best thing.. create new languages, so everyone would be confused.

 

the story of Sodom and Gomorrah

 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019&version=NIV

Www.crosswalk.com

One of the most prevalent sins in Sodom was the homosexuality of the men, engaging in sexual relations with other men and boys. That’s where we get the term “sodomy” named after this widespread sin of the town. 

There were angels who went into the house of Lot (the holy man). They were surrounded by men who yelled “where are the men who came to you? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

The men didn’t stop there. They literally tried to force themselves into the house, even Lot (in desperation) gave his two daughters to the men to have sex with, but they wouldn’t. 

This is when God told Lot to take his family and get out of the land because he was going to destroy it. 

The only people in his family that would leave were Lot with his wife and two daughters. 

When God rained down sulfur from heaven, destroying every living thing in the two cities, even all the plants, Lots wife looked back instead of continuing on her journey to safety.. and because she couldn’t leave her past behind her, she turned into a pillar of salt. She apparently wasn’t able to follow God’s instructions because she identified with the sinfulness of the city. So she disobeyed and lost her life.

All of this happened because God was going to destroy the city but Lot pleaded with God not to do it if he could find even 10 righteous people in the area. 

He couldn’t find even just 10 people in both cities combined who were devoted to God. 

why is prophecy important?

 https://www.newlifevenice.org/anchor-of-hope/the-living-word/the-importance-of-prophecy/

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/the-importance-of-prophecy/

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 

Jesus came to fulfill all of the things that were spoken by God to the people who wrote the Bible.

If there were no prophecy to be fulfilled, there would be no need for Jesus 

to be born and to live the way He did. 

In the Old Testament there were prophecies about certain things that would happen.

Prophesies give us something to look forward to proving, 

And they also give the same motivation to the “religious” communities

And historical societies to be able to find proof and verification of things that were meant to happen.

(I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than this, but this is how I wrap my mind around it.

Check the links above for more information and/or do your own searches as well.)

why is hell so hard to talk about?

Hell. 

Did reading that word make you uncomfortable?

Say it out loud. 

Hell. 

Did that make you feel bad? 

Why?

Why do we think of that word as a bad word? 

Hell is a real place. 

Why is it so hard to talk about. 

Is there something wrong with the fact that Heaven and Hell are real?

It’s like they are “hush hush” words. 

Like saying the name of Jesus or saying Amen without reverence. 

ooohhhhhh

THAT’S why. 

These words are to be revered. 

Yet people say them everyday. 

In vain. Saying “Jesus Christ” when something goes wrong, or saying “what the hell?” When it’s very clearly a question of confusion or statement of being surprised. 

We have cheapened words like these so much that taking them in the CORRECT context is like whispering behind someone’s back. 

“Oh my gosh, we shouldn’t be saying someone will go to hell. We shouldn’t tell people that it’s a forever torment.” - “we don’t believe people will be tortured forever.” 

Well what do you think will happen to people who don’t believe in the existence of Jesus and God? 

They will go to Hell. 

‘Nuff said.

Stop being so hush hush about the important stuff. If we don’t speak it, nobody will hear it. 

Do you want that for your loved ones? Or the man on the street corner who is holding a sign because his family is in need? It doesn’t matter who it is.. Every single person is worth the salvation that Jesus gives.

What is the purpose of religion?

 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283927.001.0001/acprof-9780199283927-chapter-5

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/were-only-human/why-do-we-have-religion-anyway.html

Religion - a belief in and worship of a superhuman power, especially a personal God or gods. 

- a particular system of faith and worship. 

- a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. 

The one thing I see wrong with this definition is that God (being capitalized) is being written in the wrong format. 

If you’re going to use the capital “G” that you would be referring to an intimate being who is capable of having a relationship, so this, in turn, would BE a relationship, not a religion. 

This would only be referring to Christianity, because it’s the only socially constructed faith based relationship in the world. (And yes, I admit it’s socially constructed, because Jesus was a real physical social human being, and Christianity is based on the truth of His life and His purpose as the go between from death to life.)

So the purpose of religion, really, is a way for people to feel connected somehow to a spiritual realm that that gives them a reason for living and a way to live. We as humans have a need to connect with whatever inside of us (our souls) says is “out there”. We all have a hunger and a want to know what life is all about. This is where religions came from. 

Our search for something spiritual. 

being "in order" - an Autistics point of view.

schedule (a plan for carrying out a process or procedure.. putting things in time slots in a calendar, day to day plans or time table) vs

flexibility (the ability to be easily modified, willingness to change or compromise, bending easily without breaking) vs 

sequences (a particular order in which related activities, events, movements or things follow each other.)

Autistic people are not very good (speaking for myself) at being flexible with things that are planned. Some times we can change the sequence, but we have to have ample time to do so, because it’s not just the order we have it on the paper (yes, we like to write things down, generally, instead of just moving things around in a digital way). Sometimes it’s multiple avenues, like I change things in my digital calendar before I write it down, or I’ll look at the days before and ahead before I move it, because I have to visualize the sequence changing, and know that my mind will have to adjust with it.

rules vs guidelines

Rules - are clear cut things we are to follow. 

If we don’t follow rules, we can get in trouble.

Rules are like the police who pulls us over and gives us a ticket because we made the wrong decision, intentional or not. 

Guidelines - are ideas of the general way we should go or thing that’s normally done.

There’s a guideline of wearing an undershirt with a sweater, but not everyone wears undershirts.

And that’s okay.

For me it’s not, but that’s my choice. 

Pirates of the Caribbean - “parlay”

The rules set forth originally by a certain pirate king, turned into guidelines throughout time.

Pirates don’t follow rules. ;)

 

anxiety disorder

Husband saying he needs to talk to me about a couple things, or just “can you come here for a minute”, and it always makes me feel like I did something wrong. Turns out to just be asking for a receipt or for an opinion or a grammar check (which he knows I’m good at, so he tries to do his best to play to my strengths).  

This is what an anxiety disorder is. 

Whenever confronted (and yes, that’s also why I used the word confronted, because almost all of life feels confrontational), asked a question, put on the spot, I feel ganged up on, like a million eyes are pointed at me expecting me to say the right thing, with the right inflection, at the exact right moment. So my brain goes blank and I become tongue tied. Even if I know exactly what to say and feel confident about it, I think I’m going to get in trouble, get chastised, because I made the wrong call. Even when I feel confident about something, I can also be wrong, because I think other people’s views are right. (Not really.. this is the lie that anxiety tells.) And because I’m empathetic on top of being anxious, I don’t want to make anybody feel less important and I don’t want to create waves. So I don’t. 

This is what an anxiety disorder feels like. *whew. Dodged that one.

Church and Hypocrisy - yes I'm a hypocrite, and so are you.

I think one of the reasons the world around us has a problem with the church, we are all human, we are all born with a sin nature, the difference between Christianity and those who don’t believe in Christianity is the fact that we understand what Jesus did for us and how we should be living. We understand what a perfect life looks like, we feel like we understand what holiness and spirituality should be, but because we are sinful humans, even though we know we should change certain things in our lives, we are rebellious by nature and we still do the stupid things. And because the people on the outside of the church are looking in at Christianity thinking that we are supposed to be better than them, they look at us as more hypocritical than they are because we know a truth and we are supposed to be showing them how to live separate from the world. But we are still doing things just as the world does. The sinful nature of humanity doesn’t change because of the way we believe, but we do or should practice daily how to fight against our sinful nature‘s and live better than we have been.

Do you always act like what you believe is true? Of course you don’t. Nobody can 100% act as though they believe a certain way. Nobody attaches 100% of their life to a certain way of living. There’s always an exception. We want to think that we can, we want to believe that we do, but none of us do. And none of us can. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying.

If my life were up to me

 My plan was buy a house a couple years after we were married

We wanted to do it on our own, we didn’t listen to other people. 
We both had good jobs
God allowed us to fail and work through a church that would become a home for us in our lowest time. 
God allowed us to buy a house our way without consulting Him so when the time came, we had to call on Him for help and do it His way, because it was the only way left to go.

My plan was to have three kids, a couple years apart each, so I could be a young mom and a young grandma. 
God’s plan was to have them close together, because He knew what my body would be able to handle and he knew that If we did it on our timing, right now, I would have an 8-year old and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. 

My plan was to work at the hospital forever because it was solid and it paid well. 
God’s plan was to show me that I don’t know best for myself. 

God’s plan...
Was for me to use my sewing talent to bless other people and save part of his earth. 
Was for Brian to be able to see his dream of being on the road and realize that home is his new adventure. 
Was for me to work at multiple places and touch other lives and meet other people that I would never have known before.

If I hadn’t had the chance to - work at a coffee house, be a waitress, be a young mom, started writing in journals, being on the newspaper team in school, trying to do writing and psychology and professional singing, gone to college near home, had oopsie kids
Then I wouldn’t have - met Brian or his sister, had any type of positive college experience, learned about these health conditions, had these dr’s when i needed them

"doing my Fathers work" on Youtube?

 So today I felt the need to do the youtube video of the second part of a study on Proverbs. 

I have had something telling me lately that I need to open my Bible and read the underlined and highlighted parts and notes that I've left in it from the last 25 years that I've owned it and used it. 

I did part 1 last night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha3vUdWx_CY&t=13s

And today (I'm part of a Bible study this week from Angela Kline called The SHeroes Rise) I was supposed to be in the FB page at noon for this, and I felt like it was the wrong place for me to be. Like I needed to be recording the second part of the Proverbs series. 

So I did. 

And then when I was done, I checked in with the Facebook group for the Bible study.. and topic.. BAM. 

It was about women in ministry. 

Johnny Enlow said "women in ministry have so much to give!"

Omgosh. 

Talk about... being where I should be. And grateful that I listened to the voice in me telling me to do the video, even when I felt the need to be somewhere that I had PLANNED on being. 

This reminded me, also, of the Bible story where Jesus was a young boy and he stayed behind in the temple to talk to the elders while his parents went off with other people where they planned on being. They freaked out and ran back to find him, and when they did they asked "what were you thinking? we were worried sick!" He just looked at them and asked, point blank, "why were you worried? you know I'm meant to be about my Fathers' business." 

When we, as Christians, have a calling on our lives, and sometimes we plan for something that's supposed to help us grow and learn in that faith walk.. but God (as Angela Kline says) calls us somewhere else, that doesn't mean that the plan we had was bad. It means that the plan He has is greater. 

I have no idea who is going to watch this video on Proverbs that I am editing. 

But something is meant to come from it. 

Even if it's just me learning to listening and obey.